A while ago I remembered that Sabine chose one of two branching paths of magic, and that it was advertised for the DLC that she could specialize even more, making her more powerful. It was only alluded to in the trailers but I did end up off-handedly asking her about her abilities. As it turned out, there had once again been a parallel between the game and the real world. This world. Ever since she’d become a lich, her power over the elements had only increased. She still had access to her old abilities, clearly, but her ability to manipulate the cold had been increasing slowly but steadily since her, well, death.

We’d talked about possible ways of crossing the Dergow. We could go to the downriver crossing, but we feared it would be watched by scouts just as much as the bridge would be. Thinking back to Sabine’s abilities, we devised a simple but probably very risky plan. The Dergow, here, was fresh off the mountains to the west, freezing cold even in summer. It wouldn’t be too hard to freeze it, someone had suggested. Why not just walk across the river? Sure, there’d be patrols everywhere, but not nearly as many as at reasonable crossings.

So we sat down by the side of the river a little over two miles up from the bridge, hidden from sight by the bushes and trees that lined the side of the river. The tent city was still in view, and it’d be a risky crossing. We’d considered waiting until night, but we didn’t want to waste the time, not while we had some element of surprise.

Sabine’s arms glowed blue in their now familiar way, and I saw her lips lose their colour as well. Not in the way they’d done when she’d performed necromancy, but almost like she was suffering from hypothermia. She spoke her words of power, and we all immediately felt their effects. The temperature dropped considerably, and we were all glad to have packed gloves and scarves specifically for this reason.

I didn’t know if it was something to do with thermodynamics or if it was Sabine’s explicit doing, if the laws of magic affected the laws of nature or not. I honestly had no idea how magic worked, I just did stuff as it came to me. But as the side of the river we were standing on slowly turned white and solid, anchored to soil in a solid block of clear ice, everywhere the ice touched hissed, and steam and water vapour began to fill the air. Before long, a mist bank began to roll out over the river. In the windless mid-day sun, it slowly expanded, and before long we couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of us. Sabine took a step forward, too concerned with focusing on the task at hand to be worried, and one by one we stepped onto the ice bank behind her. It certainly seemed solid enough, though Tilly squeaked in protest until Erza lifted her by the scruff of her neck, and the little Kobold-now-Cat crossed her arms with a resigned grumpiness.

We slowly inched across the river, trying to make sure we didn’t lose our footing. While the ice was certainly slippery, it hadn’t had the time to acquire the layer of thawed water on top that made it truly dangerous, and we shuffled forward as quietly as possible. I wondered briefly just how big the cloud of fog that had been created would be. Would the river just suddenly be enshrined in fog, easily explained away with “weird northern weather,” or were we a highly visible little cloud walking across the river?

We walked in silence, slowly crossing the river. At our current speed, it would take us ten, maybe fifteen minutes to cross the river, and Sabine walked forward slowly and steadily, cold air visibly rolling off of her, out of her mouth and down from her hands. The others were all nervous, of course; the scouts on the side of the river would probably have noticed something by now, and I could only hope they’d be too disoriented by the spreading fog to see us, specifically, but there was still an element of luck.

Painfully long minutes passed and then I heard something creak, and I worried for a second that the ice was going to break under our feet, but looking down, I noticed that our platform was still very solid.

I looked at Sabine. She was slowing down, and I noticed now why that was. She flexed her fingers and I saw flakes of ice fall off of them. I saw ice solidifying all over her, and her lips were covered in a thin layer of frost. Her clothing creaked as she walked, ice cracking at the seams. I put a hand on her back.

“Are you okay?” I whispered. “Do you need to stop?”

She shook her head and actual snow fell out of her hair, but when she looked at me, her gaze was a fixed stare. When she tried to speak, I heard more cracking ice. The others paused behind us.

“‘--lmost there,” she mumbled, and I suddenly realized why she was staring at me, what the icy cold had done to her, to the moisture in her eyes. It made me tear up immediately. Even if it didn’t hurt, which it had to, even if it wouldn’t kill her, the sensation of freezing solid had to be a horrifying one. I took her hand. It was quite literally freezing and I blew on them, and then on her eyes. After a second, she blinked, and tears froze on her cheeks almost immediately. I had to keep myself from following suit. Seeing her in pain like this hurt. Deeply. But we couldn’t afford to lose time, not now.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

I shook my head. “How close?” I looked at the fog. It was dense, impossible to tell how far we’d come or how much we still had to go. I hoped we were almost there.

She turned her head to look in the direction of the shore. I heard her audibly creak as she did so. “Maybe twenty feet?” she managed, and raised her arm to continue casting. But the exhaustion, or the magic, had taken their toll on her, and she simply buckled forward before I got a chance to catch her. I barely managed to stifle a cry in my throat. When she hit the ice, there was a sickening crack, and despite our precarious situation I deeply hoped it was our makeshift platform that had made that sound. I dropped to my knees and looked to the others as I carefully picked Sabine up. Her elbow was bent at an awkward angle and she was out cold, though her eyes were closed at least, and I felt her stir.

“She’ll be okay,” I whispered more to myself than to anyone in particular, and then said it three more times for good measure. I nodded towards the void in the direction Sabine had motioned. “Twenty feet,” I said quietly to the group. I didn’t think I could jump that far, but I hadn’t tried, not being this powerful in this small of a body. Perhaps I’d make it. But I wasn’t so sure about the others, and we needed to get Sabine across too. I was about to ask for suggestions when Erza broke into a short run and simply leapt off the edge of the platform, reducing decision time to zero. I waited for a splash, but none came. Just the soft clank of well-oiled metal landing on grass.

“Less,” we heard Erza whisper through the fog. We all looked at each other. Mellie was the first to move, gracefully throwing herself into the white nothingness. We didn’t even hear her land, so she must have made it. Sally was next, clearly wanting to try. We heard a soft oof from her and a whispered “Sorry,” followed by Erza chuckling softly.

Lillian went next. There was a very soft splash, and I could only assume she’d barely made the shore. We all held our breath, waiting for the sound of alarm to ring out, but the fog muffled sound as much as it hid everything from view. After a second, I could breathe again. Only Kazumi, Tilly, Sabine and myself remained. Tilly stood awkwardly at the edge of the platform, bending her legs, trying to gauge if she could make the distance, and I wasn’t in the mood to wait for her approval, so I just grabbed her by the collar.

“Wh--” she said, and I tossed her. What I lacked in technique and finesse I made up for in raw strength, and Tilly made an annoyed hissing sound as she sailed into the mist. I heard her land on the far shore. Satisfied with that, I turned around. Kazumi looked panicked. I nodded to her, trying to smile reassuringly.

“You can do this.”

She shook her head. “I can’t,” she hissed. “I’ve never jumped in my life.” I’d forgotten about that part, briefly. Legs were still a new concept to her. “And I can’t swim.” That wasn’t ideal, I had to agree.

“I could… toss you as well?”

She looked at me as if I’d slapped her. In another scenario, that look would’ve been funny. But she just shook her head again. “What if we get it wrong, what i--”

Her words were cut short by a sudden jolt that was accompanied by a horrible cracking sound as the ice bridge suddenly became an ice shelf. Kazumi dropped to her knees, clearly terrified. There was no time to debate now, and I grabbed her hand, pulled her to me and softly planted my lips on her. I hoped it gave her the same courage being close to her gave me.

“Trust me.”

She closed her eyes and nodded, and I flung her towards the shore. There was no splash. That was something. That just left Sabine and myself. I picked her up carefully as we began to drift downriver. I couldn’t imagine we had a lot of time until the ice floated out of the fog, and we’d be target practice for the Wydonian military.

I stood up as best as I could. Sabine weighed almost nothing in my arms, but she was still difficult to carry, and my footing was becoming less steady by the second. I didn’t have the space, or the time, to attempt a running jump. The ice was solid enough still that I didn’t think I’d slip, but that didn’t make me feel any less tense. I hoped I hadn’t gotten turned around. The possibility that I had dawned on me just as I flexed my legs and ejected, the fear that I’d just thrown myself and Sabine into a freezing river becoming very strong.

As it turned out, I could jump quite high, looking like this, and I soared into the air. The fog was thinner even half a dozen feet up, though I still couldn’t see far, and then suddenly there was grass. I turned around as best I could, breaking Sabine’s fall. That, too, didn’t hurt much, but Sabine was the one I was worried about. She was still moving softly, almost as if she was trying to stir in her dreams, and I scrambled to get up. I carefully walked upriver and quickly bumped into the others. Tilly and Lillian immediately drew their weapons until they recognized us, and then looked with concern at Sabine. We all wanted to help her, I knew, but we had no way to properly take care of her here.

“We can’t stay here,” Erza said quietly, and then carefully walked into the fog, crouching. I was surprised to see that the fog barely dissipated as we moved away from the river and i couldn’t help but wonder just how much power Sabine had put into her spell, and if that was what had knocked her out. Erza led the way, clearly knowingknew where she was going.

We stopped only once, when we heard talking. Two guards, not at all quiet, walked down an old dirt road that ran parallel to the river, muttering complaints about the weather. Tilly reached for the handle of her sword, and Mellie drew her bow, but neither moved. I was glad they understood the importance of not alerting anyone to our passing here, and we safely crossed the road and walked into the forest beyond. After a while, the mist began to let up, but we didn’t stop for another two hours, until we were certain we weren’t going to be spotted by any patrols.

I looked at Sabine. I’d been carrying her this entire time. She’d started to make soft noises a little while after we left the fog, almost mewling, and while they were very small, very sad noises, I was just glad to hear signs of life coming from her. I allowed myself to cry over her hurt when we finally sat down. Her arm would need setting, at the very least. I just hoped she’d wake up soon. I suddenly realized that if she didn’t wake for the rest of the day, nightfall would be very interesting if we found ourselves somewhere public when the illusions wore off.