by Rosie Scott
Those who ran from me, ran in fear. Good. Let them fear me.
Ahead of me, the courtyard wall exploded into pieces from another ball of fire. Somewhere behind me, yet another crashed through the wall of the university. Sera was literally breaking apart, and I was loving every minute of it.
I took a moment to heal the wound in my gut from earlier, not even looking at it as I did so, my eyes feasting on the destruction surrounding me. After my skin was closed, I put both palms toward the ground, and recited a spell which Cerin had taught me.
Tendrils of black magic raced across the cobblestone, burying themselves in the recent dead. Dozens of fresh corpses rose, shambling off to chase after those who had fled. I heard pounding on the doors to the university behind me, and realized the dead were after even those who would keep themselves safe inside.
“Kai!” Cerin was screaming at me, alarm in his eyes. He was yelling at me to stop. Maybe the energy I'd used to raise the corpses had helped to clear my mind, because I could hear him, at least. Looking past him, I saw Bjorn's corpse moving through the courtyard, his head only attached to his body via my own magic.
I dispelled the death magic with a new feeling of horror, and the body fell, the head separating from it once more. A ripple traveled from my stomach to my throat, and I bent over, vomiting straight onto the cobblestone.
“Kai, you have made your point! We need to leave!” Theron shouted, wiping blood from his face with a forearm. I noticed in the split second I had seen him that an arrow stuck out of his upper arm, at least one of the archers having hit their target. I heaved over the ground, vomiting once more. Now that the anger had been dealt with, and the abundance of energy from leeching had escaped me, my mind became clear. I was disgusted with myself for my display. The image of Bjorn's reanimated corpse would forever haunt me, forged with the knowledge that it had happened because of my spell.
“You killed innocents,” Cerin gasped, directing my attention to where the first fireball had impacted. Amongst the rubble, there were civilian bodies, of all shapes and sizes.
I felt dizzy, and I swayed on my own feet. “I'm sorry,” I breathed, uncertain of what else to say. All around us, there was silence. The only sound was the burning from my destruction. Everyone had fled.
“We need to get the fuck out of Sera.” I looked over, seeing Nyx for the first time in awhile. The side of her face was burnt, the purple skin bubbled up with liquid. The leather of the armor beneath that shielded her right arm was scorched off, and the skin was dark and bloody with burns, though not as bad as her face.
“What happened to you?” I asked, frightened. I was sure I knew, but I didn't want to face it.
“What could've happened to all of us had you continued raining your fire,” she replied, shortly. I could tell she was hurt, and not just physically.
“I'm sorry, Nyx,” I offered, moving to heal her.
She jerked her face away from me. “We need to get moving, as I said. The people have fled, but now that it is quiet, they will come back out.”
“Okay,” I replied, softly. I watched her start hurrying toward the courtyard entrance, where she ran beyond. We all followed after her, eager to leave the wreckage behind us.
The group of us hurried as quick as we could through and out of Sera, going through the front entrance to the city rather than going back the way we'd come, from underneath the city via the sewers. We only came across resistance from two soldiers near the front gates, who were quickly dealt with by Theron and Nyx. Right now, I didn't want to kill another person. I wasn't sure if I would ever want to kill a person again.
Once we had escaped the city's walls, we did not even stop to breathe. Somewhere, in Sera, plans were being made to take us out. I knew that. I wasn't sure if Sirius had been caught under one of my spells, but I hadn't remembered coming across his own. It was possible he had went to hide like a coward while I wreaked havoc on his people. Even if I'd somehow killed him without knowing, Terran and those loyal to Seran royalty would be planning their revenge.
I glanced back to Sera when my inhales were torching my lungs. We were making good distance from the city, but even from here, I could see how my rampage had broken it. The university's main tower no longer rose high above the walls to rival the mountains, and the city was spotted with fire. Overhead, thick clouds of smoke cast the stars out of the sky.
I didn't know what the future held for me, or for the others who somehow still found something to like in me that they continued to follow my lead. I would soon have a country seeking out my head. Just days ago, I would not have agreed with them on how I was a criminal. The only charges they could have gotten me on were necromancy. Now? I could be tried for murder.
I felt sickened by my own actions. So much so, in fact, that I was no longer sure what to think of myself. Cerin had warned me of the high from leeching. I had experienced it before, and it had been the most overpowering feeling I'd ever had. That combined with the danger of boiling rage had affected my actions tonight, to the point that I wasn't sure if Bjorn would still be proud of me.
Bjorn. My stomach was sliced in two. I was not able to save him. All I had wanted to do in Sera was make sure both he and Terran were safe. If I had known things would have turned out like this, I might have refused to go at all. Silas had left us, Bjorn was dead, I had unintentionally hurt Nyx, and didn't know what those I loved even thought of me anymore. In what once was a quest to gain something, I had only ended up losing so much more. I felt like a lost, soulless husk of the person I was just days ago, and I wasn't sure if I would ever feel right again.
“Where to?” Nyx asked, the words cracking into my thoughts. She had turned to face us briefly beneath the moonlight in the midst of our rush through the grasslands of Sera.
I thought of Bjorn and his words to me, back when we'd been in better times. “South. To the deserts of Nahara.”
***
Teaser of Earth (The Six Elements Book 2) below!
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***
Teaser of Earth (The Six Elements Book 2):
The attack came after the darkness of night fell over us near the end of Dark Star, just as the year of 417 came to a close. Our trek after leaving Kilgor had taken a detour from the Caravaneer Road, though we were still going in the same direction. We were planning on visiting Comercio, as it was the last settlement we would come across before the remaining trip to Nahara. Caravaneer Road led there, of course, due to the fact it connected all major cities to Comercio, but we wanted to avoid traveling on the road. The closer to Comercio we got, the more populated it would be. We didn't want to risk being seen or recognized before making it to Nahara.
We were in the midst of setting up our tents in the middle of the grasslands which appeared to continue for miles in every direction. As always, it made me feel unsafe. Though Dark Star would soon be making the way for the warmth of New Moon, for now, snow still blanketed the earth. Our mish-mash of cream and brown colored tents stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the fields of white.
Tonight, I found I had reason to fear, for our pursuers found us with little problem.
At first, I heard a distant beating which vibrated with power in the air. The noise was unfamiliar to me, but I knew it was not any of my companions, and we were sure to be far from the
main road, so it couldn't have been a type of caravan or pack animal.
My friends quieted. I quieted. We all froze, all in the middle of finishing the preparations for camping, because to move felt like it would call attention. Even as the unfamiliar beating came closer and got louder, I hoped for innocent explanations.
FWOOSH. FWOOSH. FWOOSH. FWOOSH.
My golden eyes rose to the sky. Up ahead, patches of the stars in the night sky were blackened, squelched from their places. My heart picked up its pace, and my hands dropped the bag I'd been carrying. Keeping my eyes on the sky, I recited two identical air spells in my mind, and felt the energy building in my palms.
FWOOSH. FWOOSH. FWOOSH. FWOOSH.
Theron grabbed the bow he'd put just inside his tent, and pulled the quiver over his shoulder, preparing an arrow. Nyx watched the sky, holding her daggers, looking as if she was trying to think of a plan. She had nothing but melee.
Cerin, on the other hand, had his mind set on raising the dead, two growing orbs of black casting shadows over the snow at his boots. He watched the skies with trepidation. Out of all of us here, he was the only one to have experience with such a foe, as I was pretty sure I knew the identities of our airborne pursuers.
FWOOSH. FWOOSH. FWOOSH. FWOOSH.
Perhaps in my ignorance, I waited to attack. I did not wish to kill anyone I didn't need to. There had been a time when Sirius had used words before attacks. If I didn't immediately attack, it was possible only words would need to be exchanged with our pursuers. It was hard to tell if this could be the case; despite the stars which had darkened to black in the sky, I could not see our followers. I was unable to tell if they were immediately hostile.
Then, through the loud vibrations of the beating in the air, came a whistling. I recognized the noise, but was unable to switch to life magic to prepare a shield.
Shik!
“Gah—!” Cerin jerked back from the force of the arrow that had sunk deep into the soft flesh between his neck and shoulder. The pain didn't stop him from releasing the death magic. Black tendrils raced across the snow in dozens of directions.
“All right, you sons of bitches,” I grumbled, thrusting my hands toward the sky, releasing the air magic. More stars were blocked out of the sky as thick storm clouds began to gather above us. Now, not only did the beating in the air vibrate through the sound waves, but the sky itself groaned with such pressure that the ground beneath my feet trembled. Even as I prepared another spell, small veins of lightning began to light up patches of the sky with anticipation. With a flash of purple light, my worst fears were confirmed.
Sirius had sent the Twelve. The entire dozen of them. In the sky above us, twelve griffons of various shades hovered heavily in the air, their wings manipulating the air with a laborious effort. Though I had seen the Twelve's griffon mounts a select few times, it had always been at a distance. The creatures were magnificent in both size and beauty; they had the heads and wings of birds of prey, only at many times the size. Their large, waterproof feathers glistened back from their elongated necks into the thick fur of the lower body, which was double the bulk of most mounts, including horses. The four thick paws of each creature hung heavily below their bellies, thick razor-sharp claws extending outward from between toes as a threat.
On top of each griffon was the form of its rider, each wielding different weapons and each intent on leaving here today after the death of my friends and I. Many of the riders were people I knew. All of them had been trained by Bjorn, back at the beginnings of their individual military careers. They would be magnificent fighters, and they outnumbered us.
But I fully intended on making it out of this alive. Despite my sorrow for it, I would be the death of the Twelve.
Click here to move on to Earth, (The Six Elements Book 2): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076FVH7QK
