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

I’d been asleep. I only remembered my own life at first, but over time, I learned how to remember Cirang’s life, too.”
    “Did you hear her reply?” he asked them.
    “We heard her voice, but we cannot understand her language.”
    If they could only understand Gavin because of his magic, having to relay conversations between Daia, Cirang and the Guardians was going to be tedious.
    “Well, let’s get going, and I’ll tell you how it happened.”
    He put the Nal Disi in his satchel, retied his water skin to his saddle, and mounted. While they rode down the mountain in single file, Cirang leading and Gavin riding ahead of Daia, he explained to the Guardians who Cirang had been and who Sithral Tyr had been, and how the green cat figurine housing Tyr’s soul had wound up in her possession. Cirang’s memories had come with the body, she claimed, which made him think that maybe the brain was where the spirit was stored, much like how King Arek’s magic was stored in gems until some poor bastard found them in a cave.
    He wasn’t sure he understood, and he had no interest in becoming a spiritual scholar anyway. He was merely a peasant swordsman forced to lead a country and now to find a cure for an affliction no one had ever seen before. That was plenty to occupy his mind. Something tickled the side of his neck, and he wiped it away. More blood.
    “Why the hell is doing this making me bleed from the ears?” he asked.
    “And nose,” Cirang said.
    “And eyes,” Daia added. “It’s like your tears have turned to blood. I hope you’ve done all you need to do here. You need rest. You need to heal from all this... damage the magic is doing to you.”
    Damage? He’d never considered what kind of damage magic could cause. He used to faint when he was first learning to heal people, but he hadn’t bled from it, and it had never given him a headache as severe as the one he’d awoken with. He wondered how other mages managed it. Jennalia, the Farthan mage who’d enchanted his sword, must have been at least eighty years old. She might be able to offer guidance.
    He leaned to the side, took a deep breath and snorted out a wad of bloody snot. He pinched it off and flung his fingers before wiping them dry on his trousers.
    “Ugh! Gavin, please,” Daia said with a look of disgust.
    “What?” he asked innocently. “I don’t have a clean handkerchief. Was I supposed to snuffle it up and swallow it?”
    “Can we not talk about it?”
     

     
    When they reached the bottom of the mountain where the water trickled down the rock face and spilled onto the ground, Gavin dug wearily into his satchel for the Nal Disi to remove the last of the Guardians’ essence from the water.
    “Why don’t you rest for a bit?” Daia asked. “The water that’s spilling out now is plain water, isn’t it? Diluting the corrupted water?”
    “Yeh, but I’d rather get it over with. That’ll be one thing off my mind.”
    He set the crystal into the pool of water and squatted in front of it. Pulling the spilled essence into it was much easier this time, owing, he supposed, to the smaller quantity of water he needed to work with. While he worked, Cirang gathered firewood and Daia tended the horses.
    When at last he was finished, he felt more exhausted than he had since he could remember. He sat against a tree with the strange crystal in his lap, pondering its nature and the two ghostlike beings living inside that only he could see. Soon, sleep overtook him, and he dreamed of people being sucked into the strange crystal, leaving behind only their clothes. He jerked awake and put the Nal Disi into his knapsack, though he had to make room for it by tying his water skin to the right shoulder strap. The crystal would be safer in a bag that he could keep with him.
    Around the cookfire that night, they ate the food the Lordover Ambryce’s chef had bundled for them. The relief Gavin felt at having cleansed the well water of the life-altering essence