by Jada Fisher
“No, you need to concentrate. You’re letting your mind wander.”
“I’m not trying to let my mind wander,” Eist countered. “I’m trying to empty it out, but you keep talking.”
The All-Mother smiled crookedly, seemingly amused by Eist’s words. “Yes, I’m sure that it is my words that were causing your thoughts to become crowded. Come, try again. Breathe after me.”
Eist did as the woman said, trying to empty her mind and feel the connection to the earth that she was talking about. Dille was beside her, but only in body. Eist could tell that the witch’s presence was already far, far away, lingering in places that she herself just didn’t seem able to reach. It was frustrating. The only thing that Eist recalled ever having as much trouble with was the bow.
But she had Ain for that, so it wasn’t nearly as much of a concern as the fact that she couldn’t reach that center that was supposed to let her tap into a new threshold of abilities.
“Just breathe in, hold it, then out. Hold it. Then in, hold it.”
Eist uncurled her fists and repeated everything the woman did, allowing her mind to sink down into the luxurious feeling that was so thick across the ground and in the earth. She had to partially admit to herself that she was a bit afraid of the sensation, considering how intoxicating and mind-numbing it had been when it had first washed over her during the battle. But she let go, allowing herself to slip under.
Goodness, it was nice. Eist felt herself relax, heaving a sigh as her whole body became heavy and contented. Warmth filled her, from her nose to her toes, and she felt the magic rush through every part of her.
Although her eyes were closed, she could still see everything around her. She supposed that it wasn’t actually seeing, but the golden imprint of everything was sitting there in front of her, radiant like the sun.
It was such a difference. Everything that had been cold and dead and gray in her sight before was now illuminated with an uncanny brilliance. It was insane to think that the Three had been holding so much magic hostage behind their veil. Was this how their world was supposed to be? She couldn’t imagine what the next generation of dragons would be like if that was the case.
Eist tried to concentrate on all the gold, to let her mind spill out on it and spread out like a blanket, but three points kept catching at her attention. They weren’t gold, they weren’t a warm and welcoming piece of enchantment, but they drew her mind nonetheless.
They were a deep, blue cobalt. Not sparkling, not shining, but still beautiful. Eist felt her conscious swirl around them, feeling, investigating. It was like they were drawing her in, some sort of irresistible trap that she couldn’t turn away from. All of her senses longed to touch the deep blue, to absorb every bit of them and get drunk on the feeling of satiation that it would no doubt fill her with.
She felt her mind surround one, tendrils of herself reaching out not unlike the Blight itself, seeking those tempting spots just in front of he—
Something else caught in the corner of her vision. Something that didn’t belong enough to wrest herself away from her impending meal. It was a quickly moving blot of deepest black. Something cloying that didn’t belong.
Eist was on her feet and lunging for the Grandfather before she even knew that she had snapped out of her meditation. She grabbed the boy and the cushion that he had been sitting on, using it as a shield just in time for a dagger to bury itself in the feathered pillow.
“Eist! What the—”
But there was no time to think. She rolled to the side, shoving the Grandfather away, just in time for two more daggers to slam into the wall. She barely managed to roll onto her feet before a dark, cloaked figure was leaping through the window, crossbow already aimed toward the All-Mother.
But this time, Eist didn’t have to interfere. Suddenly, the weapon was warping and melting, so that when the assassin hit the ground, there was nothing but a mess in their hands. A quick glance beside her saw that Dille was holding her hand out, muttering ancient words as she carefully stepped forward.
But the attacker didn’t seem to be all that perturbed and reached into the cloak. Eist tensed as if she was going to tackle them, but she didn’t move at all. Instead, the assassin did, their feet lifting from the floor as they scrambled to grab onto something.
But they couldn’t, and a moment later, they hit the ceiling, their back pinned against it hard enough to make the roof creak.
“Who sent you?” Eist heard herself snarl. She almost felt as if she wasn’t really in her body, just standing somewhere behind it and to the side.
The assassin laughed, still cloaked and shrouded in their black clothing. That made Eist far more irritated than it should have, and with just a simple turn of her head, the robes disappeared in a roll of fire.
“Careful, Eist,” she heard Dille warn. “Are you in control?”
“Yeah, are you in control, Eist?” the assassin asked in a mocking tone. Eist’s gaze flew back to the erstwhile killer and saw the familiar dark eyes that had been in that healer from long ago. Her whole body flushed cold, and she stumbled back a step.
“Y-y-you can’t possess people anymore,” she sputtered. “You’re in Yacrist.”
“You idiot, I’m not the Blight itself. I’m just a follower that has been blessed with the—”
The man didn’t get to finish his phrase. Eist recoiled, wanting nothing more than to get away from that dark eyes gaze that reminded her of a time that she had been so powerless, and the next thing she knew, the man was thrown right back out the window from whence he came.
“Wait, Eist! We could have interrogated him.”
“I obviously didn’t mean to!” the young woman snapped, running over to the open portal. If they were in their normal rooms, they might have been able to find and surround him wherever he landed, but instead, they were in one of the towers, hoping the proximity to the heavens and wide-open spaces would give Eist the edge she needed to center herself.
In an eerie mirror of what had happened all those years ago, Eist could only watch as the man toppled down, down, and down further still until he slammed into the ground.
She winced and looked away. Breathing hard. “Well,” she managed to breathe after a moment. “It seems that the Blight is on the move again.”
“Come on,” Dille said, holding her hand out to Eist. “Let’s get to Elspeth and tell her what’s going on. She’s probably handling the equipment inventory down in the armory.”
Eist nodded then looked to the three deities, who were clustered together and discussing something urgently. Their backs were to her and they were speaking too quietly for her to hear, so Eist decided she didn’t like that much.
“Hey, what’s going on over there?” They just kept talking for a couple more moments so Eist let out a sharp whistle. “Hey, ancient deities. What are you gossiping about?”
The All-Mother turned to her sharply, the woman’s face flashing with authority and determination.
“Nothing you need worry yourself over yet. We are just…theorizing.”
“Yeah, well, theorize on the move. We’ve obviously been compromised up here, so we need to tell the council.”
“Yes, of course.”
They all shared a look that Eist didn’t like at all but acquiesced, moving past her to go down the stairs. She couldn’t be certain, but the Storm looked like she might be sober for the first time in days, which didn’t bode well.
She kept her thoughts to herself, however, her apprehension rising with every step. Something was wrong. Yacrist wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t send a single assassin to try to kill the Three and just leave it at that. No, he was a theatrical one. So, if he had done something, it was definitely for some sort of greater purpose. But what could—
Her foot hit the last stair just as the entire world turned upside-down.
A thundering boom shook everything, and the next thing Eist knew, she was thrown off her feet. Cracking, rending, and screeching filled the air as dirt, du
st, and small debris fell down onto her.
“What in the cad’s pocket is happening?” she cried, trying to fight to her feet as the floor rippled and bucked below her.
“I-I don’t know!” Dille yelled back, grabbing onto a windowsill and pulling herself upright. “Oh my gods… Eist!”
Somehow, she managed to crawl over to the window and haul herself up too, and what she saw was from the deepest, darkest nightmares that she would never admit to having.
The wall—the thick, ancient, powerful wall that had been guarding the academy since it was first built—was a long pile of smoking rubble, not too different from the palace. Large chunks of the debris were flying through the air, while other flaming chunks had already buried themselves in the combat fields.
“He brought down the wall…” Eist whispered, her stomach dropping right out of her.
The alarm bell sounded once, twice, but then another massive ball of flaming material flew through the air, crashing straight through the tower and sending it toppling down to crush part of the academy below it.
“He’s come for us,” the All-Mother said, sounding absolutely breathless. “He will find us.”
Yes, he would. This was what he had been hoping to do. To have an assassin find them and distract them so he could get close enough to make his grand entrance. It would only be moments until—
“We need to get to the council room,” Eist said, helping the Grandfather and the Storm to their feet. “We have to get with the witches.”
“And they will know to meet us there?” the Storm asked, throwing her tankard to the side and kind-sorta running forward.
“You were there when we all agreed to meet there if there was an attack.”
“Oh, did I? Must have been distracted. Come on!”
Eist quickly followed her, heart in her throat. They were all relatively quiet as they ran across the campus, students rushing for safety—but where was safe?—and riders rushing to their dragons.
Where was Elspeth? Where was Fjorin? She could still hear the ringing of the falling bell tower in her ears, which was an entirely alien sensation.
They burst through the large doors of the council room only to find the witches there, busy armoring up their brindled dragons. Eist let out a whistle, and of course Fior came bounding down from the ceiling, screeching his relief at seeing her. Someone had already partially armored him, and she could see the gold-glittering runes of ancient power branded into the material.
“There wasn’t enough for every dragon, so we were doing the best we could,” the woman said, looking like she had just come out of the baths herself with her wet hair sticking to her cheeks and neck. “He’s here, isn’t he?”
“Unless you know of someone else who would blow up the entire wall.”
As if in response, there was a mighty roar from above, and then Veralda and Dille’s other red dragon burst through two of the archways in the ceiling, roaring mightily.
“There’s my girls,” Dille said, holding out her hand.
Veralda caught her up gently, tossing her to land atop the other’s back. They started to swoop upward, and Eist rushed over Fior to scramble up his side as well.
“Wait!” the All-Mother said, gripping Eist’s arm. “Let us come with you.”
“What?” Eist asked. “No. You need to stay here, where you’re safe.”
“No,” she said firmly. “We have to come with you. Alright? Please, trust me on this.”
Eist looked from her to the witches to the Storm and the Grandfather. While the Three looked certain and determined, the two witches just looked annoyed.
“Are we really going to let the dead weight join us in battle?” the man asked, using that same tone he had when he first met her. He’d also thrown a spear at her then though, so at least this was an improvement.
Eist hesitated for one more moment, her practical side telling her to say no but something in her whispering to say yes.
“I… Sure. Fine. Whatever.” She got up onto Fior’s back and held her hand down to the All-Mother, hoisting her up. The Storm and Grandfather went to the two witches, and soon they were spiraling upward.
Eist had the vague sense of history repeating itself as they spiraled into the sky. But this time, instead of an entire army waiting for them with Yacrist standing dramatically in the center of it, there was just all out war.
It was a hell-ground below them, monsters pouring up from the earth, fire spreading everywhere, people screaming and dragons roaring as they summoned their secondary abilities. The bright sun above glinted off the armor of all the beasts around them, but Eist’s gaze was quickly drawn away from them as she saw none other than Yacrist at the center of it all.
And he was actually the center, floating there, laughing like a maniac while a dark cloud of energy whipped all around him. Tentacles burst from the heart of the mass, whipping this way and that, slamming into some dragons here, spearing riders there, but when someone went to take a weapon to them, they would turn into mist before re-solidifying.
“We have to surround him!” the witch cried, shooting forward.
“Yeah, I remember that much,” Eist snapped. “Easier said than done.”
“We’ll distract him,” Dille said, lagging a bit behind. “You guys fly the perimeter. Try to take down as many of those winged beasts before closing in.”
“Dille, what kind of distraction do you think is going to work on the actual harbinger of doom?” Eist called after her. She could still see the woman’s body pierced by arrows, bleeding between her fingers.
But the witch just winked and rode off, arm raised above her with weapon in hand. Where she had gotten a weapon, Eist wasn’t sure, but that didn’t seem to stop anything.
“Alright, keep an eye on the center,” she told the other witches. “We’re not letting anybody die today if I can help it.”
“Please, child,” the witch said with about as much venom as someone could put into a single phrase. “People have been dying from the Blight for centuries. Today more will. The difference is this will be the last day that people die by his hand.”
“And we can finally return home,” the man added behind her. “You’ll send us home, right?”
“Yeah. We’ll find a way to make a portal and get you back. I promise. Just make sure to protect the Three. We can’t have the Blight taking them.”
“Which is exactly why we should have left them behind,” the witch growled before shooting off, letting out a battle cry as several of the brindles followed.
The man gave Eist one more unimpressed glance before spinning off in the opposite direction, the rest of the brindles following him. It was actually pretty impressive to see the small dragons cut through the swaths of winged beasts and dodge the whipping tentacles. They seemed to aim their roars in sync with each other, disrupting the Blight’s magic left and right, leaving ash and errant flesh raining onto the ground below.
But she didn’t have much time to watch and marvel, because she felt something rapidly approaching them from below. Tilting forward, Fior did what he was trained to do and tucked into a roll. And Eist could only hope the All-Mother held on.
His wings flared as he came out of the move, bringing him face to face with the large abomination that had been barreling for them. But instead of just being a monster with a penchant for death and destruction, Eist saw that there was a fully-armored rider strapped to its spiny back.
Oh no.
Eist scrambled for her scabbard, which normally sat right by her hips, but remembered that they had been attacked so suddenly that she was just in her regular dress.
The rider brought their broadsword down in a wide sweep, something that she had no way of blocking, and yet she threw her arm up anyway. She was sure that she was about to lose her limb, but instead of hitting flesh, her attacker’s blade clattered against something else entirely.
She opened her eyes, not realizing that she had closed them, only to see a shield of shining light sitt
ing right where the blade would have struck her skin.
“Well, that’s handy,” she murmured before shoving the blade off.
Fior wasn’t flying idle either. While the rider was distracted trying to wrest its blade from Eist, he reached up with his two front legs and grabbed the top and bottom of the abomination’s jaw, prying it apart before releasing a short, sharp blast of a roar into its open mouth.
Needless to say, the creature didn’t have a head after that, flopping backward before exploding into a cloud of ash, sending its rider tumbling to the ground far, far below.
“Good job,” Eist said before patting his side. “Now, let’s see what I can do about my own weapon.”
Looking to her other hand, she concentrated and tapped into that same magic that she had called on before in times of great need. The responding rush to answer her almost made her dizzy, but she managed to clear her mind before she fell off her mount.
When she glanced back to her hand, there was a shining version of her halberd there to match the shield on her other arm. Good. With that, she could do some real damage.
“Come on, Fior. Let’s cut a path.”
She bent low to his back, rushing forward and up, Eist brandishing her weapons.
It was like there was a line of energy between the two instruments, connecting her to the rest of the world. She felt more connected to the swirling magic around her than she ever had before, and she let all of that power rush through her, fueling her further, harder.
She cut across two abominations as they rushed past, and Fior buried his teeth into another. Their antics definitely caught the attention of several of the beasts, and a reasonable sized horde started to swoop in.
