Zalia stopped her dash towards the town as she saw multiple more groups of Astar floating towards her. They hadn’t seen her yet, as far as she could tell, yet it wouldn’t be long before they did.

It was in that moment that she realised she wasn’t going to be able to save Ember and Aylie. If they were going to get out, they would have to do it on their own. Zalia was strong, stronger than these Astar who weren’t warriors or great fighters, yet she couldn’t fight that many of them. Could she?

Most of these newly arriving Astar were only Bronze, easy enough to deal with individually. Together as a unit, however, it was a bit harder. Without using her most powerful magic, that was.

She thought desperately, trying to come up with something, anything that would allow her to save her family. Even if she did defeat all of these new groups of Astar, she couldn’t destroy the whole town on her own. And she would need to do that if she were to save Ember and Aylie. She could feel through the bond that they were deep towards the centre, where she had just come from not long ago.

Instead, she ran away from the border, laying out a large anti-teleportation ritual on the ground. She would have to kill these Astar if she were to keep Boreal and the young cats out of their hands as well.

Moments passed, each an eternity as she waited with baited breath. She could see the Astar floating through the mist on invisible waves of magic. There were ten, then fifteen of them. Fortunately for Zalia, while powerful in their use of auras and magic, they were physically weak.

The ritual activated at the same time Zalia used Nature’s Wrath.

Thick, sharp vines grew from the ground in an instant, dragging the Astar down to the ground and into a clump of bodies. Five Bronze rank fire elementals appeared, releasing jets of flame into the group of Astar. Zalia used all of her concentration and power to rip a huge boulder of stone from the ground, swinging it from behind, over her head and down on top of the pile of screaming Astar.

The screaming stopped.

She could feel the power flowing through her, the nature around her answering to her call. It told her to go forward, break down those who would wrong her.

At her bidding, the five fire elementals moved through the barrier and into town, sending fireballs before them. They crashed into buildings setting them alight, the force of the attacks strong enough to break the stone. Hopefully, they would cause enough of a distraction that they would be able to get away.

She ran, finding her way towards Boreal through their bond, hoping that she at least had managed to collect the young ones and get them to safety. The misery Zalia felt at how wrong things had gone almost crushed her, but she shoved it away for now. She had to focus.

It only took her two minutes to find Boreal, who was thankfully huddled with her kittens, waiting for her. They joined her in a desperate flight for safety.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Aylie woke upon a cold stone table, arms bound. Something was wrong, so very wrong. Her powers were contained, pushed inside and locked. She couldn’t breathe properly, the oppression of the bracelets that bound her so strong as to send her back to that time so long ago. It felt like another life, the day she had lost her family, yet the helplessness she felt in that moment drew those memories back to the front of her mind.

That wasn’t all. There was something else so fundamentally wrong happening to her. She could feel herself being pulled, hard. She was being pulled, yet her body remained still. It took her a moment to realise it wasn’t her body being pulled, but her soul.

She fought against it, yet the magic was so strong, so powerful. It clawed and grabbed until she felt herself floating upwards and away. She looked down and saw herself lying there on the stone table, glassy-eyed with a blank expression. This wasn’t right, why was this happening?

As the feet of her soul lost contact with her body, another force grabbed her in its grip and ripped her away. She flew through the wall, floating high above the town before being dumped into the mist-laden forest outside the borders.

She stood, shaking her head, trying to clear the sluggishness of her… body. Where was she? Where was Zalia? Where was Ember?

There was a strand attached to her chest, leading away through the mist. She followed it, feeling that it was where she needed to be. The end of that strand was where she belonged, it felt right.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

After only a few seconds of walking, she slammed into something solid. She looked up and saw the Astar town in front of her. That was right, wasn’t she meant to be doing something in there?

She reached a hand up and tried to walk towards the town again, yet something blocked her once more. Why? Why did it block her? She needed to get to where that strand went.

Tapping at it with her hand still, she took a few steps to the left, then tried again. Again, she was blocked. She hit it with her hand and saw a wobble go through the wall. It wasn’t a visible wall, more of a… spiritual wall. The idea of one, the soul of a wall, there only in spirit.

She hit it again, and it wobbled once more. She hit a final time, as hard as she could, yet the wobble stayed as exactly that. It still didn’t let her through.

Turning around, she saw another strand, much smaller and thinner, more translucent. It didn’t feel like home, like the place she was meant to be, but it did feel safe. Perhaps she could go to where this one was?

She wandered off, following this new strand. It slowly grew more and more opaque, before she found another figure in the mist. It was a woman, much shorter than her. She should recognise this woman, shouldn’t she?

The figure turned to her, slowly, and looked at her in an odd way. Did the figure recognise her?

It was made of mist, slowly fuzzing at the edges like someone had taken an eraser to it. A name came to her mind. Ember.

Aylie stepped towards the figure and took its hand in her own. Memories flashed through her mind, years spent living with her, one of her mothers. Ember. Yes, this was Ember!

But, it wasn’t how she remembered her. Ember wasn’t made of mist, she was a living person, vibrant and full of life. What had happened to her?

As she touched Ember’s hand, another strand appeared. This time, it reached from Ember’s chest and into the mist. It was much, much thicker than the one that linked Aylie to Ember and the woman looked down at her own chest as it appeared. An expression of longing crossed over her face and she took a step in its direction.

Aylie stopped her and touched the strand. More flashes of memory went through her mind, this time of another woman. Stoic and strong, quiet and independent, a force of nature in this world. Zalia. She remembered Zalia, the one who had saved her from… from what? From something, yes, she had saved her. Then, she had become like a mother to her. Perhaps Zalia could help her get through that wall, to where she belonged.

She began following that strand, Ember following along as well. As they walked, other figures started to appear in the mist as well, people who stood there with blank expressions, staring into nothing. Some of them were fuzzing around the edges like Ember, others had entire limbs missing. Some were amorphous blobs of mist that only had the vague signs of a face. The worst of them were simply eyes whose bodies were indistinguishable from the fog around them.

Aylie felt like there was something important about those figures. They meant something, something important. Didn’t they?

Those thoughts escaped her as they found the end of that strand connecting to Ember. A woman was crouched there with a giant mountain cat by her side, five much smaller ones huddled together nearby. This was Zalia and…

Aylie tried to open her mouth to speak, yet found no sound or words coming out. She turned to Ember, who stared longingly at Zalia yet said nothing. Looking back at Zalia, she tried to speak again. Nothing. She stepped closer, trying to get the crouched woman’s attention. Zalia glanced at her but looked away quickly as if dismissing her presence. Then she stood and ran off into the mist, the mountain cats following.

She tried to lift a hand to stop the woman, but she was too quick and Aylie’s body was too sluggish. Didn’t the woman recognise her?

____________________________________________________________________________________

Zalia waited, crouched, as the younger cats caught their breath. They were far enough away now that they weren’t in immediate danger of being discovered which was good. It also meant that Zalia’s mind was turning towards what had happened.

It had gone so terribly wrong. She should have gone to that town alone, without the others. If she had been by herself, she could have escaped easily enough. If she had been by herself, she wouldn’t have been caught.

She glanced up at two of the amorphous mist creatures as one of them floated towards her but dismissed it. They hadn’t ever attacked before and she doubted they would start now. She gestured to the others and they began running again, the journey home a long one. Once they were there, then they could sit and go over what had happened. Hopefully, the young cats would be able to explain how they had been found.

Then, she would have to figure out how they were going to free Aylie and Ember. This town was on the outskirts of the Astar lands, at least she thought they were, so hopefully there wouldn’t be many high rank Astar here. Getting back into the town would be easy enough, as she could sneak in the same way she had before. It would be harder now as they were probably on high alert, but she was certain she could do it. Then, she would be able to get to where they were being held and free them. At the very least, if they were enslaved like the other humans there were, she would be able to get them out eventually.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know if the Astar would be able to get anything out of their minds. That meant they would have to move home to somewhere else. Somewhere closer, perhaps. Once the young ones were safe somewhere, then she and Boreal could sneak in and break the others out.

After that, they would go back to Endaria, to bring back the news of what was happening here. Zalia had a feeling that there would be a war between the humans and the Astar soon. A surprise attack launched on this town to free all the slaves would mean a massive influx of high-ranked humans who would hopefully be more than willing to fight the Astar.

As the day wore on, Zalia tried to convince herself that Ember and Aylie would be okay, that she would be able to free them. If she believed anything else, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself.