Page 81 of Prince of the Phantom Sky

“We need Sirona,” Aryn spoke hoarsely. “And Altha. Something’s wrong inside.” Kora moaned gently, and Raiden’s heart leapt as he knelt by her side.

“I’m here.” Sirona followed Raiden, her face neutral as she studied Kora. “Altha is tending to Erick. Tell me everything.”

Raiden flashed a glare towards Sirona and she rolled her eyes. “I’m a healer first and foremost, Rai. I may not trust her, but someone’s life and their health will always be of importance to me.”

Sirona’s uniformed beige skirts billowed onto the hardwood floors as Aryn gently turned Kora in his arms. Raiden’s fists clenched at the black tears. Signs of Barron’s magic, his hold still lingering over her.

“We were talking, and suddenly she panicked. I thought she’d been screaming at me to stop but maybe . . . I think it was to within. I could sense something dark, something connected to her scar taunting her.” The way Aryn said talking had Raiden raising a brow. “Kora said she is here.”

They all fell silent at the last part.

Sirona nodded curtly, and breathed deeply before pressing two fingers to Kora’s scar and closing her eyes. As an illusion, Sirona used her gift of the mind to assess patients’ mental states and gather intel on their illnesses. Most healers were illusions, less powerful ones at that, but they’d once had plenty of divines, before they’d become scarce after the Staghart’s slaughter.

Her eyes flew open with a gasp, the faintest glow fading from her pupils, and she snatched her fingers back. “Her fugue state is crumbling. Kordelia is growing stronger.”

“What? No. That can’t be right. She was getting stronger.” The desire to reach out and comfort Kora overwhelmed Raiden. To trace her jaw, brush the ends of her silken hair, to feel her heart beat strong.

Sirona’s face fell. “No, Kordelia is somehow breaking through on her own. I . . . I don’t know what to do.”

“Her essence is weak,” Raiden guessed. “I need to train her power so she can fight back.”

“Rai . . .” Sirona swallowed as she shared a grave look with Aryn. “My medical assessment was a speculation at most. My power isn’t extensive. Medicine is about deduction, it’s asking all the questions until you reach the final answer. Maybe this is a new sign, a new symptom that Kordelia lives on within.”

“I’ve told you both before,” Raiden flexed his hands to release a modicum of tension. “It’s not Kordelia, it’s Barron. His magic is using what’s left of her, and if it comes back, it’ll be the end of us all. A darkness so deep, that we won’t survive.”

“How do you know?” Skylar’s voice appeared in the entrance to Kora’s room and they all jolted, except Aryn, who curled around Kora tighter. Raiden withheld his disdain. He didn’t have the time to chastise Skylar right now on using Sirona against him.

“How do you know it’s not her? How do you know it’s Barron’s magic?” Skylar pushed, entering the room. Silver brimmed her eyes, a rare display of emotion from Raiden’s sister. Her hair was unbound, and she was dressed casually in a brown shirt tucked into a long chromatic skirt.

“As I said, I’ve seen in her mind. Barron’s magic has decayed her past, and whatever’s left is corrupted, like a disease. The longer she stays in the light of who she is, the more that disease fades away.” Raiden’s jaw clenched as Skylar knelt beside him, studying Kora’s face.

“And the tears,” Aryn added. “We saw these tears in Mossfell when Barron’s magic bound itself to her. If she has these tears now, then it means his magic is still entwined with hers.”

“She never said anything,” Raiden said. “Did she say anything to you?” Aryn shook his head in response.

“It may be why Kordelia is getting stronger,” Sirona summarised. “A boost of his magic in Talmon to something that existed within her mind already, that’d been decaying.”

“I could sense it,” Aryn choked out. “A dark presence that was cold and brutal. It was taunting her mind, flaying her from the inside out.” Rage suffocated Raiden, that Kora was suffering with this within her mind, whilst also striving to survive here. He needed to do more, he needed to do better.

Skylar released a deep breath before gently placing a hand on Kora’s limp arm. They all stilled as Skylar observed her for a few moments. “Goodbye, my friend.” Her lip wobbled, her doe eyes glazing over briefly, but her head dipped imperceptibly, a wall flying up within. “How do we fix this?”

Raiden met his sister’s stare and she nodded once, blinking away her tears. She was ready.

“For one, you can all stop treating her like she’s going to combust any moment,” Aryn snapped. “She wants to be Kora, let her be Kora.”

The group silenced, shame weaved between them all, a jagged mirror reflecting their consequences back at them in the form of Kora’s withering control. Raiden’s pulse quickened. They had to do something. Whatever Kordelia returned as, it was Barron’s magic, his darkness, his disease. It would infest these lands, and destroy Galen.

“Agreed,” Sirona replied. “We must move forward, but I never thought she would reach this point. I underestimated Barron’s hold over her. This is beyond my knowledge. Beyond Altha’s.”

“Set up a circle. Form our wind compass,” Aerion’s calm voice drifted in, and Aryn visibly tensed. Raiden raised a brow at his brother stood in the doorway, his grey magoire open in his hands.

“If you tell me we have to start singing, I’m leaving,” Skylar griped as she shifted to sit to the east. Raiden remained to the west of Kora, as Aerion stood north beside Aryn, and Sirona shuffled southwards of her crumpled body, cushioning herself on the thick, red rug.

Kora’s breaths were faint, her lashes fluttering over her freckled cheeks. Raiden reached out, unperturbed from the looks of his family as he wiped away the black tears, not wanting a single molecule of Barron’s touch upon her.

“We may be able to channel to other mages. A kind of positive boost to counteract Barron’s negative one. Raiden and Aryn’s bonds can be the anchor, and our ties to them should channel through.” Aerion flipped another page, scanning the language quickly.

“Do we need runes?” Sirona asked. “Channelling only works with runes.”