Chapter 398 (2/2)
Another h-aethera steady strea to herd the horn’s is hovered to draw the aether more accurately
And then, with a suddenness that caught uard, Varay drifted up off the bed of e,” she htly
“Hone in on that feeling,” I said as I stood up to stay on a level with her, my hands still wrapped around hers “Just hold it in your mind for a minute Get co theit in at the same time”
Varay nodded as she frowned Her expression soon turned into unyielding deter but success
Then, co evened and her body stilled as though she was
We stayed like that for anotheron her own With each step, her flight would become unstable as she rocked about in the air, then she’d clamp down and exert control over it, and I’d ease off a little more
Just as I was about to release the last piece of my influence, Varay reached out and clutched my hand I couldn’t suppress a surprised sht, I stopped channeling aether through her core and the spell
Still cross-legged, Varay hovered a few feet off the ground as gray mana poured over and into her from Cadell’s horn
It was a wonder, really, but the breakthrough was so far fro to accomplish, it was hard to see it as such For our purpose, it was hardly a stepping stone
“E here”
“I’—”
Gideon’s voice interrupted hers “Open your eyes, girl Look, here”
“Are you sure? I really don’t—”
“Right here—”
“Guys!” I snapped,
“Oh! I think I see it,” Emily said, her voice an excited squeak
I was following the absorption and release of Varay’snew “So what is it then?”
She was leaning doard the series of indecipherable readouts arrayed before her, squinting through her glasses as Gideon pointed at so “Sort of like…crevices or wounds in the core itself, places where the core is inactive”
Regis, do you sense anything like that?
‘Everything is all shi+ny and white in here No wounds to be seen’
Aetheric particles swarmed in and around Varay’s core With them, I poked and prodded everywhere I could reach, but I couldn’t sense these crevices E
“I need you to output hting artifact ina constant stream of mana just to sustain your arm Focus on that Push more mana to it, out of it It doesn’tas you are channeling it andinthe frozen exterior of Varay’s conjured arm Just a hint at first, then more as crystals of ice for a web of light blue ice crawling upin a gently falling snow all around us
“Perfect, keep that up”
As an to leave her core, it reached a kind of equilibriuasped “There!”
Just as she said it, I found them Ah the core, there were six points where a faint disturbance in the otherwise shlighted the spots due to the way the incoainst the already existing mana
In any other circuht—were entirely undetectable Kezess ht his spell was perfectly hidden A spark of retaliatory pleasure brought a smirk to my lips
“Well done, Emily That has to be it”
But what are these points, and how are they preventing theto clarify the Lances’ cores?
Each breakthrough was only the s
“I need to let go As much as you can, don’t let this mana spread in your body But I think we’re alement, and I released both her hand andthe frost off my skin, I picked up the silver-handled rod “Emily, leave the readouts to Gideon I think I’ll need your help for this”
Reluctantly, she left her equipment behind and circled around the Lances to stand beside ainst Varay’s sternum “Okay, i into the side ofevery infinitesimal ripped the staff between two of the silver rings, just below my own hand, and pushed out withoff the snowflakes in the air and bathing the lakeside in sparkling sapphire light Immediately,into spells and rushi+ng along the length of the staff
Reaching out, I pulled at the aether surrounding and ied and an to tremble in my hand
A cold sweat broke out across ic in place The rod itself was designed to release several spells in sequence, but I couldn’t allow that Whatever Kezess intended for these i run Instead, I needed to release only the spell that would undo the dae to Varay’s core
With the screech of th of the rod The force of holding back sothe artifact apart frois!
My co only for an instant as a burning wisp, then he vanished into the rod
His pain wrackedat his incorporeal for to piss in a…hurricane…’
The gean to flash intery The heat turned the snowflakes to rain
My heart thru into y—more than there should have been It was like the rod was reacting to being tauts A trap in case anyone messed around with the artifacts daan to shake “You all need to…run,” I said, the words vibrating oddly as they left , but Mica and Bairon were halfway to their feet in an instant Bairon reached for Varay as Mica turned, apparently intending to grab Emily and Gideon
“Don’t move, you idiots,” Gideon snapped He’d coiled some kind of wire around his shoulder and was slowly, carefully approaching me, Varay, and the artifact
With a kind of clip, he attached one end of the wire to the artifact The other trailed like a long copper worm back to the equipment laid out behind the Lances The pressure instantly lessened, and I sensedthe wires and into a series of ot about twenty seconds before those crystals overload and we all die horribly,” Gideon said nonchalantly
With the pressure lessened and Regis there to help draw and focus ic in my oer and clamped down as hard asto last for long
‘What exactly are we doing here?’ Regis asked with theout a deep, momentarily relieved breath
The third spell contained in the rod was a vivu spell I’ is all ju ju pressure and subsequent drain on the artifact’s mana had left ht urgently, drawing my attention to a specific swarm of mana and aether within the relic
Crushed and distorted, a thread of vivum-type aether wound around an amorphous wave of silveryspells
Using ether a barrier around the spell, effectively cutting it off fro away the stitching to rear out of time,” Gideon said as he examined the bank of mana crystals
Next to me, Emily whimpered Her knuckles hite around the silver shaft Suddenly her knees buckled, and she began to fall
I wrapped one arainst my side
With the spell separated from the rest, I released it, then watched as it flowed out through the crystal and into Varay’s core Thehappened
“Gideon?” I shouted
He bent over the readouts “No change”
My breath caught All that leakedapart the spells…
WeThe spell wasn’t coround out through clenched teeth A fuzzy static was building up around the edge ofthe smallest piece of my consciousness, I broke away a sliver of aether and eainst the conjured rain pattering softly around us My vision became little more than a clear tunnel at the center of a static void I tried to blink it away to no avail
Aetheric particles danced down my arm and across the surface of the rod The cracks closed as the particles broke away and condensed there, undoing the daest share of olden motes past the artifact and into Varay’s core
Fix the spell, I urged I understood the intent behind the spell, if not the specifics That had to be enough But Aroa’s Requieravitate toward the broken spell In an act of pure desperation, I turned the to scrub away the scars and reverse the da happened My insight into the Godrune wasn’t complete I couldn’t heal a person, and apparently I couldn’t remake a broken spell either
I foundthose ht via the keystone So much of what had happened since could have been fixed if only I’d had a ht into Aroa’s Requiem But whatever force handed down these Godrunes see cruel jokes on is said, drawing my attention back to where the spell had first been formed within the artifact
With the sharp sound of the silver shearing over and over again, the artifact kept healing and breaking, then healing again Within it, the spells were doing the same
Each time the aetheric particles from Aroa’s Requiem fixed the artifact, the spells within reappeared, whole and undais rushed out of the artifact and took physical for around the crystal at the end Just as the rod healed, I cut away the healing spell with aether, and Regis pulled at the Vivued loose before Gideon’s device could displace any of the is sed it
The spell drifted into hi incorporeal just as his paws touched her, and then shot into her core The spell, pulled into her through him, was released It immediately broke into six equal parts, but they were directionless
Releasing Aroa’s Requiem so I could send a tendril of aether into Varay’s core, Istar of silver mana to one of the scars
White radiance spilled across the surface of Varay’s core, then raced along her channels and veins until it caht
“Now, Emily, now!” I said in a broken croak
Emily’s mana receded, and she yanked her hand away froainstwithin the rod went still, the particles tu out without effect
Varay’s eyes rolled back in her head and she turound beside Bairon He jerked as if to catch her, remembered the horn in his hand, and froze
As quickly and softly as I could, I eased the tre to Varay Her breathing was shallow and her connection to the horn had been severed, but she was alive I pulled her upright “Varay? Varay Come on, Lance”
Suddenly her ar, her breath couard
“It worked,” she gasped “I can feel it, Arthur”
I searched her core, and a broad grin spread across ht The ainst the hardened shell As I watched, she reached for the atmospheric ainst the white walls of the organ, no longer held at bay by whatever scars the Lance artifacts had left on her
We’d done it
Indrath’s spell was undone