Man I hope you all love Cloudtail as much as I do because this tiny lad is going to be a ball to write!

Chapter 17 - Fiyr

I follow the queen into her private chambers, anxiety twisting in my stomach. She motions for me to sit, her face revealing nothing. She's been generous, I know that. Maybe too generous; the court sounded furious. All the same, the restriction she's put on Clowd's acceptance into the court and his awkward naming makes me think that I'm not out of the woods yet.

"Sir Harte… Fiyr," she emphasizes, steepling her fingers on the desk and locking her gaze on mine. "You understand the position I'm in."

"I do, my queen. I am—I'm grateful beyond words," I tell her, rocking Clowd awkwardly in my arms as I ease myself into the chair. "Truly."

"But?" She tilts her head.

Or maybe she just sensed that I was unhappy. "Why did you say that he couldn't stay if he didn't demonstrate within a year, and then later that if he showed any ability to control god-magic that you'd send him away?" I try to keep my tone level, but a hint of a whine escapes. I just wish I hadn't been caught off-guard in front of the court. Or that Darriek hadn't revealed Clowd's lineage in the worst way possible.

The queen sighs and rubs her eyes, then her hands fold in front of her again. "There is… there is an aspect to spirit-clipping that is not… not widely understood, but potentially dangerous."

Cold traces down my back, but I force my voice to stay steady as I ask, "Spirit-clipping? What about it?" The gods remove human life-force, I know that much from the textbook. It said nothing about it being dangerous though, just that it prevents god-toys from escaping their gods and joining courts or villages.

Queen Bluelianna sighs again and levels her gaze at me. "Fiyr, I took you into Thundria because I believed your fire life-force was a sign from the Starlaxi that the court needed you. Had you not displayed life-force that day, no matter how strong my feeling was, I would have left you where you were."

"Why?" I demand. Because I wouldn't be useful to the court?

"Because spirit-clipped god-toys that leave their gods die, Fiyr." Her eyes soften. "It's an inescapable side-effect of removing their life-force. Without their life-force supporting a person's existence, their body latches onto whatever other power can sustain them. For god-toys, that power is god-magic."

A shiver runs over me, unbidden. "Without god-magic, they… they die?"

The queen pauses, then replies, "They weaken over time. However… too long away from the gods, and yes. The god-toy perishes with nothing to sustain them."

My mind spins with the new information. So Clowd might—and Prin can't—but I—

"Wait a minute, how long have you known this?!" I demand.

"It's recorded in certain texts," she answers dismissively. "Why?"

"I could have died! When you brought me to the court! You didn't tell me that leaving my gods might kill me!" I accuse.

Queen Bluelianna shakes her head. "Fiyr, you were the exception. For some reason, your spirit wasn't clipped. Your life-force is what supports your life, not the gods. I knew as much when you displayed your fire elementalism."

"You said it's not widely understood! What if it had killed me anyway?" Panic at how close I might have come to death almost a decade ago rushes through my voice. Panic for Clowd now.

"What we do know is that when the life-force is removed from a god-toy, it is replaced with dependence on the gods," she says slowly and steadily like she's calming a startled horse. "Your life-force was not removed. It couldn't have been replaced with dependence on god-magic if it was never taken from you."

I shake my head, leaning back in my chair. Something's niggling at the back of my mind, but I can't quite place the feeling. Without life-force or another source of energy, a person dies… Which means… What? I brush it off and hold Clowd tighter. "And what about Clowd?"

Queen Bluelianna spreads her fingers over the wooden desk. "He can stay at the court for a year. If he's weakening, I have no choice but to send him back to the gods. I won't let a baby die, no matter what sending him back to the gods will mean. If he demonstrates human life-force, he will remain at court. If he shows ability with god-magic, he must leave; it's not safe and the court will not allow it. If he can't perform either but doesn't appear to be weakening… we will speak again and re-evaluate."

Looking from her tight lips to Clowd's peaceful face—for once, thank the Starlaxi—I can't help feeling like I need to push her further to secure Clowd's future. But she's made up her mind; I can either disagree in silence or agree with her decision. I'm in the same situation no matter what. I sigh. "Thank you, Your Majesty."

"I believe a few members of the court have… reservations," the queen adds as I'm standing to leave. "It would be best if you kept Clowd out of their way until their worries can be soothed. I'll do my best to see that Lady Faise can provide care for the baby, but it remains your responsibility."

My anger comes to a simmer beneath the surface of my face at her suggestions. Yes, the court wants to send an innocent baby back into danger and so I should do my very best to accommodate their delicate sensibilities. Of course. And without any experience taking care of babies—Graie was right about that much—I should be the one to take care of Clowd. "Yes, my queen."

She waves a hand. "Dismissed."

When I leave and return to the throne room, my thoughts are of Graie. I heard his outburst in the ceremony, but I'm not feeling particularly grateful for his flimsy words when not five minutes earlier, he… The same dizzying surge of hot anger makes my teeth grind. I guess that's all the confirmation I needed, then. Our friendship's really over.

All the same, I can't help casting one more gaze around the throne room, hoping to see Graie rush over if I catch his eye, rush over to apologize and beg forgiveness, tell me how he didn't really mean it, how he just wanted to hurt me because he's still fucked up over Sir Calew and whatever lingering feelings he has for Silaverre…

But he's gone. And I know before I check his room that he's not there, either. I'm certain I know where he's gone.

I'm not following him this time.

…

A week later, I've decided I'm never going to be a father.

Actually, I've decided I'm going to throw the next baby I see out a window.

Clowd is still yelling in my arms. It's not even crying, at this point. He's just red-faced and screaming for no one to hear; I've taken him out behind the stables to stop the stares from within the castle if nothing else. While Lady Faise's been extremely helpful when it comes to feeding him and instinctively knowing when he's hungry or needs his nappy changed, I can't banish a feeling of guilt every time I hand off the screaming Clowd to her and hope that she can fix it with whatever baby life-force the Starlaxi gave her alongside animal summoning.

That's how I found myself trying to calm myself with a deep, manure-scented breath behind Thundria's stables, cradling my half-god nephew and staring blankly out at the horizon.

I've been avoiding Graie all week. More than I was before, that is. It's not hard to do, for that matter, when every day he's either mysteriously absent from court or taking Brakken on all-day solo training to try to make up for it. And when I'm so busy with Clowd, Cindra, and Brakken on Graie's off days, not to mention all my regular patrols, I hardly see anyone, let alone him.

Today, I was going to take Clowd off Brindellia's hands for the morning, then visit Cindra before lunch and then after, take Brakken out for a hunting expedition to the Shodawes border. I'm already feeling drained and the sun's hardly up.

Maybe I'll take Clowd with me to visit Cindra and sneak in a nap before lunch, I decide and glance down at Clowd, who finally seems to be settling down and think, Yeah, that's a good plan. Cindra's been asking to get a formal introduction anyway.

In the past year, Cindra has been steadily worsening. Yllowei still can't find a way to remove the corruption from her leg, keeping it and her life-force effectively paralyzed, but she's got Cindra doing stretches to keep the rest of her body in shape and made a kind of wooden staff for Cindra to use to walk. Despite Yllowei's efforts, she's weakening. The stretches help keep her spirits up and keep her busy, but there are days when she can't lift her head off her pillow. My squire's doing a lot of work for herself, though; I don't know how she manages it, but she's kept a positive attitude throughout.

I head back into the castle, praying that Clowd's relative peacefulness will at least last the visit to Cindra so she and my nephew can get acquainted without the latter trying to shatter the windows in the healer's wing by hitting the top of his vocal range for sixty consecutive seconds. But before I can walk into the healer's wing, I'm stopped in the hallway by Yllowei Fennen.

"Sir Harte," she rasps, eyes as sharp and cool as pebbles deep set in her wrinkles of her face like water-swept sand. Though there's no obvious sickness plaguing her, as Cindra has weakened, so has she. The little colour left in her sallow cheeks has leached away and her rasp has dropped to practically a whisper. I have a suspicion about the link between Cindra's weakness and seemingly random days of strength and Yllowei's frailty, but the thought hasn't passed my lips.

At the look in her eye, my stomach drops. Bad news, then.

"I want you to tell Cindra she won't be able to return to her squire duties, and tell her today. I can't find a way to stop the corruption, and even if I could, the damage to her leg is irreparable and her life-force may stay weakened or unreliable."

It's like a gut punch. She really doesn't sugarcoat things. I knew this was coming… but today? Does it have to be today? Does it have to be me? "I… okay. I'll tell her. What should I say?"

"That she won't be able to return to her squire duties," Yllowei repeats, but when I give her a dark look, she sighs and adds, "but that she's still a valuable member of the court and that we all love her very much. I need to go run some errands."

Great. Thanks. I give the healer one last nervous glance as she begins to hobble slowly away. I should get Brakken to start running errands for her. She's getting too old, and whatever it is that's making her worse isn't helping. "Alright."

But it's not alright, because the moment I see Cindra, pulling herself out of bed and grabbing the stick leaning on the wall to hobble over, the moment she greets me with a big smile and wraps her arms around my side, trying to avoid squishing Clowd, my eyes fill with tears and I can't swallow.

"Mentor-man's back!" she exclaims, then a cough wracks her body and she leans over to inspect Clowd with big, though dull, eyes. "And he brought this cute little guy! Who are you, little knight?"

I press my lips together and try to force the stinging out of my nose, but it's too late. Fat tears slide off my eyelashes and drop onto the blanket that Clowd's bundled in. One drop lands right in front of Cindra's face and she pulls away quickly and glances up at me, then her eyes widen.

"Are you—what's wrong?!" Her brows furrow in worry and I can barely manage adjusting my grip on Clowd to wipe my tears off.

"N—nothing, you should—should show me those exercises Yllowei's got you doing," I croak. "C'mon, I'm sure I could learn something."

She still looks a bit alarmed at my barely-concealed anguish but nods and backs up to her bed and sits with a half-stifled grunt of pain. "Look, she's got me doing these leg-lifts to keep my hips strong so it'll be easier to walk with the staff. She calls me 'an old-lady-in-training.'"

"Yeah, watch out or she'll turn you into a copy of her," I try to joke, but my voice is so painfully ragged that it falls flat. Cindra gives me that same concerned look. She looks like she's aged decades since the soul. "Leg-lifts? Alright, let's see them."

She nods again and screws up her face with effort, grinding her teeth together, then lifts her bad leg out straight in front of her. She manages to keep it there for a few seconds before gently lowering it.

Never walk without help again. Never run again. Never hunt again, never fight, never—A small sound dies in my throat before I can form the thoughts aloud. Damn Yllowei for not telling Cindra and making me do it instead.

"Stuff like this really makes me miss all the days of aching butts from riding Ashes," Cindra jokes hoarsely and I nod and force a smile for her sake. "Y'know, sometimes I have these awesome dreams where I'm out in the forest with Brakken and we're tracking down this really big deer and we're going to bring it down together, and then… then I roll over in my sleep and my leg wakes me up and I just look at the ceiling in the dark and—and wonder when I'm going to be able to go back." She glances down at her leg.

No, no no no—Something comes unstuck inside me and I let out a choppy breath. "Cindra…"

She looks up, those blue eyes that have faded to gray in the past year, now filled with tears. "It's… it's never going to happen, is it?"

I can't manage the words. I just shake my head.

"No. I knew… I think I knew for a while," she says quietly, half to herself, but the words start streaming out faster and faster, one after another, piling up on each other. "I—I had this feeling, y'know? I couldn't describe it, just this awful… knowing. And I hoped those dreams were from the Starlaxi or something, that they were telling me the future with Brakken. But they weren't, because squires don't get dreams from the Starlaxi. I'm not—not a healer, not a prophesied knight. They weren't the future. Just memories, because I'm never going to be able to go out into the forest with my brother—without—without help again."

I sit down beside her and without saying another word, she leans on my shoulder and starts to cry.

Clowd starts fussing, but I just set him down carefully on the bed next to me so I can put both of my arms around Cindra. I don't know how long we spend like that, her shaking in my arms and me holding on and praying to the Starlaxi that they'll show me some way to help her, but it's when Clowd finally starts to cry as well that I'm pulled out of the fog of sorrow.

I pick him up and try to shush him, still half-holding onto Cindra, but he keeps wailing, and worse, starts to try to struggle out of my arms and toward Cindra. She looks up and lets out something halfway between a sob and a laugh as he stretches toward her, still howling. As he struggles, she reaches out a shaky hand to take his tiny one in hers.

Before I can stop him, Clowd lunges out of my arms and lands on Cindra's lap. She lets out a cry of pain when he collides with her bad leg and I immediately reach out to grab him, but I'm just one moment too late to stop him from reaching out a little hand and planting it on the fabric covering Cindra's corrupted knee.

Cindra reaches out to pick him up as well but her hands freeze midair and she sucks in a breath. I stare, forgetting myself and just watching as Clowd burbles happily, finally allowed on Cindra's lap.

A moment later, I snap back to reality and on instinct, shift into the Trace.

No… God-magic, undeniable. But there's a hint of something else, something not quite god-like, yet not fully human. It feels like an elementalist's life-force, but for no element I can identify. Cindra's leg is glowing: first blue and pink, then yellow and purple, green and orange, then the colours fade like a gust of wind dispersing mist.

I drop out of the Trace and stare at where Clowd's still hanging on to Cindra's knee. He's stopped crying, at least, but it hardly even registers because Cindra's pulling Clowd off and rolling up her pant leg and…

"How…" she whispers, then her head whips around and she stares at me, suddenly wide-eyed and more animated that I've seen her in months. "It's… it's gone. My… the corruption… it's gone!"

I stare at her knee, hardly able to believe it. Did the Starlaxi hear my prayers? Her skin is smooth, barely blemished. It looks a bit red, but it's not covered in corruption. "Did…"

The implications of this hit me like a soul. Clowd took away the corruption. Clowd can control god-magic. Clowd is going to be kicked out of the court.

"Shit."

"Excuse me?" Cindra exclaims, staring at me like I've finally lost my mind. "This is awesome news! I might be able to walk more easily! I might be able to use my life-force again! Blessed Starlaxi, it's a miracle!"

It's not a miracle, it's a horribly ironic cursed blessing. I look down at Clowd and can't help cringing. He's grinning up at me and then says, "Leg?", then cocks his head and waits for approval.

"You…" I just stare at the baby for several moments, then glance up at Cindra. "This is—it's amazing."

"Yes! It is!" she cheers, then frowns at me when she sees my expression. "What's wrong, then?"

"I—" I shake my head. I can't spoil this for her. She'll think it's her fault. "Nothing, it's nothing. I didn't know he could do that. It's amazing! Let's go get you some cinders right now!"

I sweep Clowd up into my arms and hurry out into the hallway before she can notice my tight expression. I hear Cindra whoop behind me as I run out.

The moment I'm in the hallway, the panic hits full-force. Well, what in the Blacklands do I do now? I can't tell the queen. I can't let the court find out. I have to tell Cindra that she needs to keep it a secret. But Yllowei's going to notice that the corruption's not on her leg anymore! What are we going to say? That the Starlaxi came down from the stars to whisk it away?!

I pace, still rocking Clowd, who's babbling nonsense and grabbing at my face. He's taken to calling me 'Fee' when he wants my attention and now he mixes it in with all his cooing. My mind's still racing.

Maybe I can swear Cindra and Yllowei to secrecy. But if they know, then Brakken's going to find out, and if he knows, he might tell Graie, and since Graie's apparently a fu—

"Fee, leg!" Clowd insists.

"Shh, shh, I know, buddy," I murmur, smoothing his white hair down. "Shhh. I know you just wanted to help her. It's just that... the court won't see it like that… I want to protect you, buddy. Just wanna keep you safe."

He mumbles something unintelligible and squirms in my arms, rolling over to better nestle into my chest. My heart swells with love and fear for him as I look down into his little face. He's buried it in the lightning emblem of Thundria on my chest.

"Just wanna keep you safe," I whisper again, swallowing hard, and then take a deep breath and head toward the nursery to give him to Brindellia. I'm halfway there before my steps falter when something occurs to me. What if he does more god-magic? But Cindra's going to tell Yllowei what happened the second the old healer gets back to the castle and Yllowei is sharp as a true-steel sword. Damage control on what Cindra knows is more important than the off-chance that Clowd will do it again.

I'm still nervous as I pass him to Brindellia, who murmurs a little greeting to him and gives him a kiss on his forehead. She gives me a quick smile and turns to the two side-by-side cradles, where Faern is sleeping, and lowers Clowd into the unoccupied one. Despite the disparity in ages, I'm struck by how similar they look. Maybe it's just because they're both babies, but I'll take whatever reassurance I can get that there's no difference between him and other babies. I glance at Lady Fuor sitting on the other side of the nursery, teaching her two eleven-year-olds how to find the quickest route through different kinds of terrains with an atlas of the kingdoms' territories, and hope that the strong-willed lady of the court won't raise a fuss again about Clowd. And I hope Clowd doesn't give her any reason to.

All I can do is send yet another prayer to the Starlaxi though, because Cindra will expect me back with the cinders and I can't let her know anything's wrong until I know what in the Blackland's name I'm supposed to do now. First, the cinders.

I run to the kitchen and take a glass bowl out of a cabinet, then pull open the oven with my bare hands as Sewif, on kitchen duty, watches incredulously. Inching my unprotected hand into the heat as far as I dare, I scoop up some white-hot cinders. I feel a familiar heat in my chest as my life-force protects my hands from being turned to mush by the temperature of the oven.

"What are you…" Sewif's slightly nasal demand trails off as I hurry back out of the kitchen.

I make it back to the healer's wing without crashing into anyone and sending the hot cinders flying through the air, but even when I stop to catch my breath, my mind keeps racing. I have until Yllowei gets back to figure out how to handle this.

"Cindra, here!" I say, feigning joy as I give her the bowl of cinders.

Her face is solemn but hope dances in her blue eyes and it makes my heart ache. I wish I could be overjoyed instead of having this roiling feeling of apprehension in my stomach. Oblivious to my internal turmoil, Cindra cups the bowl in her hands and closes her eyes, brows furrowing in concentration.

I hold my breath and watch. I'm shocked by how much better not five minutes of corruption-free knees has made her; her cheeks have coloured like the sun rising after a long night and painting the sky pink, her breaths seem to be deeper, and her hands are steady, unshaking.

At first, my stomach sinks as nothing happens, then a sudden tremor runs over the cinders and they're rolled aside by one rising out of the middle and hanging in the air, only a couple of centimetres above the surface of the cinders, but glowing in the sunlight that pours in from the windows behind Cindra, then brighter and brighter until it's practically aflame.

"Praise the Starlaxi," I whisper and the cinder drops back into the bowl, chinking as it lands on the other cinders.

Cindra slowly opens her eyes and looks at me, then a smile begins to spread across her face and her eyes fill with tears again. "Fiyr… it's back. I—it's back!"

"Praise the Starlaxi," I repeat louder, voice shaking, but this time my words are genuine and I can't help lunging across the cot and bundling her into my arms in a bear hug. Cindra startles and the bowl of cinders goes flying out of her hands and spills across the cot.

"Agh! You oaf!" she exclaims, but laughter bubbles out of both of us, giddy, relieved, overjoyed, and uncaring about the holes singed in the sheets of the cot as the overturned cinders start to smoke. "I can't believe it!"

My chest is warm and it's a moment before I realize it's not just the swell of relief, it's Cindra's hot tears and… the cinder.

"Oh—oops—" I stammer, pulling away as I try to grab the cinders before Cindra gets burned again, but she pushes my hand away and starts picking them up, one by one and tucking them against her palm, unfazed by the hot cinders. "Cindra—you're not…"

"Fire can't burn heat-based elementalists," she tells me, and it rings a memory that I'd forgotten until now.

She wanted a pet phoenix, I remember and swallow a noise that was either going to be a laugh or a cry if it came out. "Using my own words against me…"

"You taught me well." Her grin melts into a smile soft as a cloud and twice as fragile. "My life-force really is back. The corruption… it must have just blocked it, not taken it away entirely."

I shake my head and hug her again, unable to help the beaming smile that has affixed itself to my face. An enormous pressure has lifted itself off my chest. The only thing that's still on my mind… What am I going to do about Clowd? Her arms tighten around me, then release.

"Cindra…" I trail off, holding her shoulders lightly and looking right into her eyes, searching for a way to explain why I'm not pouring us wine and throwing a party. "This…"

"Is fantastic? Is a miracle? Is unbelievable?" she finishes, then gives me a half-frown, half-smile and asks, "Alright, what's wrong with you?"

My hands slide off her shoulders and land in my lap and I sigh. "Cindra… what you have to understand is… I'm so glad you're okay."

"Me too," she agrees, but the skeptical look doesn't leave her eyes. "What's the catch?"

I run a hand through my hair and admit, "Clowd."

"What about him? He saved me, right? He destroyed the corruption," she says slowly, shaking her head like she still doesn't understand.

What's the difference between life-force and god-magic?

Sir Cawle's dark eyes and hard-set mouth float up into my memories.

Summoners, elementalists, and alchemists manipulate, Fiyr. Even strong summoners and elementalists who seem to create their power out of nothing are really just drawing form out of the energy of life-force that is all around us.

And god-magic?

God-magic is destruction and creation. Infinitely more powerful. Bending the rules of reality. Setting rules on things, like their horses to force them to run faster, or setting rules on reality, like pulling a tree out of existence. Sucking life-force out of the world and corrupting the space left behind.

I shiver.

"Cindra… he can use god-magic." The words are defeated and quiet.

Her eyes widen. "How the fu—how—how is that possible?"

"Because…" She wasn't at the meeting. She still doesn't know… I twist my hands around each other and take a deep breath. "Because, Cindra, he's half-god. His father was a god."

Her face is stricken. "He… he was? How? I mean—oh, blessed Starlaxi. Does the queen know?"

I pinch the bridge of my nose. "The whole… the whole court knows."

"And they agreed to let him stay at court?" Cindra demands, disbelieving and I wince.

"They… the queen said he could stay on one condition."

"Which was?"

"That he never demonstrate ability with god-magic," I murmur. "He… I didn't know, Cindra. I wouldn't have brought him if I had…"

But that's a lie. I saw Prin's expression, I watched the heartbreak in her eyes as she passed the baby to me, as Clowd began to cry as I rode away… It was the only way for him. Even if he'd been the one solely responsible for the Creeping Corruption, I would've taken him in. I would have lied, just to keep him safe from the gods.

"Oh no…" Cindra shakes her head. "Oh—oh no. They're going to throw him out."

I nod, trying to hold back the fear and grief that threatens to well up inside again.

"We can't let that happen," she decides aloud, shaking her head firmly. "We can't. We can't tell anyone about him helping me."

If only it were that easy. I shake my head. "Cindra, Lady Fennen's gonna be back any minute, and she's going to see how much better you're doing."

As though proving my point, she gets out of bed and grabs her walking stick, wearing only a white undershirt and baggy white underpants and starts to pace, the stick clicking against the stone with each step, like she's got too much energy in her mind and needs to let out some of it through movement. Like she did before the accident.

The picture of her hobbling back and forth quickly across less than five metres of stone floor, her face in deep concentration, wearing just underclothes that are dusted with soot from the cinders is so ridiculous that I can't help but laugh.

"Come on, focus," she chides, still pacing and giving me a glare on her way past. "What are we going to do?"

"It's so—so fu—so messed up," I sigh, dropping my head into my hands so I don't need to watch her hobble by again. "Clowd would die if he didn't have god-magic, did you know that? If he didn't have god-magic, and he didn't have life-force, he'd die. It's some big secret the queen's keeping; god-toys can't leave their mansions because when their spirits get clipped, their souls latch onto god-magic to keep them alive."

Cindra stops pacing for a moment. "What? Really?"

I nod. "Without life-force or something else to keep a soul alive, you die."

She frowns. "What if someone lost their life-force? Would they drop dead?"

"Well, it's not instantaneous, they would… have..." I trail and my eyes slowly widen. I lift my head and stare at Cindra. She stares right back, alarm drifting across her face. "Blessed Starlaxi."

Her ashen face this morning. Her pink cheeks and animated expressions now. The corruption on her knee, the strength that appears to have surged back into her when it was destroyed...

The weakness… she wasn't sick. It wasn't the corruption itself, it was just that her life-force… was blocked.

"I was dying," Cindra says slowly like she can't believe what she's saying. "I almost died. I was going to die without my life-force."

For the second time today, my heart tightens at how close death was without me knowing it. "Your life-force was blocked by the corruption. You wouldn't really have..."

She shakes her head, the alarm morphing into amazement. "Clowd saved my life. It wasn't just loss of life-force, it was… it was going to be loss of life if my life-force stayed gone."

When the initial shock of Cindra's brush with death wears off, the immediate problem surges back and I curl my hands into fists. "He saved your life and it's going to get him kicked out of the court!"

"That's not fair!" she exclaims, eyes lighting with blue fire. "We can't let it happen! Surely it won't!"

I can't share her conviction. I've seen the faces of the court and the reactions when they found out about his lineage. Knowing that strange hair isn't the only thing he inherited from his father isn't going to go well. But that's an understatement. If, the Starlaxi forbidding, Sir Cawle or Sir Styrp found out… I might as well strap the Thundrian armory to Clowd and throw him into the Rivien sea.

My heart sinks at the thought. "Cindra… I don't think they'll be swayed. It needs to stay a secret."

Cindra's brow furrows. "But you said yourself, Yllowei's going to notice."

"Then we'll swear her to secrecy," I say.

"But Brakken's going to notice too," she counters.

"Then we'll swear him to secrecy too!" I answer desperately. "Please, Cindra, they'll send him back. He'll die, or be taken away by the gods, or Prin will be hurt—I can't let it happen."

Cindra's shoulders slacken. "What if it happens again? Will you be able to hide it twice?"

"I…" I hesitate. "I have to. The other option… no. I won't let Clowd come to harm. Please, Cindra, I know I'm asking a lot, but we need to… we can't let this get out. The Starlaxi willing, this was a fluke and he can't actually do god-magic properly."

Cindra's look of concern deepens. "Fiyr, we don't know anything about god-magic. If he really can… who's going to teach him?"

I shake my head, face set in grim lines. "No. We'll just keep it a secret and if he ever does it again… I'll handle it."

"What do we tell Yllowei, then?" She's changing tactics, but the same look of worry is etched in her face.

"That…" I work both hands through my hair, half-hoping I can pull some brilliant idea out of the roots. My eyes land on the overturned glass bowl lying on the bed beside me. "That I brought you cinders to practice with and… and that, uh, the corruption disappeared…"

"When I ate them," she suggests.

"Ate them? No, why would you eat them?" I frown. "She'd never believe that."

"How about we say that the cinders burned it off?" she volunteers. "Like, you poured the cinders over the corruption and they destroyed it."

I tilt my head. "I don't know much about god-magic but I don't think it just vanishes without… without the help of a god."

She throws her hands up into the air. "Then say that you melted it!"

"But it's gone!" I protest. "What are we gonna use to…"

Our eyes land on the glass bowl at the same time. Cindra scrambles back into bed and pulls the white cloth up over her knee to expose where the corruption had festered for a year. I grab the bowl and turn it upside down on her kneecap, then focus and draw heat to me.

Come on. Hotter. The glass is only cool under my palms for a moment before it starts to absorb the flames that flicker out from my hands and softens. More than five seconds can't have passed before the glass starts to glow orange. My flames are so much hotter than they were when I was a squire.

Cindra is watching in silent amazement as it loses its shape and begins to drop in thick, heavy globs languidly down her knee, wrapping it in the same kind of transparent prison that the corruption did. I lift my hands off it and watch as it forms a thin shell over her knee, the majority of it pooling on either side and making pools of molten glass on the cot. Smoke rises from the bed spread, and for a moment I'm worried it's going to catch on fire, but the glass gradually cools and the sheets are just more singed than before.

"That's…" Cindra examines it. "It looks a lot like the corruption. But what are we supposed to say? That the cinders sucked the god-magic out of it and turned it into glass?"

"Sure," I shrug. "It's not more improbable than you eating cinders and being fixed."

Cindra nods. "Okay, here, let's say that you put the cinders on my knee and then something weird happened to the corruption… and we wanted to wait for her to get back to examine what happened."

"And she'll check the Trace and see that it has no god-magic trace in it anymore," I finish. "Then we can shatter the glass and throw it out and she'll never be the wiser."

"Check the Trace," Cindra urges. "Make sure she'll come to that conclusion."

She sure got wise in the last year. I slip out of this reality and blink open my eyes in the murky fifth dimension. My own life-force slams into me instantly; the glass on her knee reeks of iron and cinnamon, as familiar as the feeling of my own tongue sitting in my mouth. But pushing past that, I can feel what I now recognize is the last fading bits of Clowd's magic. The same bizarre blend of god-magic and elementalist trace greets me when I hold it closer.

But it could easily be passed off as the last of the corruption from Cindra's leg. My own life-force isn't much of a problem either—I could just say I was lighting up the cinders if Yllowei asks. That being settled, I drop out of the Trace.

"It should work," I assure her. "Clowd didn't leave a recognizable trace."

Cindra lets out a long breath and drops her head back against the pillows. "Oh, thank the Starlaxi. This… this is the best day. Ever."

"I'm happy for you," I admit. "Even with the mess with Clowd. I'm just glad you're alive."

"Me, too!" she agrees with vehemence, eyes glittering with a strange mixture of mischief and relief. "Man, the world would suck without me."

I let out a burst of laughter and lean over to hug her again, still shaken by the knowledge that we almost lost her forever. "Yeah, yeah, it would."

Thank you for reading chapter 17! Please follow and favourite this story and leave me a review with what you think!

~Akila