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June massaged his throbbing jaw. Damn, Nyxis could throw a punch. That thin scarecrow could actually get angry and hit people. He made a mental note to never piss Nyxis off since he had confirmed that with or without magic, the human was a deadly force to reckon with. June winced as he tapped the sore circle at the side of his face. The pain shot up to his temples, making his head throb as well. Oh, gods. This was going to bruise.
His feet had taken him to a courtyard of some sort. He hadn't come here to look for Airene. Ravalee had told him through his head that it was just to get him out of that corridor. Thanks be to the gods Ravalee could do that. June didn't want to deal with that all over again. It's best to avoid Nyxis altogether. The guy was an angry mess.
He stepped inside the open courtyard and craned his neck up at the ceiling. Everything was sculpted from ice. Arches with elaborate engravings of leaves and flowers formed a pattern around the courtyard, each shadowed by the same type of magic used to conceal rooms and spaces that the ice sprites employ.
June sighed as he trudged to a frozen fountain situated at the center of the room. Thanks to the beige robes lent to him by a nice ice sprite, his butt didn't freeze over when he sat on the bottom tier. He leaned back and instead of clear water settling in the reservoir, it's some kind of silver liquid. The two other tiers' elegant carvings matched the pattern evident in the arches. There's no liquid spewing out from the tip that would make this fountain functional. It's just the pool of silver liquid...and him.
He sighed as he tucked his hands inside the sleeves of his robe as he'd seen several ice sprites do. The ceiling of bare ice didn't provide much company and the lights that shone from somewhere behind the ice were the only reminder that he was still here.
June didn't know much about technology or innovation but to him, the lights were the most ingenious things he had encountered. He thought that after seeing flowing water technology in Lanteglos he would be fine with other inventions but this...this was beyond what he could understand.
He winced when his jaw throbbed again. Why did he even have this? Of course, Nyxis had some valid points. June really didn't deserve what he had been given but he's not going to throw it away either. He's going to make the most of it and...gods be damned, he's going to live the best life he could.
Getting pummeled by an angry human didn't seem like the best life though.
When Ravalee blurted that she could bring Xanthy back, June's heart tightened. Of course, he wanted Xanthy back. Everyone did. But if that meant Ravalee won't have a future, didn't that count as unfair? He didn't need to add another thing that he'd feel guilty of into his ever-growing list.
His finger tapped his jaw again despite his mind forbidding it. It's like having a wound that one would peel over and over because the pain was a reminder. It's a reminder that June had indeed separated Xanthy's form from her soul and that he had already doomed a life by doing so.
