“What’s wrong?” Zaramir’s frantic voice as he pressed the back of his fingers to her forehead snapped her back to the present.

  “Nothing,” Corabelle replied, too quickly.

  “You’re warm,” he muttered. “Too soon for an infection, and the Runebind should have taken care of it right away.” After that she couldn’t tell what he was saying as his face was morphing to roughly concealed apprehension as he quickly ran out of easily solvable problems.

  She didn’t want to tell him the truth. If he wasn’t planning on telling her his feelings or, even easier, if he was in as deep a denial as he was with Kyrian, she wasn’t going to bring it up.

  However, her skin betrayed her. All the blood rushed to her face upon her realization, heating her up to a temperature he clearly found concerning.

  “I’m just overwhelmed,” She brushed away his hand, before she coiled her arms around herself, digging her nails into her ribs in hopes the prickling pain would make the redness she felt in her cheeks vanish. Besides, it was not a lie, she was just hoping it would be enough of the truth, “I’ll be fine.”

  He retracted his hand somewhat reluctantly, “You’ll tell me if something’s wrong?” It was less of a question than it was a hope.

  “I’m a bit sore,” She muttered. She hoped an easy answer would ease his nerves. “And like I said, overwhelmed. I'll be fine, really.”

  Without a word, he stood up. The sound of glass vials and bottle clinking together filled the silence as he rummaged through the nearby shelves.

  After a moment he returned with a small vial of vaguely red translucent liquid, “In theory this should help, but I’m not certain if it’s effectiveness with everything your body has gone through.”

  The liquid was sweet like nectar, and she immediately began to feel the effects. The soreness in her throat vanished, the stiffness in her joints eased, the remaining headache dissipated.

  But the prickling sensation she felt where pressure was placed on her skin only grew. Now the pressure of the floor beneath her sent spikes up her legs and spine. She quickly pulled her hands away from her body as her fingertips suddenly felt like hot steel against her skin. This pain was frighteningly familiar, an unnatural feeling that left her with an instead fear of what was about to happen.

  This was the pain of an overloaded Spark.

  The look of alarm that appeared on Zaramir’s face told Corabelle she didn’t need to tell him as much.

  As he reached into his pocket his fingers came back covered in ink that hummed lightly with magical energy, the Inkblade had shattered, unsurprisingly, during the altercation with the Fae.

  Zaramir flew to his feet, heading for a large chest on the opposite side of the room in frantic search of a replacement.

  The cracks between the blocks of the stone floor around Corabelle began to glow red hot. The rank smell of the smoke of burning blood filled the room.

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  Despite the pain of movement, she stood up, quickly making her point of contact with the floor as small as possible to avoid searing herself on the molten stone edges.

  The room grew overbearingly hot around her, drying the last of the wet blood on her clothes and leaving the grotesque smell of broiling blood clinging to her. Zaramir finally found what he was looking for and began to traverse the rapidly expanding mosaic of magma. That had become the lab floor

  She could feel his sweat from the heat of the room as his body pressed close to her on the small tile, avoiding the searing heat. He yanked down her sleeve, tearing it, as he exposed a portion of her shoulder to work on.

  The magma began to dwindle as he etched a triplicate of new Runebinds. The heat finally vanished entirely as he finished a fourth.

  She was left with a fresh row of small runic circles in a neat line down the back of her left arm

  “I’m sorry,” Zaramir said as he took a step back, releasing her arm, “I’m not entirely sure why that happened. Perhaps I should have suspected your Spark might be slightly unstable after what it went through, but you shouldn’t have had anywhere near enough power left to cause that. I’m also sorry about the new Runebinds, I didn’t have time to consider the placement. Much longer and the floor would have collapsed.”

  She rubbed the sore, but healing, site of the new Runebinds, “I understand. It’s alright.” She said, as she examined the strangely careful markings for the urgency at which they were drawn. “What do these do?”

  “It seems that your Spark has a perpetuity for elemental, specifically fire, magic when it becomes overloaded.” He reached out wiping a drop of fresh blood away from the top Runebind, though the effort seemed relatively pointless given the state of the rest of her body. “This first one should provide some resistance to flame based elemental damage. Of course, nothing can fully protect against it, but it should make the burns less severe.”

  “And the other three?” She questioned.

  He releases a short, almost embarrassed, sounding breath, “To be perfectly honest, when the first hardly had an effect the others were just the first things that came to mind.” He pressed a finger to the next one, “This one is the same Runebind I have that can remove pain. Unfortunately it doesn't work on one’s self but it does have its uses, namely it draws a fairly fairly high amount of latent energy.” He moved his hand down, “The other two are for protection, combined they should stop nearly any non-magical attack.” He withdrew his hand, “I’m sorry That I didn’t have time to ask what you might want.”

  “You don’t have to keep apologizing,” She pulled the torn fabric back over the Runebinds.

  There was no point in apologies. Unavoidable pain would continue to happen. She would need more Runebinds eventually. The Fae would continue to enact their will.

  The unavoidable was her life now. Apologies would do nothing to change that.

  “Yes, I do,” he replied firmly. “Even if you think my apologies are meaningless, even if my words are poor, they’re true. You have no idea how sorry I am for everything.”

  “I know you are.” She told him. “You can keep saying so if it makes you feel better, but it won’t fix anything.” Her voice turned bitter, sharp.

  She took a breath quelling the anger before it grew. This was all his doing, but it wasn’t his fault. She doubted he’d considered the full consequences, doubted he’d thought past the moment. She didn’t think he knew he was lying, but she knew he wasn’t sorry for bringing her back, wasn’t sorry for doing the things he thought would protect her.

  “It won’t,” he agreed. “But I've told too many lies. I need you to believe this one truth, even if I have to repeat it for centuries. Even if you don’t want to hear it.”

  “What about,” She released her breath. “We just be done with the lies for good? I don’t care if you think they’ll protect me. Once you start telling me the truth more often, maybe then I’ll listen.”

  Her words were useless, she knew that to be true at least. He would still lie if he thought it would save her some pain and he had a secret, even if he didn’t know it himself.

  “Not that I suspect you will believe me,” His voice was firm. “ But I am done with lies. If you ask me something, you will receive an honest answer. I did not enjoy lying to you, and I don’t ever intend on doing it again.” His words were so forceful she almost believed it. “I’m not even forced to keep my work secret any longer. I promise I won’t lie to you again.”