Chapter 110: Price Of Magic

When Lord Damon was strangling them with the black mist, Nymeria was staring from the bed.

Slowly, her eyes were flipped open, and it took minutes for her to register what was happening around her.

She was just staring at the ceiling of the safe space with her brain not working for some seconds.

Then, her last memories started coming back slowly to her; from them leaving for Post 6, to them arriving at Post 6, to the assassination attack on Reynold, and then to the Golem attack.

Then she remembered being pushed off the ground and landing on that wooden stick that pierced right through from her back to her front.

Nymeria closed her eyes tightly as she touched the spot where the wood had hit her...

Just then, the smell of burning flesh made her brain realize she was not the only one in the room..

Taking in her environment, she murmured softly, "Hey... don’t tell me I missed the intense fight..."

She tried to get up, but the pain that hit her was too much for her to stand, so she fell right back down.

Every head turned to her direction. Lyra was already standing up from the floor and rushing over to her. "Hey! What do you think you are doing?!" Lyra scolded as she reached her side. "You are not supposed to be standing up at all! Your body has not fully healed!"

Lyra gently pulled Nymeria’s clothes back to check the spot. There was still a scar there. Lyra gently pressed the scar and murmured, "Okay... no swelling..."

"Does it feel numb?" Lyra asked.

"No," Nymeria said softly. "I don’t feel any numbness."

Then Lyra applied much more pressure right on the scar. "Do you feel pain?"

Nymeria looked at Lyra’s face. She was looking all serious as she asked the question.

She swallowed hard. "A little..."

Lyra removed her hand and took a step back. "You will be fine. But you need enough rest. No heavy lifting, no fighting, and definitely no training or performing magic."

Nymeria looked at Lyra like she was speaking Latin. All her life, she had never stayed or sit around without doing anything. How was she supposed to go a whole day without practicing magic or keeping herself fit?

"Yep. Not happening. " Nymeria tried to stand up again but another sharp pain hit her, and she fell right back on the bed.

"Don’t be a pain in the ass!" Lyra yelled at her. "Stop being childish!"

Nyx walked over to the bed, her face serious. "You have to listen to her, Nymeria. This is not a joke."

Nymeria could only let out a heavy groan and relax her back on the bed.

Her eyes then shifted and landed on Reynold. He was still on the ground, and holding his neck like he did not even know what was happening in his surroundings.

Nymeria shifted her eyes away from him and pointed toward the charred, burned body on the floor. "What happened?"

Gideon followed her eyes to the corpse. "Lord Damon was here to kill Reynold for killing his son. He even helped the Malpas tribe get past the perimeter of Post 6... so basically, he was involved in everything." Gideon let out a deep sigh. "He stained his hands with black magic, and that was why the dragon burned him."

Nymeria pouted her lips. "Too bad I missed it."

She shifted her eyes back to Reynold. "Are you okay?"

Only then did Reynold raise his head. He shook his head slowly. "I will be fine..."

West let out a tired sigh. "At least he did not die by our hands."

"What are we going to do now with the burned corpse?" Evan asked, looking at the corpse on the floor.

"Bury it," Gideon said.

He started looking around for something to protect his hands and luckily, he found a pair of thick leather gloves. He put them on, then grabbed a second pair, and tossed them to Evan. "Help me out so we can go bury him."

Evan hesitated for a second, but he took the gloves anyway.

Lyra grabbed her light jacket from the chair. "I am coming with you. I want to see if I can find any medicinal leaves outside that could help Nymeria recover faster."

"I am coming too," Niya added, stepping up next to Lyra.

Gideon turned to Nyx. "Help us bring the sword from the corner so we can use it to dig."

Nyx walked over and grabbed the sword. But before she left the room with the others, she turned back to look at Reynold and Nymeria. "Are you two good?"

"Yeah." Both of them nodded.

West scratched his head, looking back and forth between Reynold and Nymeria, before rushing toward the door. "I will just go with them," he murmured, and rushed to the door and followed the group outside.

Soon, the door shut, leaving only Reynold and Nymeria inside the room.

Nymeria looked at him and murmured, "Lord Damon really did a number on you for you to be this shocked and speechless."

Reynold stared at the floor. His voice was barely above a whisper. "All those officers... they died because I killed Damon’s son. If I did not kill Hektor, Lord Damon would never have teamed up with the Malpas tribe." He pressed his back against the wall. "How am I supposed to forgive myself? Because of my mistake, people died... and you almost died too."

Nymeria shook her head gently. "Do not do that to yourself. Lord Damon only teamed up with the Malpas tribe because he let his grief cloud his judgment. That was his choice, not yours."

"And whose fault is it that he was grieving?" Reynold asked with his eyes filled with guilt.

Nymeria let out a slow sigh. "Do you know why I never used my blood magic?"

Reynold shook his head, as he look up at her.

"When I was ten years old," Nymeria began, with her eyes suddenly moving to the the wall, "my blood magic manifested for the first time when i was fighting with a boy who was bullying a little girl. I was so angry, and I did not know how it happened, but suddenly... I was hearing every single heartbeat of the living things around me."

She paused, and swallowed hard as her chest heaved.

"Before I could stop it, my magic pulled the blood right out of their bodies. Everyone around me fell to the ground, dead. And I was the only one standing there, and covered in their blood."

Nymeria raised the back of her hand and wiped the little tear from her eye.

"I have lived with that guilt every single day since then," she continued softly. "That is the price I have to pay. Magic comes with a cost. When raw power bursts out of you for the first time with out control, it destroys things. If it was not Hektor, it was going to be someone else. You can not change or undo what has already been done, Reynold. But you can learn to control your power so that it never happens again."

Reynold’s shoulders dropped completely as he stared at Nymeria’s soft face. For the first time he was seeing her soft side.

The weight in Reynold’s chest suddenly loosened just a bit. He let out a long sigh and rested his head back against the wall.

He raised his hand, rubbed his face roughly, and used the hand to cover his eyes for a few seconds.

Finally, he pulled his hand down and looked at her. "I told them about Hektor... but I only told them half the truth. Hektor was there that night when my power first manifested. I could not control the storm inside me, and it killed him."

Nymeria licked her dry lips and gave him a slow nod. "Thank you."

Reynold shook his head. "I should be the one thanking you. You really took a massive risk to help me back there."

Nymeria just nodded without saying anything.

After a short silence, her eyes furrowed like she just remembered something. "Wait... did they ask why the Blood Seeker Orb did not turn red when it was your turn?"

Reynold shook his head. "No. But if they ever ask, I will just tell them I slipped away and hid before it could reach my turn."

Nymeria let out a soft chuckle.

Reynold suddenly laughed with the tension completely leaving his body.

"Seriously, you scared the shit out of me earlier... It is good to have you back, Nymeria."

The two of them stared at each other for with their expressions warm and soft.

BANG!

The door was suddenly pushed open with a loud thud. West burst into the room while breathing heavily with a wide grin on his face.

"Guys! You won’t believe it...we just caught a huge wild boar!"