As Akkarin made his way quickly back to the tunnels, he sensed Sonea's sudden fear and focused on the blood gem connection, hoping he would not lose the two people he cared for most in the world within minutes of one another. He watched as Faren's men managed to surprise and kill the Ichani, feeling Sonea's fear and sadness wash over him through the blood gem connection. Though he felt a pang of sympathy for the men, the strongest feeling coursing through his body was relief, relief that Sonea had been away from the action, relief that her shield had held, relief that she was still breathing and unharmed. Quickly, he turned toward the smuggler's den where they had agreed to meet, resolving not to let Sonea out of his sight again until the battle had ended.
When he strode into the smuggler's den, his eyes immediately found Sonea, and his heart stuttered once more. It was a feeling to which he was slowly becoming accustomed when around her, and he managed a small smile when she greeted him enthusiastically despite the pain of the past couple hours. She saw through his facade immediately, of course, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Regin watching their interaction closely. He did not even need to reach for Regin's surface thoughts to know the novice was suspicious of their familiarity, and he quickly pulled Sonea aside, not quite sure how she would react when he gave her his news. In truth, he was not quite sure how he would react either.
She understood his pain immediately, the pain not just of losing his best friend but also of the strain of their relationship for the past two years. When she wrapped her arms around him, he held her close, allowing her to comfort him, at least for the moment. It felt good, much better than he had expected. For many years, he had relied only on himself for everything; he had not realized just how heavy his burden had become until he was able to share it with Sonea. He stood with her in his arms, breathing in her scent and feeling her heart beat against his chest, assuring him that she was alive. He could feel her power pulsing as well, the excess reserves she had not learned to hide quite as well as he could, and it gave him some comfort to know she had that protection as well—though he was not sure how much it would help against the strength of the enemies they were facing. He remembered Lorlen's words and the promise he had made to his friend, and he squeezed her a bit tighter. If there was a way for them both to survive, he resolved in that moment to find it. But if it came down to a choice, he would choose her every time.
Eventually, he pulled away, knowing they needed to return their attention to the battles they still needed to face. Regin was still watching them closely as they returned, and a quick glimpse of his surface thoughts told Akkarin he had reached an accurate conclusion about their behavior. At the moment, however, it did not matter. If they both survived the next few hours, he would worry about the consequences of their relationship at that point, but he had meant what he had told Sonea before—he would not deny her. He would choose not just to live but to live with her.
Over the next few hours, they managed to eliminate three more Ichani and though it was a close call a couple times, both survived without any major injuries. Unfortunately, the third kill revealed Akkarin's presence to Kariko which Akkarin knew would stop him from leaving his two remaining allies. They would have to fight openly now.
He and Sonea gathered the magic they could from the volunteers before making their way quickly through the tunnels to an exit he had used many times. He looked around his late friend's office, feeling the expected wave of melancholy, but it was accompanied by another feeling that it took a moment to place—determination. No matter what, he was going to end this fight in the next few minutes. For Lorlen. For Sonea. For the Guild. For the naive boy he had been years before.
He quickly stripped his clothes off, revealing the black robes he wore underneath. He felt Sonea's gaze on his back and heard her thoughts practically shouting at him. Despite the circumstances, a small smile curled his lips. He had known she found him attractive, but hearing it suffusing her thoughts caused a jolt in his stomach. He turned to her, his grin widening. "Stop leering at me," he teased.
"Me? Leering?"
He smiled for a few more seconds before it faded as he focused on the current situation. He knew the odds were against them, and he refused to enter the upcoming fight without making his feelings clear to her. If the worst occurred, he did not want her to have any doubts. Crossing to her side, he cupped her cheeks with his hands. "Sonea. If I don't-" She stopped him with a finger on his lips before pulling him close for a long, deep kiss. When they finally parted, he remarked, "If I could send you far away, I would. But I know you'd refuse to go. Just. . ." He trailed off, trying to figure out how to put into words everything that was in his heart. Somehow, just saying three simple words seemed impossible and, at the same time, not enough. Instead, he continued, "Don't do anything impulsive. I watched the first woman I loved die. I don't think I could survive losing the second."
Sonea sucked in a breath before smiling. "I love you, too." A small chuckle escaped his lips as he bent down to kiss her again, reveling in the feel of her lips against her own. Unfortunately, the kiss ended all too quickly as Kariko's voice sounded in his head.
Akkarin, Akkarin! What a pretty place you have here.
"They're here," he muttered needlessly, pulling away from her reluctantly.
"The Arena?" she asked.
He considered for a moment. He knew there was a vast amount of power stored there, power that could certainly be useful against the Ichani. However, in his research on black magic, he had also learned that drawing too much power, especially if one did so rapidly, could cause one to lose control of one's magic. He was not even sure he would be able to safely drain the power, and with Sonea still relatively new to black magic, he suspected it would be even harder for her. "Only if we have to," he told her. She nodded, and he led the way out of the office to the gates of the University.
When they reached the gates, Akkarin quickly fell into the rhythm of fighting, focusing all of his attention on defeating the remaining three Ichani. Though he had not fought often with Sonea, he found it surprisingly easy to work with her. He suspected part of the ease was due to the fact that she let him guide her in what to do, but a larger part was that their minds simply meshed well together. They battered Kariko relentlessly with strikes, protecting themselves with a shared shield that was easier than Akkarin had expected to maintain. Despite how well they fought, however, and the tricks Akkarin used, he still felt himself weakening more than he would have liked. He considered his options. If one of them took even some power from the Arena, they would have more than enough to defeat the remaining three Ichani. Though it would have been safer if Akkarin were to do it, he would not leave Sonea alone to defend the gates. He should be able to help through the blood gem connection and ensure she was able to take the power safely.
As he started to instruct her to go to the Arena, he sensed Kariko weakening. He paused his instructions for Sonea, narrowing his eyes in concentration as he began to step towards the Ichani. Unless they were tricking him—and the Ichani had always been poor strategists—he and Sonea might still have enough power to finish them off. Before they could, however, he felt a Mindstrike at the same time as he saw Sonea react to it. He started to instruct her how to block it out, but a searing pain in his chest took his attention from everything else.
Unable to stop himself, he fell forward, grabbing her arm automatically. He drug her to the ground, landing first on his knees before falling onto his back, his hands clutching the knife that had embedded itself in his chest. She hovered above him, worry etched on her face and screaming at him in her thoughts. He felt her grab for his hands, starting to pull them away from the knife. Despite the pain, he stopped her. "Not yet," he hissed. Pain was clouding his vision, but he forced himself to remain conscious. It was time to finish what he had inadvertently started so many years before when he crossed into Sachaka. It was time to stop hiding and live.
Looking at her, he forced himself to speak as he instructed her to fight, to take his power and continue where he could not. He sensed her hesitation, but he also sensed her resolve. Confident she would do as he asked, he began to send her his power, feeling a grim satisfaction when he watched her use it to burn through Kariko before turning her attention to the second Ichani. The second Ichani fell as well, but the third continued to advance. Akkarin sensed Sonea's exhaustion and knew she was reaching the limits of her reserves. He cast his senses into his own body, finding that he still had a bit of power left. But would it be enough?
Akkarin started to send her the last of his power, feeling her begin to form it into a powerful Heat strike. He knew it would be their last chance to defeat the Ichani, and in his desperation to do so, he increased the flow of power, drawing on his final reserves. Just before he began to send the last spark of his energy, he heard Lorlen's mind voice in his thoughts. Promise me that when you have the choice, and you will, you will choose to live.
Akkarin let the flow of power stop, dropping his hands from Sonea's wrists. He grasped the tiny spark still left inside him and pulled it deep into his source, protecting it as best as he could. He was not even sure it was enough to support him, but it was something. He sensed the powerful Heat strike move toward the final Ichani, but he could not even muster the energy to see if it was successful. Instead, he let the darkness overtake him.
Akkarin felt himself floating. He sensed nothing—no pain, no heat, no cold, no discomfort. Even his emotions seemed strangely different, almost as if he were observing them in someone else. It was not necessarily an unpleasant feeling, but there was still something unsettling about it. Perhaps he had died after all.
Akkarin was not sure how long he stayed in a state of limbo, but after some time, he felt another presence. It was faint but familiar though Akkarin could not identify it immediately. Soon after, he began to feel sensations again as well, and the first he felt was a burning pain that made him pull away. He wanted to return to the void, to go back to the place without pain. He even started to retreat from the pain, but something stopped him. The presence became clearer, and as it did, the feeling of familiarity increased. Akkarin focused on the presence, ignoring the pain as he tried to identify it. For a moment, he sensed himself in it, and he wondered if his consciousness had split somehow, but he soon realized that though the presence was similar to his own, there were many differences as well. It was not his presence but one somehow linked to him. Curiosity drove him onward, and he pursued that presence through the darkness. Though the pain was still present, his quest allowed him to ignore it.
Suddenly, he found himself standing on the edge of a vast, empty space, but unlike the space he had been before, this one was familiar. The presence had moved into the space, and Akkarin followed relentlessly. A spark twinkled in the center of the space, and Akkarin rushed toward it, wondering if it was the presence he had been following. Just as he reached it, the spark surged, pulsing with light as it expanded outwards. At the same time, the presence suddenly disappeared and the pain returned, more intense than ever. Underneath the pain, however, Akkarin felt something else though it took him a moment to identify it—the beating of a heart. His heart, he realized. And as he focused on that sensation, he began to feel others as well—the expansion of his lungs, the sharp pain of the rocks digging into his back, and the chilly wind pulling the heat from his skin.
He gasped in a breath, forcing his eyes open. They focused immediately on a familiar face leaning over his own. He saw the tears running down her cheeks as well as the desperation in her dark orbs. His voice was not working quite right yet, but he managed to choke out a single word. "Sonea."
"Akkarin," she responded, her voice choked by her sobs. He felt something warm squeeze his hand. "You're alive." A quick assessment of his body told him that he was—though not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination if the intense pain in his chest was any indication.
"Stay still; you're not nearly stable yet," a new voice interjected a bit gruffly. Obediently, Akkarin lay still, blinking slowly. He felt the Healing energy repairing his chest, but there was a good deal of damage to repair, so it was slow going. After a couple minutes, the flow of energy stopped, and the unknown voice remarked, "That's all the energy I have."
"Was it enough? Will he live?" Sonea asked, her hand squeezing his a bit more tightly.
"I don't know. There was quite a lot of damage; I did what I could."
"Then take my power! Use it!"
"Sonea, he didn't just give you nearly all of his power to save you in order for you to recklessly endanger your life trying to save him."
"He's right," Akkarin croaked, cursing the weakness in his voice. He hated showing weakness. "Keep the power. I. . .will be fine." He felt himself starting to lose his battle with unconsciousness, but he could tell immediately that it was different this time. Before, his consciousness had almost left his body permanently; this time, he sensed he just needed to shut out the world for a bit so that his body could heal.
"No, Akkarin, I will not let you die!" He felt a new energy start to flow into him, and he recognized it immediately at hers. Once more, it seemed to be tinged with his presence, but his tired mind could not quite sort out why that would be. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he had sent her so much of his energy before. He had never heard of or experienced such a thing, but he knew there was still much he did not know about black magic.
"Not going to die," he managed, weakly pushing her hands away. "Just need to rest." And with that, he fell into unconsciousness once more.
A/N: And now, I will diverge wildly from canon (those of you who have read my Advent story have some inkling of how though there's obviously going to be a lot more coming than what I wrote then). I did promise from the beginning that Akkarin would live, but after much debate, I decided to keep the battle fairly close to canon. I also tried to explain his reluctance to take the Arena's reserves which truthfully always bothered me a bit. There will probably be 2-3 more chapters in this one to set up the next story, and then I will post the rest of the story as a sequel (there's a time jump, and it will be a multi-perspective story, so I eventually decided that it would be better to do it as a new story). It looks like this one is going to come in under 50k words which is honestly pretty short for me, but I promise the next one will be much, much longer (likely closer to 200k, possibly more, and there might be a third one as well depending on how far I get in my long-term plot). The next story will also return to having a good deal of political intrigue and answer a bunch of the unanswered questions from this one. . . as well as pose a lot of new ones :). I have a good deal written of it though, so I do intend to post once a week for the forseeable future.