by Emma Glass
On my back beneath that universe, I cried.
I don’t know how long I lied there until I felt a tap on my shoulder. I nodded; after all, I knew who it was.
“It’s time.” Wilhelm spoke regretfully.
He offered his hand. I took it, pulling up to my feet and dusting myself off. Viktor and Assara stood quietly beside him, both watching me with pain in their eyes. As I quietly walked past them, she pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and gave it to me; I dabbed at my eyes and wiped away the sadness.
“Thank you, Asarra.”
For the first time that I could remember, the knight smiled. “My pleasure, Clara.”
My eyes turned to the distant pavilion, with the handkerchief tightly held in my fist. I could still see the top of it above the hedges; the path forward lied there before me. Every step towards the pavilion filled my heart with depression and dread, but I knew it had to be done. At least I had the knightly trio there with me, fanned out and taking every step alongside me in silent support. As our group quietly wound between thick walls of unimaginable beauty, the four of us walked this path with solemn, heavy hearts.
I was grateful to not have to do it alone.
The trail was over far too quickly. I stood at the edge of the platform, afraid to go forward. The others were already here: Sebastian, Lorelei, and Nikki stood gathered in the center, while Elliott quietly brooded just a little ways off.
A gloved, armored hand caringly settled onto my shoulder. I could feel myself begin to crumble inside, but before it could work its way out, Wilhelm whispered into my ear. “We won’t leave you, little miss human. Look to us if you need to.”
I nodded silently, wiping away my tears with Assara’s gift. Realizing I still had it, I tried to hand it back to her; she merely shook her head.
“Keep it and remember us, Clara.”
I tucked it into my pocket and threw my arms around Wilhelm. “Oof!” He humored me. “What a powerful grip you’ve got there! We should have made you a guard too…”
His lighthearted chuckle gave me the smile I so desperately needed. I turned to the others, and hugged Viktor as well (“It’s been a pleasure, little Clara”). When it came time for Assara, she looked uncomfortable, but held out her hand awkwardly. I smiled sadly and shook it; she surprised me by pulling me into a light hug, fondly tapping the top of my head with her palm a few times, and then pulling away again.
The others had noticed me by now, and were waving me over. Wilhelm lightly placed a palm to my back and coerced me forward, and I walked up onto the pavilion and towards my destiny.
30
Clara
As I stepped forwards, I noticed some hasty chalk markings all over the ground. I guess that answers the question of who’s performing the spell…
Nikki and Sebastian paused in their hushed chatter, watching me with a collective sadness. I barely noticed them as I walked up to Elliott, who turned and faced me with a solemn expression.
“Is this how it ends?” I asked bleakly.
For a moment, I thought I saw a small flicker of regret across his face. But it was relatively dark, and the moment was gone before I could be sure.
“I don’t want you to go. But you have to.”
My head lowered.
His fingers came into view; he lifted my chin with the tip of one, forcing me to see his dark and handsome stare. In those radiant eyes, I saw so many things. As I studied them, I felt his remorse, his longing, his fear and his uncertainty.
But I also felt his resolve, and I smiled sadly. Elliott hates this, just as much as I do. But he’s doing what he thinks is best.
I planted a small kiss on his lips.
He didn’t fight it; he gave into the feeling.
“It’s now or never,” he whispered to me.
“How about ‘never’?”
Elliott smiled despondently. “If only.”
The deepest pangs of misery yet struck at my heart, like whipping waves in a storm at sea. With heavy spirits, I turned away from him and walked up to Nikki and Sebastian.
“How is this happening?”
The elderly sage placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Very shortly, Lady Craven will be performing a rather ancient and forgotten spell. The process is similar to before. Come, stand over here…” He guided me towards the center of the pavilion, but I hesitated, glancing at Lorelei.
“Wait,” I resisted his push. “Won’t I have the time to say proper goodbyes?”
“You will have an opportunity before you go,” he reassured me. “For now, we need to make the first preparations. Please, if you’d kindly…”
Dejectedly, I followed his lead. Sebastian had me stop in the same spot as before, and I glanced around the open, curved pillars of the courtyard pavilion before facing that incredibly night sky one last time.
“Focus, please.”
With a heavy sigh, I lowered my gaze.
“Lord Craven, whenever you’re ready.”
Nikki strolled towards me with the spell-book held open in her hand. She stopped right in front to slide her finger down the page, taking another moment to properly study the ancient text. “Now that we’re aware of your inherent resilience to magic, we can compensate for that…”
“Is that what the sigils are for?”
The vampire vassal smiled crookedly. “What? No. That’s because I’m not a sorceress, duh. Are you kidding? I mean, if you wanted me to try this without them, well… let’s just say the results could be gruesome.” Her face tellingly lit up. “In fact, you know what? I think I quite like that idea. We can ditch the sigils and try this spell the old-fashioned way, but I can’t really guarantee that all of you would make it…” Her radiant eyes sparked with deviance. “How attached are you to your skin, by the way? Let’s say, a scale of one to ten…”
By now, I’d gotten so used to her playful madness that I just smiled and shook my head. “Nikki, I need my skin,” I reminded her. “I can’t have you just banishing it to another world!”
She shrugged cheerfully. “Oh well. Thought I’d try. Thought maybe you’d be reasonable...” The warmth gradually faded from her face as she held her place in the book with a finger and drew me into a heavy embrace. “I think I’m gonna miss you, little snack.”
“I think I’ll miss you too.” I patted her back affectionately. “Hey, you remember that one time that you kidnapped me to prove a point?”
Nikki stiffened. “…Rings a bell.”
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Let’s never do that again.”
As we pulled away, I couldn’t tell how much of her grin was due to madness or amusement. In her mind, they were probably one and the same.
Her smile gradually fell as her serious side took the spotlight. It was probably for the best; there was no telling what would happen if she descended into playful wickedness in the middle of casting the spell. “It’s time, Clara.”
Feeling glum inside, I knew she was right.
Nikki stepped back and pointed out the sigils. “I don’t have a formal education. My talents were refined by renegade mages in the wild, so I lack a lot of basic fundamentals. That’s what these are all for. Think of these sigils like shields, bouncing the spell right to this point. They’ll focus the wild magic; they’ll target it to whomever stands where you are now and greatly amplify it. All of this will probably overcome your resistance, but I don’t think that this spell will ever work on you again.”
“Well then, I guess I’ll count myself lucky that it’s a one-way trip.” I muttered despondently.
She either ignored or didn’t hear my self-pity. “For now, stay where you are. After I activate the sigils and begin the spell, you will have a chance to say goodbye to everyone while I charge it. But I can’t start without a target in place.”
I nodded morosely. “Okay.”
With my consent granted, Nikki turned away, flipped the spell-book to the right page, and began walking towards the others. “I need you three in position. Mot
her, come here; Sebastian, over here; Elliott, stand there.”
Silently, they assumed their spots at different corners and turned to me. Elliott was to my left, Lorelei to my right, and Sebastian stood behind. Their grim faces told me that they, just like me, didn’t want to be any part of this.
Nikki stood in front, finishing the diamond of vampires around me. She lifted the book up high in front and lightly tossed it, clicking the fingers of both hands simultaneously. As with Sabine, the tome levitated before her in a light glow.
With that same rolling motion of her wrists over one another, she clicked both sets of fingers one after the other…
The sigils all beamed to life around us.
As the pavilion brightened in a powerful, heavenly glow, the three stunned knights quietly watched from the sidelines. They all turned to me and offered various smiles and encouragement.
“Focus,” Nikki reminded me. “Eyes forward.”
It was clear that she was straining under the power of these sigils. She collapsed to a knee, both palms against the ground, and the others quickly voiced their concerns. “I’m… fine!” She snapped in a grunt, resisting what looked like an invisible gravitation pull. Nikki gradually climbed back to her feet, bracing herself against the power of the sigils. “I just… need to… concentrate…”
Back upright, she thrust out her palms to me. With her eyes glued to the pages of the floating tome, Nikki began chanting in a bizarre, magical tongue. Every so often, one of the sigils around us would sound off a musical note while flickering to a different color.
The intensity of the spell was taking a visible toll on her; biased or not, I almost wanted to tell her to call the entire thing off.
With one final, strained sentence, a powerful breeze roared through the pavilion. Nikki relaxed her power stance and gazed at her hands, flexing all of her fingers.
“It’s safe now,” she called out. “Only Clara can move – the rest of you have to stay in place.” Nikki glanced at me. “This is your time for goodbyes…”
I didn’t have to be told twice.
First, I whirled around and raced to Sebastian. “I didn’t know you much, and I’m sorry. You seem like a kind and wise old guy.”
The sage beamed. “It’s wonderful to hear that from fellow vampires, but from a human?” He side-eyed me affectionately. “Now that’s the kind of praise I’ll keep until the grave.”
Sebastian held out his arms. I turned to Nikki for approval. When she nodded with a grin, I sank into his warm embrace. “Please take care of Elliott for me,” I whispered in his ear.
“Consider his ongoing health and wisdom my parting gift to you.” At those words, I kissed him on the cheek.
Next, I approached Lorelei.
“You’re rather interesting, for a human,” she observed aloofly. “Such a feisty spirit. No doubt, you’d have made a fine vampire.” Lorelei reached for me and planted a light kiss on my forehead. It felt cool to the touch, yet filled with endearment. “Such a pity it is to lose you, little one.”
“You too, Your Royal Highness.”
“Hah!” She chuckled heartily. “The manners again. I’d nearly forgotten how polite you are…” The matronly vampire leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “When you die in your world, Clara, do me a favor and get yourself born here, if you can. I may only have a century or two left, so don’t take your time…”
“I’ll get right on that,” I smiled sadly.
I ran up to Nikki, who merely gave me a bored glance. “We already had our moment, little snack. Go bother Elliott. He’d appreciate the time more.”
I gave her a quick, hearty hug and ran up to the man from my dreams. His forlorn eyes were filled with such sorrow that I could barely meet their gaze.
“Guess this is it,” I muttered sadly.
Elliott watched me for a moment, his sadness just as deep and meaningful as mine. “I will never be the same without you, Clara Blackwell.”
I lifted my face. “Do you really mean that?”
He nodded solemnly. “Of course I do.”
We both knew that there wasn’t much time, but clearly neither of us knew what to say or do in our last moments together. Giving in to instinct, I knew I needed to feel his touch one last time. My arms flung around him as I cried into his chest. One of his hands disappeared into my thick hair, the other slid onto my back, and the vampire lord clutched my body close to his own.
I heard him murmur, but I couldn’t hear.
“Didn’t catch that,” I whispered, looking up.
Elliott smiled handsomely, and the magical breeze whipped lightly at his brunette curls.
“I said ‘I love you, Clara Blackwell.’”
His lips descended upon mine.
We were pulled into such a powerful kiss that I felt every heartstring inside tenderly sing. I felt that kiss down to my toes, pouring love into every vein in my body. I’d never kissed a boy before. But it didn’t matter; I knew in that moment that no other boy, no matter what world they came from, could ever kiss me like this again.
“Time’s running out,” Nikki called to us.
He and I pulled out of the embrace. “I love you too, Elliott Craven,” I whispered in his ear, leaving a small peck there. “Until the day I die.”
“Until the day I die,” he repeated with a smile.
Before Nikki could get angrier, I sadly walked over to my position and stood facing her. “Okay. I’m ready,” I lied to her as I fought back my tears.
She meaningfully lifted her palms up again, holding them out towards me. “Alright, everyone, you heard our little human… I need all of you to visualize her now… picture her in your minds, as sharply as you can… visualize Clara as you see her now, bathed in a bright, green light…”
The others stiffened their posture and stared at me. “Concentrate,” she ordered the others. “I can’t do it alone. Cast lingering thoughts aside, all of you, and focus on the human!”
All the sigils began to hum in a united chorus, glowing a spectrum of rainbow colors together. Nikki grunted under their magical intensity and almost buckled again, but kept her stance. “You’re doing great!” She growled. “Keep it up!”
Startlingly, a small crackle of green lightning briefly buzzed in my face. Another came near a hand, then another at my feet, one from behind…
All of a sudden, a circle snapped to life at my feet, glowed up a green pillar of light around me. My first spell or not, I was just as awed as before as I trailed my fingers within the bright column. I watched how my movements caused subtle gaps in the light, and how quickly they disappeared.
“Good!” Nikki gasped under the strain. “Don’t lose that image in your head! I need you all to keep up the barrier as I cast this!”
She withdrew her palms and held them up to the stars, chanting at the top of her lungs. Around us, the wind kicked into overdrive, billowing all of our clothes like a tropical storm.
I quietly watched how she started powerfully glowing under the night sky. With the intensity of her recitation, Nikki pulled into her body the beginnings of an incredible strength. It was so far beyond what I’d seen enter Sabine that I suddenly grew afraid of it.
The moment confronted me, then and there:
This is really happening. I’m being sent away.
Before I could blurt out a desperate plea, I felt my attention drawn to Elliott. He stood there, the unending pain scribbled across his face. His heart was shattering and there was nothing I could do to save either of us.
Nikki screamed in pain.
My gaze snapped back to her. In the instant, she brought her palms down and hurled the light inside her towards me.
As I fell backwards, the last thing that I saw was Elliott Craven, diving desperately toward me. But my body never hit the stone; when I struck where the pavilion’s floor should be, the world all around me exploded into an abyss of impossible beauty. I found myself plummeting downward, at the comforting whim of intoxicating, bursting gala
xies, swirling lights, and endless time…
When I slowly came to, I felt grassy mud against my face and hands, and the disgusting lapping of water up to my waist.
My eyes gradually opened.
The daylight bothered me. I groaned with a headache as I started to pull myself forward. With sluggish movements, I dragged my body out from the horrid sensations of slapping, rolling water over my legs.
When I crawled free and sank down into dry land, I took a deep breath and rolled myself over. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the sunlight, I held a hand up to shield them. Everything miserably hurt, and I was apparently left out in the open.
The light grew easier to manage. I found the strength to keep my eyes open, and peered across the dim, drowning whiteness at my environment.
Apparently, I was at the edge of a huge lake, soaking wet from my stomach down. Confused, I drifted my gaze down to my unfamiliar clothes, wondering why I wasn’t in a school uniform.
“Oh yeah,” I muttered to myself as memories slowly drifted back. “Wonder if vampiric fabrics are dry clean only…”
Comprehension dawned on me, just in time to hear an elderly voice as a caretaker stumbled into view. “Oi! Whatcha doing way out here, little lady, you having a swim in the lake?”
He paused, kneeling to get a good look at me. “Wait just a second! Why, I reckon you look just like that missing girl… are you Clara Blackwell?”
Disoriented, I reached to my throat and felt the chain of a black necklace. My grandmother’s, I remembered. It was dry and warm to the touch. It even felt as if the metal were throbbing.
“Yes,” I muttered groggily. “I think I am…”
The Unknown...
Thousands of miles away from Clara Blackwell, elevator doors opened on the fiftieth floor of a skyscraper. An unfailingly polite young man in business casual attire stepped out into a carpeted corporate hallway. The man wore a cheery smile on his face as he adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses, then brushed away brunette curls from the lenses.
