Chapter 4
Whatever Cyan expected to find on her first nightmare scape, this wasn't it. She expected a dream or something but instead she floated through an empty blinding white space. There was nothing around her, no Fuego, no bad dream, just bright light.
Cyan floated around in the empty space, eyes silted against the light looking for anything she could use to pull the captain out of his coma. She had hoped she would find what specifically happened to him, the only information provided but the capital's papers were that he went missing and then was returned with no arm.
She found nothing.
The whole space had no actual surfaces or walls, just endless blinding light. She wandered around for a few minutes trying not sure what to do when her eyes fell on a red dot below her, swiping her foot over it, the dot smeared against the 'surface' of white.
Blood.
Cyan ran a hand under her nose to find it gushing blood. It wasn't just a little nosebleed; she was losing blood fast and could feel her connection with Fuego's dream beginning to waver.
Rage welled up in her. "I just got started." She yelled at the blood on her hand. Clenching her fist, she began to move through the bright light as fast as she could to find anything that would help and felt the clock ticking.
The farther she ran the more her nose bleed till the front of her clothes was soaked in crimson and her legs began to wobble.
Her real body was beginning to fail, she could sense the feeling leaving her arms and the pounding headache of blood loss.
"Fuegoleon!" Cyan screamed into the abyss of light.
There was no answer, not even a whisper of Fuego's mind somewhere in his head.
Which meant he was no longer here; he was gone and that was why he hadn't woken up.
Her body urged her back, the feeling frantic and demanding. If she didn't leave, she was going to die. Or she thought she'd die; she didn't know what would happen if her body died while she was connected to another person's mind.
"Fuego! If you're here, give me a sign!" She yelled one last time, hoping there was still something of him left.
There was no answer once more.
She let the spell die, breaking the connection between the grimoire and her mana. As she was pulled from Fuego's mind she heard a scream, a scream of a man in such intense pain that she could almost feel it herself.
It was too late; the spell was broken, and she was pretty sure she was dying.
Cyan slammed into her body, the force throwing from the bed, and she hit the floor, smacking her head against the hardwood floor. She heard her grimoire drop next to her once the magic was deactivated.
Cyan groaned, rolling on to her side and pulled the book to her chest and tried to breath around the pain. She only managed to choke on the blood filling her mouth that still had not stopped despite the spell's end.
She opened her eyes and retched on the floor, trying to puke up all the blood she had unconsciously swallowed. Light filtered in through the window, the soft pink light of morning bright against her eyelids.
Morning? Morning was hours away but here it was peaking up behind the buildings of the capital.
Cyan learned two things about this spell all at once. The first thing she learned was that it had drained her mana down to its reserves even though she had been careful not to use too much. The second was that even though she had only been in the captain's mind for a few minutes that in reality several hours passed.
She puked again, not caring that she was lying in a puddle of blood and vomit. She had to get home to Sheila who was the best healer in Clearwater.
Shouts came from outside the door, the members of the guild must have heard her when she fell off the bed or when she hurled everything up but her memories.
Panic was now the only thing that kept Cyan conscious as she struggled to her feet and grabbed her cloak and pack. The captain was still sound asleep only now blood coated all the crisp white blankets like a murder scene.
She cupped his cheek, smearing more blood on his face. "I'll be back. I will figure this out."
The door flew open the second Cyan sunk into the shadow below the window seal as the morning sun continued to rise. Once she was safely in the embrace of the cold depths of shadows, she did something she knew would probably kill her in her weakened state. Cyan reached to the low-level pools of mana she had left and flipped the imaginary latch that held back her reserves.
Mana flooded her body and for a brief second, she felt great, no more pain and no more blood loss threatening to kill her. Cyan focused on the power and imagined the shop and all the power she had infused in its floorboards and walls. It was a beacon of sorts in case of an emergency she created so no matter what she could always find it.
Even with her reserves wide open she wasn't sure if she had enough to get there in one jump, but she didn't have a choice. The different pools of the outside flashed by her in a blur of the morning light till she was thrown with incredible force out of the shadow of one of the display racks in the shop.
Cyan screamed as she flew into the case, knocking the whole case over and its contents breaking over the floor.
In a second Temlar was running to the shop through the connecting door to their home, a bat in one hand.
"Cyan! What the hell!" He shouted as he flipped the lights on. "Sheila, get in here!" The large man ran to her, careful of the broken glass and scattered cracker boxes. He lifted her off the broken case, noting the blood and vomit covering her clothes. "Oh, little one, what happened to you?"
The 'little one' nickname was getting old.
Cyan finally focused once hearing the unusually soft tone in his voice. She wanted to apologize for knocking over his case and ruining the preserves Sheila made, but no words came out as more blood ran down the back of her throat and out of her nose.
"Shh, don't talk. Well get you fixed up."
Everything went dark and Cyan stopped existing, no more pain and nor more soft words. Just the bliss of nothingness.
"I'll pay you for everything I broke." Cyan floated in the warm water of Sheila's herbal bath, arms folded over her breast to keep some modesty.
The older woman swirled the water with one hand as she added red leaves to the water that smelled like musty bread but was supposed to be good for mana stabilization.
"Don't worry too much about it, I'm sure you and Temlar can work something out." She flicked water up and sprayed Cyan. "I'm just glad you're not dead."
Cyan closed her eyes and sighed trying to ignore the smell of the leaves. "I don't know what went wrong. There was nothing in his head, no thoughts or dreams. Just empty space." She thought back to the white blinding light and the horrible scream. She had recounted the events for Sheila and Temlar when she first woke up.
"I might not know much about your magic but to me it seems like it worked." She stood up and stretched her back, eyes falling on the pile of the disgusting clothes she cut from Cyan. "You assume that nightmares and dreams are dark and twisted since that's your experience."
Cyan sat up and hugged the side of the wood tub. "Okay, but he wasn't there. Nothing to suggest a piece of him still existed." She looked over at the clothes. "We should just burn them, there's nothing to savage."
Sheila nodded absently and threw the clothes into a burlap sack they separated potatoes in. "He was there, you heard him scream. What if what you saw is what he saw when he was attacked. Blinding light."
"Then he'd have been attacked by a Light mage and those have not existed since the Wizard King."
The women pinned her with a look. "As far as we know. We don't have any information about this Eye of the Midnight Sun group, it's possible they have magic we haven't seen before."
Cyan chewed on her lip and ran through the events of the night. "Possible, it'd be stupid to not come at it from all angles. But what do I do now?"
The women picked up more of the leaves and added it to the water despite Cyan's wrinkled nose at the smell. "If I got my way, you'd never try that spell again, but since I've known you your whole life I know that won't happen. So first you get better, you depleted your mana and lost a lot of blood because you activated a spell you weren't ready to. After that we will figure out a way for you to practice."
Tears sprang to Cyan's eyes as she looked up at the only mother she had ever known. This woman and her husband had always looked after her, especially after her father died and never expected anything in return.
She hid her face in the crock of her arm waiting for the bout of emotion to pass. A warm hand touched her back and made small comforting circles. She struggled for a few minutes to regain her composure, thinking about how lucky she was to have these people in her life.
She cleared her throat and looked over at Sheila with a tight smile.
"Sorry." She murmured as a blush ran across her cheeks.
Sheila patted her on the back and stood up. "Never apologize to me Cyan. No matter what we will always be here.'' She pulled out a towel and a spare change of clothes that Cyan put in her pack. "Now get out and go home. Once you feel better come see us and we will work out the damages and figure out a way for you to safely train."
Cyan's head snapped up. "You're going to help me train? Why not tell me to stop?"
Sheila laughed as she picked up the burlap sack. "You are the most stubborn person in the world. Telling you not to train will just force you to train on your own till you kill yourself. I'm a healer and can keep you alive while we figure it out." She winked and left the steamy room humming lightly as she did when working.
It was three days before Cyan felt like she could function as a normal person. She'd had a few nose bleeds but nothing nearly like before and Sheila had told her not to worry when she stopped to check on her. The first time Sheila had come over to deliver a stew, she pursed her lips as she looked around the house.
She hadn't been inside Cyan's home since the night she waited there to tell the girl that her father had died. She looked at the dust on every surface, the cracked dishes and webs occupying the corners. She immediately busied herself with cleaning the house despite Cyan's objections.
When she felt better, she went to the shop to talk with Temlar about the ruined display rack and ruined food. Of course, he tried to brush it off as no big deal but after an hour of arguing he agreed to dock her pay for the next few months till it was paid off.
After a week Temlar made contact with his old guild mates to learn someone had broken into the captain's quarters and left blood and vomit everywhere but they had no way to trace the person and Fuego's condition remained unchanged.
Cyan felt better knowing no one could trace the incident back to her but had hoped he had managed to wake up. It was then that she approached Sheila to discuss what she had in mind for training and was told to wait till her mana was back to full before attempting anything, until then she would need to wait.
The bell to the shop chimed and Cyan ignored it as she flipped through the papers to find anything about Fuegoleon or the Crimson Lion Kings.
"You look a little rough." The voice froze her to her stool. She slowly looked up to find Everett staring down at her, a snide smile displayed across his lovely mouth.
Everett was the son of the town mayor and the only man Cyan had ever been with intimately. He was gorgeous with thick chestnut hair, hazel eyes and a mouth to die for. He was also a controlling violent bastard that thought he owned Cyan despite the fact she broke things off with him over a year ago.
Her skin crawled as she glared up at him and told her body to loosen, to not let him see how truly terrified of him she was.
When she didn't reply he leaned a hip against the counter and folded those powerful arms. "I heard you got hurt last week, I thought I'd come in to check on you."
Cyan forced herself to look back down at the paper as if his presence did make her want to scream for Temlar of Sheila. "As you can see, I'm fine." Her voice was surprisingly steady as she read the same sentence over and over again.
"Don't be coy with me Cyan, if you need help then you could always ask me." He pulled his arms apart and laid a hand on top of hers, squeezing it threateningly.
Her blood ran cold at the touch, the feel of his skin on hers made her want to scratch her skin off. Her hair stood on end, and she mashed her teeth together.
"Get your hand off of me." She hissed out as she slowly glared up at him. He smirked down at her and squeezed her harder, the bones in her hand rubbing painfully against one another.
She felt it then, a dark presents in the back of her mind. It was a colder, darker vision of herself that reared its head as he crushed her hand. The shadows around the store flickered and writhed like black eels, slithering towards him.
His eyes widened as he noticed the unnatural movement of the shadows as they streaked towards him, and the seething dark look in her eyes. He slowly released her and backed away; hands raised in a show of surrender.
"No need to get touchy, just wanted you to know I'm here for you." His smile froze as the shadows snapped out at him threateningly.
"You can see your way out, Everett and don't come back." The sound of her voice shocked her, it was cold and threatening.
Her eyes followed him as he went back towards the door. "Someday you'll realize I'm the only man on this planet that will look past your despicable heritage and weird looks. When that day comes, you'll come crawling back and begging me to take you." Before the shadows could rip him into pieces he disappeared out the door.
Her chest heaved with a rage she'd never felt before, the dark part of her slowly disappearing and the shadows returning to normal. She glanced down to her thigh holster to find the closed grimoire pages glowing eerily.
"That was new." Her head snapped to the back of the shop to find Temlar carrying a tray of freshly baked rolls, the delicious smell making her mouth water. He followed her eyes to the tray. "You want one?"
She nodded and jumped off the stool. "God please yes. I'm starving."
He lowered the tray to her height, and she snatched one off before hesitating and stealing another.
He motioned towards the door with his chin. "You want to talk about that?"
She took a bite out of hot bread and quickly chewed it before it burned the roof of her mouth. "No." She shook her head and blew on the next bite to cool it. "I think it's about time that I stop living in fear of my power and other people."
She smiled at him and for the first time in her life felt comfortable in her skin, in what she could do with her dark magic. She could not only protect and help the people she loved but could also protect herself.
Maybe she should be afraid of that dangerous part of her that wanted so desperately to kill Everett, instead she found herself excited and aching to start training as soon as possible.