by J. A. Comley
The white-robed men and women moved with efficiency, using their training to keep their minds clear. Kneeling beside the people around them, they set to work, focused only on saving as many as possible. Magic and chanting buzzed in the night air.
“What shall I do? And the others who have been healed?” asked the Aurelian warrior, who, although he had not heard the mental communication, had seen its effects.
Starla looked around and found the man kneeling before her.
“Please, get up,” Starla murmured, discomfited by his gesture. “You may help by finding the fallen, moving them off the battlefield.”
“They will be marked by small, glowing white orbs,” Larkel intervened as Starla's voice faded out and fresh tears welled in her eyes.
Quickly waving his staff, the High Lord cleared an area not far from the furthest body and multiplied his robe many times over. Some he laid on the ground in the cleared area to make a resting place for the bodies. The others, he piled up neatly beside this to be used as shrouds.
“Take them there. As others are healed and rise, they may help you.”
The Aurelian nodded and saluted the High Lord before loping off to the nearest shining white orb. The body was tiny. Larkel looked away, his heart breaking.
“Naleiya,” Larkel called to his sister, who was bending over an elderly lady whose leg was missing, “set up an area for the maimed. Get them away from this.”
Naleiya nodded grimly. She could feel the old woman's mind as she healed her wounds. It was rejecting the gruesome reality around her so viciously that Naleiya knew it would soon snap. Swiftly, she eased the woman into a semi-conscious state.
Starla felt her tears spill over as she looked towards the large rectangle of white robes covering the ground. It already had three bodies on it, shrouded in white robes of their own.
Larkel squeezed her fingers, sending her strength and love.
Her emerald eyes hardened as she quelled her emotions. Drawing up her staff, she set off purposefully towards the nearest person, Larkel at her side.
Starla returned the young boy's smile weakly as he thanked her, looking rather proud of the long scar down his right arm.
She felt exhausted. She knew she still had a lot of her power intact, yet the mental strain of healing was growing heavier and heavier. She stood as the boy scampered off with a guardsman whom Starla had signalled.
The sky was brightening overhead, dawn's grey light beginning to turn the pools of black to crimson. The battlefield looked very different, now. Over by the pit that led to the dungeons was a long table of black rock. Starla felt another smile surface as she recognised Heny, still in his enormous form but crouching on knees and elbows to allow Markis (who had, thankfully, survived Kyron's assault) and his helpers to work. Earlier, Larkel had ordered the Makhi with little to no healing ability to replicate the single vial of drodemion cure that Eltara had managed to create in the night. They now stood beside Markis, bending over his make-shift table as he tested whether or not the replicas were safe.
Other Makhi were carefully levitating sleeping drodemions from inside the ancient dungeons and laying them before the terrified but determined volunteers who would soon be armed with syringes filled with the special elixir. Starla watched the young boy she had just healed take a spot beside a burly Aurelian warrior, who now had only one arm.
Reluctantly, she let her eyes glide over to the white rectangle, now more than half full with shrouded bodies. She knew that her grandmother lay there, but how many more? She shuddered as Valana carefully laid down a tiny shrouded bundle.
Starla's breath was coming in sharp bursts and she knew she was on the edge of being over-whelmed by the carnage. She found the place in her mind, the one she had found when Kyron burned her. The fiery heart of the Star from which she was born. There, she stilled her horror. She strengthened her mind. Kyron's final act would not break her. He would not win.
Opening her eyes, she strode purposely towards the next person but faltered on the third step.
“St... Starla—” a weak voice called again.
Starla spun to face the huge magmus she was passing. Then her keen eyes found the voice's owner and she felt her new strength vanish.
Raoul was lying, half-covered by the body of the fallen magmus, its purple blood still seeping from its severed wing and splashing over his abdomen.
Starla violently slashed her staff at the fallen magmus, sending its body hurtling high into the air and crashing down well clear of the battlefield.
“Raoul!” She slipped to her knees in the sticky pool of blood as she reached his side. Carefully, she cradled his head in her lap.
One of his hands reached out weakly, trying to find her. How long had he been calling her name? He couldn't remember. His vision was foggy, blurred somehow. He blinked. There above him, his deep brown eyes found the emerald ones he loved so much. They were a little different now, a star of dark gold surrounding their pupils, but they were still hers. His Starla's.
Starla could see the wound in his abdomen now. Like a single sword had pierced him. His red blood was mingling with the purple from the magmus.
Starla choked back her tears and raised her staff, repeating the healing spell she had used so many times this night. Nothing happened.
She tried again, desperately, feeling his life force fading.
“Larkel!” her voice sounded horribly off key, as she cried out. “Larkel!”
Larkel! She echoed in her mind.
She tried the spell again and again, tears streaming down her face. All the while, Raoul still smiled up at her.
Then Larkel was beside her, the desperation of her mental call had caused him deeper anguish than he had felt yet today.
Quickly his sharp eyes took in Raoul.
Starla saw the hopelessness and pain as soon as they entered Larkel's indigo gaze.
“No,” she mumbled. “No! You have to do something! Help him!” she screamed, shrugging away from Larkel's hand.
“I—” Larkel swallowed the lump in his throat. “Before, when you were … gone, he tried to strike Kyron. Then I tried to heal his wound but I had little power left. I gave him all of it but I couldn't seal the wound.”
Starla looked up at him through her tears, confused. “Then seal it now. Help him,” she pleaded as Raoul's eyes slid shut.
“We cannot. The magmus blood has mingled with his. It inhibits our healing spells. I don't know why, but there have been others. I could do nothing. No one could.” Larkel''s voice was bleak, but gentle.
“Try again.”
Larkel let out a long breath, then did as she bid. Nothing happened.
“Together. There must be something … together,” Starla said, her tears rendering her nearly incoherent.
Combining their magic, they tried again.
“I am sorry, my love,” Larkel whispered after yet another failed attempt.
“No! I won't give up!” Starla said, grabbing Raoul's hand.
“High Lord,” a young guardsman called, his face covered in dried blood.
Larkel gave Starla a long look, then kissed her wet cheek gently before rising and turning to the guardsman who had called him.
“Yes?”
“Duke Rother is ready, my lord. They are bringing up the Sacrileons.”
“Thank you. I will be right there,” Larkel said, dismissing the man.
He turned back to Starla and then thought better of it. Others needed him now, lives still hung in the balance. He couldn't help Raoul. Sighing with real regret, the High Lord turned towards the pit and headed off to try and bring the Guardians back.
Raoul's eyes fluttered open again as Starla tried and tried to heal him.
“Starla … you really … get yourself into a lot of … trouble,” Raoul rasped, wheezing in pain.
Starla stifled a sob as Raoul tried to smile at her, his brown eyes clear of the hate that had clouded them before in Abyss Valley.
“I … I hope your … High
Lord is … u… up to the … challenge.” He tried to laugh but instead cried out over the sudden spikes of pain that the motion caused.
“Raoul—” Starla sobbed, still able to smile as his good natured personality won out over the gruff, angry man he had been since Kyron's lair. She sent some magic into him, no longer to heal but simply to help, to ease his suffering.
“Did we win?” Raoul asked as the pain eased, Starla's beautiful face coming into focus again.
“Yes. Yes we won,” Starla whispered weakly. In his body, she felt his strength ebb further.
His eyes grew unfocused again. “I thought you were dead,” he breathed, grunting in pain as he tried to sit up.
Raoul could feel the darkness coming. He could feel its warm, painless embrace gliding through the haze in his brain. He fought to see Starla again. Just once more.
Starla watched his eyes open again as she pressed his hand to her cheek.
Raoul took in all the details he had memorised countless times before. Her flowing red-gold hair that sparkled in the sunlight, her full, pink lips that had been so soft when he kissed her, her emerald eyes that were now filled with pain and sadness.
“I … I love you. Always.” Raoul's hand slipped from hers and splashed onto the blood soaked ground.
“And I love you,” Starla breathed, closing his eyes, before a flood of sorrow and pain crashed around her.
Her sobs echoed across the new dawn. In some small part of her mind, she knew that her hysterics were drawing attention but she didn't care. All she cared about was the dead young man whose head she now held in her lap. A man who had loved her and died for her. A man she had always loved but never in the way he had wanted her to.
***
Slowly, as the sun rose higher, Starla began to hear the happy sounds of families reuniting. Tears of joy, not sorrow, spilled over their cheeks as their stolen loved ones were freed from the drodemion curse, returned whole to them.
Over where the dead were laid, many cried, a mother wailed, as they found their loved ones, who would never be returned.
“Starla?” Naleiya said softly. “Please. We need your help.”
She glanced behind her and found Valana, Zerina and Shaneulia all standing with Naleiya. Behind them, two others waited with a stretcher. Starla recognised Commander Medara, but not the big Aurelian beside her. Although, by his turquoise General's sash, she guessed him to be Okano.
Heaving one more dry sob, Starla gently laid Raoul's head down. Kissing him tenderly on the forehead, she rose unsteadily to her feet.
“I am glad you are all okay,” Starla said to her friends. Her voice sounded scratchy and her throat hurt.
Shaneulia wrapped her in a vice like hug. “I am so sorry,” she mumbled into Starla's hair.
“You said you needed my help?” Starla knew her voice sounded empty, but it was the only way she could hold on right now. Others still needed her, she could not break down again until in was done.
They seemed to pick up on her fragile mood quickly.
“It's the Guardians. We can't seem to get a needle into their skin,” Shaneulia explained as they began to move towards the pit. “We don't know what he did differently, but—”
“Kyron's spell upon them is fading. They will be lost to us soon,” Naleiya added.
Starla nodded and quickened her pace to a brisk jog, refusing to let herself try and count the bodies as they passed the white rectangle, which was larger than before, or ask her friends who had lived and who had died.
“Starla,” Larkel caught her up in his arms as soon as she drew near. His eyes were filled with concern. He exchanged a quick glance with Naleiya. She shook her head.
“Who—?” Starla bit her tongue, refusing to ask the question. She had seen the pain behind their glance. Someone else she knew was dead. “What must I do?” she asked instead, looking down at the six prone Sacrileons.
Larkel squeezed her close one more time, then became business-like, seeing the strength it took her to stop the pain choking her again.
“They seem different, somehow. Yet, before, Makhi Jensula was able to awaken Beky,” Larkel began. “Here, let us link and I will show you.”
Their powers combined as one and Larkel guided them to Rya's body. There. That feeling of spikes, or thorns pressing against skin. It surrounds her whole body.
Starla felt herself smile. She had felt the same sensation after Kyron's fire had consumed her. She knew the spell to break it. It was the first bit of magic she had done with her powers.
She looked to Larkel. He was smiling, too, seeing the memory in her mind.
“Only you can save them,” he said, disconnecting his power from hers.
Working quickly, Starla disentangled the four different spells that encased their bodies, then carefully nullified each one. Taking the offered syringes, she gave them the elixir one by one.
“They will awaken soon,” she told the anxious companions who waited, crouched and sitting, beside their prone guardians. Biki squeaked with joy and threw herself over Lua, her grey fur quivering as she cried with joy.
“Thank you, Princess Starla,” Heny rumbled, the vials on his back tinkling as the vibrations from his voice shook them.
One of the Rother boys, Eben, cautioned him to stop talking, clutching at several bottles before they could topple over and crash to the ground.
She nodded and turned back to Larkel. The others were gone. She could see Naleiya helping to levitate huge magmus corpses into a heap nearby where Starla had hurled the other one. Shaneulia and Markis were kneeling beside a shrouded bundle. How many children had they lost?
Zerina and Valana were organising the paddocks hastily being put up for the remaining elpions and harknines.
“Grandfather?” Starla said, feeling a bubble of happiness rise in her aching chest as she spotted him comforting some of his people.
“Yes, the King lives,” Larkel said, kissing her head lightly. “Your sister Kara, too,” he said, pointing to Kara as she worked trying to help the maimed as best as was possible.
Starla turned to face him, her hands pressed against his chest. “Who else is—?” Starla couldn't form the word.
Larkel took a deep breath. “Come, I will take you.”
They walked a short way into an area that was mostly cleared, only the occasional severed limb still lay about. Then, just ahead, half obscured by a piece of foundation rubble, Starla spotted the person they had come to see and her broken heart shattered further.
Father Joe lay spread-eagled on the ground, his black cassock ripped and blowing in the morning breeze. His eyes were closed, but the blood trail from his mouth ruined any hopes of a peaceful image. The old priest had died with his crucifix in one hand and a sword in the other. Starla's eyes found the sticky, wet stain above his heart. She had never had a chance to put things right, to tell him how sorry she was, how much she loved him.
Larkel felt Starla begin to tremble in his arms. He felt the pain and guilt as they lashed through her, ripping her apart.
He hugged her tightly, crushing her to his chest. “I am so sorry. So sorry.”
And Starla, feeling the loss crush her abused heart, let herself fall apart all over again, knowing Larkel would help piece her together afterwards.
“Starla?” Elise's voice sounded raw and her eyes were red and puffy.
With some difficulty Starla pushed herself a little away from Larkel's secure embrace.
She took one look at her former best friend and shivered, seeing the immense pain in her blue eyes. But there was something else there, too. Hope.
“Please, Starla, if you can, help them, please,” Elise pleaded, as if to a stranger.
As Elise stepped aside, Starla saw Antonio and Pierre kneeling on the ground, each holding one of the twins, their young faces still frozen in horror and pain. Antonio looked up at Starla, his eyes red with tears and half-mad from all the horrors of the past weeks.
Larkel felt a small smile tug at his lip
s as he felt Starla's determination to save someone grow inside her and blot all else out.
Moving forward, Starla placed her staff between the two prone figures and sent her magic outwards, into them. The spell had already done much damage to their young bodies but she could heal that. Slowly, ever watchful that the magic was not draining too much of the twins' remaining strength, she forced the Curse back, dragging it from their vital organs, repairing them as she went.
Outside of her mind, she became aware of a strong hand pressing gently against the small of her back. Moments later, Larkel's mind connected with hers.
Amazing, he mused, watching her magic do what until this moment was thought to be impossible.
In the next moment, both their thoughts turned dark. Starla couldn't save them. Not without a price.
I will explain. Larkel's mind voice was pained. You keep concentrating on containing the Curse.
“What is it? I can see the sadness in your eyes,” Elise demanded in a rough voice.
“No! I cannot lose them, too. I will not lose any more people to this madness!” Antonio screamed.
Starla cringed at the pain in his voice but kept her eyes firmly shut and didn't let her concentration waver.
“Starla can save them, Antonio,” Larkel said, his voice smooth and gentle. “However, she cannot draw it out of them, and we have no time left to try and concoct a cure of some kind.”
“Then how—” Elise's voice trailed off.
“Starla can contain the Curse's destructive power and seal it within one area of their bodies.” Larkel paused, drawing a deep breath. In her mind, Starla felt his reluctance to continue. “When that part dies,” Elise gave a choked gasp, “the Curse will die with it.”
“So you are telling me that the only way to save them is to turn them into cripples? Into invalids?” Antonio whispered, his voice hard with pain at his young siblings' fate.
“Starla will do her best to minimise the area of damage, if there—” Larkel said.
“Do it,” Antonio interrupted. “Just damn well do it!”
Starla took him at his word and began to force the Curse into an ever smaller area. As the Curse's hold diminished, it began to fight back as if it had a life of its own. It whip-lashed against her mind, coiled and sprung, slipping through her grasp again and again. She felt Larkel link with her and felt a grateful smile spread over her lips as his strength added itself to hers.
