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JAIME
The collar fell off thirty minutes after Jaime passed the boundary spells. On his way out, he had pulled down the leather tag that he’d left all the other boundary points depending on, leaving the hunters vulnerable to the local pack. Jaime fell to his knees at the surge of power that Eskender’s death gave him, and he wasn’t sure how long he knelt there, breathing in and out of the white bright painful sparking flood of magic in his system. It had been years since he’d had access to his magic unrestricted, and it had grown since then. He was half afraid he was going to go up in flame.
Every bruise, every open cut, every ache in his bones and muscles and even the pain between his legs was gone, healed, made right by his magic.
There were a dozen tendrils of spells sapping at it from the direction of the spells he’d left up at the camp; they were strengthening with his influx of magic, and he dragged it back to him, thinning the links until they snapped. Never again would Jaime spend his magic on the whims of his slavers. Without the draw of the spells, though, he felt half a shade away from being consumed by his power; it felt as though his power was a storm brewing in his chest, nearly to the point where he’d erupt in lightning bolts and sky shattering thunder.
Jaime couldn’t; he couldn’t. He’d give himself away, and he’d be caught again, trapped again or killed, and he couldn’t - he had this singular chance, and he was gods-be-damned taking it.
Desperate to control himself, he wrapped his fingers around the collar. The cold of the silver clasp and the sting of the iron rivets against his skin was horribly grounding. Breathing. In and out. His magic felt like a waterfall beating him into the earth. He had to get up; he had to go before the wolves thought to track him down. He had to hurry. There was a spell he could use, but he half wondered if he’d erase himself from existence if he tried to make himself untraceable just now.
“Not so fast, mage,” An unfamiliar voice came, low and hoarse and furious. Jaime hadn’t the time to turn before a deadly snarling sounded through the air between them, claws digging into his shoulders a moment later as he was knocked forward. No, no, no. He had survived years in that collar, he had escaped the hunters, and he refused to die the same night as they did.
Jaime’s magic was a thunderwave, a tidal current, a forest fire flaring out of him, flinging the shifter off him with a violent wave of force. Hurling backward, the wolf hit a tree with a heavy thud. Jaime scrambled away, glancing over his shoulder to see that the shifter who had found him was the newest wolf to have been trapped and changed. The last one Jaime had hurt.
His attacker shook himself, dazed, before rolling back to his feet. Eyes glinting gold in the moonlight, he sprang forward, lethal hunting experience clear in his movements. It was instinct for Jaime to bring his hands up, and the ocean of magic in him responded to his desperate need again. It poured into the collar, a physical glow bursting out of it and whiting out Jaime’s vision. The wolf launched into him, and Jaime’s palms burned as the glowing band grew warm, liquid, wrapping around the wolf’s throat until the circle connected, then began constricting. NO. Jaime didn't want to kill the wolf. He yanked his hands away, and the collar solidified into a thick metal band. Jaime’s magic still hummed through him, yet the glow faded, and he felt like a wave rolled under him, rather than swallowing him.
Oh, oh gods.
The wolf had frozen on top of Jaime, claws broken through the ragged fabric of Jaime’s tunic, sharp and heavy against his chest, but the wolf didn’t claw him bloody, didn’t tear out his throat. Jaime hadn’t been trained much beyond the magic that the hunters had a use for, and while this absolutely might have been useful to them, Jaime hadn’t learned it from one of the bloodstained books they’d given him or their graphic stories of great and terrible magical feats witnessed in war. Beyond transmuting leather, beyond collaring the wolf, he wasn’t sure what he’d just done. They were eye to eye, and the wolf’s ears were back, flat to his head. Jaime had been free for less than an hour, and he’d used that freedom to trap someone else in order to save his own skin.
As much as he wanted to undo it, he was terrified of what his uncontrolled magic would do. Don’t be a fool, his first teacher had said a hundred times. Use your brain before you use your magic, boy. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Jaime had been an apprentice to Jorge for half a year when the hunters found him, and that hadn’t been near enough time. He still remembered watching Jorge die, giving him time, a chance to get away. Jaime had been caught anyways, but he was free now. Determination reformed in Jaime.
“I’m not dying here tonight.” Jaime breathed up at the frozen wolf. “I survived -” His voice broke. “And you’re not killing me. There's no one to keep me here. I’m going - away. Home. Get off me.” The wolf obeyed, and Jaime’s stomach turned. So the obedience compulsion lingered in that cursed fucking collar. He swallowed against the urge to retch, pushing himself up.
Jaime’s gaze twitched unavoidably over the shadows, back towards camp. Where there was one wolf, there was a pack, meaning he didn’t have the time to unravel this magic. Additionally, he didn’t know what would happen if another wolf tried to kill him; he didn’t know if he could keep his desire from turning magic deadly if he was cornered or attacked again. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, and he didn’t want to die, so he had to get away from the wolves in the hunter’s camp. Give it one chance; if it didn’t work, he would make time after he reached safety.
“Somnum.” He told the wolf. Despite every horror that had occurred, a series of events that would keep any thinking, feeling creature wide eyed in the night, the shifter curled up and closed his eyes, sinking into deep slow breathing.
With the sleeping spell forming a tendril between the mage and the wolf, Jaime realized that the collar was self-sufficient, nothing more leaking out of himself into the metal, so this would not be so easy as cutting out his power from the spell, thereby ending it. He crouched down and reached for the band, his fingers shaking when they brushed the sleeping shifter. The shifter didn’t budge an inch, and Jaime forced himself to examine what he had done. The metal was unbroken, too tightened to slip up off the shifter’s head, and it was as thick as the leather had been - there was no way he could get it off manually without a blacksmith, most likely. Considering his trembling hands, Jaime whispered. “Libera.” The collar glinted in the moonlight, magic rippling over it then sinking into it. Nothing else changed.
Great. He was fairly certain the collar had eaten his spell.
“Investigabilis.” He cast the untraceable spell to see if he could, and magic hummed out of his palms, erasing his footprints and the wolf’s tracks, several swirling tendrils. When Jaime inhaled, he only caught the scents of the forest - there wasn’t a trace of his own stink from days without a bath in the stream or the blended scent of blood and fur that had come with his trapped wolf. He could cut the tendril of magic sustaining the sleep spell, walk off into the woods, but the wolf might remain unconscious in the aftermath of injury, captivity, and starvation. Jaime couldn’t leave him behind with a magical collar that did who-knew-what born of Jaime’s survival instincts. He had collared the wolf with uncontrolled, instinctive magic that apparently swallowed magic directed at it.
“Surgere.” He sighed out. He couldn’t leave him behind, trapped in Jaime’s magic, and he couldn’t undo what he had done either, not without knowing more about the limits of his power and its reaction to him being attacked. The shifter shook off sleep, swiftly scrambling to his feet and away from Jaime. He pawed at the collar once, then a near silent whine escaped him. His body screamed out his fear, tail tucked under his belly, ears flat.
“I’m - I’m sorry. Follow me. Quietly.” Jaime whispered. He didn’t want to hurt anyone else. He’d find a way to undo this. “I’ve got to get away before I set you free. So that we can both be free.”
DIMITRI
Dimitri's head ached, his ears ringing. He'd hit the tree hard, and the mage's voice was fuzzy, only silver spiked commands piercing the thudding pain. He slunk after the mage as slowly as he could, but his feet burned when the distance stretched. He was forced to stick close by more damned magic, leaving no track in the forest floor, unable to even whimper. Every inch of him wanted to howl for his alpha, his pack, but the collar was choking back his sound as surely as it had cut him off from his shift, his free will. The mage had compelled him to follow, so Dimitri’s body betrayed him once again. Dimitri should have waited for Lada before he charged after the mage, but in his sick fury when the camp fell into shadows and screams, the thought of letting the worst of the hunters just - escape had been unthinkable.
Dimitri hadn’t been clear headed after days in that damned cage, unable to flow from two legs to four legs as he wanted, days without regular food, surrounded by the stink of magic and humans and terrified, dying wolves. There was only the scent of the forest around him now, but without the other hunters, without a base camp, the mage had caged Dimitri in his own mind.
Lada would have tracked down every vile human that had hurt Dimitri; he should have trusted her - he should have howled for her when he ran off into the woods. The mage had erased their scent, their prints, their sounds - he walked through the woods without a crackling stick or leaf, more magic humming around him than Dimitri had ever sensed. It itched around him, and he wondered if they were invisible, too. If someone had seen which direction Dimitri had gone, and if they followed, would the woods be empty to their eyes? It was nightmarish, but Dimitri had been living a nightmare for weeks. The impossible made possible was the whole point of mages.
As if the thought of her had bridged the distance, a howl came echoing through the forest. Dimitri stiffened - that was Lada, that was his leader, that was his alpha calling him. He jerked to a halt, lifting his head to howl back, but magic tightened around his throat, strangling his return call before it began. No, no, no. Lada was calling him.
The mage had spun back around at the sound of the howl, and he lifted his hands, speaking a language Dimitri didn't know as more magic poured out of him and sunk into the forest around them. He met Dimitri's eyes, beckoned sharply. There was more in his eerie blue eyes than Dimitri had ever seen, intent and urgency.
'No,' Dimitri wanted to snap. 'No, that is my alpha. My pack. They came for me.'
His alpha howled again, and the mage flinched. "We have to go." Dimitri could understand him now, but he didn't want to. He wanted to go back.
Magic dragged Dimitri to his feet, his body betraying him. As if to break his heart all the more, his pack joined Lada's howls. That was Khalida - that was Elli - that was Lada, her howl rising above them all, calling him, pulling at him. The mage's magic was strangling him, dragging him, Dimitri wasn't breathing as he stumbled further and further from his pack. He stared down at his paws, scrabbling through the leaves that rearranged themselves perfectly as soon as they fell behind him; his own body betrayed him as the world was made to forget him.
"I'm sorry, but - I'll bring you back. Or find a way send you back. After I get home. We have to go. Stop fighting. Please." The mage whispered, and Dimitri's eyes flew up. The man faced forward, his shoulders tight with fear, perhaps. The howls sounded closer with every renewal of the chorus. Nevertheless, his command sank into Dimitri, and Dimitri stared blankly at the mage as his mind grayed out. He straightened, his paws falling smoothly against the forest floor, matching the speed of the mage. The howls went on and on, but Dimitri couldn't return their calls, couldn't even turn towards the sound of his pack, frantic at his loss.
They walked on and on, silent and swift.
The mage said he would let Dimitri go, but he could erase Dimitri's will with a single order, make silver out of leather, unmake tracks and scent. Dimitri trusted his actions more than that shaky promise. The mage had mentioned his home, too, and Dimitri numbly considered that possibility. He thought that the hunters had been the mage’s pack, and yet the mage left them without a glance back. His mind conjured a pack of mages, and the idea sent fear curling tight in his stomach. The command to strip Dimitri's rebellion hadn't taken his fear with it. The hunters had taught him new depths of furious fear, but the idea of a mage band - willing to commit the same atrocities as this one - poured cold terror through his bones, his blood.
This mage could and had cut Dimitri away from his very shift, both at the request of the hunters and at nearly the first moment that he laid eyes on Dimitri after they both left the hunter camp behind; what couldn't a pack of them do? Re-order nearly any facet of the natural order of things?
The forest thickened around them; Dimitri inexorably followed the mage as he pushed into the tangle of underbrush. They were aimed fairly directly west, but Dimitri had never gone quite so far that ways from his own camp of wolves; the hunters camp had been on the outskirts of the woods he knew as it was. It had been after sundown when his pack - so close, so close to trapping all the hunters in their own net, so close to saving him, so close - had closed in on the camp, but the stars had passed overhead in the moon's path, and dawn was clearly approaching.
Howls had echoed behind them for hours, but with no reply, the time between them stretched, and Dimitri could hear the desperation fading into grief. He wasn't sure when the last had come. The pack might have needed to return home, care for any injured, hunt down something to eat after the long and miserable night it had been.
Did the mage need to eat as he did? Dimitri had been half starved among the hunters, and his legs were beginning to tremble under him with more than the shock of his capture. There wasn't a chance that he'd be able to catch something so tightly tied to the wake of the mage. The thought of being free enough to catch a rabbit, even a small bird or squirrel, made his stomach growl audibly.
"Food." The mage said, breaking his silence. "That … that would be a good idea." His steps came to a halt, and Dimitri wavered to a stop, letting his head droop. "Let's, ah, let's find a place to stop. Then I'll … find food." His words were slow, not quite slurred, but clearly also tired. "Come on." Dimitri didn't raise his head, letting the magic leash him to the mage for the next few minutes. He trailed at the very end of the magical wake, the stinging burn of the compulsion at his heels for each step. When he managed to lift his head to check after another ten minutes of walking, there was a clearing ahead he could just barely make out. The mage appeared to be aiming towards it. He wondered, half hopelessly, if they would make camp in that clearing under a cage of more existence erasing magic.
When they had closed the distance, they found a tangle of some thorny bush, tall and thick, blocking them from entering the clearing; the mage considered the plants a long minute, then turned and aimed for the emptier space between two trunks slightly to their left. Dimitri swayed with hunger and hopelessness, dragging his feet as much as he could. That was what saved him.
The first step the mage took between the trees, silver flashed all around him. Dimitri flinched backward from the motion and the shout the mage made as he flew up. A net. A trap. Another gods-be-damned trap, metal wire woven into the ropes, the same type that had closed around him when he'd ventured too close to the places the hunters were encroaching. Dimitri shuddered against the magical compulsion to stay close and the urge to RUN. The mage was struggling wildly, his hands literally sparking against the net, unrecognizable yet clearly magical words pouring out of him. But his magic didn't seem to be of any use inside the cage of silver woven rope. The net was swinging back and forth with how hard he was fighting the confinement, and Dimitri could see red crisscross burning into his skin each place that the wire brushed or dug into him.
"No, no, fuck, no, no." The mage switched to words Dimitri knew. "Fuck, fuck, no." The last word came out thick with tears, and the magical glow subsided back into his skin. The burning lines were only darkening. "No, please." The mage sobbed. The trap remained tight around him.
Dimitri straightened from where he had flattened himself to the ground as far back as he could stay. His back paws still itched with the godsdamned magical compulsion, but it had lessened, letting him back further and further back. Dimitri's legs shook without the magic pulling him ever onward, and he paused, breathing heavily. The stink of fear was pouring off the human, and Dimitri's lips curled back in a snarl. Let him suffer a fraction of what Dimitri had undergone due to his fucking magical nets.
Dimitri could once again scent himself as well as the mage, though. Even if he couldn't shift or run, he could smell them. Which meant that the undetectable bullshit spell had gone down as the mage went up in silver and iron.
He yipped, a test. Thought his throat itched, the sound was clear, unrestricted. Throwing his head back, Dimitri howled.
JAIME
Jaime burned; his hands were burning, his throat was burning, every place the net dug into him burned, and his eyes were burning with tears, fear and exhaustion and shock running hot and wet down his face. He had to get out; he had to get free; he had to get down. Caught, he had been caught - trapped - no no no nonononono NO.
His ears stung with sharp noise; the wolf howled. Jaime flinched down in horror. His magic had sparked and flickered out against the net like coals becoming ash. There were no more tendrils stretching out of him to erase the evidence of their passage, no more spells to shelter him as he fled.
As Tulio had said so often - where there was one wolf, there would be a pack.
Miles away, howls chorused. The other wolves were singing out for the one below Jaime, and his shifter howled back, every line of his body aching with relief as the howls came back, again and again, as he could answer them.
Jaime curled tight in the net. He couldn't escape. He had had one night of freedom, and perhaps that was a fitting last meal of sorts for him. So many wolves dead at his hands over the years; whether he liked it or not, it was justice for him to die at their hands.
Time spun as the net swung slower and slower with his frozen stillness. He wanted to sink into the quiet cotton muffled place that he went when it became too horrifying, too painful, but the net kept him on edge, prickling tension keeping him locked in awareness. The howls got louder and louder until he could see the first of the wolves running all out through the trees. The collared shifter howled again, a short, joyful thing that cut off when the dark grey wolf in the lead tackled him. They tumbled through the leaves, and she became a woman in a fluid blink.
"Dimitri!" She caught his face in her hands, and he surged forward to lick her cheek, happy little whimpers breaking out of him. The movement sent her hands sliding down his neck, and she hissed, hands jerking back from the collar. Dimitri, apparently, pulled back, too, and he let out a little mournful sound. "What happened to you, Dima?" She demanded. "Talk to me." Dimitri whimpered again, ducking his head, showing the collar. It was glowing slightly, magic reappearing to weave over and over it.
"Lada." Another wolf had shifted upward, arms crossed over her chest, eyes hard as she examined Jaime. The rest of them were prowling, circling, keeping a close eye on the surrounding woods even as they came in close enough to brush their noses or flanks against Dimitri where he was leaning heavily into Lada's legs.
"The missing hunter." The alpha - she had to be the pack alpha - realized.
"The mage." Her second-in-command said, pointing to the places Jaime's skin had burned at the touch of the wire.
The alpha snarled, and the circle of wolves all around them echoed her. Jaime shuddered and closed his eyes. "Did you think you could escape after capturing Dimitri? And then collaring him?" The alpha snapped. Jaime shook his head, curling as small as he could manage in the net. "I’m going to kill you slowly, coward." She promised. "Or maybe I'll rip that thing off my little brother and strangle you with it."
"I'm sorry." Jaime whispered, still hiding in the darkness behind his eyelids. He had killed enough wolves to know intimately the hate she held in her gaze right now; he could very nearly feel it against his skin as sharply as the silver and iron wires.
"You're sorry now?" The alpha scoffed. "Easy to find regret when you've been caught in your own folly." A hand caught in the net, and even though it had to be burning her skin, too, she yanked him through the air, her breath nearly searing when she spoke directly into his face. "It's too late for your sorry to mean a damn thing, hunter." He flinched, shutting his eyes all the more tightly.
"Lada, your hand." The second in command spoke again. "The net's got silver in it." The net was let go of abruptly, swinging backward, and he unavoidably pressed against the net, unable to stop the rock and spin of it, more pain coming to life when new lines burned into him at contact with the net.
"Isn't very fun to be in one of those, huh?" A new voice, and Jaime did open his eyes to see a thin shifter glaring up at him. "Nasty way to be caught. It's - beautiful to see it burns you, too." The raw emotion in their tone indicated that this had been another one of the hunter's prisoners. Jaime closed his eyes again, sick to his stomach at the sight of their hollow cheeks, the scars and bruising. "Kill him in their own fucking nets, so he can't do anything tricky. Let him rot there."
"Get the collar off Dimitri." The alpha ordered. "He didn't get a kill in their camp; this one is his."
A sharp zap sounded, and Dimitri yowled as the second in command swore. "It fucking shocked me. Us." She hissed. "I'm sorry, Dima; I didn't know. Let me look; I promise I won't touch." Quiet, then the second in command reported. "There's no clasp. It's an unbroken ring."
"Magicked on." The alpha growled.
"Let's get him back to Ash before we try anything, Lada."
"Very well." The alpha said. "Mirza, Elli, break that branch without breaking the net; drag the mage back to camp after us, and kill him if he tries to escape. We’re taking Dimitri home."
Nearly as suddenly as they'd come, the wolves were leaving, flowing away into the woods. Jaime's eyes were dragged open, following Dimitri. When they disappeared from sight, Jaime blinked once, twice, and then there was a deep, central tug in his magic. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he free fell into blackness.
LADA
Ash looked grim. "I don't know what he did. I can't get Dimitri to wake up, and it shocked me when I tried to get the collar off. Lada -" He squinted, hunting for words, but he was a straightforward man, and his next words were blunt. "We can get the band off, but it might kill me and Dimitri in the backlash, and it might level a mile of the forest in every direction. There's a nearly unbelievable amount of magic wrapped around Dimitri's neck right now, and it seems to be increasing."
"How is that possible?"
"It looks like silver, right?" Ash's voice slipped into his teaching tone.
"Yes." Lada agreed impatiently.
"It's leather that's been transmuted to have a similar effect as silver on us, without hurting or killing Dimitri. Transmuting silver generally kills mages, so whatever he managed was either very lucky or very clever. Or very desperate. I'd like to see him."
"Elli and Mirza are bringing him back." Lada said. "Khali, tell them to bring him here." Khalida left, and Lada turned back to Ash. "Will it kill the mage if I can get him to take it off?"
"I'd like to see him." Ash repeated.
Lada sank to sit by Dimitri, curled under furs, clearly exhausted. Hopefully, only exhausted. Her stomach was in knots. She couldn't keep her baby brother from being captured in the first place, and the thought of never being able to fully free him was unbearable.
Voices filtered in from outside Ash's healing den. "… been out cold the whole way back. Even when we dragged him over roots and shit."
"Dima passed out on the way back, too." Khalida said, her voice dark. "Leave him to Lada and Ash - go eat and rest. We have the whole pack back now; we can sort out the rest of it."
"Yes, Khali." Mirza agreed. "Let us know when Dimitri wakes up."
"Of course." Khali agreed, then she appeared, pulling the branch herself and dragging the netted mage behind her. Ash hummed disapprovingly, hurrying forward. "It's another one of the fucking hunters, Ash; a few scrapes and bruises isn't a sliver of what he deserves."
"If there's magic linking them," He pointed out. "Then you could be hurting Dimitri by hurting him." Khali moved to let him hold the other end of the branch, and they brought the mage up into the air, carrying him the rest of the way into Ash's den.
As soon as he crossed the boundary line, his eyes opened, glowing blue and eerily empty. Lada snarled softly, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end, and Dimitri stirred under her hand, his eyes flickering open, too. Khali and Ash quickly set the mage down, Ash crouching to look into his gaze. The mage was staring unblinkingly at Dimitri.
"There is a link between them." Ash pointed out the obvious, his tone as grim as his expression. "Dimitri's magically bound to this one."
"I'm - sorry." The mage mumbled, his eyes finally blinking, then slipping shut. He was filthy, leaves and moss caught in the net, mud caked through it, the burning lines so crisscrossed over his skin that he was more red than pale pink, and in a few places, the wire had broken skin, dried blood adding to the wreckage of his appearance. He looked as hungry and tired as Dimitri, but Lada wanted to rip away the silver net and rip him apart. Twice, he had trapped her brother, and this time it was far more complicated than a wood and silver wire cage.
Lada got to her feet, but Ash held up a hand. She stilled, barely willing to see what their healer could get out of this mage. Ash was trying to find out more so he could help Dimitri. "What did you do to Dimitri, mage?" His voice was incredibly calm for the situation. "I've never heard of a spell that makes leather silver, not without killing the mage."
"I don't know." The mage whispered, and tears streaked through the dirt and blood on his face. "He attacked me, and I - I'm sorry, I didn't want to collar him … I didn't mean to; I promise, I promise, I'm sorry, I'm sorry -" Ash hushed him, and the mage sobbed through a couple breaths. "I just wanted to be - free -" His voice cracked, and he went silent. Ash reached forward, pressing two knuckles carefully through a gap in the net to the mage's skin. The mage flinched; the healer made a soft soothing sound. Dimitri growled quietly, and Lada returned to his side, running her fingers through his fur, careful to avoid the collar. He leaned into her touch, shivering, and Lada swallowed the thick grief and rage at the band, at the feeling of her brother's ribs under her fingers.
"He's feverish." Ash diagnosed. "Water, please."
"He's a hunter." Lada said without moving.
"Water, if you please." Ash's voice brooked no argument, and Khalida returned with the bucket and ladle that had been spooning water into Dimitri's mouth only a short while ago.
The mage made a broken noise when Ash offered him the water, drinking so eagerly that most of the water ended up on his shabby tunic, streaking through the filth on his neck. He reached up, hands shaking, when Ash patiently refilled the ladle and held it before his mouth again. Two more ladles, and then the mage swallowed it too fast, coughing and sputtering. Ash snapped his fingers, pointing at his gloves, and Lada tossed them over. With the leather between his skin and the silver, Ash was able to touch the mage through the silver net, patting his back as the mage coughed water out of his airway.
"What do you mean, be free?" Ash asked.
Lada added: "You're a mage. You couldn't have spelled yourself away instead of sticking around to capture one last wolf?" Dimitri growled under her hand in agreement.
"I'm sorry." The mage said, voice less crackly, but still shaky. "Eskender died, and it was, it was just in my hand, it had just fallen off. My collar. I didn't mean to, to, to - I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." His voice rose into a wail, and Dimitri curled up tight. Lada stared at the mage.
His -?
Ash let out a long, shaky sigh. "Well, shit." He reached unconsciously for his neck, gloved fingers brushing the old, raised scars there. His expression was full of grief.
"His collar?" Khali whispered.
"I didn't mean to." The mage sobbed. "I didn't want to hurt anyone else. I don't know what I did, I promise. I don't know. I just wanted, wanted - I just -" He shuddered, his words falling apart, and Ash tugged the boy into his lap, embracing him fiercely for a moment. "Mine - mine fell off - when, when, when Eskender died. You could -"
"My shears, Lada, please." Ash said, cutting off the mage's disjointed words.
Lada rose from Dimitri's side, her mind putting together pieces. The hunters had been well fed. This boy was skin and bone. The hunters had been warmly dressed. The mage had been in falling apart rags before he was dragged through half the forest. The hunters had been vicious to their last breath, angry. This child had been apologizing from the first.
She found the shears, brought them to Ash. He pulled the wires away from the mage, cutting through the net with single mindedly purpose and care. The silver spilled out across the floor, and the mage stayed curled on top of it, only moving enough to wrap his arms around his head. The burning lines were so bright on his pale, bruised skin, an accusing color.
"I'm sorry." He was still crying. "If you just - just kill me -"
"How long were you collared?" Ash asked, lifting him off the net. The boy curled into him pitifully. As soon as contact between him and the silver broke, magic literally glowed to life on his skin, erasing the burned marks.
"I don't - I don't know." He replied. Ash pulled at the shreds of the tunic wrapped around the mage, and it fell back from his neck, his shoulder. He shook all the harder. Magic still fizzing around him, erasing the nicks and bruises now, but there were thick white scars across his shoulders, down his spine, wrapping around his ribs. Lada and Khalida hissed. Ash ran his fingers gently through the tangled curls of the mage, lifting them off his neck, and sure enough, the mage bore a set of scars circling his throat, a match to the ones still on their healer.
That was likely years of scarring.
"We’re not going to kill you." Ash said, gently sliding his fingers out of the mage's hair and cradling the boy's head to the healer's shoulder. "You're freezing." Khali moved again, grabbing a spare fur blanket from one of the other healing berths, and she and Ash wrapped it around the mage. The boy was still shaking, tears dripping off his chin and into the furs as they hid the horrible landscape of scars. Lada turned back to her brother; his eyes were fixed on the mage, horror clear in his raised hackles. The collar glinted, and Lada imagined it around the mage's neck, burning a thick, blistered mark into his skin. She was going to be sick.
"You need rest, and then we'll sort out how to free Dimitri. It's going to be alright, child." Ash promised.
"But I - I collared him; I killed them. I've hurt so many wolves." The mage wept.
"None of us were quite sure why the boundary spells hiding the hunters broke when they did." Lada spoke up. "We knew where they were, roughly. But we had no idea how to get to them without setting off the spells, without giving them time to kill all the wolves they had. It seemed unbelievably lucky when the spells just - dropped. Was that you?"
The mage nodded, a single dip of his head.
Lada swallowed. "Get him well. So we can figure out how to free Dimitri." She ordered roughly. And so he can be free, too.
ASH
It took poppy milk to settle the mage, and he woke up from a screaming nightmare once his body worked through the dosage. Ash poured another dose, diluted by a ladleful of water, down his throat as soon as his magic stopped literally sparking out of him.
His name was Jaime.
He woke up in fear the second time, too, the kind of fear that made taught someone to breath nearly silently, hold as still as possible. Ash fed him broth and asked if he would be willing to try to free Dimitri with a spell that Ash knew. Jaime broke his silence to pour out a litany of shaky, babbling promises that he would free Dimitri, he hadn't wanted to trap the other man, he was going to free Dimitri as soon as he could figure out how even before the wolves found him. Ash listened to the shaky flood of words that poured out of Jaime, and he reassured him that it would be alright.
Ash fed the mage, gave him water, gave him various remedies to try and calm him and the wild tangle of magic barely contained by the boy. He had been nine when they found him. Killed his teacher. Collared him. Jaime didn't know how old he was now. He'd never been taught how to actually control his magic; the collar and a book of spells that aided the hunter's butchery was the most he'd gotten after they'd gotten their hands on him.
No matter how Ash reassured him, Jaime reeked of fear. Even Ash's approach spiked the bitter scent. Lada - somewhere between an order and a request - conveyed that it would be best to keep the mage in Ash's den, under his eye. She took Dimitri to her tent to get him away from the overwhelming scent of magic and fear, asking Ash to bring Jaime to try to free Dima once the mage's fever broke.
Dimitri slunk back to Ash's den whenever he could escape Lada, thought eyes fixed on the mage no matter if the boy was asleep or awake. Despite the fever flush still bright on his cheeks, Jaime tried again and again to spell the collar off of Dimitri when the wolf was there. His magic hit the collar and sank into it. The collar swallowed any and all of the magic Jaime threw at it, exhausting the mage worse. Jaime had had nearly no reserves to lean on. Ash stopped him when he nearly toppled to the floor after yet another failed attempt.
He was all power, no control. Years of magically exhausting himself on the commands of others had turned into a terrifying ability to stretch into the depths and breadths of magical power, but when he tried small spells, such as purifying water, he massively overdid it. Not only had the water evaporated, the bucket exploded and a couple of the larger remaining chunks of wood started sprouting.
"Have you ever used glyphs?" The healer asked, examining the oak sapling happily growing out of what used to be the handle of his water bucket.
"The boundary spell glyphs are the only ones I know." Jaime admitted. "Everything in - in their book - was spoken spells."
"Then rest, and when I deem you well, we'll teach you glyphs and see if they succeed where your spells are failing." Ash decided. It might have been easier to convince Jaime to sing down the moon than rest and recuperate.
"You were supposed to be sleeping." Ash said, exasperated, when he returned to his den with a basket of freshly gathered herbs to find the mage guiltily cleaning up heaps of feathers.
"I'm sorry. I was just trying to fluff the mattress." The mage whispered. "I have to - I have to figure out how to channel it."
"And instead you exploded my mattress." Ash sighed, shooing him away from the feathers towards an unaffected mattress. "We'll count ourselves lucky that you didn't turn the mattress into a whole flock. Focus on healing, Jaime."
"Yes, Ash." Jaime murmured, curling up into a little ball under the furs.
"The sooner you heal, the more likely we'll be able to calm your magic." Ash explained. "You are fighting a fever, and draining your magic into pointless endeavors is only prolonging it. The sooner your magic calms, the sooner we can sort out Dimitri, and the sooner you can leave."
"I can -" Jaime rolled back, eyes wide. "You're going to let me leave?"
"I'll walk you back to Jorge's house and your village myself." Ash promised. "Lada promised you'd be free of us, too, as soon as Dimitri is himself. So rest, Jaime."
"Alright." Jaime whispered, curling back up.
He slept until the early hours of the morning, and he stayed in bed when he woke up this time.
"I don't think it's going to go away." He said to Ash, still curled in the furs. Ash made a questioningly noise. "The fever. I've been sick before, and it's not - it's not like then. What I did to Dimitri, it's - wrong. There's something wrong in me. I can tell when he's close or near; I'm tired when he's farther." Hours of sleep, time that Jaime's magic should have used to heal the dark circles under his eyes, the tremor in his hands. "I woke up because he's sitting outside right now." Dimitri slunk into the den, ears flattened as he shot a glare at Jaime for ratting him out.
"Alright." Ash sighed after looking him over. "We will make one attempt with glyphs. If it doesn't work, you rest until I say so."
"Thank you, Ash." Jaime whispered. He was so quiet so often, his voice a thread. "I'm sorry."
"You didn't know." Ash sighed. "Let me throw up a boundary spell in case the collar also explodes." As he did so, Dimitri crept closer to the mage, his body language wary. Jaime pushed himself slowly upright, tangling his fingers together tightly. Ash finished laying out his boundary spell tokens, and stepped into the ring before laying down the final one. His magic gently rose around them, shielding.
"Try tracing this on each of your palms and then laying them on the collar. Intent is important, and the spell on Dima is all intent. Focus on wanting to be well, wanting to be safe, wanting to be free." Ash instructed, laying down a parchment scrap with a glyph sequence and a small jar of berry dye. Jaime obeyed, the shake in his hands stilling as he focused on exactly mimicking the glyphs. Release. Return. Repair. Restore. With both palms red lined, he looked up at Ash. "Well done. Dimitri?" Dima prowled forward; he and the mage met each other's eyes a long moment before Dimitri came close enough for the mage to reach. Jaime's expression tightened, then cleared. He took a long, slow breath in, and reached forward.
The glyphs came in contact with the collar, and the magic flared so bright it was blinding. Eyes tightly shut, watering, Ash waited for it to subside. It cut out an instant later, and there was a soft thud against the stone floor.
Dimitri knelt before the mage, Jaime's hands fallen bonelessly to the shifter's shoulders. The collar lay in two pieces on the floor, singed leather, but there wasn't an inkling of injury on Dimitri or Jaime. Jaime was pale, swaying, his face clammy. Dimitri reached up, feeling around his neck, then he stared down at his hands, clenching and unclenching his fingers.
"You're free." Jaime whispered up to Dimitri. Ash felt his forehead, taking the mage's weight with his other arm. The fever heat was gone.
Dimitri blinked between the collar on the floor, his fingers, and then up at the mage.
"I am." Dimitri agreed quietly, hoarsely. "And so are you."