by Brindi Quinn
Ardette stared at him with the driest expression.
“That’s why you kept thinking about pie recipes and hemming techniques? Not to mention that incessant humming! Do you have any idea how many different variations of the Yes’lech Anthem you’ve got stored in there? You’ve been driving me crazy!”
“You can discuss this more later!” yelled Pietri, his voice no longer wheezing. “It is nearly time!”
“Time?!” I asked, still hugging Kantú. “For what?”
During our reunion, The Mystress had been calling out continuous insults and threats while the trapped Druelcans yelled over the tower’s side for reinforcement. I imagined that Pietri had cast some sort of a barrier around the door as well because reinforcement had yet to arrive. I was certain that eventually, though, they’d find some way up. Druelca’s numbers were high, and their beloved Mystress was screaming for assistance. Even if they had to climb the outer wall, they’d come.
We had to be gone before that happened. Not to mention, Pietri was scanning the sky like he was awaiting another storm. Something big was coming.
Nyte’s fists had continued to glow, but all at once, they stopped. He let out a groggy cry and rolled off of The Mystress.
The red web flickered.
“Nyte!” Pietri ran to him. “Harness your power!”
“Papa Pietri, I’m disappointed in you!” Still furious, The Mystress raised up a hand and snapped her fingers . . . but nothing happened. “WHAT?! What kind of stupid trick is this!?”
“I am sorry, my dear, but you no longer contain stolen Elven magic. It has been returned to its owner.”
“WHAT?!” she screeched again. “Then I’ll just do it the old-fashioned way!”
She opened her mouth to start a song, but a blast of blue knocked her down before she could sing a word.
The Mystress was bound before us.
“Argh!” Nyte let out a cry. “What do I do, Elder?”
“The magic is already cast, Nyte! Do not release it all at once, or they will fall. It is a lot of power to take at once. Your power surpasses that of Rend. It surpasses that of me. You, Nyte, are the most powerful Elf alive today. That is why I chose you. But we will speak more on the matter later!” He glanced over his shoulder at the black, starless sky. “For now, simply mimic the gesture she performed when she pulled you from the trap.”
Most powerful Elf alive? Chose? I had to push it all away. I had to put it all on hold. I put in the small compartment where I’d resolved to stick Illuma. Illuma. My sister. The Mystress. One in the same. I struggled to cap it. The air was thick with tension. We could all feel that a very, very big thing was approaching. I had to cap it until I could find a safe time. A safe time to realize and cope.
“Like so?” Nyte reached forward and pulled at an invisible string.
Nothing happened.
“That is the right way, Nyte, but you must feel the connecting power that bonds you with the spell. Feel it. Close your eyes and visualize the power of the spell before you. You are the master of it, the one who holds it in check. Your will drives it. Now, try again!”
This time when he pulled, the web behind Rend flung her forward – a little more vivaciously than she probably would have liked – and threw her to the space just before Nyte.
Copying Illuma’s earlier actions, he touched the string around Rend to release her, but it only seared brighter.
“No, cousin!” commanded Rend. “Do not pour spirit into it. Simply cut yourself off! That is the way to break the power bond!”
“Alright. Thank you.” Nyte reached forward and touched it again. The spell released her as he’d intended. Nyte caught her in his arms and set her down gently.
He did the same for the others.
When they were all safely down, Nyte turned from them, ran to me, scooped me in his arms, and spun me around. “My Aura! How I feared that injury would come to you!”
“Nyte!” There was too much to say. Too many thoughts and questions and cries of affection, so I only said his name again. “Nyte.”
“Now, Elder!” yelled Darch, scanning the horizon. “We must hurry!”
Elder Pietri nodded and called to the sky with outstretched arms, “Elder Nosrac!”
The bird swooped down and landed on Pietri’s shoulder. It glittered nearly as brightly as the nearby fire.
“Guess we know where your pet’s been all this time,” Ardette said to Kantú. Rolling his eyes at its smug expression, he added, “Damn bird.”
Elder Pietri gestured madly at the ferothew. “The angel approaches! Come quickly!”
“Angel?!” wailed Scardo with wide, unsettled eyes. “Elder, I implore you-”
“Ain’t time now, Scardo! Come quick!” Grotts grabbed the hunched man’s arm and gave him a great tug, but then, remembering something important, he became the one to stall. “My hammer! Where’s my hammer!?”
His voice was entirely too frantic. He sounded more like a worried father searching for a lost child, than a grown warrior searching for a weapon.
“It is there!” came the elder’s comforting response. He pointed to a large gold crate near the central fire. “They are all there!”
Grotts nodded and took off to retrieve them, still dragging Scardo alongside.
Urgency was as abundant in the space as air itself. The big thing was getting close, and even the fire seemed to swell in anticipation.
In a swarm, we all followed the zealous elder to the feros and one by one mounted them. This time, free from the pendant’s pull, I was able to share a ride with Nyte. He helped Darch onto his and then sprang behind me.
“Alright!” He nodded at Elder Pietri. “Let us go!”
But Rend, who was the last to board, stopped just before she reached the fero.
“Wait!” she yelled, taking a few steps towards Illuma. “Why should we not kill the wretch now and be done with it? Would that not be wise?” She readied her hands.
NO!
At the thought of it, I felt my insides screaming. I hated The Mystress. I hated her and I wanted her to pay . . . but I loved Illuma. I loved Illuma so much that I wanted to run to her now and save her from Rend’s wrath. I knew that she was our enemy. That she’d been corrupted. And that she was no longer fully my sister. She was a shell of mist without a sense of humanity. But she held my sister’s memories! My sister’s body!
I didn’t know what to do – torn between purest love and a hatred most intense – but luckily, I wasn’t forced to make up my mind just then. The elder’s next statement served to push off that hard decision.
“Do not waste your time!” wheezed the Elf. “She cannot be killed by ordinary means!” But when Rend did nothing to lower her hands, his formerly tame voice turned fierce. “Come back NOW, Rend Attirb. I command you!”
“UUUGH!” With a loud, frustrated snarl, Rend reluctantly sprinted back to us and hopped onto the back of Darch and Scardo’s fero.
“What do you mean she cannot be killed by ordinary means?” shouted Nyte, grabbing the fero’s antennae.
Pietri scanned the sky once more, and this time he looked more than apprehensive. He looked afraid. “She has made a pact with an angel,” he said. “She cannot be killed but by his hand.”
The Spirit of In-between had been sitting on his shoulder like a complacent pet, but it abruptly started to flap its glittering wings in a manner most wild. In response, Elder Pietri jerked his head to the heavens and let out a soft cry.
“He is here!”
He had scarcely spoken the words when an ominous weight settled over the group. I say ‘weight’, but it was hard to explain. A heaviness of anxiety or a blanket of dread. Something intangible but very much apparent. Or maybe it would be most best deemed a cloud of intimidation. This feeling was enough to warn us to run, but instead of acting, we were all silent, breathless, while we brought our eyes to the sky.
“Aar-ta-ta-ta-ta!” The feros clicked. Whatever it was, they too could sense it.
&n
bsp; The clouds above the tower began to twist. The night sky was dark and starless, but something was shining within the pocket of twisting cloud. Something bright.
Is that brightness . . . the angel? An angel. An angel. An angel. An angel. An angel.
I was lost within my own head, captivated by the light. For just a moment, it felt like it would be a good idea to dismount and move towards the brightness, to go and watch the angel’s arrival. Surely the others felt it too, for Kantú inched back a bit on her fero beside me. We all wanted to stay, and it almost played out that way, but then salvation came. For when we’d nearly wasted too much time, there was a voice of reason within the bewitched moment.
“Go!” yelled Darch, entirely panicked. “GO NOW!”
His words succeeded in pulling us out from under the blanket and back into action.
“At once, Miss Heart. Flee!”
“Yah!” Nyte gave the fero’s antennae a tug and it started to follow Darch’s bug down the side wall, but not before I saw a man descend from the clouds.
No, it was more like the clouds set him down upon the tower’s top.
L . . . Lusa . . . fael?
Even though we were in rapid escape, when I locked eyes on him, time seemed to cease its forward motion. More specifically, we all started moving slowly; like the air was as thick as water or gel – something we had to swim through to cross. It was a phenomenon that wasn’t only ours. The Druelcans were also moving slowly; and the wind and the fire too.
Only his speed was normal. The sight of him left me speechless.
He was clad entirely in white – a clean, white tuxedo that looked similar to Scardo’s, but without the tails. He was certainly a man, but a man of undeniable beauty with long, silver hair that was even shinier than mine. Far, far shinier than mine. It fell around his shoulders and neck and all the way to the middle of his back: fluid, like water and light, like air – each strand a flawless thread of sleekness.
But his hair wasn’t the only thing about him that shined. His skin, too, seemed to be made of luminosity. Every inch of him was a light metallic color – an alluring color, flecked with tiny dots of light. Light that sparkled. Light that was uncontained.
An angel. There was no denying it. No one in the Westerlands had ever compared – ever come close to the man that had arrived on the clouds. His entire essence was pure and radiant; his only dark point, his eyes. Those were black – blacker than the darkest shadow.
He was carrying what looked to be a young girl in a gold dress. Without sound, he set her down.
“See! I told you she was in trouble!” whined Carn.
“Thank you, Carn.” The man spoke quietly, but it somehow sounded like he was whispering in my ear. His words were strong even for a whisper. “And is it true that you’ve lost the scale?”
“Boo me! That witch blasted it away! Good thing I was able to squeeze one more use out of-”
“Then, I have no further use for you.”
“Wha-”
Without warning, Lusafael placed his hand on her forehead, and she exploded into a blast of white light.
It was incredibly horrifying.
Then, as if nothing had happened, Lusafael dusted himself off, walked over to Illuma, and scooped her in his arms.
The last thing I saw before the fero disappeared over the edge of the tower, was the clouds swirling down and surrounding the pair of them.
“He’s not coming after us?!” I shouted, completely relieved, but thoroughly confused.
“Don’t get yer hopes up too high, kiddo!” roared Grotts.
It didn’t take long for me to understand what he’d meant.
No sooner had we reached the eastern wall than the entire Druelcan fortress soundlessly exploded into light.
Just like that, Druelca and the majority of its followers were gone.
Chapter 22: The Twins
In the aftermath of our encounter with Lusafael, I was drained. Moving from that plane of warped time back into ordinariness was a feat exhausting, to say the least.
We traveled in silence for several hours, and I drifted in and out of sleep atop the fero and against Nyte. Being near to him, without fearing the warmth, was something I was starting to get used to, and something that I loved. It was like being able touch him in comfort made me feel closer to him than I ever had before. We’d shared our spirits, but feeling comfort was somehow more intimate. It was a thing that I treasured. A thing I looked forward to exerting now that we were free of the addiction.
~
“Would you like to stay asleep? Or would you like to awaken?” It was Nyte’s voice and it was gentle and close.
I let out a tired gurgle. I’m sure it was extremely attractive.
Nyte laughed. “Asleep, I take it.”
“No. I’ll wake up.”
I let my eyes open. I was no longer on the fero. I was in Nyte’s arms, and he was carrying me toward a cottage. The sky wasn’t completely dark, but it was either very late or very early because the overcast sky looked tired. Almost as tired as we were.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Still in Farrowel.”
“I can walk, you know.”
He grinned. “I know.” But he didn’t put me down.
It appeared that carrying was the trend of the night. Grotts was carrying Kantú. Rend was carrying Darch. And Ardette and Scardo might as well have been carrying each other, for they were walking against each other with dragging feet and equally hunched backs. Elder Pietri shuffled ahead, the bird on his shoulder, and with more energy than any of us.
We weren’t in a city, for the cottage was the only one in sight. It small and red and made of brick, and it was surrounded by a cluster of young trees that looked to have been planted no more than a decade earlier.
“Whose house is that?” I asked. But the question was to no one. I’m not even sure if I spoke it aloud. Finding no answer, I closed my eyes and buried my face in Nyte’s neck. It was perfectly warm. Perfectly comfortable. I wanted to stay there always.
I curled myself in even closer and heard Nyte swallow. Then his breathing pattern changed slightly, becoming a little shallower.
I opened my eyes and peeked up at him. He swallowed again and looked down at me with a playful grin.
“Refrain from using your havoc-ey wiles,” he whispered. “There are others around.”
Ooooh. I’d made him nervous.
I returned the grin with one of much more mischievous intent. “Wiles? What do you mean? Like this?” I reached up and drew my finger along his jaw and back to his ear. From there, I wrapped my hand around the back of his head and ran my fingers through his hair.
He shivered. “You are cruel.”
“Naturally.”
The cottage’s windows were dark.
“Ardette,” prodded Elder Pietri quietly at the door. “It would not be proper if you did not do the honors.”
The honors? Proper? Just where are we? It looked like a perfectly normal cottage. Nothing fancy.
Ardette groaned, rubbed his eyes and straightened up. He looked like a zombie. Or maybe some other creature of the night. Either way, it was funny.
I released a worn-out giggle.
He shot me a crabby look. “My, my, my cherry pit, and I suppose you think you look a barrel of roses? Well, actually, you do look quite intoxicating . . .”
Nyte held me a bit closer. Rend let out a stream of air through her teeth, which was most likely accompanied by a scowl – though she wasn’t in view, so I’d never know.
“. . . toxicating . . . ,” repeated Darch between snores, “. . . poxicating . . .”
Grotts and Nyte snorted. I held my mouth to contain what was certain to be obnoxious, past-tired giggles. Ardette flicked Darch in the nose, but Darch only snored again.
“Come, now, Ardette,” said the elder.
“Very well.” Ardette let out another groan before turning and giving the door a loud knock.
It took a whi
le, but eventually, one of the cottage’s back windows lit up. A moment later, there was the sound of someone undoing several clicking locks on the door. The door opened a bit.
“Y-yes,” piped a woman’s nervous voice through the crack.
“Hey, Mom,” said Ardette. “It’s me.”
Since I was tired, my reaction was delayed. But it was there, nonetheless.
Mom? Ardette’s . . . . . . . mom? Wait – What’s going on?!
“Ardette?!” Another two locks clicked and the door swung all the way open.
Standing in the doorway was an incredibly petite woman – a woman even shorter than Kantú. Though aged, she was lovely; with dark, gray-streaked hair, bright red eyes, two small horns and white skin. Ardette’s mother.
Sensing my eagerness, Nyte set me down.
“Ardette?!” she said again. “It really is!” She wrapped her arms around his neck in a mother’s embrace but then immediately pushed him back. “You’re much too thin!”
“Mom . . .” Ardette let his voice fall in mortification. Nyte smirked at the humbling scene.
But it was cute. Really, really cute.
“Well, aren’t you going to invite us in? You wouldn’t leave your son out in the wilds, now would y-”
“Oh, no you don’t. Not when you ask like that! You know how I feel about you talking in circles.”
Ardette hung his head in what was either exhaustion or embarrassment. “Ugh. Fine,” he said. “May we come in?”
“Of course.” She smiled kindly, and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepened. “Please, won’t you all come in?”
“We would be honored,” said Pietri, tipping his head. He shoved Ardette into the cottage, and the rest of us followed.
The inside was warm and smelled like afterlilies. I was in Ardette’s home. It was the place he’d grown up, and I was inside of it. That was really surreal.
I can’t believe I’m in his house. With his mother. It’s-
“Yes, I know. It’s not exactly ideal for me either.”
No, that’s not what I meant. It’s . . . nice.
“Hm. Nice, you say?” Ardette scanned the room as if looking for something ‘nice’.
