by Jada Fisher
“Maybe you didn’t remember because you hadn’t done that yet.”
“But if I hadn’t done that yet, why did he only have one hand, and how was he already here in his same body?”
Eist shrugged. “I don’t know. Most of this stuff just goes over my head lately.”
“I feel much the same.” Dille stood, shaking off the last of her uncertainty from her posture. “For all the studying I did in the first war, all that I learned, so much of this still doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe when this is all over, you and me can take a couple of years and try to figure it out.”
“I already spent decades on it. But yeah, a couple more years couldn’t hurt.”
They shared a smile before Eist looked to the boys. They were standing a respectful distance at the opposite end of the balcony, with Fior and Gaius watching from the stairwell, not wanting to crowd the humans. She appreciated their consideration in giving her a moment with her best friend. Although they’d been reunited for over a month, Eist didn’t think they’d ever had a moment to just stand in the silence and talk. There was always battle or research or recovery.
Who knew, maybe this would be the last chance they had.
“Alright, we need to get down to the floor so I can draw up our new circle and start the rites. Follow me!”
Dille walked off, going down the stairs at a fair pace. Eist went to follow, as did Athar and Ain, but Yacrist caught her by her arm, pulling her to a stop still on the balcony.
“I know a lot of things have been changing recently,” Eist said, pulling her arm free. “But I have never been alright with you manhandling me, and that’s still much the same.”
“Sorry,” he said, a bit breathlessly. If she wasn’t watching his mouth, she might not have even known he had spoken. “I just… I want to say something. Just in case this is… If it’s…”
“In case I do something stupid again and get killed?”
“Please,” he said, tugging her closer so he could wrap his arms around her. This time, Eist let him. “Please don’t do that. I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
She patted his back and went to pull away, but as she did, suddenly his lips were pressed to hers again. It wasn’t as consuming as his previous kiss. Just…light, and a little sad. But still, Eist wasn’t sure what to think of it, and he straightened himself before she could decide one way or the other.
“Once this is over, there are things I’d like to talk to you about.”
Eist felt herself color from her nose to her toes. “I get the feeling I know exactly what those kinds of things are.”
Yacrist chuckled ever-so-slightly, his thumb tracing her bottom lip. The touch was so intimate, it made her a bit uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to push him away when he was obviously so scared. “Would those things be so terrible?”
“Honestly…I don’t know. But I do think, perhaps…” It was so hard to get the words out. Eist had never really been concerned with being a people pleaser, but she desperately didn’t want to hurt her friend’s feelings. “Perhaps that you’re somewhere that I haven’t had a chance to get yet. That I might get there, but I need time to find out.”
“Alright then,” Yacrist said, leaning in one more time to press his lips against her forehead. “Then I hope we get all the time you need. Let’s not let any of this end tonight, okay?”
“Okay,” Eist agreed, feeling gratitude rush through her. Yacrist understood that she wasn’t like him. That she wasn’t able to wear her emotions on her sleeve like he could and that interactions were difficult. When she had first come to the academy, she had sworn she would never have friends and she was best off alone. Now she couldn’t live without them. Maybe, after a little more time, she could feel about Yacrist the same way he felt about her. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?
But then they parted, and she saw that Athar had stopped halfway down the stairs, looking up at her with a supportive but melancholy expression. That made her feel guilty again, which still didn’t make any sense. But for some reason, it mattered to her what Athar thought of her. Did that mean something else?
Perhaps. But it should probably wait until after they banished the ravenous creature trying to devour her world.
She hustled down the stairs, hurrying past the boys. Ain just sighed at the little display and sounded like he was going to say something, but Eist just kept right on going until she was beside Dille.
“Here, light these candles for me, would you?” she said, pulling several waxy lengths from one of her bags and then a small incense stick. She rubbed her fingers against the tip of the scented wood, and it burst into a small but bright flame. “I need them in front of each pillar and lining each bottom step. We’re sort of sealing our circle in a way.”
“Should I pretend I know what that means?”
“Yes. Now hop to it. We want lots of wax on the ground.”
Eist did as she was told, and Dille lit another incense, chanting something while walking the entirety of the floor. The boys and dragons, clearly uncertain with what they were supposed to do, pressed themselves against the wall and out of the way.
There were a lot more steps involved before Dille even got to painting the blood symbols on the floor. Eist wondered when the woman would even get to that right about when she pulled a large skein from one of the many pouches she had brought with her.
Apparently, lamb’s blood would not do, so the red liquid had been donated by most of the dragon riders that had been around. Eist’s slash was on her thigh, while most of the boys had chosen to take theirs on their arms. She had been surprised when even Elspeth had given some of her blood up, but the woman had done it both quietly and calmly. She wasn’t anything like what Eist had imagined after all those war stories, but somehow, she was even better.
“Okay, Eist, you have that diagram I drew out of the runes, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Pull it out and keep a hold of it.”
“Why?” Ain asked from the wall. “Like you haven’t already memorized it ten times over.”
“It’s not for me.”
“Then who is it for?”
The witch pressed her lips together tightly as she dipped a paint brush into the canteen and pressed it to the floor.
“It’s in case something happens to her,” Eist explained when it became clear the woman wasn’t planning to say anything. “So we can finish it.”
For once, Ain looked genuinely alarmed. He was so good at guarding his emotions and maintaining his snark that it was strange to see him unguarded. “Wait, is something supposed to happen to you?”
Dille just shrugged. “Who knows. We’re trying a spell that I’ve basically made up by reversing another ancient spell that interferes with the very fabric of our world. Never hurts to have a backup plan.”
“What is it with the two of you making potentially catastrophic things sound so nonchalant? Is it a woman thing? Because I thought we were getting the relatively easy job if we managed to make it here without being ambushed.”
“The hope is that the Blight doesn’t know where we are. Besides,” Dille said, “it would be pretty unbelievable for the enemy to walk in on me trying to finish this circle the same way that we walked in on Valato—”
She never finished her sentence, but that was probably because part of the floor exploded upward, sending stones flying through the room.
Eist dived for her, trying to cover her friend with her body, and they both hit the ground hard. When they slid to a stop, Eist looked through the cloud of rubble to see a somewhat familiar shape clawing its way out of the new hole in the ground.
“Farmad?!”
The figure straightened, and it was more abomination than human. While Farmad’s head and pleasant sort of face was there, his body was riddled with layers and layers of corded muscle that humans just didn’t have. One of his arms was overly long, the skin thickened into a reddish-brown sort of hide that had severa
l horny growths bursting through it, while both of his legs looked like they belonged more to a beast than a man. Eist was fairly certain that she even saw more spines atop his head, wicked and curling.
It was Ain who reacted first, nocking an arrow to his bow and loosing before anyone else thought to move. The bolt hit true…and promptly snapped before falling to the floor. “How in the Veil are you—”
“Here?” the sorcerer asked. Even his voice was different. More of a monstrous rumble than actual speech. But his still human eyes bore into Dille, who was breathing hard in terror beside Eist. “You sent me quite a far ways back, little one. I had to make a few…changes to get here.” He took a step forward, smiling brightly. “But oh, the things I learned, witchlet. I wouldn’t give those up for the world.”
“You,” Dille breathed, and Eist could feel her words through her tremors. “You were th-there. At the…the…”
“At that very old battle in the first war. The one where you and Eist’s sweet little dragon helped drive the Blight back when it first came here. I watched. And I learned. And you showed me so, so much. Would you like to see all that your little study taught me?”
He took another lumbering step toward them, grinning like he was the happiest he had ever been to see them, but he stopped short as a broadsword burst through his chest.
“I am very, very tired of you!” Athar cried, ripping his sword out of the sorcerer and kicking him forward.
While Eist may not have graduated as a dragon rider yet, she was fairly certain that a chest wound like that was always fatal. But Farmad just whirled around, slashing with his arm.
She felt the crackle of magic around him, pulling toward his center. Unwinding her arms from Dille, she charged forward, yanking her shortsword from its sheath to chop down on the sorcerer’s offending limb.
It bit into his skin, but no blood came out. He hardly seemed to notice beyond a grunt, yanking his arm off her blade.
“Dille!” Eist cried. “Finish the circle!”
The witch scrambled to do so, finding her skein again, and Eist turned her attention back to the monster in front of her.
They were all descending upon him, Fior and Gaius sweeping down with snapping jaws to try to grab at his monstrous limbs, Athar and Yacrist swinging their swords as Ain loosed his bolts right at Farmad’s face.
Once more, they set up a sort of rhythm, trying to keep the man off balance. But she didn’t have time to settle into it before Farmad roared, the sound sending all three of the men flying backwards into the wall.
As they slammed into it, several images flashed in front of her. One of a young woman being thrown similarly. She looked familiar.
“Mother?” Eist asked.
Her mother didn’t answer. However, Farmad did, whirling and reaching for her. Eist brought her hand up, willing all the anger she had inside of her into her arm.
The resulting clash sent them both stumbling backwards, fire sparking up through the cracks in the floor. Eist didn’t let that stop her, however, and tried to rush him while he was down.
But it seemed that Farmad had significantly improved on his physical combat in his journeys through the past. He leaned, bringing up one of his massive feet, and slamming it right into Eist’s middle.
Ow.
She stumbled back before sinking to her knees, both hands covering her stomach. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to vomit or pass out or both, but she couldn’t think or breathe. She couldn’t anything.
“Did you really think that a child like you could stop the coming of our salvation?” he asked, spit dribbling from his stretched-out mouth, teeth sticking down sharply from his maw.
Eist couldn’t answer, she was too busy gasping, but she did feel quick footsteps pelting up behind her.
Suddenly, there was a sharp pressure on her bowed back, and then Dille was flying over her head. Eist barely realized that her friend has used her body as a stool to launch herself at Farmad’s face.
Her legs wrapped around his shoulders and her hands went to either side of his head. She spoke deep, dark words that Eist knew none of them were ever meant to hear, and a brilliant flash of light burst between them.
Dille was thrown backwards, and Eist heard her hit the wall. She was completely blinded for several seconds, and when her vision cleared, she saw Farmad groaning on the ground in front of her.
Except it wasn’t Farmad as he had been just a moment ago. Instead, he was fully human-looking again, and much older. Just a frail little old man in the company of warriors.
“Bind him!” Eist said before rushing over to Dille’s side.
The woman was laying crumbled against a pillar, her eyes fluttering. Eist slid to her knees beside her, grasping the woman’s head in her hands.
“Are you alright?” she asked desperately. There was no way that Dille, who had survived being flung through time, who had been in the first war with the Blight, and helped bring Fior back to Eist, could be not alright now.
She groaned, clearly breathing, but she slumped forward into Eist’s hold. “I… I can’t finish.”
“It’s okay,” Eist said. “I’ll do it for you. You got rid of Farmad. Just rest.”
She propped her friend up against the pillar where her eyes closed fully, and her body went slack. For the shortest moment, Eist was terrified that she had passed, but Dille’s chest still rose and fell with shallow breaths. She was just hurt. A blow to the head. That could be fixed.
Reaching for the skein, Eist turned back to her friends. They all had Farmad bound with the many ropes they had brought, Athar holding him with a sword at his throat while both dragons faced him, growling lightly.
“We finish this now. We’re going to send your supposed salvation back to where it came.”
She knelt where Dille had just been, drawing out the runes on the paper Dille had made for her. She too had memorized it, but she still looked to make sure she did everything right. She tried to block everything else out, but she could still hear Farmad’s insipid voice as he spoke.
“You have no idea what you’re doing, Eist. You’re so strong, so brave, but you’re about to rip yourself apart.”
He had to be shouting if she could hear him without watching his mouth, but it was just an annoying murmur to her. “You really think that I’d believe anything you say?” Eist asked, continuing to paint rune after rune.
“Since when have I ever lied to you?”
Eist ignored him. This was it. She was so close to finishing everything. To making sure that her parent’s sacrifice wasn’t for nothing.
“Come now, Eist. The Blight is inevitable. You’ve been tricked by the invaders to think that they are the one with rights to this world. Please, I don’t want to see you die here. You could be so much!”
“Even if I were to die,” Eist answered, “then I would just be following in my parents’ footsteps. I think that would be worthwhile. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you? Thinking about someone besides yourself?”
“Eist,” Yacrist said warningly.
But she ignored that too. She wasn’t going to be sacrificing anything. She was absolutely sure that Dille’s plan would work.
“You care for her, don’t you? Surely you can sense that something is awry here. You can’t let her do this. I’m telling you, if she calls upon the old magic in this place again, it’ll tear her apart until there’s nothing left.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Ain urged while Eist never lifted her eyes from the runes. She trusted her friends to hold the powerless sorcerer, even as a breeze started to wind around her. Lazily at first, but picking up in speed, soon drowning out most other sounds.
“Can you really just live with knowing you could have stopped her? As she lays cold and dead, will you be able to survive the guilt that you helped kill her? Tell me, boy! You know the ancient runes. The ones she plays with are not meant for mortal man!”
“Be quiet!” Athar bellowed.
But Farmad seemed to pick u
p in fervor as the wind did. Soon he too was screaming while the entire temple shook around them. But Eist didn’t stop. She was almost done. Just a couple more…
“Don’t you get it? History goes in circles. Valatos was nearly destroyed when his spell went awry, and I assure you that Eist’s fate will be much worse. Save her! Save her!”
There were the sounds of a scuffle, and she looked up for the first time only to see a shape flying toward her. She tried to duck, but she wasn’t able to dodge as Yacrist bodily slammed into her.
“Yacrist! No!” she cried as they rolled across the floor. She punched him, full force, desperate to get away and finish the ritual. How could he be tricked so easily!? Didn’t he get it?!
“You promised,” he cried into her neck, taking the blows she rained on him as he pinned her to the ground. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me. I can’t risk it. I can’t, okay.”
“Yacrist, get off!” She felt more footsteps rushing toward her and glanced to the side to see Athar and Ain bolting for her. “No! Don’t leave Farm—”
But it was too late. His body rippled like water, and then he was just as monstrous as he was before. Eist barely had the time to let out a shout before he dove for the brush she had dropped and quickly finished the last three runes.
But they weren’t the right runes.
Not the right runes at all.
An explosion of colors and light shot up through the circle, slamming into the ceiling and making the entire room tremble. Rocks began to rain down, and Eist wondered if this was exactly what her mother felt before they were all thrown back with excessive force.
Her back hit the wall, Yacrist’s form pressing into her. He gripped her, crying out into her neck.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I can’t let anything happen to you. I can—”
He stopped short, and Eist felt something punch her middle. His grip on her loosened enough for her to look downward, where a dark, inky tentacle was sticking straight through Yacrist’s middle.
“Gods!” Eist cried, fingers scrambling to grip him. But the limb twisted around him, trying to yank him backwards. “Yacrist, hold onto me! Don’t let go!”
