Heart of Darkness
Chapter 45
Lina struggled to sit upright in the bed, forced dead limbs to move like leaden weights, but ultimately needed Naga’s assistance. She was about to snarl something about her arm and leg being asleep when her gaze fell on the figure sitting in the chair at the foot of her bed. The oath that escaped the redhead made even Naga flinch. “What the hell happened to you?”
Xellos, or rather, half of Xellos huddled miserably in the chair, a blanket tossed over him to help hide his appearance. It was as if Garv had torn him in half all over again, though by the looks of it, he’d not even had the reserves of energy to escape to whatever place he called home. It was damned disconcerting, as if Xellos were sticking only part of himself through the chair… which was theoretically possible, but Lina could tell that he wasn’t doing that. Instead of answering right away, he looked at her, his eyes drained of almost all color. That unnerved Lina into looking away.
“When the chambermaid found you on the floor, Amelia and I had no choice but to try to get Jedah’s attention. Xellos answered the calls instead, as Jedah was ‘busy’ elsewhere.” Naga said, shushing Xellos from trying to speak. She was becoming quite experienced at being nursemaid… and in a strange sort of way, it appealed. It was hard to screw up when you were simply pulling a blanket up over someone’s lap.
“That doesn’t explain this, Naga. Xellos is of the Astral Plane by nature. There shouldn’t be that much capable of doing something like this to him.” Lina retorted. “My arm and leg are asleep, not my brain.” She waved a hand at the Mazoku. “The last time I saw anything like this was when Garv beat up on Xellos for a while before he got away. And even Garv left him with enough power to get away. Whatever attacked him this time around, obviously didn’t!”
“There was a trap, Lina. A very nasty trap intended for someone else capable of searching for Zelgadis like you did. When you broke free of me, the trap sprung. Your arm and leg took the part of the aftermath that I couldn’t block. You should recover soon,” Xellos said weakly, curling a little tighter under the blanket. He reminded Naga of a sick cat. Wretched, and yet too dignified to give in to it.
Xellos had saved her life? Lina was more than a bit nonplussed. “You… grabbed me in the Astral Plane, trying to rescue me from a trap?” Her thoughts refused to wrap around it. Maybe her brain was asleep too.
Xellos managed a feeble smile. “That about sums it up.” He barely had the energy to hold himself together, excess speech only made it worse. He just hoped that Lina would not ask who had set the trap. He knew who it had been set by, and he knew who it had been set for.
“The trap was set for Jedah,” Lina said calmly, looking at Xellos as if she could read his thoughts, as if by some strangeness they were spilling out of his half-form and falling about, free for all to read. Maybe they were.
“Zelgadis must have known that Jedah would try to find him once he thought we were safe,” Lina continued. It was amazing how much utter and cold despair allowed one to accept as fact. “I should have known there was a trap and I really should have known better than to walk stupidly into it.” Once again, she’d been blinded by her concern for Zelgadis.
“Lina, hush. You too, Xellos.” Naga said to the fragmenting Mazoku, though he hadn’t spoken. “Both of you need to rest and recover.” She pulled the blanket up a bit over Xellos and he regarded her with pale-tinted violet eyes.
“You need rest as well, Naga,” he whispered, causing Lina to look to her once-companion in alarm.
“You haven’t rested at all? Naga, don’t make me fireball you just to make my point… I’ll be fine, it’s Xellos that needs to rest.” It spoke volumes that Lina hadn’t said ‘fruitcake’ or used some other colorful reference for the miserable Mazoku in the chair. “Now get out of here and stop distracting him,” Lina said, looking pointedly at Naga.
For a moment, Naga resisted. She was needed here, to keep an eye on them, wasn’t she? Then it occurred to her that she was very tired, and Amelia ought to be back soon, so she could stick her head in and check on these two later.
The door closed behind Naga and Lina fell backwards onto her pillow, as if she’d been forcing herself to stay upright until the other woman was gone. Heartbeats passed and Xellos became aware of a jumble of usable emotions tangible in the room. Pain, sadness, anger… they were all rolling away from the sorceress on the bed. And a sound, a soft sound like… like… like something that Xellos had never heard before. It was tiny, that little sound, softly repetitive and infinitely pained.
Lina Inverse Greywords was crying.
Instantly,
Xellos became uneasy. He would have left if he could have, would have flung
himself on the
“Xellos, shut up,” Lina replied, tears thick in her voice. She wanted to be miserable, wanted to take the chance to wallow in her own feelings and gain her own comfort from it. She hadn’t wanted him there, but it couldn’t be helped by either one of them, so she just gave into it.
Once again deciding that humans were incomprehensible creatures, Xellos shut up and let Lina cry. As awkward as it might be, and as potentially embarrassing for them both it was…it helped them both.