This is not going to be a happy story. There is no happy ending. You probably figured that out, but anyone hoping for a fix-it, there's a story recommendation at the end of this chapter.
Sophie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out Keefe's cries. Nothing they could do was easing his pain or putting him to sleep. Ro had suggested soporodine, but the amount they had calculated as necessary could easily be lethal.
All they knew for certain was that Keefe had described it as feeling like every cell in his body were being torn apart and stitched back together over and over and over.
She would be in the room next to him, but hearing him scream again and again had ripped her heart to pieces and she had to get away.
Eventually, slowly, the screaming stopped and faded to gasping breaths. Sophie stood, poking her head into the room.
Marella had her hands, coated with Everblaze flame, pressed to Keefe's chest, but she wasn't burning him. Instead, he lay limp, eyes closed in relief.
"Keefe?"
His eyes opened and his head fell to the side. "Hey, Sophie."
"Is it any better?"
"S-sort of. I can breathe now and my heartbeat doesn't hurt."
Marella was shaking slightly with effort. "Before she left, the lady handed me a ball of Everblaze and told me what to do. I didn't believe her, but the situation got kind of desperate. Did you guys make a decision out there?"
Sophie nodded. "There are people grumbling, but we decided to risk it."
"Couldn't it put him in a coma again?"
"With the data the physicians have and all the people they had analyze it, I think they said it would just knock him out for twelve hours. But the doses will have to be twenty-four hours apart at least. They don't want too much in his system at once." She looked around, noticing that everyone else in the room had left. "Where did everyone go?"
"I think it got to be too much for them, like you."
"Okay."
"Sophie? Can we talk telepathically?" Keefe whispered, voice becoming strained. "Or at least me?"
"Yeah, sure." She reached out and formed the connection.
Oh, this is so much better.
I didn't realize how much you didn't sound like you until now.
Marella glanced at Sophie, fear in her eyes. "I need to put the fire out. I'm not sure I can control it for much longer. Can you tell him?"
I can hear her just fine. I'll be okay. It'll hurt more, but as long as I lay as still as possible, it should be minimal.
"He said it's okay."
Marella's shoulders slumped in relief and she removed her hands, letting the fire die away. Keefe tensed and Sophie heard the whispered curses in the back of his mind. But he didn't scream this time.
Sophie?
"Yeah?"
Do you think it'll get better? Stop hurting eventually?
"I…" She sighed. "I don't know. What I heard sounded like a chronic pain disorder."
Marella looked confused. "What's that?"
"It's a human malady. I don't know much about it. Nobody I knew had it. But I know that people who have them are in pain constantly. A lot of them take medication to deal with it and sometimes it helps, but most of them are in constant pain. There's lots of ads for things that are supposed to make it go away permanently, but most of the time, it's for the rest of their life."
So I could be like this… forever?
Sophie nodded.
Did you hear me? I'm assuming you nodded, which I can't see, by the way. My eyes are closed.
"Yeah."
Yeah to what?
"Both."
Marella stood. "I…should be going home. I'll see you guys soon."
"Okay. Bye, Marella."
Keefe gave her a weak wave.
After Marella left, Sophie slumped in the chair, twisting her handkerchief in her hand, as had become her new nervous habit.
Your emotions are awful level.
"What do you mean?" Sophie had been certain he would pick up on the gut-wrenching panic and fear roiling in her mind.
I'm not getting anything. At all. And I couldn't feel anything from Marella earlier either.
Horror rose in her throat. "Can you feel this?" She let her emotions swell, thinking about all the whispered words, furtive glances and hugs that lasted a little too long, certain Keefe would start teasing her about all the Fitzphie.
Feel what? What am I supposed to be feeling?
Sophie paled, reaching out and laying her fingers on Keefe's wrist. He hissed in pain. "Can you feel my emotions at all?"
No… Sophie, what's going on?
"I-I don't know. I'll be right back. I'm going to get Elwin." Sophie ran out of the room and yelled for the ground floor. The vortinator spun her down and she bolted into the sitting room that was being used as the physician's storage.
Elwin jumped, nearly dropping whatever it was he was holding. "Sophie, you can't startle me like that!"
"I'm sorry, but I need you upstairs, right now. Can you tell the difference between a Talentless and someone with an ability?"
"Did something happen? I can, but I've never needed to. That kind of thing doesn't become apparent until after the manifesting window closes, so it's not very useful."
She tried not to go into full panic mode. "I need you to check Keefe. He couldn't feel my emotions, even with physical contact."
"Oh no." Elwin grabbed a bag and haphazardly shoved a few elixirs and things in it. Sophie followed him to the vortinator.
"Floor 156!"
Sophie didn't bother with the railing, unlike Elwin, who stumbled forward when the stairs started and stopped moving.
Keefe was visibly paler. His eyes flicked back and forth between them, silently begging for information.
Elwin snapped a bubble around Keefe's chest and head, varying the color several times. "This isn't possible."
"What's not possible?"
"His ability is…gone."
Keefe looked fed up and summoned the strength for a terrified whisper. "What?"
Sophie realized she'd broken the telepathic connection by accident and quickly reached out again.
Sophie, please tell me what is going on.
"Give me a sec. Elwin, what do you mean 'his ability is gone'?"
Elwin was white as a sheet. "I can't see much in detail, but I know the section of the brain that is responsible for abilities and skills and it is gone. Completely. I know what it looks like in a Talentless brain and this is not it."
Part of my brain is gone!?
"Yeah, I'm confused too."
"Are you talking to me?" Elwin flashed another orb around Keefe's head, then sighed.
Sophie shook her head. "Keefe said it's too painful for him to talk out loud so he talks telepathically to me. Neither of us get it."
"I can't explain it. Are you able to call the crazy lady again?"
"She said she left a communicator, but I'm afraid to call her. She's unsettling. Whatever language she was speaking, I couldn't understand it. My abilities are working perfectly fine, I tested them. And I thought elves didn't do violence, but she had a bow and sword and carried herself like she knew how to use them."
She sounds interesting.
"Not good interesting right?"
No, of course not. Interesting like Vespera.
"She's a lot nicer than Vespera. And I think she's a Pyrokinetic. Marella said Iltaurielle handed her a ball of Everblaze like it was no big deal. Which is really weird because she wasn't creepy, just…really unsettling."
Elwin had apparently given up on trying to decipher their conversation. "I'd call her again and get some more information out of her before you let her leave again."
Sophie shuddered. "There is no letting her leave. If she wants to go, she goes. Councillor Emery tried to stop her and she took the opportunity to chew him out for something for fifteen minutes. If she's important enough to treat at the Council however she likes, I'd rather stay away from her."
Yikes. But she healed me, right? She can't be that bad.
"Well, yeah. And she kept making barbed comments at your dad and there was nothing he could do about it. She refused to call him by his name. She just referred to him as the peacock."
I think I might like this lady.
Elwin hoisted his bag over his shoulder. "I'll go see what I can do about contacting her again."
Sophie nodded.
Keefe sighed and looked over at her. I don't think this is what my mom had in mind.
"I think your mom is clinically insane."
I don't disagree. Can you tell me more about the lady? I'm curious.
"Well, she said her name was Iltaurielle. She had really long red hair and she was really Ancient. Her ears went back here, almost to the back of her head." She showed him.
Oh wow. She's got to be older than most Ancients and that's saying something.
"Her fingernails were like an inch long and sharpened into claws. And she rode a giant gold dragon. It could talk."
No way! And I missed this?
"It wasn't really exciting. He just asked where it was okay to nap. The lady knew who you were." Sophie shivered, remembering the cold feeling in her head when she'd locked eyes with Iltaurielle. "And who I was."
What do you mean?
"Before we could explain anything, she looked at me, asked me if I was the moonlark, and when I said yes, she introduced herself and asked where you were."
That's weird. I have no idea who she is. I wonder if she knows my mom.
"She might. She didn't know your name though. I'll ask."
"Ask what?"
Sophie jumped. The woman, Iltaurielle, was standing across from her where she certainly hadn't been before.
"How did you get in here? Elwin just left to try to contact you."
"I never left. I've been sitting on the roof dropping arrows on the goblin downstairs to see how close I can get without hitting him. You have questions for me, I presume?"
Sophie nodded, choosing to ignore the fact the woman was shooting at the goblins. "Do you know his mom?"
"Lady Gisela? I've jailed her three times, she's got at least five warrants out for her arrest, and anyone who turns her in can name their rewards. I'd say I know her."
Keefe was silent. Sophie managed to ask, "What for?"
Iltaurielle counted them off in her fingers. "Two counts for trying to steal shadowflux and quintessence from the Point of Elements, one for child endangerment, another for destruction of property, yet another for illegal experimentation, there's one for trespassing, and the last one is for stealing a dragon hatchling. More recently, there's a second illegal genetic experimentation, smuggling, involuntary manslaughter, and three that were labelled 'general illegal shenanigans'."
Sophie had nothing to say. Keefe's thoughts scattered, and he wasn't able to condense them into a cohesive thought.
"I take it this is the first you've heard of it?"
Both of them nodded. Sophie asked, "How do you steal elements? How and why is that illegal?"
"Playing with the elements is not done lightly. They are very dangerous, especially in the wrong hands. The Point of Elements is somewhere anyone can summon the purest form of their element. Taking from it without an imperial warrant can be a capital crime. Had we known the purpose she intended it for, her punishment would have been much more severe. I'm not going into detail about a highly classified criminal's file. You had another question?"
Sophie nodded. "His ability is gone and we don't know what's going on."
"As I said, playing with the elements, especially the more dangerous ones, rarely has a positive outcome. Shadowflux rules the night, dark, and destruction. That crazy hag though she could counter the effects with quintessence and didn't realize that combining the two makes effectively liquid death. Not poison, liquid death. It cannot coexist with other powers, so it destroys them. Your kind insist on dividing them between abilities and skills, but both are eliminated." Iltaurille drew fire out of the air, letting it whisper across her fingers. "You've probably already discovered the excruciating pain."
Keefe's eyes took on an incredible sadness. Can you ask her what's causing it?
The Ancient snuffed out the fire. "It's the shadowflux attempting to bond with your cells. If it were just shadow, it would be an echo, as Miss Ruewen has experienced. But with two volatile and dangerous elements battling for space inside your body?" She shrugged. "You know what that feels like."
She can hear me?
"Of course I can. If you do not want your thoughts privy to the universe, you would do well to learn to either quiet your mind or learn to shield." She raised a russet eyebrow. "But now is not the time to question me about my abilities. Is there anything else you want to know?"
"Is there any way to fix this? Reverse any of the effects?" Sophie asked, having a hard time processing any of the information.
"With any form of permanence? No. We have scoured every known world and most unknown. Unless you want to extract the elements from every individual cell through and incredibly painful, strenuous and tedious process, the answer is no. Everblaze can counter the effects, but only in the areas where it is sitting directly against the skin. Assuming that is all, I'll leave a summary of what I discover over twenty-three years of research on the subject with the adults."
Sophie sighed and sat down on the front step, watching Iltaurielle leave for real this time. She'd been hoping the strange woman would have a cure or something similar to help Keefe. But even with many of the adults trying to coax more information out of her, all she'd said was that twenty years of research culminated into 'no'.
Keefe had been given a dose of soporodine and was currently asleep. She didn't know if she could wake him up by accident, but she didn't want to risk it. He needed as many pain-free hours as possible.
Sophie glanced up when the door opened. Lord Cassius walked out and away from Candleshade without giving her so much as a glance. He leapt away without a word. Confused, she stood up and went inside.
Her mother was running down the hall and stopped when she saw Sophie. "He left didn't he?"
"Yeah. Was I supposed to stop him?"
Edaline sighed. "We were making sure everyone was on the same page and when we told him that Keefe lost his ability and skills, he just went quiet and walked out. When Councillor Emery told him to return to his seat, he said he would never call a cripple his son."
Sophie cringed. "Oh no. Keefe's going to feel horrible about that."
"Don't tell him if you don't have to. He has enough to deal with." Edaline said. "The Council doesn't know what to do. The information we were able to find about chronic pain disorders was helpful, but not applicable to elves. We're trying our best, but…it's just not an elvin problem."
Sophie sighed. "I'm going to call Amy and see if she has any more information. Even if she doesn't, she can search the internet."
"Of course. Do you want me to let them know?"
"I don't know if the Council knows I contact Amy, so I'd rather not."
Edaline gave her a sad smile. "Are you okay?"
Sophie sighed. "I could be better. I'm worried about Keefe, but it's more feeling helpless. I know there's nothing I can do, but I still want to shake as much information as I can out of Iltaurielle even though I know that what I could come up with in a few weeks can't compare to twenty years of intensive research."
Her mother hugged her tightly. "Even if we can't cure it, it'll get better. We'll all get used to the new situation. Try not to worry as much as possible."
So, Keefe has a chronic pain disorder. I only know one person with one and they are currently across the country, so any inaccuracies I am sorry for. If you haven't figured it already, this is not a happy story. You want a happy recovery story? Go read 'Stellarlune' by Sarcasticsnark13. It's in the same vein, but much happier.
Review for a tidbit from the next chapter!
Shine brightly!
Ruby
