Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,58

For the mess. Elon went still and then took a breath.

“Hold on,” Elon said, “Trust me, my friend, and don’t let go of life. Fight for me.”

Jareth’s heart fluttered. The words stunned him.

“Friend?” he whispered.

“Yes, Jareth,” Elon said, firmly, “Friend. In the truest sense of the word. I wouldn’t lose you.”

Something within Jareth twisted even as something inside him grew stronger.

Going to one knee, his beautiful face paler than normal, Colath joined them, a hand on Jareth’s shoulder.

“Nor I, Jareth.”

Those brown eyes went from one to the other, from Elon to Colath.

Jareth wanted to weep.

And struggled to take a bubbling breath. He set himself, and nodded.

He looked at Elon as his friend’s strong hand curled around the arrow that protruded from his chest and steeled himself. Instead of sending him into oblivion though, the motion of pulling it seemed to shock him into greater clarity. The remainder of the arrow slid out of him, pain spearing through him in an agony so great his body arched and a gurgling cry tore from his drowning lungs, spraying blood everywhere.

Elon almost lost him, he felt him fade but Jareth fought and clawed for life.

Even in the face of his own injury, Colath was beside him, lending him strength.

Jareth’s pain became Elon’s as he merged with his friend, as he took the young wizard’s pain as his own. He subverted the agony, sought the rhythm that was Jareth his friend, the music of him when he was whole, the sense and sound of him deep, true and clear. He drew energy from the earth through himself until he felt incandescent, suffused with light and then he poured it into Jareth.

For Jareth the agony was nearly unendurable. Darkness tried to bury him, to drag him down, but he fought it, fought it with every fiber of his being.

Friends.

Warmth suffused him, poured through his body like a flood tide, washing the pain away with it. Warmth and something else. Magic of a kind he’d never known. He could almost feel his muscles, nerves and skin knit to become one again. A sound that was almost like music whispered in his head, a harmony that tried to be and then was clear. It rang clear. Like a bell inside him, the sound swelling.

With his head cradled in the crook of Elon’s arm, he watched in amazement as power surged through him and the wound in his chest knitted before his eyes.

Stunned, Jareth looked up into Elon’s strong, stern face.

“You can Heal,” he whispered in astonishment.

No one knew that Elves could Heal. Healers were almost unknown among men and those few lived a life of hell. They could only heal so many.

If word got out that Elves could Heal, they might very well have another war on their hands.

Elon nodded, looking at him. “I can.”

In that moment Jareth knew exactly how much Elon of Aerilann trusted him.

Friend.

Jareth looked up into Elon’s dark steady gaze.

“Know this,” Colath said, gently, because Elon wouldn’t. “As hard as it is to do, our Healers are enjoined from healing Men. Healers are too few among us as well. Even with all the healing our bodies can do, even our folk must sometimes have a Healer - fighting with the Borderlands creatures or even accidents cause damage such that we cannot spare the lost energy of even one. Having Elon out in the Kingdoms is already a sacrifice.”

Elon had healed him, Jareth.

Nodding, Jareth nodded weakly. He understood all too well what Colath said.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t tell.”

“My thanks,” Elon said. “I never doubted, but it would be…difficult.”

More difficult than what he was about to do but only by a slight degree.

Elon looked at Colath.

“Aerilann,” he said.

Giving Elon a look, eyebrows lifting, Colath allowed his mouth to twitch a little. Amused.

“This should be…enlightening.”

Jareth looked from one to the other warily as they helped him into the saddle, wondering what they were up to.

“I would go home,” Elon said, wearily, feeling every inch of his own wounds, of stretched muscles and cuts he hadn’t marked at the time.

They would have to heal of their own. Healers couldn’t heal themselves.

In the distance there was a clamor, alarming at first, all of them fearing another attack, but it was only the farmers come out to battle the fire with blankets and beaters.

Smoke spiraled into the sky as the fire spread.

This, though, was a magic Jareth could do. With a gesture and a soft incantation he dampened the fire, drew off its energy before he slumped