by Terah Edun
We made it! Mae thought wildly.
She couldn’t believe it. Panting on the ground, she turned her head to wearily look behind them both and really surveil the path of destruction that had swept over what had been the patio and into the courtyard below.
Or what was left of it anyway.
It was not a pretty a sight.
Mae held a sob back in her throat as she shuffled forward on hesitant steps, testing the strength of the ledge they stood on with every step but unable to look away from the devastation wrought below. Fierce winds whipped her hair every which way as her eyes swept over the tableau surrounding her. She wondered even now why they weren’t being torn from their perch by vengeful winds but looking back at Rivan briefly, she saw that his aura wasn’t diminishing. He even had a hand uplifted and she could see shallow currents of winds rustling from his hands.
The winds he raised weren’t always visible, only when a twist of light and the strength of the current called them together. But she could see he was pushing those winds wide into sort of a barrier to surround them.
It was enough to keep the harsh forces of nature in the sky above from toppling them to the ground below like mere mortals. But it still let in some breezes to tickle her face and whip her clothes when she wasn’t ready.
So wary, Mae was careful to stay a few steps away from the edge of the ledge as she peered over in sadness and awe.
She saw a vista she’d never thought possible in a region as remote as the greater holding her family held in Nardes. The entire span of acres in front of her, from the castle wall to the forest in the distance was ripped and torn asunder with fissures up to a quarter mile wide. They spread like black sores on the land, growing wider and wider with every passing minute.
Some subsuming others.
Smaller ones staying whole and circumspect.
Every single one swallowing up buildings and trees and every living thing in its path.
She was lucky that she didn’t see any humans below. In fact no wildlife was present at all. No one was running and screaming from the advancing chasm. No one else was being threatened by falling into their depths. Just an eerie silence as the land was swallowed up by an odd mix of endless chasms filled with a kaleidoscope of lights. She wondered where all the people were for the third time that day and she turned to the only other living being present for miles around to answer that question.
For his part, Rivan had stood up with slow casualness and was busy heavily patting down his front coat to get rid of mud and fibers he’d picked up along the way. He looked like a cat that had somehow fallen into a pile of sparkly manure.
Her face twitching at the absurdity of it all, Mae nevertheless managed to project a calm voice as she asked, “Where is everyone?”
Rivan looked up and contemplated her seriously before answering.
“Not here,” he answered briskly.
“I know they’re not here,” Mae snapped back. “So I’ll ask again, where is everyone?”
An expression of annoyance crossed Rivan’s face before he abruptly turned away from her and faced the greater holding stone walls that rose above them. It was nothing but stacked grey bricks as far up as three more stories.
Well, that and the door we came up here so desperately to reach, she thought dispassionately.
“How long will we stay here?” Mae asked, tentatively approaching a different subject as she didn’t want to piss him off when he and his winds were the only thing keeping her still standing on this ledge.
She might have been safe for now, but she wouldn’t put it past the stone beneath their feet to crumble with all the stress done to the building surrounding them.
Mae was surprised this bit of ledge of was still standing, jutting out into the still crackling air like a defiant holdout in the skies.
She heard the sound of muffled thumps and then mild curses behind her. Her gaze immediately turned to Rivan but his back was to her. As she took some careful steps to the side and forward to peer over his shoulder, she saw that he had both hands wrapped firmly around a giant knob and was trying to turn it this way and that.
And it wasn’t budging.
Well, there’s my answer, she thought as she pursed her mouth in disapproval and crossed her arms.
Rivan didn’t even bother turning to respond to her as he continued to huff and yank at the stuck door with increasing frustration. But no matter how much strength he put behind the yanks, and she could see it was sturdy because while the door seemed to be bowing outward towards them with every pull, it still wouldn’t budge. The edges of the door stayed right where they were. Stuck to the frame like it was latched from the inside, which it probably was.
She wasn’t exactly one to complain but it was already getting cold and the storm around them was growing worse instead of dying down. This high up on a ledge of the greater holding they were at the mercy of the winds and the thunder all around them.
Though the view was beautiful, she had to admit to herself as she swept an assessing gaze outward. Trying to help out and find another way down or off this ledge. It was a sanctuary for now, but there was no telling where the next fissure would open up on the ledge or if the fierce winds would force them to the ground, and she did not want to be stuck up here with her back to a broken door when it happened.
“I’ve got an idea,” Rivan said in a tense voice.
Turning to him, Mae looked over and waited for him to elaborate. There was no use speaking when she had nothing of use to say at the moment. Besides her teeth were already chattering and if she unfurled her lips from their tight line, they both would undoubtedly hear it.
He looked at her, or more specifically, her hands.
“Exactly how big of a fire can you conjure up?” he asked as his gaze shifted from her fingers to her face.
Shocked Mae answered automatically, “Well, I don’t know.”
“Ever try actually aiming at something with those fireballs?” Rivan asked with a cocked brow.
“No,” Mae said slowly. “But I get the feeling I’m about to, aren’t I?”
Rivan flashed an eager smile. “I’d say your feelings are right on the mark.”
He stepped away from in front of the door and gestured at it, “Have at it, milady?”
Mae walked forward and eyed the door as she traced a hand on the rough wood nervously. It was a simple door of heavy oak with four iron door hinges to keep it upright. The wood was so strong and thick that she didn’t know if she could do anything that would affect it.
“You want me to blast through the door?” Mae asked, looking for confirmation.
She wasn’t stupid. Fire didn’t do many things and a fireball had one purpose.
“Yep,” murmured Rivan as if he had asked her to do something as simple put a flame to a wick.
She’d just discovered her power over fire this week and calling what she did ‘control’ was the same as saying a wild horse could be broken in a single week. It took time to finesse, at least she thought it would.
Still, they were stuck out here with very few options.
So she had to try.
Rivan sighed in irritation behind her and then spoke up.
“I know you’re nervous but you can do this. You’ve done it before,” he reminded her.
“I have?” Mae said with a shiver. She didn’t really remember that. Her mind was still foggy in some parts, although for the most part everything was back into place where it had been before.
“Not to this extent, but yes, you have,” Rivan said firmly as he came to stand side-by-side with her. “So focus. Concentrate. Draw on your anger if you have to.”
Mae shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. She wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. Her anger had been primarily focused on him. With their lives hanging perilously in the balance she had kind of shoved it out of mind, but the fire was always ready to be stoked if given the opportunity.
As if reading her mind and seeing where she was going be
fore she could even say anything, Rivan clearly his throat and impatiently said, “Look I know we’ve had our differences.”
She scoffed under her breath as she muttered, “Is that what you call the ultimate betrayal?”
He heard her words but chose to ignore them as he continued, “But I know you can do this and honestly…do you really want to die out here on a ledge with just me for company?”
Mae blinked and looked around then back at him.
When he put it that way? she thought reluctantly. No.
She sighed and lifted her right hand while simultaneously reaching inside herself for the gift, the power Donna Marie had so callously unleashed with no instruction. Tentatively Mae reached for her magic. She knew what it felt like now, a liquid sensation deep into her core that was comforting and frightening all at once. It was like reaching for molten fire knowing it couldn’t harm her but if not carefully handled, could immolate everything around her. Not that it seemed there was anyone left in this world who she cared about. Despite Rivan’s reassurances that the majority of her family was alive she’d believe it when she saw it. At this point that was becoming close to never. So perhaps this would be the perfect goodbye, trying to do one last good thing and setting fire to her world in the progress.
Perhaps Rivan saw the dark despair in her eyes, maybe he felt it. But he reached out to her and put a confident hand on her wrist.
Pointing her outstretched hand towards the door, Rivan said softly, “There. Just aim there.”
Mae blinked away tears as the stress of loss threatened to eat her alive.
“I don’t think I can do it,” she said as her strength failed her.
“We’ll do it together,” he said firmly as he moved his hand to cover the back of her own.
She should have rejected him.
She hated everything he stood for and what he’d done. But right now it was just the two of them against a world that was threatening to swallow them whole. She had no choice.
She let her resentment go and focused her fear, her anger, and her determination to get out of this alive on one single purpose.
Getting through that dratted door.
12
“Okay, let’s do this,” Mae said, half to herself and half to the young man standing beside her.
“Atta girl,” she thought she heard Rivan whisper.
He squeezed the hand holding her own from behind tightly, until she almost winced from the pressure. But just as it got too much, she felt his power drifting from his fingers into her own. Maybe to boost her power, though she certainly thought she had enough juice of her own to manage this. It wasn’t the ability to actually implement the attack that worried her, it was the implications.
But with his power feeding into hers in waves of magic, she had come too far now to just give up. Mae drifted down inside of herself. Letting go of the physical presence and reaching simply for her soul. That was where she would find the power, she needed to match Rivan’s and guide her fire into a sphere of destruction.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to drift down far to find her gift. It was there waiting…as if it had been leashed and was eager for a chance for freedom. As that power drifted up to her, she panicked and clamped down hard on it. The idea of unleashing, knowing that it could blow up in her face, was terrifying. But still, she had to.
After a bit of hesitating and some prodding from Rivan again, she recognized that she had to unleash it. He could feel and she could feel the magic’s need to be unlocked. She had tamped down on it this long for two reasons, outright fear and a need to focus on survival as she ran through fissures and fell from chandeliers.
But now?
Now it was her gift’s time to shine.
As her blocks slowly unraveled, the fire in the center of her palm grew. First it was just a glow that she saw on the edge of her fingertips. Then it was a brightly burning ball hovering independently of her touch. Small at first, then large enough to subsume her hand.
Soon enough it was ready.
“That’s it,” Rivan said eagerly as she glanced over at him and saw a vicious smile on his face.
Mae wasn’t so gleeful about it.
This fireball might have weighed less than air and was pretty, but as she’d learned in the past hour, that pretty could be deadly. The aura his people called ‘the light of the stars’ had taught her that.
Just like this fire floated above her palm, the rainbow of lights emitting from the fibers in the sky also had the ability to leave a trail of havoc in its path. She had seen for herself the chain of fissures erupt in every direction with barely a moment’s notice. The idea that her little fireball too, could cause such destruction when its intense heat was unlocked, made her cautious…and concerned. That was on top of the fact that they would be blasting their way into the unknown as they did so. She felt safe at the moment, but who knew what was behind that door…waiting, lurking, another fissure? Something worse?
“Anytime now Maeryn,” Rivan said impatiently by her side.
Mae let out an irritated huff.
“You’re sure this will work?” she asked him.
“About as sure that we’ll be dead in a minute if you don’t do it,” Rivan replied tightly.
“What?” Mae asked him aghast.
He didn’t bother to answer, just roughly grabbed her chin with his free hand and turned it left. She saw something horrifying arising on the horizon. The entire sky to the west was filled with the shimmering brightness she had come to know well.
What Rivan’s people called the ‘light of the stars’ but this time it wasn’t just showing up in small pockets in the daylight sky. It was the sky. For as far as her eyes could see from horizon to horizon a kaleidoscope of rainbows filled her vision. Her eyes grew so wide that they teared up but she still couldn’t take it all in it was so vast.
But she knew that very vastness promised an equally large chasm for the void to fill when it materialized moments later.
“Okay, not good,” Mae said as she froze.
“Yes, I’d say so,” he replied dryly as he dropped his hand and she turned to look back at the door standing firm in front of them.
She didn’t need any more encouragement.
Eminent death was really all the pressure she could desire.
Mae raised a second hand to join her first one, still cupped by Rivan’s one, and she opened herself up to her gift in a way she never had before.
She let it fill her and rush up and out into her palm.
A bright, burning flames emerged like a light in the growing darkness. A signal that even if she was broken, she had not been beaten. Physically and mentally she was going to stand up and survive, if not for herself then for the family that still lived and needed her as much as she needed them.
She didn’t wait. The fireball was as full of power as it was going to get. With a push of her gift, Mae cast it forward and watched as it did its work. The fire hit the door with resounding force. So impactful that the heat that blasted off the wood door and came back towards the two of them forced her to step back and throw up her arm to shield her eyes.
As the heat continued to blast back on them, she realized why Rivan had joined in so close by. His power began to rise and press forward. Not dispersing the heat, but directing the flames to fold in from their wide blast to a more concentrated spire.
Blinking in astonishment, Mae lowered her arm fully to see with amazement, that with her power and his direction, the flames had burned a perfect hole clear through the center of the door.
“We did it!” she crowed in delight.
“Yes, we did, now hurry before that sky fissure swallows us both,” Rivan urged.
Mae didn’t need to glance over her shoulder and see what was waiting for them. She went, ducking low to avoid the charred fragments on the rim of the door, eager to get back inside her home. At first all she could see were random shapes. Long boxes nearer the ground and maybe a wall to the right of her. It was silen
t in here. Too silent.
They weren’t in an area she recognized.
Maybe one of the storage areas on the upper floors? she thought with startlement.
But that didn’t dismay her. She actually breathed a sigh of relief that there was no telltale flicker of rainbow lights in her vision.
The fissures outside haven’t made it in! she thought happily.
“We’re safe in here,” Rivan said almost concurrently with her thought. “The walls will keep the lights out.”
“Fantastic,” Mae said with a relieved sigh. It was the first bit of good news she’d had since she’d awakened.
But taking that first gulp of air was a mistake, because not soon after she started coughing harshly.
“What is that?” Mae said through hacking coughs.
The air was filled with an acrid smoke that she couldn’t escape. Behind her she heard Rivan sucking in shallow breaths of his own before he cursed and called up his winds inside the room. If they were powerful outside, in the interior it was like being centered within a maelstrom. But as winds blew in tight circles the air cleared and the smoke burning her eyes and mouth was pushed back.
“Could you help out a bit with some light?” Rivan grumbled.
It was still pitch dark in here, it was true. Mae wasn’t sure she wanted to see what the room with acrid smoke held but they needed to find a way through to the rest of the greater holding so it would be better that she did it. Reluctantly she called in just enough magic for her fingers to tingle and light up.
The soft glow emitted from her hand in waves and suddenly the shapes in the dark made sense.
Her stomach flipped in horror as she stared at what had been revealed.
The long rectangular forms?
Boxes made of wood.
Mae moved forward unbelieving at what she was seeing but it was unmistakable as her magicless fingers touched the pine wood of the one closest to her and she confirmed what she had thought in the back of her mind since entering the room.
They weren’t just boxes.
