Kammon stared at the healer and tried to wrap his head around her question. She looked at him, but she wasn’t expecting an answer from him. No, her look was searching, as if she knew she needed to divine the answer on her own.

  “What are you saying, Maggie?” Alvrey asked.

  “I’m saying his Vow is fresh.”

  “That’s impossible. Kammon would never take the Vow again,” Ezo said.

  Kammon took a deep breath and tried to ignore the others. It was hard knowing they were talking about him, but he had to. He turned his attention inward toward the place where his magic dwelt. The bond he shared with Ezo was wrapped around him, all-encompassing and overwhelming. Even when it was new, and Kammon first felt the stirrings to return to the younger man he’d met along the way, it had been too much and he tried not to look at it.

  Now, with his acceptance and the intimacy they shared, it dwarfed everything else. But it wasn’t the only thing there.

  At the core of his magic was the darkness that had settled into his soul when he took the first Vow.

  And where that vow had been left shriveled and dried up when he Disavowed, it was now whole and fresh, with veins of his darkness swelling at the base and swirling through his magic.

  He pulled himself away and pushed back from the table.

  “Kammon?” Ezo grabbed his arm, but Kammon pulled away.

  “I don’t…I don’t look at it.” He turned to Maggie. “The bond masks it enough that I don’t need to see it. It’s not possible.”

  Maggie stood in front of him and pushed him back into his chair. He sat while she leaned against the edge of the table in front of him. “Tell me what you saw, Kammon.”

  “Do you see the darkness inside me?” He asked.

  She shook her head. “I haven’t tried. I was feeling Ezo’s magic, but his bond led back to you. I can feel the Vow that strongly on you.”

  Kammon nodded. “Tell me what you see then, when you look?”

  He didn’t warn her about the darkness. He’d said enough, and she was a master healer. He didn’t need to warn her of the dangers of what was wrapped so tightly in his soul.

  Maggie stared at him for a minute, but he felt her gaze turned inward. She reached a hand out and set it on his forehead, then closed her eyes. Kammon did the same, but he didn’t dare to look too closely again.

  Maggie stood still before him, and Kammon felt the others close at hand. More disturbing, he felt Ember growing within him in answer to some danger he couldn’t sense. She burned at the back of his vision, and in the smoke, he could see the remains of a destroyed village. One rose before him, then another, and another. City after city turned to ruin on orders but by his flames. He tried to push it from his sight, but the smoke became charred bodies, and he threw himself out of the chair and through the front door. He fell to his knees on the pathway and wretched as the stench of the murdered rose around him.

  “Kammon!”

  He didn’t know who called him, but he felt the screech of his soul as Ember burst into life above him, warning and protecting.

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  Then, like a wind ripping the smoke from his eyes, it was gone. He was outside Maggie’s home, Ember facing the others from her resting place on his shoulder, and Ezo kneeling beside him.

  “Ezo,” he whispered his lover’s name.

  He could feel the bond flaring between them, wrapping around him from the inside out. Ezo didn’t touch him, but his presence was a comfort Kammon didn’t deserve.

  He took a deep breath and stood upright. He stumbled, but Ezo grabbed his arm to steady him. Kammon didn’t know if he should be thankful or push him away.

  It was his instinct to push away the people he cared about, but he knew by now that Ezo wouldn’t leave over something like this. Their bond was too strong. So was his love.

  Kammon didn’t know why the images appeared as they had, but there was no trickery. They were memories of places he’d been. Places he’d destroyed. Whatever had happened while Maggie looked into his magic, she’d caused something to react.

  When Kammon was steady, he pulled away from Ezo and looked at the healer. Her lips were pulled into a tight, white line, and her hands clenched in balls at her waist.

  “Was that the bond trying to protect you or the effigy?”

  “Maybe the lover?” Ezo said as he planted himself between them. “What are you doing to him?”

  “I didn’t do a damn thing!” Maggie said. “I just looked like he asked.”

  “What did you see?” Kammon asked as he set a hand on Ezo’s shoulder. He pulled him back and stepped around him. He appreciated the thought, but he had never been the sort to stand behind someone else on the front lines. Certainly not here when they’d come all this way to get Maggie’s help.

  “Can you take this back inside?” she asked.

  He nodded, and Maggie led them to the kitchen. She didn’t say anything at first, but took his mug and filled it with mint tea. When she set it before him, he drank deeply, trying to ignore the shake in his hands. Ezo sat beside him, and though he didn’t say anything, his lover dropped a hand to his thigh. He wasn’t sure if it was supposed to comfort him or if Ezo was just too surprised to think better of it, but there was a warmth in his touch, and Kammon relaxed at the feel.

  Maggie sat at the end of the table and watched Kammon for a few minutes before she finally spoke. “I told them, when you took the Vow, there was something wrong. Something happened, and I didn’t know what it was. I told them they needed to keep all of you who stood together close and watch you. They refused to listen to me and they sent you off to the battlefield.”

  “What was wrong?” Ezo asked.

  Kammon wanted to demand answers, but the words were stuck in his throat.

  “I don’t know. I tried to figure it out, but I was told my talents were needed elsewhere, and they were eager to send them off to war.”

  “I’m here now.” Kammon broke his silence. “This darkness, can you find what it is?”

  Maggie cocked her head to one side. “Kammon, the darkness didn’t come from your Vow. It was there when you took it. Have you not always felt it?”

  “No, I didn’t. It wasn’t until the Vow that the darkness rose inside me.”

  “And I tell you again, Kammon. It was always there. When did you touch magic for the first time?”

  Kammon shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

  “You must know something.”

  “I don’t remember anything about my life before I was seven.”

  “And you were already aware of magic?”

  “I already had Ember by then.”

  “You had an effigy at the age of seven?”

  Kammon nodded. “I don’t remember a life without Ember.”

  Maggie shook her head. “They always said you were something special. They kept that secret to themselves, though.”

  “Does it matter?” Ezo asked.

  “The only elementalist in living memory to develop an effigy? I would think they studied everything they could about him.”

  “They never said anything, but they were always watching me,” Kammon said. He couldn’t remember a time when they weren’t spying on him. He knew his lessons had been out of the ordinary, but they’d always said he was an extraordinary case. He thought nothing more of it. Now he questioned everything.

  “Kammon, are you okay?” Ezo caught his attention with his words. He must have lost part of the conversation.

  “I’m…”

  “Take him to rest,” Maggie said. “You’ve had a long journey. We’ll talk again tonight.”

  Kammon let Ezo lead him down a hallway and to a room with a large bed. He sank into it and Ezo laid down next to him.

  “Was this always a part of me?” he asked as Ezo pulled him close.

  “Don’t think about it now. Just sleep. We’ll talk when you feel better.”

  Kammon let himself be wrapped up in Ezo’s arms and fell into fitful dreams of the wreckage of his past and the ghosts that continued to haunt him.