Passing of the Flame? [Atzar] [Open to 1 or 2 more]

[Atzar]

Without a word, I turned my back. I needed a minute.

I had hoped Wheezy would be useful to me. He was a bad mage-hunter, but he was a mage-hunter nonetheless. I had come to Salvar looking for something, and there was a chance that the zealot would know where to find it – or at least where to start searching.

And now he lay slumped in a heap with a broken face. I stared off into a blur of white and brown, hands on my head, cursing fate for handing me such unrelenting misfortune.

I recognized terror when I saw it: the widening of the eyes and shortness of breath; the rambling, tumbling speech; the abandonment of anything resembling reason. None of this was intentional. Ezra didn’t mean to complicate every plan I created. It just happened because the fool was incapable of handling pressure. And for my part? I was incapable of handling fools who were incapable of handling pressure. Some people have incredible patience when others are melting down. Not me.

“I needed that,” I stated when I turned back, thrusting a finger at Wheezy. “You knew I needed that.” I fought to keep my voice level and my gaze nonlethal, but I had never had much of a poker face.

“We’re carrying him.” Ezra wanted to work together, after all. This was the condition. I had questions, and I was going to ask them even if we had to drag our holy man across Salvar. I wasn’t even sure if Wheezy would be able to talk when he woke up, but I’d cross that stream when I got there – though I expected it to be deep and full of sharp rocks and undercurrents like every other stream had been that day.

I made to hoist Wheezy’s prone form when I remembered something. “I need your knife for a minute,” I told Ezra. “I’ll need to cover our tracks.” The blood on my lip had mostly dried, and I was going to need my magic for this. I didn’t relish the prospect of scattering snow over our footprints while carrying some hundred-fifty pounds of dead weight, though. At least Wheezy was on the small side.

Ezra cocked a brow, then shrugged and tossed the weapon over. I caught it and set my teeth in an anticipatory grimace.

Blood for power. The restriction had existed on my magic for a few months now, but I still hadn’t gotten used to it. And I would never get used to deliberately harming myself to take what had once been free. In a strange way, I preferred being injured by an enemy to inflicting damage on myself. I pulled up a sleeve and did what had to be done. Blood welled up and trickled down my forearm. I wiped the edge of the blade on my tunic and returned it.

That done, I returned to Wheezy and maneuvered his upper body onto my shoulder. Then the snow churned and eddied, covering footprints and spatters of blood. The priest’s friends would inevitably return here to start their search, but they would have a hard time finding a trail to follow.