Two Worlds of Oblivion

by Angelina J. Steffort

  “No.” Heck was the first to react. His arms caught her, stabilizing her, but it was Corey’s voice who pleaded next to her ear.

  “You need to focus, Maray.” It was just a concerned urging at first, but when Maray didn’t react, Corey’s tone grew impatient. “Stop it, Maray, or you’re going to kill us.”

  Maray glanced around, suppressing the groan that threatened to hatch from her throat. Everything was tinted in fiery orange, but the flames weren’t constrained in the shape of a dome as they had been a moment ago; they were raging in the corridor freely, setting everything on fire that wasn’t stone or iron.

  “She is injured,” Heck reasoned next to them, his hand reaching for her head, pulling it against his chest. “Do something, Corey.”

  A cacophony of exclamations of agony sound-tracked the fire as it spread further along in the corridor, licking up to the wooden planks that stabilized the ceiling.

  “We need to get out of here,” Wil opined out. “It won’t matter if Corey has heard her if we’re all buried alive.”

  The wound in her side hurt enough to make it hard for Maray to move, but there was something else incapacitating her. “Jem,” she heard herself say. “We need to find Jem.” Maray glanced up at Corey and Heck, finding two conflicted faces looking down at her.

  “We need to save the Princess of Allinan first.” It was Heck’s pained voice that spoke.

  Corey nodded, her features twisting at the thought of leaving Jemin behind.

  “You can’t leave him down here,” Maray objected. “He will die.”

  “As will we if we don’t get out of here,” Wil urged.

  At that moment, more screams added to the background noise, and Maray spotted two more men at the back of the corridor. “Evacuate!” one of them commanded, and a group of people moved behind the flames, one of them familiar.

  Maray struggled out of Heck’s arms and stumbled to her feet. “Jem!” she called over the smoke and noise, but her voice was weak, breath coming laboriously.

  It was him—between the outlines of armed soldiers and a tiny woman, it was definitely Jemin there in the distance. She had held him in her arms often enough and studied his shape from a distance to recognize him among hundreds. Even though his shoulders were hunched and his stride lacking its usual energy, she knew she was looking at him.

  “Jem!” she tried again, but all she got in response was Heck’s panicked disapproval as above her one of the wooden planks dislodged and crashed down right before her feet, blocking her path.

  “We need to leave before it’s too late.”

  “But Jem,” Maray muttered. “He’s right there.” She pointed across the corridor behind the burning bodies of their attackers.

  Maray pushed herself further toward the spreading fire, ignoring the hands attempting to restrain her, and sucked in the stinking air, wondering if it was even possible anyone could hear her over the cracking wood and the fire and screams. “Jemin!”

  Just when she was about to give up, his head turned in the distance. She knew he saw her; she could tell by the way his posture straightened. His arms lifted ever so slightly; they were bound by chains. “Maray!”

  A burst of embers and fire hit the spot where Jemin was standing, and Maray heard herself shriek—

  Everything vanished from her perception except for the blast of flames and the absence of the boy she had yet to confess her true feelings to. The wound in her side was negligible, for Jemin had been hit by that blast, and he wouldn’t survive; and that pain in her side was nothing compared to the agony of her breaking heart.

  “Now!” Heck pulled at her arm, forcing her backward.

  “I can’t,” Maray objected. “We can’t leave him behind.”

  “There is nothing we can do,” said Heck, surprisingly cold. He sounded exactly the way Jemin did when he was in soldier mode. That thought alone was enough to force tears into Maray’s eyes.

  Beside her, Corey was chanting something that sounded much like phrases of denial, but she didn’t pay attention. Instead, she let Heck drag her along until she was half in his arms, half running.

  “The exit is blocked,” Wil shouted somewhere ahead.

  Maray lifted her gaze to find the loyal revolutionary pacing the small space with the two doors. The corridor that led back to the fountain was blocked by burning roots and a half-collapsed ceiling. But while the rest of the place was being consumed by flames, her dome of fire was gone.

  “What’s behind this?” Corey asked and pushed a door open without waiting for an answer.

  “Allow me.” Wil pushed past her, sword in hand, and led the way into a tunnel which wasn’t consumed by the aftermath of Maray’s out-of-control magic.

  A swoosh of clean air greeted them as they stepped into the tunnel. It helped clear Maray’s head, and her feet moved more willingly as she realized it was only a matter of time before the fire would burn down the door behind them.

  “This way.” Wil pointed at a narrow path that was better lit.

  After a minute of running, sensation returned into Maray’s body, and the pain in her side sung with every breath. She bit back a moan and leaned into Heck for more support. His arms grasped her willingly, pulling her forward at a steady pace, no comment on the increasing weight she was putting on him or on the fact that she had just killed Jemin.

  Just as there was a door within sight, a call stopped them. “There is nowhere you can run, Princess.” The voice, unexpectedly close, sent a chill down Maray’s back.

  Heck stopped, pulling her to a halt and pushing her behind him with one arm. With his free hand, he drew his sword. Maray notice Wil’s breathing behind her, and Corey planted herself at Maray’s side. She was caged by three protective Allinans who she had deliberately endangered. Guilt flushed out all of the pain she had felt a moment ago.

  “Behind that door is backup. Unfortunately, not for you…” The man laughed. “Give me the Princess, and you can leave unharmed. On the contrary, my men will welcome you as heroes.”

  “Never,” Heck spat and tightened his grip on Maray, but she knew what she had to do. After Jemin had sacrificed himself to keep her safe, the best she could do was offer her own life to save her friends her and family; to save Allinan.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered at her friends and dragged herself to the side enough so she could see the man’s face. Heck protested, but she silenced him by taking his hand. “I am here,” she said out loud.

  The man, just a few long strides away from them, gasped as he laid eyes on her. “I didn’t believe it—” he muttered.

  “Didn’t believe what?” Maray asked, not caring to keep up appearances. This man was about to kill her, and she didn’t owe him even a grain of respect.

  “You look just like her—” the man stopped mid thought, stepping closer with sudden conflict in his eyes.

  “Like Rhia,” Maray completed what he was saying; what everyone was saying the first time they saw her. “I look just like the evil queen you are so desperately trying to dispose of.” Heck chuckled at her choice of words.

  “You have no idea.” The man took another step, making all of Heck’s muscles tense beside her and Corey stumble back a foot. His face was not half as cold as his voice, but there was something different there… pain, maybe, regret.

  “You’d be surprised to see her true face,” Maray suggested. “She has changed quite a bit.”

  “You have seen her?” The man made unexpected conversation instead of launching at them with his drawn blade; it was a saber, long and curved and set with jewels on the cross-guard.

  “Before she fled with Feris,” Maray said, pretending it didn’t hurt to think about how her grandmother had kept her mother prisoner in the dungeons for her blood—how she wanted to do the same to Maray.

  “But you know that, right? Langley and his derailed group of revolutionaries know everything,” Corey entered the exchange, voice bitter. She was shaking beside Maray, her nerves triggered by the ment
ion of Feris.

  The man looked taken aback by her reaction. “I’ve heard rumors,” he said, eyes flickering to Heck, who squared his shoulders, readying himself to fight if necessary. “But no one actually believes Queen Rhia is gone. Even with Laura back at the palace to rule in her stead—” His face twisted, slitted eyes full of trouble, “—how does one prove the absence of someone who has been hiding behind curtains for almost two decades?”

  It surprised Maray that he was asking questions, trying to understand rather than just lift his saber to fight his way past Heck and slit her throat.

  “I was there when she fled. Feris took her back to the other world.”

  The man took another step toward them, making Heck edgily push himself in front of Maray again.

  “Close enough,” he warned, but the man ignored him.

  “How do we know you’re not her?” he said, bending forward, saber still at the ready, to peek over Heck’s shoulder. “You could be deceiving us all.”

  “She’s not,” Corey snapped at him. “I’m a warlock, and I know what I’m talking about.” She erased all doubts in the man’s face with her words. “This is Maray Cornay, daughter of Princess Laura and Ambassador Johnson, Princess of Allinan.”

  Maray shrank with every word as Corey stated her full title and as the man took yet another step, Heck’s patience was used up, and he pointed his sword at the man’s throat with a light-speed motion. “I wouldn’t try to come any closer if I were you,” he advised with a dark expression. The usually grinning boy was ready to kill; Maray could tell by every movement of his shoulders with every breath he was taking. His arm trembled at his side, as if he was having trouble holding it back.

  “This won’t be necessary,” the man informed him, and just when Maray was about to tell them that none of this was necessary, that she would give herself up to Langley, the man leaned to the side, trying to catch another glimpse of Maray, and Heck’s nerves gave in. His arm darted forward, hitting the man’s saber with a deafening crash. Wil wound himself through the gap between her and Corey and joined Heck, who was struggling to keep the man in check. The saber was moving fast and fierce, cutting the air between them, and with each time blade met blade, Maray imagined a nail someone was driving into a coffin; Jemin’s coffin, Heck’s coffin. Her own coffin.

  Jemin

  Seri’s black eyes were measuring him. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to think. He was being held captive, but his kidnappers were treating him decently. While he sat on the straw where he had woken up, Langley had taken a seat on the bed, and Seri was crouching at the wall beside him, at a safe distance, dagger on her knees, just in case.

  “I am glad you are not fighting any longer,” Langley admitted, and there was sincere relief on his old features. “It would be a shame if I had to hurt Sander’s son—again.”

  As he referred to his father, Jemin felt an ambiguous surge of betrayal and loss. “You didn’t have to hurt me in the first place. You know, you broke my spine when you attacked us last time.” He considered the moment when he had thought Heck was dead, buried under Langley’s Yutu-form.

  “Sorry about that, but desperate times…”

  “Desperate?” Jemin questioned. “You saw an opportunity and were willing to sacrifice three lives. Maray’s, Heck’s, and mine.”

  Langley’s face changed. “Sacrifice. That’s all it is. I don’t mean to harm any of you. I mean to save the world—the worlds,” he corrected.

  The madness flickered in his eyes again. Even the two men who were with him shied away a step as they noticed it.

  “What happened to you, Cardrick?” Jemin pushed, hoping to break through.

  “You mean besides her letting her pet-warlock experiment on me?” He spat on the floor, mouthed a bitter line, and he ran his fingers over his beard, twisting the bottom into a bushy spiral.

  “Leave him alone,” Seri interrupted, and the men beside Langley tensed.

  Jemin wasn’t sure if she meant him leaving alone Langley or the other way around. Something in her eyes had changed.

  “Cardrick?” Seri asked, ignoring Jemin’s inquisitive look.

  Langley nodded. They seemed to be having a silent conversation, something that only the two of them could hear.

  Jemin glanced around the room, trying to make out some sign of what was going on, but there was only the silence of the two armed men, Langley’s absent look, and Seri with her blade.

  At first, there was a scream, then the sound of a distant fight. Jemin’s head jerked toward the door. “Maray,” he muttered, fearing the worst.

  Langley eyed him, the same expression of fear in his eyes as he saw on his own face in their reflection. But Langley was most certainly not worried about Maray. His nose crinkled as if he were sniffing something. What was going on?

  “Intruders!” Someone burst through the door, a grey cloaked figure facing them.

  With the open door, a new sound added to the noise, a crackling that he associated with a cozy bonfire. The man turned and closed the door behind him, looking alarmed and the tiniest bit relieved as the noise of the battle outside was muffled by the wooden planks.

  “I noticed,” Langley replied, smoothing over his expression. “Has the Princess chosen to join us?”

  The man nodded. “But she’s inaccessible at the moment.” He glanced at the ceiling, letting Jemin guess that he’d rather go back to battle than bring the bad news. Jemin’s heart stuttered at the thought of Maray at the center of a fight. She wasn’t prepared. He had done everything he could to tell her she should save herself. His life was worth nothing in comparison to hers.

  “What do you mean, ‘inaccessible’?” Langley’s frame was shaking. Jemin couldn’t tell if it was from anger or if he was readying himself to transform so he’d be stronger when he joined the battle outside. Anyway, it drove fear into the searching eyes of the man at the door.

  Jemin could only guess who had come with Maray. If she had ever made it back to the palace to inform Princess Laura and Gerwin, they would have locked her safely in her room. So, he realized someone else must be aiding her—

  Heck. Jemin frowned at no one in particular when he noticed Seri shifting uncomfortably beside him.

  “What is it?” he whispered, noticing that her eyes were tearing.

  She glanced at Langley, not turning her head. “You can’t smell it?” she asked as if she couldn’t believe it.

  Jemin shook his head.

  “Smoke,” she hissed. “Something is burning.”

  So he hadn’t been mistaken. But it couldn’t be a bonfire. This must be something much, much worse.

  “Speak,” Langley barked at the frightened man at the door, ignoring the rest of the assembly in his small quarters.

  “Well,” the man stammered, “the Princess is burning down the corridors.” Embarrassment settled on his features when he finally hatched the news.

  “She is doing what?” Langley jumped to his feet with the energy of a twenty-five-year-old, and his body stopped shaking.

  As Langley hit the ground, Jemin felt a tremor run through his own body. Something was off. Maray had strong magic, as strong as Corey’s or even stronger. He had seen it in the clearing. But Maray would never deliberately set everything on fire.

  “She made a wall of fire, and when Ontrey stabbed her, she flushed the flames through the corridors, burning everything in her path.”

  ‘Stabbed her?’ Jemin’s chest tightened. How badly was she injured? Terror spread through his system as he understood that if he showed the slightest sign of how much this news affected him, he would give his captors even more leverage. But the thoughts didn’t cease even when his expression changed into smooth stone. Had she escaped her own flames? How was it even possible that her magic was so strong? His Maray would never do that; Jemin was sure of that. She would never deliberately harm anyone or risk the lives of people she loved—and how he hoped that his love wasn’t one-sided.

  “What
if this is not Maray?” he thought aloud. “What if this is the Queen herself?”

  All eyes were on him within a second at his suggestion.

  “I only saw her from a distance,” the man shrugged uncomfortably. “It could be…”

  “No,” Langley cut him off. “Rhia fled into the other dimension.” He eyed Jemin closely and took a step toward him, measuring his face. “She would never risk coming anywhere near the palace. This is something else.”

  “An impostor?” the man suggested.

  As Langley pondered this idea, dark smoke stole its way through the clefts separating the planks of wood, announcing that it was only a matter of minutes before the fire would reached them.

  “Cardrick.” Seri caught his attention. “We need to go before it’s too late.” Her tone made it clear this was a matter of life or death.

  “The corridor to the fountain is blocked by fire,” the man informed them, stepping away from the door and bringing a whole new wave of smoke with him.

  “Can you walk?” Langley asked Jemin, grabbing him with unexpected haste and pulling him to his feet without waiting for a response.

  “With all due respect...” Jemin stabilized himself against the wall with his elbow, hands still chained together. “If you want me to have a chance of getting out of here alive, you’ll need to release me from my shackles.”

  Langley gave him a dark look that made clear that he no longer cared if he lived or died.

  “Seri,” he called, and the girl jumped to her feet, light as a feather. “You’ll make sure he doesn’t try and use this situation to his advantage.” With these words, Langley stormed to the door and tore it open, gesturing for the others to follow. “There is a secret exit on the other side.”

  So this was it. Jemin knew he was going to die, and soon. If the fire was strong enough to set the wooden planks and supporting elements of the corridor on fire, there was no chance they’d make it out of there alive. But he wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t make it out alive. If Maray was still out there in the corridors, she was doomed as was anyone who had been stupid enough to let them convince her to come on her mission. He cursed under his breath and stepped into the fire-light-flooded space outside the door.