by Lucia Ashta
But this wasn’t a game.
“Mathieu, no!” I said.
He paid me no mind either.
I tried something else. “Arianne wouldn’t want you to get hurt trying to help her.”
He wasn’t listening.
His red eyes, which glowed intensely in his distress, watched for something I didn’t see, just as Walt’s had.
He chose his moment and dove over the circle of firedrakes, which still held. A single flap of his wings was enough to propel him over the circle and deposit him next to his mistress.
Only he didn’t get deposited as he intended. Not at all.
The web of crackling energy that held Arianne and the five firedrakes, pinned to the grass beneath them, burst in a flash of pure white light when Mathieu touched it.
In a small blast, the energy sizzled, popped, and ejected the green firedrake with force.
Mathieu flew back over the circle of firedrakes, lacking the usual grace of his normal flight. Like a cannonball, the green firedrake shot well past where Sylvia awaited his return with her own desperate red eyes.
He thumped to the ground loudly, where he lay limply, unmoving.
White light contained him like an impenetrable shield, crackling like a predator about to consume its prey.
It sizzled loudly, a drop of cold water on a scorching griddle, and then diffused to nothing. One moment Mathieu looked as volatile as a lit stick of dynamite. Now, nothing. A limp shell of a majestic creature.
Sylvia half waddled, half flew to his side. She bent low, whimpering and whining at her mate’s unresponsiveness.
Next she turned to the electric web and hissed at it.
I shivered. It was a primal sound, one which I hoped never to hear again, especially not if it was directed at me.
Sylvia left her mate and stalked toward the circle. She started doing the jump-rope dance Mathieu had done.
“Sylvia, no!” I said, pushing away the obvious sense of déjà vu.
“Don’t do it,” Walt said.
She ignored us, and my stomach sank somewhere past my feet. “We need to get help. She’s not listening to us. We need to do something.” Sylvia was bobbing her head toward the circle, waiting for her chance to... what? Attack the web of magic that was strong enough to overpower Arianne, the one who’d called on the magic in the first place?
“I’ll go get help.” I started to move from Walt’s side.
“No, you stay. I’ll go. I’m faster.”
I didn’t think for a second he was faster than me. Just because I was a girl didn’t mean he should make foolish assumptions. I was as sprite as a jungle cat. But it wasn’t the time to argue the point.
“Say something to talk her out of doing it,” her being a very ferocious and angry-looking opalescent firedrake. He ran several steps toward the manor, then stopped and faced me again. “Don’t do anything while I’m gone. Stay away from the magic.”
Well, duh. I gave him my best obviously-you-think-I’m-stupid-and-slow look, followed by my underestimate-me-at-your-own-risk wicked smile, the one I had no idea I had stashed away in my arsenal.
He hesitated, a confused look momentarily replacing his panic, but then he aimed for the manor again and took off. He was fast... but so was I.
Sylvia tilted her head toward the sky and released an equally terrifying and mesmerizing stream of fire in her frustration.
My body responded as if she’d directed the stream of fire at me. I broke out into a cold sweat, one of my eyelids twitched, and I experienced an overwhelming nervous energy in all my limbs. Walt had better get back here fast. I wasn’t made for this kind of pressure.
I took a few careful steps toward the enraged firedrake.
I approached her from the back, but she whirled on me, eyes blazing.
I held up my hands. “Easy, girl. I only want to help you.”
She released a short burst of fire in my direction, and I jumped back. She clearly hadn’t meant to hurt me, or she’d have burnt me to a crisp, but it was still too close for comfort. “Fine, get yourself zapped. Pass out with the rest of them. That’s the best way to help them.”
If she understood me at all, she definitely didn’t speak sarcasm. Her eyes glittered and turned back toward Arianne, slumped in the middle of it all. I was surprised she’d want to rescue her before tending to her mate, but what did I know of firedrake behavior?
She flinched, and I realized she was about to go in. She would suffer the same fate as Mathieu.
“No,” I said firmly, as though I were talking to a dog about to do something bad. “Stay.”
She turned, and I swear to goodness, she smirked at me—she actually smirked! Chagrined, I didn’t blame her. Sure, Isa. She’s just like a dog, one with wings, talons, and a gazillion teeth. But what was I supposed to do?
I gazed nervously toward the manor, hoping for shouts and sounds of mobilization. But I heard nothing at all, only the sound of my pulse whooshing too loudly through my head, and the electric web of magic crackling its constant threat.
That’s when Sylvia moved. By the time I turned back to her, my yell was of no use—not that she would have heeded my warning anyway.
Instead of diving over the circle of firedrakes, she dove through the gap beneath their linked wings. She slid headfirst toward Arianne, bumped the sprawled witch with her snout, and was propelled backward as violently as her mate had been.
She slid and bumped across rough ground, smashing back through the protective circle the firedrakes were valiantly attempting to hold.
But Sylvia broke their circle, whose importance I hadn’t realized until Sylvia interrupted its flow.
Many things happened at once: Sylvia crashed into Mathieu’s body, a limp heap next to him. He didn’t flinch or otherwise react to the impact.
The firedrakes struggled to keep the circle intact. Their touching wingtips were only disconnected in one spot, and only long enough for the magic web of crackles to shoot Sylvia through it.
But when Sylvia burst through the circle, the electricity of Arianne’s spell, or possibly leftover dark magic, jumped to the circle of firedrakes, who hadn’t previously touched the sparking mass in their middle.
Though the firedrakes were trying to link back together, each time the two disconnected firedrakes touched their wingtips, sparks erupted from the contact. They yelped and pulled back, only to attempt to connect again a few seconds later.
Maybe nothing will happen with the circle broken now that Arianne has done her magic. But I didn’t believe it. Not for a second.
The firedrakes shook in their efforts to maintain the circle. And the two who reached for each other, with grimaces of anticipation across their faces, were starting to look pallid. Elwin was one of them, and his normally rich blue-indigo scales were fading fast, losing pigment by the second.
Maybe the magic will simply dissipate and spread across the earth. The ground would absorb it safely, I was almost sure of it. How? I didn’t know. Intuition maybe.
Though no one had taught me much about the basics of magic, I’d learned that the four elements of nature were the basis of it all. Earth was one of those elements, one of the building blocks of all magic. I should be able to do some kind of spell that gets the earth to dispel the sparking magic... stuff. Theoretically, of course. I had no idea how to do magic of any sort, and the bit I’d managed to do I’d done mostly by accident.
But Elwin was fading fast, and the one next to him, who’d been a scarlet red just a minute before, was a pale, pasty pink—not a good color for any magnificent beast.
One quick glance at the manor told me help wasn’t on its way.
So I did the only thing I could. I wouldn’t rush into the circle like Mathieu and Sylvia had. Even if they’d tried two different approaches, the result was the same.
I shouldn’t touch any part of the circle, not when firedrakes, who breathed fire from their bodies, were struggling with it.
I could wait. Or I could act.
However misinformed my actions would necessarily be, I chose the latter.
I was frightened—so much so that my lips trembled and tingled with the numbness of nerves—but I wouldn’t let that stand in the way of doing something—anything—to help.
Elwin and the pink firedrake would die if I didn’t intervene, and I suspected the rest of the firedrakes in the circle would go next once the other two weren’t there to filter the intense energy. Once the protective circle was gone, I had no idea what might happen—to those in its center and to those of us in its proximity—but I’d bet all my possessions that it wouldn’t be good. In fact, it’d be tragic.
I acted without thinking, something I had some practice in. I centered myself just behind Elwin and the pasty pink firedrake, knelt, and laid both palms flat on the earth.
Please, let this work. And... don’t let this kill me or anyone else. I sent my prayer out and then closed my eyes so I could concentrate. It was hard not to stare at the flickering light show all around me.
“Earth beneath me,” I started and immediately paused. What do I say next! But no, that wouldn’t work. It had to be one continuous spell. Madame Pimlish was supposedly the greatest transformation witch there was, and her spells were about iced tea and pickles, or some other such nonsense. I could do nonsense.
One quick peek at Elwin and the pink firedrake urged me onward. Nonsense would do just fine. They were dying. They barely had the strength to reach for one another anymore.
The dark magic, if that’s what it was, was winning.
I snapped my eyes shut and started talking before I could think—or in this case, worry.
“Earth beneath me, earth beneath my friends.
You are the source of magic. You’re the sanctuary of life.
You give and you take, but always in balance.
Here there’s an imbalance.
Dark magic is seeking to destroy that which it has no right to.”
I’d better be right about that, or my spell will make even less sense than it already does.
“Return balance to the magic here.
To all magicians, persons, and animals here, touched by the dark magic, return the life, vitality, and power, that is rightfully theirs.
Awaken the fallen, return the spelled to their true natures, and release them all from the dark spell.”
Is that good enough? I didn’t know what else to say!
“Take, uh, the dark magic into you for transformation.” There, that sounds good. I wouldn’t be leaving the dark magic floating around the place to cause harm I wasn’t anticipating.
“Contain, transform it, and render it harmless, a blank building block upon which to build a better world.” Dang, I’m almost sounding like I know what I’m talking about. No iced tea and pickles here.
“Do it now.”
I kept my hands on the earth, but opened my eyes.
Nothing happened.
“Please and thank you.”
Still nothing.
Before I could override my instincts, I was moving. One hand remained grounded, the other reached for Elwin.
I had to connect to the sparking dark magic for my spell to take effect. Why? I assumed it was to link the two. Or maybe I was just being foolish, thinking I could improvise a spell and activate it with my touch.
But if I didn’t do something, at least two firedrakes would die, and I knew in that deep place that realizes things with certainty, but without explanation, that there would be no bringing them back.
This same well of knowing urged me to make contact. For whatever reason, it was the missing ingredient to set my spell in motion.
A niggling doubt suggested that this was absurd, but my hand reached for Elwin just the same.
When I was so close to touching him that the electricity arced to my outstretched fingers, I felt that I was right, and that this was the final piece for the earth to grant my request to deal with the dark magic.
I also understood that I was about to take on a hell of a shock.
It was the price to pay.
I slapped my palm flat against Elwin’s scaled back and steeled myself for what was to come.
I was still in no way prepared for the force of an entire bolt of lightening that surged into me.
Every bit of my body, large and small, tightened like steel. I clenched my teeth together in a grimace of survival, and held onto my existence in this body with every speck of strength I had.
I was there one moment, holding on, shaking and sweating and panting from the effort of it.
The next, I was mercifully gone.
Chapter 9
As I allowed my eyes to close, I suspected I was passing out, and would be asleep a very long time. After all, that seemed like the least that might happen after my body took on the force of a lightning bolt—a lightning bolt!
I was lucky I wasn’t dead, and I knew it, so I didn’t fight my consciousness as it rushed to leave my body. I just hoped I’d managed to break the web of energy that held everyone captive to its insurmountable force.
But once my eyes closed, I didn’t drift off into a peaceful slumber, where I wouldn’t be aware of what I’d done or worry about whether Arianne and the firedrakes would wake up now that the web of crackles had been interrupted.
I wanted the bliss of no thought, yet I didn’t receive it.
My eyes popped back open moments after I closed them. I hadn’t even slept.
Still, my body felt good—great, actually. I was horizontal on the grass beside Elwin and the pasty-pink firedrake. My limbs lay at awkward angles.
When I’d touched Elwin, and the force of a lightning beam had slid through me faster than thought, I’d been thrown back as if I were in the middle of an explosion. This time I was the lit fuse, and I was being blown up.
But I wiggled my toes and fingers—as much as I could manage within my shoes—and they all seemed to be there. They all seemed to be working too.
I sighed in relief. I’m so dang lucky. I could’ve died. After experiencing the intensity of the blast, I was sure of it. That had been no ordinary blast, because it had been no ordinary magic that my spell, coupled with Arianne’s, had finally broken. And yet I was a mostly ordinary girl.
So lucky. I righted my limbs from their odd angles. I stretched my arms overhead, pulling on the muscles of my torso, enjoying the feeling of them strong and limber.
I stilled in mid-stretch. I didn’t move a muscle.
Because suddenly I realized that I actually wasn’t feeling the stretch. I wasn’t feeling anything when I moved my limbs and extremities.
I didn’t feel a thing at all.
Even the breath remained inert in my body before I forced it through me again.
That’s when I really started panicking. I was breathing, but I wasn’t—not really. I wasn’t experiencing the usual sensations of breath.
The ringing in my ears, which had started with the blast, finally subsided into, you guessed it, nothing. Suddenly I could make out the sounds around me.
Help had arrived. I could hear Nando’s voice. It sounded as if he was running while he spoke.
“Nando,” I croaked before clearing my throat and trying again. “Nando.”
But Nando didn’t seem to hear me, probably because he was too busy being angry at Walt.
“What were you thinking leaving her here by herself? You weren’t thinking, that’s what. I told you to take care of her!” Nando was furious. My brother was rarely mad. He was passionate and enthusiastic all the time, but not angry, not like this.
“You shouldn’t have left her.” Then he was at my side.
“I had no choice. I had to go get help.” Walt paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was laden with anguish. “I told her not to do anything. I told her not to intervene.”
“You should’ve known she wouldn’t listen,” Nando said, but he no longer sounded furious. His voice was soft though desperate. My brother was terrified, I realized.
“I’m all right.” I reassured him right away. I didn’t want my brother to worry unnecessarily.
“Mordecai! Come quickly,” Nando called over his shoulder as Walt deposited himself on my other side.
Walt’s wavy hair stood up all over his head; he’d been pulling on it. His eyes were frantic. “She’ll be all right, won’t she?” he asked.
Nando didn’t bother answering, he was still facing the other direction. “Mordecai! Someone!”
Then Nando and Walt’s eyes were on me, roaming my body. Walt clutched a shoulder. Nando started on the other one, but didn’t stop there. He traced his hands down my side, down my legs. “Oh no. No, no, no, no.”
One hand moved back to my shoulder, the other went to my neck.
I didn’t feel his touch or Walt’s. I forced myself not to think what that might mean. I couldn’t go there. I wouldn’t. Because that was a place from which there was truly no going back.
I sighed a long terrified and resigned sigh. I didn’t hear it.
I have to do it.
I moved to sit up. I had to see whether I could move in any real sense.
I moved my arms behind me to push myself up, and they worked just the way they were supposed to. I still didn’t feel them, but oh well, maybe that was some kind of strange side effect of the magic I’d done. I was almost entirely untrained, after all. Some hiccups were to be expected.
I pushed myself to seating. Ha! I laughed out loud. I’d done it. I was sitting, no problem.
“She has no pulse.” Nando sounded as if he was about to cry, and I’d never seen him cry, not even when our parents set off with our older brothers for another continent, leaving us alone with an unsympathetic uncle.
Mordecai had arrived. He was peering at me from behind Nando. “You’re sure?” he asked.
Nando’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped. “I’m sure.”
“No,” Walt whispered. “Oh please no.” His eyes were shiny.
“I’m all right,” I said again. This time I really noticed how no one turned my way, how no one reacted to me at all—as if I wasn’t even there.
Count Vabu and Priscilla moved in our direction, and for the first time I noticed that everyone was there, working to assist the firedrakes and Arianne, who was leaning her upper body across her twin brother’s lap. Her eyes were open though, and she was alive.
