THE DRAGON'S RETURN

The Price of Healing

The old man’s blue light died the second Thorn’s blade touched his wooden staff.

Splinters scattered across the wet stone shore, floating on the warm surface of the steaming pool. The keeper stumbled back, his boots slipping on the slick moss as he stared at his broken weapon in shock.

"You are mad," the keeper gasped, clutching his bruised wrists. "The chaos inside you will shatter this spring!"

Thorn did not lower his sword. His jaw felt like a block of frozen iron, every word forcing its way past his teeth like cracking dry wood. "Step away from the water."

"Thorn, please," Lyra pleaded, her silver light fluttering rapidly around his ear. "He is not fighting you anymore. Just get into the spring!"

"He is in my way," Thorn rasped, his eyes cold and dark.

The keeper scrambled backward against the cavern wall, holding his hands up in surrender. "Go then! Drown in your own poison, boy! See if the ancient magic forgives a heart filled with murder!"

Thorn turned away from the old man, his boots squelching against the muddy edge of the bank. The heat rising from the clear blue water hit his skin like a furnace, making the cold granite on his face itch violently. He dropped his iron sword into the dirt, the heavy metal clattering loudly against the rock.

"Are you sure about this?" Lyra asked, her voice dropping to a trembling whisper. "If the keeper is right..."

"We have no choice," Thorn said. "Look at my skin."

He raised his left arm. The dark granite had crept past his elbow, smooth, heavy, and lifeless. The veins on his chest pulsed with a dull purple light under his wet shirt, fighting against the creeping chill.

"I am coming in with you," Lyra said, hovering inches above the water. "I will hold your focus."

Thorn stepped off the stone ledge.

The warm water hit his calves first. It felt like hot oil soaking through his heavy leather boots. He took another step, sinking waist-deep into the glowing blue pool.

Suddenly, a violent jolt of pain shot through his spine.

Thorn threw his head back, letting out a ragged, strangled scream that echoed off the cavern roof. The water around his body began to boil, white foam bubbling up around his waist as the relic in his chest reacted to the ancient spirit magic. Faint purple sparks snapped across the surface, turning the clear blue water a cloudy, milky grey.

"Thorn!" Lyra shrieked. "Fight it! Do not let the relic consume the water!"

"It burns!" Thorn choked out, his right hand gripping the edge of the stone bank so hard his fingernails cracked. "It feels like... like acid!"

"The spirit magic is trying to clean the corruption!" the keeper yelled from the shadows. "Your body is rejecting the holy spring! Get out before it tears your heart apart!"

"Shut up!" Lyra shouted at the old man. She dropped lower, pressing her silver light directly against Thorn’s forehead. "Listen to my voice, Thorn! Stop fighting the water! Let it in!"

Thorn gritted his teeth, his eyes wide and bloodshot. Dark purple lines spread across his chest like cracking ice. The stone on his neck tightened, making it impossible to breathe. He felt his pulse slowing down, each beat heavy and hollow inside his ribs.

"I cannot... release it," Thorn gasped, his vision swimming with white spots. "The relic... wants to unmake the spring..."

"No!" Lyra cried, her light flaring with blinding silver power. "You control the relic! The relic does not control you! Remember why we came here! Remember the capital!"

The mention of the capital hit him like a bucket of ice water. He saw the burning palace towers in his mind. He saw his father’s crown falling into the mud. He saw the golden banners of the Radiant Sword Sect fluttering over the dead city.

"I am not dying in a cave," Thorn growled through his locked jaw.

He forced his mind to go still. He stopped trying to push the water away with his willpower. Instead, he opened his chest to the heat, pulling the thermal spirit magic deep into his lungs.

The boiling water instantly calmed down.

The cloudy grey color in the pool began to recede, turning back into a clear, glowing blue. The sharp, tearing pain in his chest faded into a deep, dull ache. Where the hot water touched his left shoulder, the dark granite skin began to soften, turning from hard rock back into soft, pale flesh.

Thorn let out a long, shuddering breath, sinking deeper until the warm water reached his chin.

"It is working," Lyra breathed, her silver light floating softly on the surface beside him. "Look at your hand, Thorn! Look at your hand!"

Thorn lifted his left arm out of the water. The dark stone on his fingers was breaking apart into tiny, weightless black flakes that dissolved in the mist. He flexed his knuckles. For the first time in weeks, his fingers moved smoothly, without the agonizing drag of petrified skin.

"I can feel it," Thorn whispered, his voice sounding clearer, smoother. He reached up with his left hand, touching his cheek. The granite on his face had softened into normal skin, though a faint, jagged scar remained beneath his ear.

"You survived," the keeper said, stepping slowly toward the edge of the pool, his wide eyes reflecting the blue light. "In credible. No man carrying a chaos relic has ever entered this water without destroying it."

Thorn stood up in the steaming pool, the water dripping from his wet clothes. "The stone is gone."

"It is not gone," the keeper corrected him, pointing a withered finger at Thorn’s bare chest. "Look beneath your skin."

Thorn looked down. Right over his heart, the dark chaos relic still rested, glowing with a soft, ominous purple light beneath his flesh.

"The spring has paused the curse," the keeper explained, shaking his head. "It has thawed your limbs and saved your life for now. But the relic remains. The moment you use its power again, the petrification will return twice as fast."

"How long do I have?" Thorn asked, stepping out of the pool onto the wet rock shore.

"If you do not force the relic?" the keeper said. "A few months, perhaps a year. But if you call upon its magic to destroy your enemies, the stone will claim your heart before the season turns."

Thorn picked up his iron sword from the dirt, wiping the wet mud off the steel blade with his sleeve. "A few months is more than enough time."

"You are going back to the capital, aren't you?" the keeper asked quietly.

"My work there is not finished," Thorn replied, sheathing his sword.

"He just saved your life, Thorn," Lyra said, hovering between them. "At least thank him."

Thorn paused, looking at the old man. "You kept your life. That is thanks enough."

Before the keeper could answer, a loud, thunderous crash echoed from the dark tunnel above the cavern. Stone splinters rained down onto the balcony, followed by the heavy, rhythmic march of armored boots.

A familiar, mocking laugh echoed off the high cave ceiling.

"Did you really think a fall down a mountain would kill me, Thorn?" Julian’s voice shouted through the mist.

Thorn turned his head toward the stone stairs, his left hand gripping the hilt of his sword as his eyes narrowed into cold, deadly slits. "He never knows when to die."