“Back, back! It’s coming down!”

Leo scrambled back with the rest as the house collapsed in on itself, sending burning embers blasting out across the street. There was a pulse from within, a little flash of energy.

The person they were trying to save had died.

Leo fought back the feeling of nausea as he returned to helping the bucket crew douse the fires before they could spread any further. It was a losing battle, what with the Seeker mage outside the walls sending new gouts of flame to spill out over the city, and the howling wind fanning the inferno to ever greater heights.

Still he, like everyone else here, struggled on, trying to save the city that was their home.

A gale blew past him, carrying a dark cloud of sand to smother the flames. Turning, Leo spotted Hamo and the twins, the children working together with grim expressions on their faces, their eyes blazing with amethyst light. His stomach twisted at the sight, his disgust at their magic mixing with his horror that the children were forced into dealing with such a terrible situation as this. They should be out playing with their friends, laughing and carefree, not trying to put out a city burning down around them.

What terrible lives they’d all been cursed with.

Another pulse called to him from one of the other buildings, its roof a mess of flames. This one, however, wasn’t gone.

Yet.

“There’s another alive, in there!” Leo shouted, pointing at the door. “Second floor, I think.”

A skeleton charged past him, slamming through the door without slowing and disappearing into the roiling smoke within. Lord Reud had said it was Rachel, but Leo hadn’t really had time to process that particular truth. None of them had really had any time to think since the sudden attack. There was a certain… familiarity that he could sense, but dwelling on it made him uncomfortable.

“How bad is it?” Aleida said as she ran up next to him, her hands marred by dried blood. She’d dealt with the worst of all of them, having to try to heal those they managed to pull from the buildings. Most had survived, thanks to her ministrations, but the faces of those that hadn’t made it would haunt his nightmares.

Leo turned to look at her with tired eyes. “Close, but I think we have time.”

“Thank the gods, I don’t think I-”

The skeleton smashed through the upper wall of the building, falling down and dropping into a roll along the ground, a woman cradled in her arms. Aleida rushed over to her, falling by the woman’s side and placing her hands on her chest. Her eyes erupted with purple light, and the woman jerked, writhing around, held in place only by Rachel’s hands.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Aleida babbled as she focused. “I’m still learning, but you’ll feel better soon. You’ve breathed in a lot of smoke and I need to fix that.”

It took her less than half a minute to pull away, panting heavily and wiping sweat from her forehead. The woman collapsed and lay still, breathing without the difficulty she’d had when Rachel had deposited her on the ground. Aleida gestured for one of the cityfolk to collect the woman, a pair of men scooping her up under each of her arms and helping her away. They’d take her to join with the rest of the survivors, out by the river. There she would be able to rest and recover properly.

But there was no such rest coming for Leo or the rest of them.

A series of body-shaking coughs brought Hamo to his knees, the twins stopping their summoning of sand to support him.

“Aleida!” Vorlo shouted.

“I’m coming.” Aleida said, pushing herself to her feet, face filled with exhaustion. And yet she still pushed on, helping everyone she possibly could.

Leo respected that the most about her.

Helping her over to Hamo, he looked over the members that he viewed as his family. Hamo, always looking to prove himself, his eyes red from the smoke. Marla and Vorlo, the twins who were far braver than their years should have allowed. And Aleida, the rock that all of them depended on. Jessabelle, who had taken them in and housed them. And Cecily, the unhinged and overly intense mother of the twins, who watched over them as if they’d vanish into thin air the moment she looked away.

And where did he stand? Every day he felt like he was drifting further from them, their lessons with Lord Reud drawing them steadily closer to the mana that he hated with every fibre of his being. He knew that he had the option to just join those lessons, learn with them and become part of their lives once more, but he just couldn’t. There was something in him, in his mind, that rejected mana completely and utterly.

And that would never change.

“You’re doing great, all of you.” Leo said, patting Hamo on the shoulder and ruffling Marla’s hair. They looked up at him, flashing tired smiles that filled him with warmth.

Then his sense picked up a new group of people. Then another.

Then the screams started.

“Seekers! Seeker attack!” A voice shouted, sending a ripple of panic through the crowd.

“Run!” Another shouted.

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People started to move in a wave as those closest to the shouts staggered into a run into those further from them, urging them into a run too.

“We need to go!” Cecily shouted, her voice shrill.

“Stay together, follow the crowd.” Leo said, urging Hamo and Aleida on with the twins.

Together, they moved with the flow of people back into the heart of the city, Jessabelle and Rachel following behind them.

Only to run into a wall of unmoving people.

“What’s going on?” Cecily demanded.

“Seekers! Run!” Another shout came from ahead, and the people surged back into them, a man tripping over Cecily and falling into Leo, sending the pair of them tumbling to the ground.

As he fell, Leo could see up the street. A group of five silver and blue armoured men were standing in the middle of it, four of them holding crossbows and the fifth gesturing with a black-cored sword.

Leo shot a glance all around, but they were trapped, unless they wanted to try their luck weaving through the interiors of fire-damaged buildings. And that was a stupid path for anyone to try.

Something shimmered beside him, and then a bolt shot down the street, howling as it flew. It touched the Seeker’s armour then… vanished, with no more effect than ruffling the man’s hair.

“Hamo, what are you…” Aleida gasped.

“They’re Seekers! If we don’t fight, they’ll kill us!” Hamo gasped. “Marla, Vorlo, hit them with everything you’ve got, take them down!”

Vorlo responded first, a chunk of rock shooting down the street just as Hamo’s air bolt had. It shattered against the breastplate of one of the men, sending him sprawling, but otherwise didn’t seem to cause any real harm.

“No, stop you idiots!” Leo shouted, but it was too late. The Seekers had seen them.

Shouts sounded from the remaining men, the soldiers turning and levelling their crossbows at them.

Then they fired.

Leo dove forward to pull Aleida and Hamo down to the ground, before placing his body over the twins. The bolts whistled overhead and screams erupted from the people in the crowd around them.

The clacking of bones on stone sounded out as Rachel sprang over them and charged the Seekers, racing down the street at breakneck pace.

“Leo, get off me!” Hamo shouted, wrenching his tunic from Leo’s grasp.

Pushing himself to his knees, Hamo raised a hand and fired off another air bolt, his time taking the man in the face.

And this time, the spell did not simply vanish on impact.

The man’s cheek tore apart, blood spraying out to mist his companions. He went down hard, a shrill scream echoing off the surrounding buildings.

Before his companions could react, however, Rachel was on them. A whirlwind of violence, she slammed one man’s head into a wall and tore the blade from his side, bringing it around to cut his throat. The blade flickered again and ended the struggles of the fallen man. The third managed to get his own blade up in time, the swords ringing together as Rachel struck again and again.

Hamo raised his hand, but Aleida put out a hand to stop him.

“You might hit her.” She said.

“I… yeh, I guess you’re right.” He said, slumping to the ground, panting.

Leo pushed himself to his feet, brushing himself off.

Only to be knocked down by a new surge of people.

He rolled out of the way of panicked, stamping feet, twisting to see what had spurred them into terrified motion once more. The flash of silver and blue gave him his answer as another group of five rounded the corner of the street behind them, weapons drawn.

The other group of Seekers. Of course.

But Rachel was far down the street fighting the group of Seeker soldiers ahead of them, which mean it was just the children and him and a fleeing crowd here. That meant there was nothing really between his family and the oncoming death the soldiers represented.

So Leo made a choice.

Charging towards the soldiers, he fell beside a fallen body, one of the cityfolk that had taken a bolt in his stead. It lay to one side, having torn straight though the side of the man’s head, leaving his mouth slack and his eyes wide. He’d died in moments, Leo had felt it. Reaching out with trembling hands, he touched the man’s still warm flesh and released the iron control on his magic he’d held for almost his entire life.

And called him back.

Tears flowed freely down his cheeks as the hated mana rushed through him and down into the corpse, calling it up. His fist tightened on the man’s shirt as a surge of nausea threatened to claim Leo’s world as he did everything he’d always sworn to himself that he wouldn’t. Slowly, jerkily, the corpse stood, pulling Leo up with it.

A manic giggle burst from his mouth as the mana thumped within his mind, filling him with ecstasy. This was right, it whispered to him. He was now whole. With the mana in his grasp, he could accomplish great things, wondrous things.

But he knew that for the lie it was.

Leo burst into a sprint, the corpse running with him, barrelling towards the Seekers. The soldiers skidded to a stop as he approached, shouting and raising their blades towards him. Far too slow, however.

“Kill them! Kill them all!” Leo screamed hysterically when he was a step away from the men.

Leo and the corpse smashed into the soldiers, going down in a sprawling mess of limbs. Not a single strike landed on the pair of them, the sudden savagery of the attack evidently taking the solders by surprise. The corpse raked at them with clawed fingers, tearing the eyes from one man and latching its teeth into another. Leo fought with equal maddened frenzy, snatching at the swords each man carried in an attempt to pull one away. A fist smashed into the side of his head, sending him rolling away with the world spinning around him, only to slam his elbow into the armour of another.

The deafening screams of men in mortal agony filled his ears, coming from the soldier with the ruined face right by his side. Leo scrabbled over him, snatching up his sword from where it had fallen and swinging it around to clash against another. Stumbling back, he tripped over the man and fell, barely avoiding impaling himself on the weapon. Staggering back to his feet, Leo swung the sword up to search for his foes.

Then the mana in the world cut off.

The corpse fighting with frenzied intensity collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, falling still as the grave once more. Burning pain surged from his chest, an agony that took every other sensation with it. The sword tumbled from his grasp, clattering against the floor.

Leo looked down, to find the end of a bolt wrapped in a spiral of black metal jutting from his chest. Looking up slowly, he came face to face with a Seeker soldier, holding a crossbow out in front of him, the man’s expression twisted with hate, loading a second bolt into it with quick movements.

“Die, filthy mage.” He spat.

And shot Leo in the chest a second time.

The impact span him around, sending him falling onto the ground, the bolt sticking out from his chest tearing through something inside him before snapping in two.

But the mana was finally gone for good.

A smile spread across Leo’s face as oblivion claimed him.