2.7.1

Content warnings: descriptions of injuries

Joshua was woken up by a whistling noise. He bolted upright, hands already closing around the handle of his bat, then relaxed as he realized the sound had come from Kai. The immortal was shaking Peter awake with one hand. Kai’s other arm was black and shriveled, and his left leg was bent at a weird angle—probably broken, by the looks of it.

Kai looked worse than yesterday, maybe, but neither injury was new.

Jinal looked similarly beat up. The sleeves of her shirt had been ripped off, and bite marks riddled her exposed arms. A deep gash ran the length of her left leg. More than that, there was a measured fatigue to her movements. Joshua could understand that; he was tired, too, despite sleeping all night, and hunger gnawed at his stomach.

Joshua rose to his feet. The sun wasn’t scorchingly hot yet, but it would get that way pretty soon. As Peter awoke, Joshua set about tying his jacket around his waist and throwing his hair up in a bun. Once that was done, he turned to Kai and Jinal, blatantly ignoring Peter.

“Are you going to be able to keep your promise to get us out of here?” he asked. “You both look like shit.”

“Worse than shit!” Peter chimed in. “What happened to your leg, Kai?”

“It’s fine,” Jinal said coolly. Her back was to the rest of them as she scanned the horizon for shadow beasts. “He can levitate himself.”

“Jinal will have to amputate my arm at some point, but we’ll deal with that later,” Kai added.

“Oh, that solves that, then!” Peter said cheerfully. He stood up and began to dust himself off. Joshua pinched the bridge of his nose. If Kai wanted to push himself through hell, that was his own business—until Kai collapsed and it became Joshua’s problem.

“Forget I said anything, then,” Joshua snarked. “My bad for being concerned. I’m no doctor, but I thought you immortals would heal faster.”

"Certain wounds will heal almost immediately. Other wounds take time. All of them heal faster than they would on a mortal," Kai explained. "This right here," he added, gesturing to his injured arm, "is a result of shadow beast poison. If you get bitten badly enough, the poison spreads through your entire body. For mortals, that process takes a matter of minutes without treatment. For me, it's taken a couple of days for the poison to even reach my upper arm."

“I can understand the poison, sure,” Joshua replied, his patience wearing thin. “The limp, though? I don’t give a damn what you think of me, but I’d at least like some transparency if you’re asking me to place my survival in your hands.”

“The Necromancer shattered my tibia two days ago," Kai admitted. "It's knitting together, but I took another hit last night that undid some of the healing."

What?

Joshua glanced over at Peter, but the gremlin seemed content to watch Joshua and Kai’s conversation, as if he were spectating at a tennis match. Joshua made a face—the one he always made when Joel pulled a stupid stunt.

“Why’d you take a hit last night?” Joshua said slowly. Kai hesitated.

"...We got attacked,” he said reluctantly. “Multiple times.”

“So instead of setting up a watch, you defended us yourself?” Joshua snapped. Anger surged in his chest. “I know we seem like children to you two, but I haven’t been a child in a long time. I’d appreciate it if you stopped treating me like one.”

"The longer we go without food, the more you're going to need your sleep,” Jinal explained, enunciating her words as if speaking to a child. “So we chose not to wake you.”

Joshua may have been externally angry, but internally, he was focused on how he would’ve done the exact same thing. He hated that—hated that his instincts were anywhere close to those of the person who’d saddled him with wings.

“Destroy yourself, for all I care,” Joshua growled, “but you’re our only guide to the center. Do it later. Stop acting like glorified babysitters.”

“I’m not babysitting you,” Kai said thinly. “I’m making sure you get home in one piece. You have people waiting for you back home.” Kai didn’t finish that thought. He didn’t need to.

“I have no intention of dying here,” Joshua hissed. “Do what you want on your own time, I don’t care—but when it comes to my survival, I deserve a say. I’m tired of you making decisions for me.” Joshua’s pride kept him rooted to the spot, unwilling to concede the point. Luckily, Kai had no such inclination.

“I’ll wake you next time, then,” he said coolly. He rose to his feet—or maybe that wasn’t the right way to describe it, because as Kai stood, a paper-thin disc of air materialized under his feet, keeping him upright despite the broken leg. “Let’s move.”

The walk through the desert was long, hot, and tiring. Walking through the sand was hard, and the sun beat down mercilessly. Joshua extended his wings to keep the hot, heavy feathers off of his back, but that wasn’t a perfect solution—it left him tired and achy—so Joshua was more than a little relieved when they reached the end of the desert.

The ground slowly turned to rock beneath Joshua’s feet, and though the sun was still working in full force, there were at least tall boulders that could be used as shade. They were walking for less than five minutes through the rocky terrain before the first pack of shadow beasts materialized, surrounding the group.

Joshua took to the skies almost immediately, shaking the sand from his wings as he ascended. Kai and Jinal started taking out beasts on one side of the circle, fighting back to back, and Joshua took that as his cue to start working on the other half.

Thanks to Kai, the air currents were always at Joshua’s back as he slingshotted from beast to beast with his super speed, slamming his bat repeatedly into shadowy flesh. A shadow beast lunged at him, claws extended, and Joshua darted out of the way with ease, using his momentum to charge into the next beast over. Before either beast could recover, Joshua rocketed into the air, then swooped into a nosedive. Using gravity to his advantage, he smashed into one of the beasts from above, then withdrew at the last second, letting the beast crash into the rocky ground below.

The maneuver left Joshua’s back wide open, though, and a shadow beast seized the opportunity, lunging towards the winged man. Joshua braced himself for a nasty hit, ready to counterattack. And then a dagger sliced into the beast’s hide, and the beast vaporized in an explosion of shadow. Joshua turned around to find Peter standing there, one hand extended as if he’d just thrown a knife.

Peter’s assistance didn’t irk Joshua. It was the fact that he wasn’t surprised to find Peter there. When had he started trusting Peter, of all people, with his back?

What’s wrong, Joshua? Peter asked, an impish grin on his face. Upset that I beat you to the punch?

No, Joshua grumbled. Disappointed that I was stupid enough to leave my back exposed.

Well, you might not trust me to have your back, Peter said casually. But I trust you!

Joshua blinked. He’d done nothing to earn Peter’s trust. The two had barely worked together beyond the prison break, and Joshua had been nothing but ornery towards Peter. Joshua flitted out of the way of a shadow beast’s claws, still pondering Peter’s words, then brought his bat down on a shadow beast’s head, vaporizing it. Eventually, his curiosity got the better of him.

Why the hell do you trust me? Joshua snapped.

Because I have to, Peter said casually. Joshua could almost hear the frown in Peter’s voice. We’re on the same team, and teams are built on trust. If we don’t trust each other, we’ll die.

Joshua was left speechless, and as he hovered in the air, dumbfounded, a blast of laser fire came shooting towards him. Jinal reacted faster than Joshua; she came seemingly out of nowhere and knocked Joshua out of the air. As she did so, the laser hit her in the back, sending her flying across the rocky terrain. It shouldn’t have been possible for a single hit to hurt so much, but Jinal remained hunched over, clutching her head with both hands. Blue and black flames began to flicker around Jinal’s form.

Kai cursed. Joshua, take Peter and get as far away as you possibly can.

What— Joshua bit the inside of his cheek. He’d ask for later. For now, he swallowed his guilt and swooped down, scooping Peter up in a bridal carry (which wasn’t hard, considering how short Peter was). As he flew into the air, using his super speed to put more distance between himself and Jinal, he was keenly aware of blue and black flames spiraling outwards from the spot where Jinal had gone down.

Joshua didn’t get very far before he was overtaken by a blinding flash of sky blue. A wave of heat washed over him, and though Joshua expected the heat to be searing, it was warm in quality—almost comforting.

And then the light cleared.

Joshua gaped in surprise at the changed landscape below. Peter let out a low whistle. The shadow beasts were gone. That wasn’t the issue anymore.

As far as the eye could see, the rocky terrain had been dusted, turned to sand, and where the ground had been relatively flat before, there was now a mile-wide crater. Lying in the middle of the crater, surrounded by charred rock, was Jinal, and kneeling next to her was Kai. Joshua couldn’t tell more than that from this height.

Slowly, cautiously, Joshua descended. As soon as he was in range, he dropped Peter and ran over to the two immortals. Kai had a glowing green hand on Jinal’s back, and it looked like he was fighting to stay awake. As Joshua approached, Kai gave a haggard smile.

“What the hell was that?” Joshua asked, a slight tremor in his voice.

“Soul stealing rifle,” Kai said wearily. “If you’d been hit, you would have died. That’s why Jinal took the hit for you.” Joshua felt a stab of guilt.

"Why did she explode?” Peter asked, peering curiously at Jinal’s unconscious form.

“As the laser blast tried to cleave her soul from her body, and she resisted, the whole thing destabilized her soul,” Kai explained. “And…” He grimaced. “That doesn’t explain anything, does it.”

“No,” Joshua agreed. “It doesn’t.” He scanned the horizon one last time—it wasn’t likely that anything had survived the blast, but it didn’t hurt to check. Then, he sat next to Kai. “Start talking, old man.”

Kai brushed his hair out of his face with a shaking hand. His face was drawn with exhaustion. “How much do you know about Yaran’s curse?”

“Nothing!” Peter said helpfully. Joshua shot Peter a dirty look.

“It makes you ‘beings of energy,’ whatever that means,” Joshua grumbled. “The Necromancer made it sound like you need to consume souls to survive.”

Kai winced. “That is… one way to handle the curse, yes. We need energy the way mortals need food. Stealing a soul is the easiest way to fill that need, and it pays the most dividends, but there are better ways to obtain that energy: in the chemical energy that forms bonds, in the electrical energy that powers the world, in the entropy of the universe. Even eating can serve as a stopgap solution. But the only permanent solution is stealing a soul.”

“So you’re like energy vampires,” Peter said firmly. Kai gave Peter a blank look. “What? You need soul energy the way vampires need blood. Oh, and you’re immortal. Am I wrong?”

Joshua frowned. He hated to admit it, but Peter’s logic was sound. Kai seemed even less enthused by this realization.

“You still haven’t explained why your wife just exploded,” Joshua said dryly.

“All in good time,” Kai said patiently. As he spoke, he seemed to be recovering energy somehow. Joshua figured it had to do with the entropy of the universe, or whatever.

“This has to do with the other half of the curse—the less pleasant part of the curse,” Kai continued. “The curse also splinters our souls into two. I won’t go into the details, but essentially, maintaining a balance between those two pieces is rather… difficult. When Jinal was hit with that soul stealing rifle, the balance was broken, and her powers spiraled out of control as a result.”

“Oookay. So why aren’t we dead, too?” Peter asked. “If she really lost control, she should’ve dusted us.” Kai grimaced.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I can guess. Jinal probably put everything she had into keeping you two safe. Does that make sense?”

It didn’t fully make sense. Kai was still hiding something. Joshua considered asking what, exactly, the immortal was hiding, but then he looked between Kai, who still looked too drained to stand straight, and Jinal, who was still unconscious.

There was no doubt that the Ennead members were powerful—Jinal had just changed the landscape, for Karai’s sake—but they were still humans. Immortals, yes, but immortals with limits. Joshua decided not to push the point.

“If that answers all of your questions,” Kai said evenly, “we need to get moving.” He gently lifted Jinal in a bridal carry. “She’ll wake up soon, but we can’t afford to wait around.”

“Right.” Joshua exhaled slowly. He rose to his feet, and Peter did the same. “Lead the way, then.”

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