Life

by Rosie Scott

  Tyrus's right arm lifted toward the battle in the intersection. He didn't attempt to use the cannon. Instead, above his armored palm grew a ball of magical fire. His left hand moved to the side of his weapon where it flipped a switch. The grinding of dwarven gears echoed out from it, and the steel tube pointing at the god's palm of fire started to rattle. A wavy mirage appeared at the end of the tube as the canister at the god's hip forced some type of chemical through the weapon and into the air. As soon as the chemical hit his magical fire, the flames multiplied and spewed forth like a horizontal fountain, rippling into the crowds of soldiers and lighting everyone aflame.

  Desperate screams of misery reverberated through the air from man and beast alike, and the battle devolved into chaos. Most people stopped fighting and fled from the fight, dropping to the cobblestone as they tried to squelch the flames. A few of my allies who weren't affected shot tidal waves of water magic through the area in an effort to combat the fire, but the calcint was too thick and persistent. The stench of cooking meat was heavy in the air as I leeched from the lives of burning dwarves, putting them out of their misery while regenerating my energy for another spell. I needed options. Tyrus's armor was much too thick to be penetrated by most magic, and I only had one other idea.

  Creatius el roc projectille a multipla. Multiple stone projectiles hovered above my palms, and I wasted no time in forcing all of them at once at the two approaching gods. I intended to break the heavy armor through sheer force; none of my magic had worked against these two gods thus far, but only because it could not reach their flesh.

  As soon as the hurtling boulders neared the two, the goddess forced both armored hands forward, and the stones lurched back toward me, altered in trajectory. I barely had time to think before the rocks bashed into my life shield with such strength that I flew back through the streets, the shield flickering with weakness. Nausea rose in my throat as the world spun around my vision, so I closed my eyes, thinking quickly and regenerating my protection in mid-air before I had a chance to land. The breath was beaten out of my lungs a moment later as I landed, rolling violently over the uneven cobblestone as my fingers grasped for a hold on the ground. I finally skidded to a stop, breathing hard as I looked back up toward the battle. I was so far from it now. My powers combined with those of the other goddess had amplified the spell's strength.

  The once-cluttered intersection was no longer as crowded. Many scorched corpses of dwarves, beasts, and assassins alike were in clumps of ash and melted flesh over the stone, but most of the living had fled the area. Flames still rose from patches of calcint. Azazel and Nyx were running after me, and the archer was still bleeding from his wounds. My primary concern was healing him, but we were still being pursued.

  A river of lava rolled forth from the intersection, overtaking corpses and using the natural decline of the mountain to make its way toward us. Tyrus stalked to the edge of the flaming area, magma gushing forth from his palms until he dispelled it. He and the goddess waited just at the edge of the rolling river, unwilling to walk over it. Their armor seemed to protect them even from the heat of surrounding flames.

  How do I defeat you? I breathed heavily as my eyes met Tyrus's through the protective glass of his helmet. He watched me with pride as I struggled to pick myself up off the ground. Every muscle in my body ached from landing on stone. I still had just the edge of a leeching high, but it evidently was no longer powerful enough to mask the pain.

  The goddess beside Tyrus took the hesitation from my injured state to attack once more. Both armored hands faced the ground at her feet. Noises of cracking, breaking stone rattled through the streets, and the land at the very beginning of the lava river started to rise.

  “Move!” I screamed at Azazel and Nyx. Nyx yelled out obscenities as she glanced back to see the hovering segment of stone, only kept in the air by the goddess's will. Tyrus's lava seeped over the sides, splattering over the ground below in congealing drops. The goddess's arms shook with tremendous effort as she prepared to throw the earth itself at us as if she could feel its physical weight.

  Neither Nyx or Azazel listened to my command, intent on rescuing me and outrunning it. I fought with my own muscles to finally stand, and grimaced as new pain shot through every extremity. I started to hobble to a nearby side street, eyeing nearby buildings and planning to use them as cover.

  The goddess screamed as the land was hurtled down the decline of the street, followed by the sounds of lava flipping off of the stone and landing in splatters over the ground below. Azazel grasped me with one arm, and he must have still had energy from his high because he carried me out of the road like I weighed nothing. We dodged behind a home at the corner of the street, and I regenerated my life shield and Azazel's as we waited for the stone to fall.

  Stone and lava alike exploded from the point of impact back in the main street, the force of the hit collapsing the roof of a tavern catty-corner from the building beside us. The life shields of my friends and I were overloaded by blows of the resulting shrapnel, and fear rose in my chest as I realized such shields could not entirely protect us from the magical fire of the lava. But Azazel still had his alteration shield that resisted magic, and he stood with his back to the explosion to protect both Nyx and me from the fire. The three of us were breathing rapidly, but I took the short hesitation to find Azazel's wounds, trying to heal them.

  “We have no time for that,” Azazel breathed, pulling away from my healing. I glanced up, finding his eyes. They were still overwhelmed with energy, but he said nothing about that yet.

  “I don't know what to do,” I rambled, my mind still searching for options. “None of my magic can penetrate their armor.”

  “We need brute force,” Azazel replied, pulling Nyx and I away from the main street as the heat of approaching lava started to fill the air. He pointed to the harbor in the north, where the giants were fighting. “But right now, we need to move up. That lava will eat us alive.”

  Nyx backed up a few steps, pointing at the roof of a nearby store. “There's a bridge connected to that roof. I can't tell from here, but it's possible we can make our way north using the elevated walkways. I can't see if everything's connected, though.”

  “It doesn't matter if it is or not. We need to get to higher ground,” Azazel replied, as we hurried to the store Nyx spoke of. On the side of the building was a staircase leading to its roof. As we jogged up the steps, an orange river of lava passed by the corner of the street, slowly bleeding downhill.

  “I'd use the war horn to call for the others, but I don't want Tyrus and whoever the hell the goddess is to know where we are,” I rambled as we reached the roof, staying low to keep out of sight.

  “Heartha,” Azazel stated simply.

  “What?” Nyx retorted, confused.

  “The goddess. Her name is Heartha.” Azazel glanced over the low wall of the bridge we approached, before hurrying us across it. “I heard the dwarves say her name. They called her mother earth.”

  “It makes sense,” I commented, grimacing as my back protested my next step. “She is able to create and manipulate the earth in ways I do not know. She made cannonballs for Tyrus's hand cannon.”

  “Uh, yeah, let's talk about that hand cannon,” Nyx scoffed. “The bastard is clearly compensating for something.”

  “Out of all the places for your mind to wander right now, Nyx,” I lamented, to which she chuckled.

  HUUURRRNNNNN!

  The three of us stilled. Azazel turned his face to the northwest, where hordes of Vhiri mages were outside of the stone wall of Olympia. The wall began to collapse with its own weight as the earth mages went to work at turning stone to sand.

  “The others are here,” Azazel murmured, before patting my arm in a comforting gesture. “Cerin is safe.”

  I could not see my lover from here, so I appreciated the news. “Good. But we are not.” I eyed the pathways leading further into the city, hoping more than anything it would take us out of the range of
the gods until we could form a new plan. “Let's focus on moving north.”

  Twenty

  “Azazel. Stop.” I grabbed his arm, pushing him gently against the second story wall of an inn. The walkways we were traveling on continued past the building, leading to various bridges and paths. Many of the structures here were part of the upper roads, with roofs that connected bridges and routes directly against walls of the second and third stories of shops and flashy apartment buildings. I had to imagine this design was great for business as foot traffic was forced to pass by posters for deals and services.

  Azazel blinked at me in silence, but he heeded my request and didn't move. He stood with his back to the wall, allowing me to finally heal his wounds. They'd remained open for so long that his blood had dripped as far down as his boots, and he was leaving a trail of it over the stone. If it weren't for his energy high, he would have weakened too much to move by this point, and it was possible he would already be dead.

  Nyx kept her eyes on the walkway behind us, making sure we hadn't been followed. She, too, was silent. Only Cerin knew anything about my theory, so both of the Alderi beside me had to be immensely confused.

  “Are you angry with me?” I asked Azazel, seeking his injuries with life magic over the stab wound in his gut. Ideally, it should have been mended as soon as possible. The torso was one of the trickiest places to heal because the organs would often move out of place if they were too injured. Sure enough, the magic alerted me to the misalignment of his small intestine. Moving so much after his injury had complicated it.

  “Why would I be angry with you?” Azazel questioned, his gaze soft in mine.

  I hesitated to answer him, instead pulling him to lay on the stone below. “You should have let me heal you earlier. I have to correct your organ placement.”

  “Dear gods, what kind of injury caused that?” Nyx abruptly asked, looking perplexed.

  “Just a stab wound,” I replied simply, crouching beside Azazel as he followed my direction to lay down. “Anatomy is a complicated thing, Nyx.”

  “Yeah. Forget I asked,” Nyx replied. “You can heal it, right?”

  “I can.” To Azazel, I added, “Pull up your armor. I need direct access to your skin.”

  As he followed my directions, I readied my surgery kit. In the distance, sounds of battle still echoed over the city streets. Azazel listened to this, before exhaling slowly and saying, “They need our help.”

  “I swear to the gods, Azazel, let me heal you in peace. Stop worrying about them for a second.”

  I felt his gaze on my face as I entered his stomach wound with two metal utensils, working to delicately pull the broken organ back into place. “You are deflecting,” he finally said, as if informing me. “You asked me if I was angry with you when you are the angry one.”

  “I'm not angry. I'm a nervous wreck. I thought I'd lost you,” I replied, frowning as I concentrated. Holding the intestine in place, I pulled the other tool out of the wound and started to heal the organ, connecting both torn sides of it.

  “But you didn't,” Azazel pointed out. His high was still affecting him, for he barely noticed the pain or discomfort of field surgery.

  “You were a fool to try to sacrifice yourself to save me,” I retorted.

  “Was I?” A huff of amusement burst through his nostrils. “Then we'll be fools together, Kai. That's usually your thing, not mine.”

  A smile slowly lifted my lips as I realized he was right. I removed the other tool from his injury, using both hands to continue healing him.

  “I told you I wouldn't let anything happen to you,” Azazel continued after a moment. “You called me your light and your shield, remember?” I did remember. Those words were etched on the inside steel of his ring. “I was your shield.”

  “If I'd known you'd take it literally I wouldn't have said it,” I protested.

  “Whether you said it or not, my actions would have been the same.” Another silence filled the space between us. Blood pooled over the stone beneath Azazel's back as it continued to escape the entry wound on his other side. I encouraged him to sit up so I could heal that as well, and as life magic warmed the wound, he spoke again. “Perhaps now would be the time for you to tell me what magic it was you used on me.”

  “Given all of your side effects, I would have thought you'd guess it,” I replied.

  “Jakan told me some years ago about an illusion spell called courage,” Azazel said. “That makes the most sense to me because I was suddenly full of it. But it gave me this excruciating headache, and my senses were so amplified that it was distracting. As far as I remember, Jakan said the courage spell was red. The one you used on me was white.”

  Nyx turned her body slightly, giving her the ability to guard our backs and watch Azazel at the same time. Given his depression over his inability to learn necromancy in Monte, I knew she was as excited to see his reaction to the news as I was.

  “It was a life spell,” I finally told him, watching his skin reconnect beneath my palms. When the wound was finally healed, I sat back to meet his gaze. “You were so upset over not being able to learn necromancy all those weeks ago. It motivated me to find a solution, Azazel. I had a theory that combining the powers of death and life magic would allow me to transfer my leeching highs to someone of my choosing. Today, I found out that theory was correct.”

  Azazel was quiet, but his mind was connecting dots from behind his stare. “Your...highs,” he murmured. “The painful ones. You've said it feels like your brain is trying to break through your skull.” As I nodded, he said, “That's how it felt for me.”

  “You are the first person in the history of Arrayis to experience an energy high without being a necromancer,” I said softly to him, making sure he fully understood the significance of this event.

  Azazel started to visibly tremble, and he attempted to mask the reaction by reaching up to pull his long black bangs from his face. “So...this means, essentially...”

  “A necromancer's power comes from absorbing excess energy, Azazel. Not from simply knowing death magic. Not from raising the dead. By transferring life force, I can give the power of death magic to you through the element of life.” I smiled as he grabbed me into a hug, squeezing me so tight that my achy muscles screamed in protest. I didn't have the heart to pull away from the embrace, so I dealt with the pain as he held onto me. “You wanted more time to cause chaos with me,” I said beside his ear. “I found a way to give it to you.”

  “Thank you,” he replied shakily, before repeating the gratitude a few more times, the words muffled in my hair.

  “Did the high bother you?” I asked him. “I worried you might be angry with me for giving you the energy without your knowledge of what I was testing, but I didn't want to tell you for fear it wouldn't work.”

  “No. I wasn't bothered.” Azazel pulled back from me, still overwhelmed with the good news but eager to move on to the raging battle further in the city. “It was painful, but I was aware of what I was doing. I simply didn't understand how I could do it.”

  “You were more badass than I've ever seen you,” Nyx told him bluntly, both arms crossed over her chest as she watched us stand again. Her eyes found mine, and she requested, “If you ever have energy you don't know what to do with, throw it my way, will you?”

  “I thought you didn't want to live forever,” I retorted playfully, as we moved forward again.

  “Because I didn't think I could,” Nyx replied. “If I can fight like Azazel did, I'd kill to have that much power. Living longer would just be a benefit. Besides,” she added, reaching over to poke Azazel's side, “don't forget that immortality doesn't happen overnight. Kai, didn't you just say hours ago that everyone has a weakness? No matter what, it'll still be possible to die.”

  “Right, but each leeching high will prevent aging and slowly allow the body to grow stronger. Cerin and I are already experiencing that. You saw Hades years ago in Tal, Nyx. He was scarred, sure, but he appeared to be in h
is twenties when he was over six thousand years old. Magic and melee weapons barely made a mark on him. As Ciro once said, it's likely possible to kill Hades for good, but it would be tough and reliant on luck and circumstance.”

  “Using death to prevent death,” Nyx quipped. “Ironic.”

  “I still feel power running through my veins,” Azazel commented, running his fingers down the length of his other arm as if he'd be able to physically touch it. “It's like it's in my blood.”

  I nodded, smiling as he marveled at the side effects as if he were discovering it. “That's normal.”

  “How long does it last?”

  “As long as it takes to burn through that energy,” I replied. “Via magic, physical exertion, or natural fatigue from the passage of time.”

  “Does giving me your energy take away the benefits it offers you?” Azazel asked next.

  “Well, once I give it away I can't use it.”

  “Yes, but you need to get the power of a high yourself before you give it away,” Azazel pointed out. “Is it possible that it is still offering you prolonged life even though you are then transferring it to me?”

  I hesitated. Azazel's constantly curious mind had managed to find a question I hadn't yet discovered myself. “I don't know,” I admitted.

  “I don't want to be taking power from you if you can't afford to give it,” he said then, as he came to a crouch where our path broke into an open rooftop. He hesitated to cross over it, listening and watching for nearby foes.

  “You have over one hundred years on me, remember?” I retorted in a whisper, watching his lips curve into a smile. “Don't complain.”

  “Don't worry,” Azazel replied, before deciding the rooftop was safe to cross after all. “Right now, I have nothing to complain about.”

  The three of us continued on our trek to the raging battle nearest the harbor. Echoes of a war horn found our ears from the northwest, where I caught just a glimpse of Altan alerting the dwarves to his army's presence. With the majority of the remaining defenders in the lower tier of the city, we had them surrounded. The giants rampaged through the streets nearest the harbor, causing mass casualties and crumbling architecture with their steps. In the skies just behind them, beautiful turquoise precipitation fell over Vhiri mages as Dax summoned energy rains to refresh his troops.