Chapter 24: The Broken Dagger

Jace “Quickshot” Leál

The boy was not dead—just pale-faced, his breathing so shallow that, at first glance, he appeared lifeless. But a closer look revealed the truth: he wasn’t long for this world.

I cleared the small, worn table by the window for Ayla to lay the boy on and we carefully unwrapped him, then I cut away his shirt. One look was all I needed to know this wasn’t something a doctor could fix.

“Ayla…”

“Don’t. Jace, just don’t. He’s not going to die. I won’t let him.” Ayla’s eyes were red, tears streaming down her blood-caked face. There was blood soaking her headwrap and all her clothes. What happened in the last few hours? “He needs a higher working of healing; something powerful. I don’t have the magic.”

My breath hitched and my eyes instinctively flicked to the nightstand by my bed. The broken dagger lay there, wrapped in a cloth. Ayla's eyes followed mine and widened in recognition. Then she stared at me with an intensity I had never seen from her—both a demand and a plea.

Did she know what she was asking of me? She might have an idea, if she’d been paying attention. Given the care and possessiveness I’d shown. Given that I’d been willing to risk losing an arm rather than using the few remaining ruby colored mana stones. But she couldn't know the whole of it.

Then I looked at the boy. Really looked. He couldn’t be older than twelve or thirteen, except he was malnourished, and likely that had stunted his growth somewhat. His skin was the color of tanned leather and his hair a mop of curls. Who was this boy to Ayla that she was so moved to helping him despite her hatred of humans?

From a fold under Ayla’s cloak, a ferret-sized creature with a jewel on its forehead—a rare carbuncle—crawled out weakly, until it lay curled up and pressed against the boy’s neck. It was just as a surprise as the boy’s arrival had been. But it didn’t take a genius to understand it was the boy’s pet, or perhaps companion. It was a tender sight.

“Jace…please.” It was no ordinary “please.” I could tell her request was part warning. Instinctively, I knew that if I did nothing, Ayla might choose to fight me for the dagger.

I couldn’t afford to procrastinate any further. The boy’s breathing was worsening.

Crossing the room, I took the broken dagger and unwrapped it from its cloth. The polished silver that ended in a jagged cut rather than the beautiful engraved blade it had once been. The empty settings that covered the hilt where once there had been beautiful red gems, and now there were so few left, the others having disintegrated after use.

There was likely two or three more uses for smaller spells. But only one for this healing to take. The boy was in too bad a condition.

One more use, and the dagger would be nothing but a memory. “I’m sorry, Mira.” I pushed aside all hesitation and went back to the table to stand over the boy and in front of a hopeful Ayla. “You know the working? Good. I know a simple mending spell that can add to yours.”

I held the dagger over the boy, and Ayla hesitated. She looked at me, and I saw sorrow. On my behalf. Maybe she really did know how important it was to me. “Thank you.” Her hand joining mine, she began reciting words in elvish that were so beautiful they might as well have been music. In comparison, mine were the grinding of gears, the clanking of pipes. And yet, when our magic melded together, there was a harmony.

Dual casting is an intimate thing. It has the potential to improve a spell beyond its ordinary capabilities, but it also connects one’s emotions to the other. There comes an awareness of the other that transcends explanation. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever done it. Three of those were when I was being trained by the army.

Neither Ayla nor I hesitated to join, however. Both of us knew it only improved the chances that our magic would bring the child from the brink of death. And if I was going to sacrifice something I treasured to save a kid I didn’t even know, I wasn’t going to hold back.

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Ayla’s eyes widened as the emotional sync began. I felt her surprise as she brushed against the depths of my grief. It was the memory of love mingled with the anguish of loss. Her smile was pure melancholy. I knew she knew exactly the kind of pain I felt. She nodded slightly in understanding. “Thank you, Jace.”

Then she opened herself to my emotions. She would have to feel them in full as I must feel her desperation, hope, and urgency. We would need to become one, then draw our focus to a singular purpose.

Mana burst from the dagger and into us like a flood. I felt the euphoria of so much mana pulsing through me, a reminder of a time when magic was ample. Even so, I had never been talented enough to cast high wordings. In fact, this was exactly my first time ever doing so. As the level of mana continued to increase beyond that which I’d ever held at one time, the euphoria crossed the threshold from ecstasy to pain. All the remaining gems glowed and cast an ethereal light, flooding the room with its scarlet light, then filtered to a blinding white as it was filtered to our purpose.

High healing white magic—said to be among the hardest to master. Compared to my weak mending spell, where my contribution was a trickle, hers was a flood. But I did not need to control anything; my participation merely served as an amplifier.

After a few moments passed, I could no longer feel my mouth, my tongue, or my own body. I felt my soul brand burn bright, and its energy also was added to the working. In the void of blinding white, I floated—no, I existed. Sensation slipped away like sand through fingers, leaving me in a space where I couldn't tell where I ended and the magic began. My awareness hung in a vast, endless expanse, disconnected from all reference to space or time.

In that white expanse there suddenly appeared a figure. Like a shadow at first, but then it took shape and color, and a familiar figure stood before me in the void. A woman in a lieutenant's uniform. Wearing her special forces beret, red curling locks spilling over her shoulders—which was not to code; women were required to wear their hair in a tight bun, but Mara liked to let it down whenever a superior officer wasn’t around to dress her down for it.

I wanted to call out, but I had no voice to do so. I wanted to reach out and touch her. To embrace her and tell her how much I’d missed her. That I hadn’t forgotten her. That I never would.

I felt Mara’s fathomless blue eyes stared into mine, despite my having eyes to see. And I suddenly became aware of how much she resembled Ayla.

“It’s alright, Jace.” Her voice had always been husky, like she just finished chewing out a soldier for something stupid they’d done. But I recognized these words. These particular words and how they were said.

“No…”

“You go on ahead. I’ll catch up to you later.”

“Please, no…”

“That’s an order, soldier.”

They were the last words she’d ever said to me. The last words she’d ever said to anyone. Staring down the threat of a company of powerful darklings closing on our position. Ruby crusted silver dagger in hand… She had always been invincible; and we had our orders—protect the generals during our fighting retreat. We never doubted she’d come out alive. But she hadn’t. Later, I disobeyed orders and went back, but the only thing that remained of her was the broken dagger.

Mara raised her hand as if to cup my cheek, but there was nothing to touch. Then I was violently torn from the white space, and my awareness crashed into my body.

I blinked and felt the hot tears that spilled from my eyes like a constant stream. Ayla stood in front of me. Her face a flushed, twisted wreck as she sobbed loudly, the blood from her cheeks almost completely washed away by her own tears.

Alarmed, I looked down at the boy, but his breathing was even and steady, his face still gaunt, but the pallor of toeing the line between life and death was gone. Color had returned to his cheeks and all the bruises on his face were gone. I could not understand why she was weeping for him.

I cleared my throat, but my words came out gritty and hoarse anyway. “Don’t worry. He’s going to be just fine.”

I felt the last of the magic from the spell seep into the boy, and in my hands—still joined with Ayla’s and hovering over the boy—I felt the silver dagger turn to dust and sift through my fingers.

Ayla raised her hands to look at them, having caught some of the silver dust in her cupped palms. Then I realized she was not weeping for the boy as I had initially thought. She was weeping for me. Then I had a second realization. She felt everything I had.

“I’m…so sorry, Jace.” Ayla’s voice was broken by shuddering sobs. “I didn’t know.”

I took a breath to ground myself. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. I would have used it anyway.”

“I…know.”

Ayla then did something I never would have expected. She pulled me into a hug. Together we stayed there, sobbing into each other’s necks like idiots. We stood over the boy like that for some time, and didn’t even realize when he opened his eyes.