by Jada Fisher
“Daniella, drink of our people, drink the gift we give to you, and Maedryell, it is time for you to let go and fall.”
They began chanting again, and I felt it vibrate through my feet and up my spine. It was so beautiful, enough to make me cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. I was too excited, too scared, and everything was just escalating that much more.
The refrain repeated and then there was that thunder up ahead. It was booming and boisterous, rattling my teeth and even my soul. Electricity was building along my skin, making my hair stand up, celebrating, jumping at the chance to do something it never had before.
It was like the whole world was locked into the crescendo of our circle, cheering us on, urging us to keep going.
“Davie…”
I looked to Maedryell beside me, the spirit letting out a soft gasp—which was saying something considering she didn’t need to breathe—and then stiffening.
And that was when the real magic happened.
Suddenly, light shot up around the edge of the circle, lighting up in a wave before tracing inward. It raced along, bright and blue, shimmering with so much energy that it practically buzzed. When it reached Maedryell, everything changed.
The smoke shot out, coating the floor up to our knees in thick, inky waves. And instead of gray, Maedryell’s body began to glow a crystalline blue.
It was like the same crystal that had encased me, but the meaning was totally different. Instead of entrapping her, it was freeing her, and she began to rise into the air.
I watched, breathless and pushing out all the power I could. And what was insane was that I could feel it, rushing through the air, the circle, and even her. I felt it rush through her very being, breaking chains, freeing bonds, tearing away bindings that had held her for longer than anyone had ever been alive.
And then, after another rushing surge, that last chain broke and she truly was free.
The lightning crashed down, lancing in a perfect line right to Maedryell’s heart. And in that moment, she was beautiful.
Light filled the entire deathly meadow we were in, blinding me, but I didn’t need to see to know what was happening. I felt the entire world break around us, rules shattering and reforming, magic surging through new channels and reveling in its beauty.
That moment lingered, filling my heart with hope. Pumping me full of all the energy I’d felt like I was missing ever since the rotted dragon came to my dimension.
And then all that magic turned around and went into me.
Oh man, did it hit me. I felt like I was picked up off the earth and thrown into space. Like someone had made me swallow the sun and wouldn’t let any of the power out. It was too much, too much, but I gritted my teeth and took it.
The surge was impossible, monumental, but I weathered it. Just under the rush, I felt a strange sort of tether wrap around me. Then another. And another. And then I was yanked down into a pool of knowledge and heritage I never knew I had.
Images flashed through my mind, too quick to process. Suddenly, my perception stretched out and I was aware of little prickles of light stretching out all around me. Across space, across universes even.
Were those…
Was I…
I was sensing all the oracles! Or…was I sensing all the souls that needed me to guide them home? I didn’t know, but I could feel them calling to me, and that feeling only grew more and more as the power within me surged.
I was almost completely divorced from my body, and yet I knew the moment the light died and the wind stopped blowing. Gasping, I opened my eyes, lights dancing all around in my vision.
But I was alive. I was full of magic to bursting and feeling more like myself than I had in months, but I was most definitely alive.
It looked like Maedryell was right.
Maedryell!
I looked up and saw a human, dressed in white, her hair flowing around her. She slowly lowered, as if the world itself was gently letting her down to rest, telling her that it was alright.
Bronn and I moved forward at the same time, catching her in our arms and lowering her to the ground. I never thought I would see Maedryell in the flesh, never even really thought about it, but there she was.
“Hey,” I said when her eyes fluttered open. And, oh, she had both of them back. It hadn’t been like that when I’d seen her in my last vision.
“H-hey,” she murmured, licking her lips. “Is… Is that what I sound like?”
“Apparently, you do,” I said with the tiniest bit of a laugh. “So how does it feel to be mortal again?”
“It feels… It feels…” She took a shuddering breath, and I saw the color slowly draining from her face. Slowly, calmly, but it was still there. She was so very old, wasn’t she? But she’d just arrived in the mortal world. I didn’t want her to go yet. “It feels good,” she whispered.
Her hand rose and I gripped it, hoping she could feel that I would do right by her, by our people.
“You all are everything I ever dreamed of and more. When our kind winked out across almost every dimension, I thought that I had failed, that my people had asked one thing from me and I’d ruined that too. But you did it, all of you. And when you get out of here, don’t ever forget that it was all of you that have saved us.”
“We’re not gonna forget. I promise.”
“Good,” she said, smiling slightly. “Good. I feel cold, you know? It’s amazing. I haven’t felt cold in so long.”
“I’m glad you’re getting to feel it now.”
Her breathing was coming slower and her skin was paler, her blinks lasting longer, but she still smiled.
“Do you think my old friends will be happy to see me?”
“I know Santha will be. I’m sure there are others. I bet they’re all waiting in a line to catch up.”
“That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” she whispered, her mouth barely moving.
“It’s gonna be great.” I leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I promise.”
“I’ll see you in a few millennia, then?”
“You will. Now go see Santha. She’s waiting for you.”
Maedryell smiled, a real smile, and then her breathing stalled out. I held her, as did Bronn, and we silently watched as she rippled then turned to dust, the wind taking what remained of her and scattering it to the dimension.
Finally, after so long, Maedryell was at peace.
She had certainly earned it.
10
A Level Playing Field
“Did… Did it work?”
I blinked, pulling myself back to the moment. Bronn and I had been just sitting there, looking at the place Maedryell used to be. My mind was in a lot of different places. I was thinking about all that Maedryell’s life had been and how much there was that I would probably never know. I also thought about how different it was witnessing her death over Mallory’s. I thought about our future, and the era that we were hopefully ending.
I stood, facing the other oracles. I could see their eyes on me, but more importantly, I could see the energy bubbling within them and how it connected all of us. Because we really were connected, like trees in a forest all sharing the same roots.
“It worked,” I said, and my words reverberated in my own head. “At least as far as I can tell.”
“There’s really no way to know, is there?” Krisjian asked. “Not until—”
A booming shatter filled the air, drowning out the end of his sentence. Looking up, I saw a massive and unfortunately familiar paw shattering the ground, debris shooting into the air then raining down all around us.
Faeldrus sure did like to make an entrance. His other foot came up, reminiscent of the very way that he had entered our world, and then his head was emerging.
Where are you, children? I can smell you!
Ugh. He really did like those dramatics.
Come now, Davie, aren’t you tired of running?
I straightened from where I had jumped to avoid the falling debris and stood, ha
nd on my hip. Maybe it was a bit of a cliché pose, but it felt right. It made me feel strong.
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
He shot up into the air and I guessed we really were on the underside of his prison dimension. I had no idea how Maedryell managed to get us there or even knew about it, but it wasn’t like I could ask her.
There you are, my girl. I’ve been looking for you for so long. You know, we’re late, my dear. Everyone is waiting for us! It’s not nice to delay the new dawn.”
“Oh, is that what we’re calling it now? I prefer the term good ole fashioned apocalypse.”
You can call it whatever you want. That’s not going to change what happens.
“I think it is.”
Obviously, a dragon didn’t have eyebrows, but if he did, they definitely would have been raised.
You seem to have rallied. Has something happened, little one?
I bared my teeth. I was so done with him. Done with the pain and the anguish and all the death he had caused. “Why don’t you come and find out?”
I was being too brash, I knew it, and he could tell that something was up. But I also knew that he couldn’t resist me. Not with me standing right in the open, staring up at him with defiance in my eyes.
To his credit, he lasted longer than I thought he would.
But then he shot forward, jaws wide and teeth sparkling.
He should have known better, he really should have, because steam burst across the meadow and everything was obscured for a moment. I stood my ground, and before he could even reach me, Bronn rammed into his back and the two went tumbling away.
Claws and teeth scraping against scaley skin filled the hall, along with plenty of roaring. It was deafening, and most of us oracles clapped our hands over our ears.
But we weren’t any shrinking violets. Once the worst of it passed, I looked back to my friends, my family, and gave them a look. Even though none of us were telepathic, we didn’t need that to communicate exactly what each one of us were thinking.
It was finally time to fight back.
Faeldrus opened his mouth, his jaws dangerously close to Bronn’s smaller neck. It was strange to see the prince so outsized, but the formerly-rotted dragon really was massive. Bronn managed to keep Faeldrus’s bite at bay, but I saw the flicker of light within it even from down on the ground.
Raising my hand, I called up all the magic I felt bubbling in me. It was still so new and ran in me so deep, but it slid into my grip at my call.
The fire rushed out of Faeldrus’s mouth only to hit the shield that I summoned, bouncing back into his own face. For a moment, I hoped that would be enough, but while it did stop the rotted dragon from sinking his teeth into Bronn’s neck, it didn’t impede him at all from pulling away and managing to throw the prince to the ground.
Krisjian rushed forward, sliding on his stomach just close enough to touch a finger to Bronn’s wings. I could make out his mouth moving but couldn’t hear any of the words. That didn’t matter, however, because I was raising my hand and summoning another shield around Bronn as he recovered his balance and turned to attack again.
It was clear that Faeldrus saw me and knew exactly what I was doing, because instead of swooping down, he let out a truly ear-shattering roar.
And the earth answered.
It shook below our feet, cracks lacing through it. Like something out of a nightmare, skeletal hands began to shoot up, reaching and grabbing blindly. They weren’t human hands, and weren’t quite dragon hands either, but something entirely in between, awful and unnatural.
“Get off the ground!” I called, scrambling for some sort of debris or something to hold onto. Bronn lifted into the air, attacking Faeldrus outright, but the spell was already uttered. Maybe it was the dead or maybe it was the damned, but either way, something was definitely trying to grab us.
I most sincerely didn’t want to be grabbed.
But as with most things in life, what I wanted didn’t matter. I had only barely reached a large piece of twisted metal when something cold and hard bit into my ankle, yanking me roughly.
I yelped, kicking backward with my other foot, but the next thing I knew, I was face first on the ground. My nose protested, but I was pretty sure there was no cracking or blood. Granted, my relief at that didn’t much matter when more hands began to reach up and pull at me, gripping my clothes, gripping my arms, even my hair.
“Get off me!” I cried, calling up my shield around me. I imagined a bubble over my body, keeping me safe and secure from their hold.
Just like I hoped it would, the rapid rise of the wall cut off the bony limbs, leaving them flopping uselessly around me. But I didn’t even get a moment to celebrate before even longer, ganglier ones shot up around me, clamping around the entire bubble of my magic.
“You have got to be kidding me!” I spat.
It wasn’t.
The earth beneath me began to crack and I could feel my whole bubble being pulled into the ground. Cursing under my breath, I tried to figure out what to do, only to have another yank send me deeper.
“Oh no you don’t!” I looked toward the sound to see Princeton jump down from a large chunk of debris and grab one of the skeletal hands reaching for him. “Come on, show me your big weakness.”
Funny, nothing on his outside changed, but I could feel the magic snap out of him. It was different than my magic, or Mickey’s and Sokhanya’s. Instead of bubbling, or popping like a liquid, it was almost like…wind. Or maybe pollen caught in the wind. Small particles of sparkling power that spread out around him like a mushroom releasing its spores in a great rush.
I felt that power travel through him then down to those hands, spreading out like an infection until they all were shining with the same sort of energy I couldn’t see but sure as heck could feel.
After that, there was a moment that nothing happened, and I felt like all of us were holding our breath. Then an unearthly shriek issued from the ground and the hands all began to shake, smoke coming from them before they suddenly stiffened and burst into white ash.
“That’s what I thought,” Princeton said with a snarl before rushing over to me, helping me up.
“Thanks,” I said breathlessly. “That was impressive.”
He didn’t answer right away, his eyes affixed elsewhere, and it took me a minute to realize he was staring down at our joined hands.
“You okay?” I asked. What a ridiculous thing to ask in the middle of a battle. Possibly our final battle.
He didn’t answer again for a beat, before shaking his head and letting me go. “Uh. Yeah. You, uh, you’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”
“Haven’t we all?” I said with a wry grin before I spotted the flaming mass of energy coming towards us. Pressing him to the side, I called up my magic and shot it up, covering the entire field.
Just like before, the fire bounced off it, flinging up into the sky. If there was any wildlife, I would have been worried about it, but as it was, there wasn’t a single living thing besides us.
“I guess you’re right,” he said, trotting back to where the older woman was… Wait, was that a crossbow? Where did she get a crossbow!?
I didn’t get an answer on that because Faeldrus dove down, slamming into my shield with his whole being. It rattled me, sending me to my knees, but somehow, I managed to hold on.
What’s this? he asked, sounding oily and pleased and making me really want to punch him in the face. I was pretty sure it was not advisable to punch a dragon in the face, but half the things I did weren’t advisable.
…actually, half was a fairly generous underestimate.
You’ve recovered considerably, haven’t you, little one? Always full of surprises. He spiraled up and Bronn shot toward him, jaws wide and snapping. But before Bronn could reach him, Faeldrus’s tail glowed a shining blue and smacked him right back down.
The collision was brutal, and I couldn’t stop the startled cry that escaped my mouth. Before I could s
top myself, I was running forward, arms outstretched like I really could punch someone.
A hand caught my arm, yanking me back. I snarled, trying to pull myself free, only to hear a similarly adamant grunt.
Looking back, I saw it was Sokhanya, her nails biting into my skin as she looked at me urgently. I tugged, but she just shook her head at me before pointing upward. I followed her finger, seeing Faeldrus rising up to descend into my shield again.
“What?”
She pointed more urgently again and pulled out something I never thought I would see. That pen. That long, peacock-feathered ancient pen that had killed the anti-humanist prince who had been about to kill us.
“Where did you even get that?”
She didn’t answer, just pointed urgently. “What do you want me to do? I can’t throw you up!”
She moved her hand to grip my fingers and thrust it upwards, like I was making another shield.
“Wait… You want me to use a shield to launch you at Faeldrus?” She nodded, a brilliant smile illuminating her face, and I just stared at her, valuable seconds slipping away and Faeldrus banging on my shield with all he had. “No, Sokhanya. No.”
But she yanked even harder and made a stabbing motion with her pen.
“Trust! Me!”
Trust her? It wasn’t a matter of trust. It was a matter of knowing better than to slingshot my friend at an ancient, powerful dragon. He would snatch her out of the air and make a tiny and rather unsatisfying snack of her.
“Never ask anything! Do this! Trust!”
I probably should have argued with her. Shoved her away and told her no. But she was right, she so rarely asked for anything. How could I ever tell her no?
So, for some reason I couldn’t explain, I just nodded. She let go, crouching low like she was about to launch herself into the air, and maybe in another situation, I would have laughed. But I didn’t laugh. Instead, I focused myself and tried to think of how to do what she was asking for. I’d done some crazy things with my ability to make barriers, but launching someone into the air at a giant enemy was a new one.
