Demetri's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Demetri did not sleep that night. Each rot he pulled from the ground drained him. His halves fought to hold even. He had cleared the traveler, the pit, the buried root. But the seam in his wards grew thinner with every strain. One more slip, and it would tear wide. His hidden enemy would walk back through it. He needed to end the source, not chase its leavings. Then, at dawn, an idea came to him. He would not carry the rot any longer. He would give it a home. He left the inn before the others woke. Tiroc found him in the grove, kneeling at the spring where water spilled over grey boulders. The dwarf's boar snorted at the shadow-line running through Demetri's body. Tiroc planted his burning hammer in the moss. "You look ready to fall," Tiroc said. "I am." Demetri did not lie to him. Once the dwarf had wanted him dead. Now he stood guard while an old wizard shook. "The rot will keep coming. I cannot hold my balance and fight it both." "Then don't hold it. Set it down somewhere." Demetri looked at the spring. "That is what I mean to do." The ground shook before he could begin. Trees cracked. A great shape pushed through the canopy. Leaves and vines hung from its frame, but bone showed through the rot, and its eyes burned yellow. The blighted dragon had come for its poison. Every root Demetri had cleansed, the beast wanted back. Tiroc swung. His hammer caught the dragon's jaw and light burst across the rotted scales. The boar charged its legs. "Do your working, wizard," Tiroc shouted. "I'll hold it." Demetri pressed his light palm to the spring and his dark palm to the earth. He stopped fighting his two halves. He let them run together, life into death, death into life. Into that stream he poured everything he carried, all the rot from the pit, the traveler, the soil. He did not push it into the ground this time. He gathered it into a single seed and set it in the mud at the water's edge. The dragon lunged. Demetri threw the last of himself into the seed and pulled the beast's rot with it. The dragon shrank. Its body folded into the small dark shape in the mud. The ground went still. A tree rose from the spring. One side glowed gold with new leaves. The other stood dark and deep, holding the death within it. Light and shadow, held even, forever. Demetri felt the seam in his wards close and stay closed. The tree held his balance now, so he did not have to. Tiroc lowered his hammer. "It's done?" "The rot has a keeper." Demetri touched the two-toned bark. But his hands were empty of power now. He had poured too much into the tree. "And I am nearly spent. The imposter is still out there. I must face him weak."