Bailey Baz's Arc

Chapter 36 of 44

The elk stopped at the edge of the deep water. Bailey slid down and stood at the black pool where his uncle stayed bound. The rite waited whole in his head. He had read the tablet twice. He knew every word. He also knew the price. To shut the seal forever, he had to become the cage. He would speak the rite over the thing in his chest, and he would not leave this water. Cora had followed on foot with Rufus and Crane. She caught up now, robe soaked to the knee, cracked wand shaking in her fist. His sister looked at the water, then at his face. She knew. "No," she said. "You are not doing this." "There is no other way to close it," Bailey said. "The tablet was clear. A living cage. My life holds the door shut." "Then we find another door." Cora grabbed his sleeve. Crane stepped back, silent, the old commander who had traded the King's uniform for this fight. Rufus's gentle hands hung useless at his sides. "I came back for you once," Cora said. "I died looking. I will not stand here and watch you throw yourself in." Bailey pulled free and knelt at the water. He pressed his hands to the surface. The old tongue rose in his throat. He began to speak the rite. The thing in his chest thrashed against his ribs. The vines around the pool stirred. Malachar's voice came through them, dry and old. "Stop, boy." The vines twisted toward Bailey. "You waste yourself. A cage does not need young wood." Bailey's hands trembled on the water. "You want it inside you." "I have held worse for two thousand years." The emperor's voice cracked. Something in it had changed, worn down by his long punishment. "I am old already. My days are spent. Give me the last words. Let me carry it. This once, let me undo one thing I made." Bailey stared into the black water. His uncle had murdered him once. Now the man offered his own end in trade. Cora gripped Bailey's shoulder. "Let him," she whispered. "Please." Bailey spoke the rite again, but he turned the closing lines toward the vines, toward Malachar. He named his uncle the cage. The words landed. The thing tore loose from Bailey's chest in a single cold pull. He gasped and fell back into the mud. The deep water boiled. The vines drew tight around a shape below, wrapping and wrapping. Then the surface went still. The pressure under Bailey's ribs was gone. He breathed clean for the first time in a hundred years. Cora dragged him from the water's edge. Rufus lifted him upright. Bailey stared at the still pool. "He took it," Bailey said. "It's sealed. In him." But the vines were not thrashing. They lay slack across the water, torn loose from the shore, drifting free. The seal held Malachar now. Nothing held the vines.