Chapter 546: Terminal News

On the top floor of Norneau’s hospital, Owyn’s awakening was far from painful. He felt like he should be feeling pain, but it was just a dull throb in his skin. He remembered sharing a smile with Arc after they killed the monster together, before she collapsed, and he tried to jump up to her.

Tried, in that he’d immediately managed to fall, before he was put on a stretcher and floated to the hospital with the rest of the incursion victims. Somewhere in all that, he passed out, and now he stared down at his own body, which was covered in blue bandages soaked in some kind of liquid.

He turned his head, an act that hurt immensely, and noticed that the room he was in seemed very similar to the one he’d woken up in when he first arrived in Norneau. Unlike that time, he was in a four-poster bed with various inscrutable devices clinging to the posts. When he finished turning his head, he saw a little card on the side table that said "Press The Sigil" in blocky script.

Under that was the sigil, but when he tapped the card, nothing happened. When he realized the sigil was actually on the little guardrail that occupied the headward side of the bed, he pressed it until it clicked, feeling a slight tingle of magic. Not ten seconds later, two beautiful figures entered his room from separate portals.

One was a foxkin, but unlike any foxkin he’d ever seen, she had silvery fur with tiny hints of red, and nine tails. Her eyes were kind, and she regarded him with concern.

The second person was, unfortunately, someone he was familiar with. With her wing stowed away, Malzkael wasn’t as intimidating. She was beautiful in the same way that Raven was, but more mature. Her darkly intelligent eyes regarded him as one might regard a dog that wet the bed.

"I’d ask how you’re feeling, but I think I know," the foxkin said. "I’m Kordia, Witch Archon and one of Arc’s moms. You’ve already met Malzkael."

Malzkael let out a small huff. "Let’s just skip to the Good News, Bad News part, Kor." She didn’t wait for a response before turning to Owyn. "Which do you want first?"

"Huh?" Owyn groaned, unfamiliar with the bit.

"The good news or the bad news."

"Did everyone make it?" he asked slowly.

"Yeah," Malzkael replied. "We’re keeping everyone here until things get sorted out. I’d say the worst one coming in was your vampire friend, but at least his wounds were conventional."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that’s the limit of what I’ll say; Doctor-Patient confidentiality and all. Also, that wasn’t the good news or the bad."

Finally, clueing in on what she meant, Owyn asked, "What’s the bad news?"

"The bad news is: You managed to ignore your own body’s need to recover, pushed your magic too hard, and now you’re one bad spell away from a gruesome death." She frowned. "I can tell from your face you don’t understand, so let me ask you: Has it hurt to use magic ever since you got here?"

Owyn nodded. "It was just a little at first... Why didn’t you just tell me?"

"Because you didn’t have any symptoms and you didn’t tell us," Malzkael replied. "The only reason we know what’s happening to you is that we’ve seen it before. A ’little at first’ should have told you to take it easy. Or at least to report the pain," she sighed.

"If you’d listened to your body, stuck to the basics they teach at the Academy, you would have healed just fine in a few months. Now, you’ve pretty much got two options, three if you include doing nothing and probably dying, which brings us to the good news that you can be cured. I’ll let you handle the explanation," Malz said the last to Kordia.

Kordia at least had the grace to wait for Owyn to absorb Malz’s prognosis.

Owyn knew himself well enough to sense that if he wasn’t so tired, he might have struggled more with the news. Eventually, he made eye contact with the witch and nodded.

"Owyn, I won’t pretend this will be an easy decision. The first way we have to save your life is to seal off your magic."

"No," Owyn responded the moment she stopped speaking. "I won’t... there’s got to be another way." He was just now discovering how wonderful magic could be, and he didn’t want to give that up.

"If we don’t seal it, using magic at all - which most people do unconsciously - will kill you at some point. Part of this is because of the amount of exposure you had to the mana of the spirit that brought you here."

"Spirit? It was a Titan... a monster."

Kordia shook her head. "It was a land spirit, but not one that could communicate with people, from what we gathered of your testimony and the corpse. The Veil puts such spirits near the edge of death, and when that happens, they become susceptible to corruption. Some of the corruption in that spirit worked its way into you while you were inside it, merging with and harming your ’gate,’ the source of your magic. But therein also lies some hope for you to keep your magic. Right now, your body is trying to evolve."

"But giants don’t evolve," Owyn said, trying to wrap his head around what she was saying. He knew that most beastkin could evolve slowly, while most angels and demons did so in bursts.

"Normally, you’d be right. And that’s why this evolution has nowhere to go, because you seem too distant from any beastkin, angelic, or demonic heritage for it to latch onto. But that doesn’t mean such heritage can’t be introduced, now that you’re in the state you’re in." Kordia paused to let her words sink in.

To his credit, it didn’t take long. "You’re talking about transforming me into something else? Why not just ’stabilize’ me with another giant?"

Malzkael replied, "Too similar. Using another mankin in the mix would just destabilize things worse. And we’d be back to square one, probably with permanent damage, and you soul-bound to that person. Let me ask you, though: Is it so hard to believe?" She uncrossed her arms. "People have been transforming themselves for eons; this is just faster, and we might be able to control it enough to minimize the physical changes."

"It’s not something I’ve ever heard of," Owyn admitted.

Kordia resumed, "There aren’t beastfolk shifters where you come from? Or people getting converted to angels or demons?"

"I’ve heard of beastfolk who can transform back and forth between forms, but those last two are just myths."

As Malzkael muttered something about ’Gaps in questioning,’ Kordia spoke over her. "You are very much in a place where myths are real. For now, take some time and think. You need to avoid using your magic. And in the meantime, you need to train your control of mana so you can hold it still. Learning the latter will help the process of transformation, if that’s what you choose. There are brute force methods, but those are far more painful."

"How much time do I have?" Owyn asked, dreading the answer.

Kordia looked to Malzkael, sharing some unseen communication before they nodded to each other. "At best, you might have a few weeks before complete destabilization. To be safe, the latest to start would be one month."

"What happens if I get to that point? Complete destabilization."

Malz cleared her throat, once more assuming the role of bad news messenger. "Your body will liquefy as your mana goes out of control, trying to convert your mental and physical formations into a form with no intact template. You’d be no better than the slimes we use to clean the sewers."

Just the thought was horrifying enough, but then she had to say something worse. "Or your body finds some template to latch onto, probably something nearby, and you mutate out of control and probably go mad in the process, reduced to base instincts like hunger. You might even kill someone before you get put down. But in the best case scenario... You explode. Whatever you decide, you need to hold off on casting spells. The ankhestis soak will restore you physically, but those wounds aren’t just physical. They will reopen if you overdo it, now that they’re there." She said it all so matter-of-factly that it left little doubt she knew what she was talking about, although...

"How do you know all this?" Owyn asked, his mind filling with strange suspicions.

"Experience. Research. Not the kind I can share without locking you into a world you should want no part of," Malzkael scratched the back of her neck before her hand settled on her silver necklace for just a moment.

"Is it the same world Arc is part of?" The question dropped from his lips before he could think about it.

"Not by choice," Kordia said sadly, before closing her eyes and looking to her right, as if through the wall. "And speaking of Arc, she’s coming. I can feel she’s bringing friends."

"Then that means we’re done here," Malzkael said. "My office?"

Kordia nodded before Malzkael opened a portal to a rather spacious, darkly decorated location that seemed more fit for a mortuary than a medical facility. Before stepping in after her partner, she said, "You can tell your friends. Maybe they can help with your decision."

Owyn looked away, hearing laughter in the hall and suddenly feeling guilty about bearing such ill tidings. "I... don’t know what to do..."

"It’s up to you. Stay strong, Owyn," Kordia said as the gate closed.

The door opened a moment later, and Arc entered with a smile on her face that was like the sun after a long night. "Guess what! We aren’t in trouble!"

Owyn smiled back weakly as Raven and Veng entered after her, clearly recognizing he looked like shit right now, to judge by their faces.

"That’s great," he replied, unable to bring himself to speak of his ailment.