Chp47 [Zaien]

“Let’s go, Briel!” Zaien pounded on his bedroom door.

“Having…little difficulty….” He groaned out.

“What’s wrong?” Zaien jiggled the handle, and Briel groaned, staggering to the door to unlock it.

“Are you still not—” Zaien shoved the door open and stared over Briel’s face, hot and flushed. The boy’s eyes shone glassine and watery as if he had been drinking. “Briel? Acryan?”

Briel sank to his knees and buried the heel of his hand into his forehead with a shaking breath. “Yes!” His labored breath shook in his throat.

“Yes? Yes?! Both?”

“Chakt Zaien, I don’t know! Yes. Am I? Yes, am I not? I DON’T KNOW.”

Zaien hefted Briel’s form from the ground, helping him back into his bed with a dead-weighted slump.

“Okay, just calm down.” Zaien rolled him onto his back. Briel’s black hair spilled about as his friend tried to brush it from his sweat-sheened face. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Ammesta, please.” Briel hissed beneath his breath and grabbed at his head in a shuddering cringe.

“How? Why do you n—” Zaien searched Briel’s pained face and stood, “I’ll go get it.”

Zaien rushed from his room with heavy steps, swung through corridors, and then into the palisade. Then, intently, he made his way towards their hospital. He tore through the foyer and busted through halls until he reached a bustling center filled with healers moving from one room to the other.

“Zaien?” A soft voice asked, filled with concern.

“Liena! Thank the creator,” Zaien wheezed.

“What’s wrong?” A dark-haired girl with bright violet eyes slipped up to him on unsteady footing, one leg not holding her weight well. He put his hand on one of her shoulders, the arm there missing, an empty thing, while her right arm trailed up to greet his hand.

“I need Ammesta, now,” Zaien breathed.

“I mean, if you really are that hard up, I can go home early, dear.” Her cheeks went rouge, and she bit over her lower lip as she pressed against him.

“What? No! Wait, no, yes! Okay, yes to that later, but no, it’s not for me,” Zaien’s eyes darted about.

“Who’s it for, then?” She asked, pulling her head back to gaze into Zaien’s fearful eyes.

“Oh, oh no. Okay. I’ll… Not a word, I know. I promise,” Liena said, pulling away from him. Zaien sighed with relief as he watched her uneven gait slide from view. His eyes never lingered on her leg, where it ended just at her knee or her missing arm and the scars that ravaged her. Instead, his eyes focused intently on her back, the slender form of her waist, and the gentle swell of her bottom. He would surely take her invitation seriously tonight, but for now, Briel took priority.

She bustled back, her prosthetic clicking against the ground as she pushed a small box of bottles into his arms.

“And I’ll see to that offer tonight,” Zaien said with a warm breath that danced over her face and a dip of his head that captured her lips in a fleeting but promising kiss.

A warm chuckle came from another woman across the room, and Liena shot back a warning glance as Zaien raced out and made his way towards his once-grandfather, now friend reincarnated.

He had no idea how Briel’s soul had called out to Sai and latched on so soon. They never met one another! Not in this life… not in these bodies. Yet still, there Briel lay, drowning in the storm of his own mana, crying out for her touch. This storm had taken him once before, back when his bondmate felt so ashamed of her body, of the damage done to her. The Ammesta dampened the mana storm and quelled the fires. For someone whose fires hadn’t matured yet, the fever they got could be deadly. He’d never seen it come on so fast before, so hard. Then again, Acryan loved hard.

When Zaien finally barged into Briel’s room, he lay in bed, curled to his side, shaking. The red of his face splotched, scarlet, draining his mind of cohesive thought.

“Briel! Take!” Zaien said as he fumbled a bottle free and urged it into his hands. Briel knew of the stuff, but Acryan knew more. In years past, Sai’s love could be fickle. She ebbed and flowed like the tide, crashing pleasure amidst low still seas. Taking her mana through fires or taking this tonic were the only options.

Briel pulled the cork free and gulped the contents down, trembling as he did so. Hopefully, it wasn’t too late. This storm wouldn’t be the one that killed him, but it may be the one that left him scarred. A quiet moment passed, then another. Finally, Zaien peered as Briel released a wavering sigh of relief.

“All that over the song?” Zaien asked.

“No, she… she had a memory that I intruded on, our last night together, and it felt too real.” Briel laid his hand over his chest and flopped over and onto his back.

“You need to ask Sael.”

“I need to secure the crown and wait for her to be healed,” Briel said, his voice going cold and stern. “She’s happy where she is now.”

Zaien sighed and folded his head in his arms. “I guess we’ll—”