Kinshield's Redemption (Book 4) by K.C. May

grayish essence within the gem, but he couldn’t discern any separation between them. “How did two separate essences get in here?”
    “That is a long story, Emtor. We will tell you, but now is not the time. Our essence continues to spill onto the earth.”
    “Awright,” Gavin said. “How do I do this?”
    “Can you sense our essence trapped in the minerals in the water?”
    To his hidden eye, the water sparkled, as if miniature diamonds floated within. “Yeh.”
    “Hold the Nal Disi under the water’s surface and pull the essence into it. Be careful not to pull it through Nal Disi and into yourself.”
    Saying was easy, doing not so much.
    He straddled a large rock that sat at the water’s edge, with his toes on dry ground behind him and his hands within easy reach of the water. Instead of using Daia’s conduit to enhance his magic, he drew on the power within the crystal.
    “No!” the Guardians said. “You must not use our essence that way. Use the woman’s if she does not mind sacrificing it for you.”
    Gavin snapped to attention. “What do you mean, sacrificing?”
    “Please, Emtor, our essence spills out.”
    “What’s that?” Daia asked, alarm on her face. “Are they asking you to sacrifice yourself?”
    “No, no,” he said. “They don’t want me to use their essence the way I use your conduit.”
    “Well then, use my conduit. As I’ve said before, it’s yours to use as you will.”
    Gavin stretched to crack his neck and back and exhaled heavily, trying to release his tension. “Awright, let me give it a try.”
    He imagined the Nal Disi as a sponge, soaking up the essence in the water as he pulled. He envisioned his will as a giant hand stroking the water towards himself. After only a few minutes, he gasped for breath, unaware until that moment that he’d been holding it in. Breathe. Relax. His shoulders and neck were taut with the strain of it, and his stomach muscles burned with the effort of pulling.
    “You needn’t tire yourself that way, Emtor,” their gentle two-toned voice said in his mind. “The pulling is done with the magic, not with the muscles.”
    “I know that,” he snapped. Magic didn’t come naturally to him. He’d merely inherited King Arek’s magic over several months, starting only a year earlier. Everything he learned to do was learned through trial and error. He didn’t have the luxury of time to experiment and play like a child. As the Wayfarer and King of Thendylath, he felt the expectations of others like a boulder on his back. “I’m doing the best I can.”
    He refocused his efforts, but this time he tried to do it without tensing his muscles. The sounds of the birds drifted from his consciousness, as did the feeling of the rock under his arse. The sight of his hidden eye narrowed. What started out looking like a swarm of colorful specks racing towards him and into the crystal between his hands smoothed into ribbons of gray. The Nal Disi became heavier in his hands with every passing moment. Little by little, a hum seeped into his mind, growing louder as the Guardians’ essence filled the crystal. A second hum joined the first, slightly different in pitch, creating a pair of ghostly tones that Gavin heard in his mind yet not with his ears and splitting his mystic vision.
    He saw three different scenes in his mind at the same time. It was like looking at something close up with first one eye shut and then the other, while with both eyes open, the image merged.
    In one scene, the essence flowed towards him from the water and gathered into the Nal Disi.
    In the second and third scenes, two Elyle sat on the ground holding hands, their free hands on the white crystal between them. Their eyes were shut, and they were humming with their mouths and chanting at the same time with their whistles and clicks. He could sense their hazes flowing into the gem and merging within. Their bodies grew weaker. At first they slumped together, and then they collapsed. As