There were two days left until Malena would be married.

Lilith woke up early from Wispy’s teaching and turned to Malena to see her staring up at the ceiling.

Malena noticed her and turned to look at her. “I don’t feel like going to classes.”

“My adit’s always open,” Lilith smiled. “We could just hide out there.”

Malena shook her head again. She was doing that often. “No. I don’t want to deprive you of your future just to hide from everything.”

“I wouldn’t mind.” Lilith shrugged as she got up, then thought about it. She could daydream about hanging out with Malena at the adit and all the crazy things they could do there… well, that Lilith could do with all her magic. Malena was a strategist and a politician, and those both needed people. Lilith needed material, and there should’ve been a decent amount now at the cave. Alternatively, she thought of Malena stuck with that Prince, and of a society that followed him and not her. What kind of friend would let that happen? “Y’know, I feel like I’d rather be the Lilith that hid out with you at my adit than the one that let you sacrifice yourself by being with that Prince.”

Malena didn’t respond for a while. She just stared at the ceiling, until she finally sighed. “I need to get ready for class.”

…

Lilith drifted through her classes, daydreaming about her plans to rescue Malena. In her mind, she was flying above the clouds and launching lightning balls down at an army chasing her as she carried Malena away. She dreamt of all the things that could go right or wrong, and kept daydreaming even at lunch.

She didn’t notice Hana staring at her, wide eyed, until her voice rang out in her mind. ‘What are you planning?’

Lilith turned, her mind now blank, and responded, ‘You saw all that?’

‘Yeah,’ Hana raised an eyebrow. ‘Why were you saving Malena from Solis? And that magic, couldn’t it kill people?’

‘Probably. I never used it on people.’ Lilith shrugged. ‘You heard Malena was getting married right? Well it’s to this gross Prince of Voldia. I think the Prince would hold all the power.’ She remembered back to when she confronted him, especially how he left a bruise on Malena, then called the guards on Lilith. Malena was barely able to stop them.

‘Oh…’ Hana slumped and leaned back, taking it in. ‘I don’t think risking both of your lives trying to fight an army is a solution though.’

‘I can fly higher than them and launch stuff down forever,’ Lilith thought, staring back at Hana. ‘It’s not risking my life. They won’t be able to reach me.’

‘You still have to fly up there,’ Hana thought back, ‘and then you’ll have to fly back down. Do you have the stamina to outfly actual, trained flight mages?’

Lilith looked away for a bit, reconsidering things for a moment. She only had a few months of flight training, and professional flight mages would’ve flown for years. But she looked back and responded in the affirmative anyway, ‘I have the wings I made. I can glide if I get tired and get my energy back.’

Hana stared back for a bit, then went back to eating her food, but more slowly. ‘I still don’t think it’s a good idea. I’d rather you both stayed alive.’

‘We’ll live,’ Lilith thought back, but she wasn’t entirely sure anymore.

---

Later, after classes, Hana was resting against her favorite dragon egg. She couldn’t quite tell by the noises its mind made, but it probably thought she was its mother.

Still, her own mind was troubled, her pencil resting on a blank homework page. Even all the thoughts of everyone working at school around her, combined with the cute dragon, couldn’t ease her thoughts. Eventually, she looked up and turned to Jatte, who seemed almost done with her work.

“Hey, Jatte?” Hana spoke up.

“Yeah?” Jatte looked up from her homework.

“So, uh… I think Lilith’s going to do something stupid,” Hana said. She couldn’t think of a better way to put it.

“She does that sometimes,” Jatte said, smirking. “It’s like she traded her common sense for magic and tech.”

Hana chuckled. “That sounds pretty accurate.” Her smile faded. “But no. It seems like Malena’s in trouble. Voldia’s forcing her to marry some abuser. It might, well, ruin a lot of her life, and Lilith wants to fight all of Solis instead.”

Jatte stared back, blinking. “Huh. Well that sucks for Malena. I don’t think Lilith can fight all of Solis though. She’s just a little bit outnumbered.” She held her index finger and thumb slightly apart.

“She’s absolutely going to do it,” Hana said. It didn’t feel like Jatte was taking this seriously.

Jatte paused and looked off. “If you’re saying it, then it’s probably true.” She looked back. “Should we stop her?”

“How?” Hana asked. “We can’t watch her all day.”

Jatte shrugged.

---

After night fell, Dr. Crowe leaned against the wall by Lilith’s door, then let his magic guide him into her dreams. He was confused by what he saw: an army of faceless mages shooting fire, air, electricity, and other magics off at Lilith, who was barely dodging them while holding Malena and firing balls of lightning back.

He didn’t really get what the dream was about and what abstract meaning it had. Was she feeling rejected by society? But why? She seemed to be getting along with everyone well until recently?

The lightning super powers were interesting too, since she wasn’t quite lucid dreaming, but from the people she was fighting, it seemed like she didn’t have a good grasp of how flight mages fought. Magic couldn’t extend past one’s range, and everything here shot off like arrows.

Then, he dodged a stray fire blast in her dream. This was getting a bit too chaotic, so he pulled himself out of her mind.

Now, back in the hall, he wrote what he saw down. That kind of dream wasn’t a good sign. He’d have to figure out what made her feel so rejected. Maybe he’d have a talk with her teachers.

---

The next morning, Hana opened the door as Malena passed by, then walked with her. “Hey, you know she’s planning on fighting all of Solis for you, right? Like, really doing it?”

Malena sighed and shook her head. “I know. I’ll just keep telling her no. She can’t rescue me if I don’t need to be rescued after all.” She scratched around another welt on her arm.

Hana stared at the new bruise, tilting her head.

Malena hid it, but remembered when Prince Keith gave it to her. ‘You’re just a crybaby,’ his words rang in her head, with his yells at Lilith earlier echoing. ‘I was lightly holding you.’ He pinched her arm in her memories. ‘Like that, see? It’s nothing.’

“Are you sure you don’t need rescuing?” Hana asked.

Malena frowned, held her arm, and walked faster until she was ahead of Hana.

Hana’s pace slowed to a crawl. She didn’t want Lilith to get hurt, but she didn’t want to lose Malena to an abusive Prince either.

---

Hana had to wait until lunch to ask anything else about everything that was going on. There, she concentrated to project her thoughts to both Ethen and Silene at the same time. She quickly replayed the events in order: Lilith confronting the Prince, Lilith planning her battle, and Malena’s bruises.

‘I’m with Lilith,’ Ethen thought back. ‘It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? The prince is abusing his power and abusing Malena. He needs a good punch in the face.’

‘Are you serious?’ Hana turned, glaring. ‘This is the Prince we’re talking about. Attacking him could cause a war.’

‘Yeah,’ Ethen thought back. ‘I’ll gladly hit them too. They deserve it just as much.’

Hana stared at him, then looked away. She knew something that could change his mind: her memories of home, but she’d kept those hidden since it didn’t seem like a good idea to traumatize people for no reason. But now, it was probably better if Ethen knew what he was getting himself into.

She replayed the scene of a foreign land in her mind. Fog covered the ground as a group of women and children in black robes walked to a large hot air balloon. The smell of death and dying screams, the screams of people she’d talked to just days earlier, filled the air as arrows shot out from a black building in the distance. And in front of it all stood two older telepath men, protecting the group despite the eyes of everyone wearing black blaming them for this tragedy. Instead of the black robes, the guys were cursed to wear yellow and red in a pattern like shattered glass, representing the blood they drew for their greed and revenge. Thoughts and memories of murder and death came with those robes, and from their thoughts, reality followed .

‘Do you still want to punch him in the face?’ Hana asked.

Ethen took a while to respond.

‘I’m… sorry that happened to you,’ Silene thought back.

Hana’s eyes widened. She forgot she was sending it to Silene too. ‘Sorry, I just meant to show Ethen that.’

‘It’s fine,’ Silene thought. ‘I’ve seen some pretty nasty things out in nature. Not that bad, but pretty bad.’

‘Well, you get why we shouldn’t let Lilith do that then, right?’ Hana asked.

‘Maybe a punch to the face isn’t enough,’ Ethen thought. ‘I still don’t think we should just give up. In your home, things might’ve been just as bad if those guys did nothing. Here, Malena will suffer for no reason if we don’t do anything.’

‘An eye for an eye will leave everyone blind,’ Hana thought. ‘My people were punished even more because of those guys.’

‘Then just take out both of their eyes first,’ Ethen thought. ‘You’d have to be a pretty bad fighter to have your eyes plucked out by a blind man.’

Hana blinked. She didn’t have a response to that.

’Honestly, I agree with Ethen and Lilith,’ Silene thought. In her mind, there were pictures in books of herbivorous animals attacking people and predators, followed by memories of various corpses in the forest and around farms. ‘Most animals know to fight back when they’re bullied. Even a cornered rodent will fight back. Giving up is just accepting death, and what will happen to Malena is like death.’

Hana blinked. She’d shown some of her worst memories, and they still wanted to go forward even if that was a risk? Was she in the wrong? Wouldn’t that mean her people were in the wrong? Or were Ethen, Lilith, and Silene just too bloodthirsty? Were Jatte and Malena the only ones she could trust?

---

It was the day before the wedding, and Lilith walked into a certain smithy after school.

“Oh hey Lilith!” Her dad waved back. “What’s up?”

Lilith gathered herself, taking a breath in and letting it out before she spoke, “I might do something crazy tomorrow. I’m sorry, but you might get involved because you’re my parents.”

Her dad frowned. “What do you mean? What are you planning on doing?”

“My friend Malena is, well, pretty threatened by this country. To save her from, well, basically torture, I’ll need to go against Voldia and Solis.” She looked up into his eyes. “I can do it. I really can! But I don’t want you to get caught up in it.”

William Smit walked over to her, raising his hands. “Whoa! Whoa. Don’t do anything too crazy. You probably don’t need to go against two kingdoms to save a friend. The people here have been pretty nice and that just doesn’t sound right.”

Lilith stepped back from him. “They’re pushovers, apparently.” She backed away to the door before he could stop her. “If I’m out of the kingdom, I’ll be at an abandoned mine called the Astral Adit. If you stay here, they might try to get information out of you since you’re my parents. I guess you have it now, so you should leave ahead of time. When you head there, well, it’s just a cave with some of my things, but they won’t find you.” She opened the door and left. “Sorry.”

William ran out to follow her, but she took to the air.

---

It was the morning of the wedding, and Lilith was going back and forth in her head as she laid in bed. Should she go to school at all? No, Malena was going to go through something horrible, and if anything happened, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself.

“I won’t see you at lunch,” Malena said in the morning after her alarm woke her. “I have to go prepare.” She sat up and silenced the alarm.

“I’m skipping school today,” Lilith said as she got up. “I’ll help you prepare.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Malena said. “I don’t want you to get in a fight like last time.”

Lilith frowned. “Don’t care. It’s your wedding. I’m not missing a single part of it.”

Malena laid back down. “I’m not going to be able to stop you, am I?”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Nope.” Lilith smiled and shook her head. “I’m not gonna leave you alone.”

Malena paused for a while, staring up at the ceiling. “Fine,” she finally said. “Just don’t get in a fight with the Prince again.”

“...I’ll try,” Lilith said. She wasn’t sure if she could promise that, but as long as he didn’t hurt Malena or any of her other friends, she might be able to handle it.

---

Lilith stuck by Malena’s side as she went to a store to get sized for a dress, then to a large outdoor stage to practice. Everyone would be watching to see who the new princess was, so it made sense they wanted as large an area as possible.

She wasn’t the only one though. All the mages that were going to be in the tournament were there too, along with Alec and the other teachers.

“Hey!” Prince Keith ran up to Alec. “What happened to the tournament?”

“I postponed it,” Alec said. “This is the unveiling of the new Princess of Solis. The tournament can wait.”

Prince Keith shook his head. “No, the tournament being in the background is supposed to be part of it!”

Alec shook his own head. “No can do. You never told us you wanted that, and several of my top students have personal reasons for being here.”

Prince Keith glared up. “I’m the Prince! Make it happen!”

“Excuse me?” Alec raised an eyebrow. “Who cares if you're the prince.”

Prince Keith fumed, then smirked. “It’s Solis law! I’m allowed a royal platoon, and I can make you part of it.”

“You’re a prince of Voldia, not Solis,” Alec said, staring down. “Even if you were, I would have to agree to be in your platoon.”

Prince Keith grit his teeth. “I can make the guards force you to have the tournament!”

Alec stifled a laugh. “You’re going to have your guards force top mages to fight each other? Oh, that sounds like a great idea.”

Reinhold ran up. “Prince, stop this. Not even I can protect you if those kids fight back. None of them have mage collars.”

“If they touch me, they’ll have a war on their hands,” Prince Keith sneered.

“If that happens, everyone from Voldia that’s in Solis right now will be slaughtered, including you,” Alec said matter of factly. “If none of your knights can fly, we’d only have to shoot down.”

Prince Keith blinked, then turned to Reinhold, who just nodded.

“Fine!” The prince turned, sulking as he walked away. “It’s about time I walked up that aisle anyway.”

---

Malena was grossed out throughout the whole day as she went through the motions, and now she was finally standing at center stage in her wedding dress, the Haven pastor behind her giving his vows. She could see Lilith in the crowd glaring up at the pastor, and was thankful she hadn’t picked a fight with anyone yet. She had been glaring the whole day though.

Finally, Prince Keith stood at the end of the aisle, and trumpets started playing as he walked up.

She was supposed to smile, but how could she do that? All she could do now was stare down in absolute contempt. This fool was going to try to become the Prince of Solis through her. Well, she was going to take everything from him instead. All she had to do was go along with this stupid wedding, then, she’d be Princess of Voldia once he became Prince of Solis, and she could take his home from him.

But he didn’t react to her cold stare. Of course he didn’t though: from what she knew, he was used to such looks.

Prince Keith walked up the stairs, then stood in front of Malena.

“Do you, Prince Keith, take Princess Pendleton to be your wife? To love her, nurture her, and support her in times of joy and in difficulty, till death do you part?”

“I do,” Prince Keith said.

“Do you, Princess Pendleton, take Prince Keith to be your husband? To love him, nurture him, and support him in joy and in difficulty, till death do you part?”

“I do,” Malena said, still glaring at him.

“Prince Keith, you may place the ring on her finger,” the priest said.

Prince Keith pulled out a ring with a diamond the size of his thumb and placed it on her outstretched hand. It was impressive, but it was as gaudy as the rest of him, and it made her hand feel heavy. Honestly the gem was wasted on a ring.

She did the same in reverse, but her ring was cheap brass covered by a thin layer of gold. It was more than he deserved.

“As a representative of the church of Haven, I now pronounce you Husband and Wife,” the pastor said, then turned to Keith. “You may now kiss your bride.”

Malena forced herself not to reel back in disgust.

Prince Keith placed his hand on the small of her back and pulled her towards him, then put his face close to hers.

She couldn’t help but turn away slightly, so he mostly kissed her on the cheek.

After that, they walked off the stage and down the aisle. They didn’t go to an after party, but walked back to the castle instead.

---

Lilith took to the sky and followed Malena back to the castle, but a few of the flight mages guarding it were staring up at her, so she left and flew back to her dorm room.

She flew into her window, then found and put on her wings, her scuba tank, carried the other one, and found some glass. She formed the glass into lenses and attached them to both ends of a long piece of metal, making binoculars. Then, she folded her wings in, flew back out the window, and took to the sky.

Once she got high enough, she could barely see the flight mages around the castle as more than specks. She didn’t notice that Hana was sitting on a bench by the castle walls, since she was just one of those specks. But, when she adjusted her binoculars, though the view was shaky, she could see the whole bodies of those flight mages.

Now she just had to find Malena and the Prince, so she flew around the castle, gliding with her wings. Luckily, it looked like they were by a window

She saw him shove her back as he shouted at her, then he got on top of her and punched her side as she tried to escape. Lilith wasn’t going to let that continue, so she dove down and readied a ball lightning. That castle guard was in her way.

---

“So you got a marriage out of me,” Malena said as she walked beside Keith into the castle, Reinhold following them.

“Yep. You’re officially mine now,” he said.

“It was bound to happen,” she turned to a nearby knight. “As we are wed, I am now Princess of Voldia as well. Please nod to confirm.”

The knight’s runes flickered, then he nodded.

“That’s not right,” Reinhold said. “Prince Keith may also be Prince of Solis by Solis law, but Voldia doesn’t have a law like that.”

Malena’s eyes widened. She had to guess from the knights’ actions since she didn’t have access to a Voldian book on law, and apparently she guessed wrong. “Wait, so the knights before were just confused?” She asked Reinhold to confirm.

“Unfortunately,” he said. “A lot of lower ranking soldiers don’t know all the laws.”

Malena grit her teeth. She practically gained nothing from this, and Keith had gained more power over Solis. Actually, wait, had he? Solis was based around freedom, so anyone could ignore Keith’s orders until he became King, and no one liked Keith. However, the marriage had put him in line to be King.

She shrugged. “Well, whatever. I guess neither of us gained much from this. We’re just pawns for Voldia.” She turned to Keith, glaring coldly. Really, if he was a pawn, she was at least a bishop. But she still couldn’t leave him unless he was a danger or she was a widow. Well, she couldn’t leave him normally, but if they went adventuring and a happy accident happened, she wouldn’t be to blame. “I suppose we should just get on with our lives.”

“What? No,” Keith said. “We’re married. We should enjoy that.”

“Lilith already explained my feelings on the matter earlier,” Malena said.

“Well I feel different,” Keith said, then turned to the guards. “Leave us.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her into a nearby room. It was an ornately decorated bedroom, gaudy even. This must’ve been his room.

“Huh?” Malena looked around. Suddenly, it was just her and Keith, in his bedroom.

“We’re married already,” Keith said, putting his hand over his heart. “I like you. I love you! Even if you don’t like me. Why don’t you care about what I feel! Why do you have to be like everyone else?”

Alarm bells rang out in Malena’s head. Being alone in a room with him probably wasn’t a good idea. Her eyes darted to the door, but his guards were on the other side, so she backed towards the window instead.

“I don’t like you,” Malena said. “You’re a brute that let yourself go. You forced me into this marriage, and now you’re cornering me. What is there to like about you?”

Keith grit his teeth. “I went through your crazy exercises, you know? I lost weight! I can do ten pushups now! I learned the local laws too!”

“And now you’re just uglier on the inside than the outside,” Malena countered. “You’ve only used your new strength and knowledge against me.”

“That’s because you treat me like I’m the bad guy! You couldn’t just love me back!? Why do you still look at me like everyone else does? You think you’re better than me!?” He practically yelled.

Malena stared back, not saying anything. She didn’t think, she knew.

He pushed against her shoulders, shoving her back onto the bed. “You’re beneath me, like everyone else.” He looked down at the bruises he gave her, grimaced, and let his eyes water. “I hate it that I have to do that to you, but I’m still stronger than you, and I outsmarted you. I. got. You!” He pressed his arms down on the bed on both sides of her.

Malena tried to roll out from under him, but he shoved her back, practically punching her in the stomach.

She glared back up, then sighed. She could see his tears, smell his breath, feel it on her skin… It was all disgusting. She was having trouble keeping her emotions in check. She just had to deal with this, and she might be able to find a way to wrest both kingdoms from this beast. But her hatred was spreading out from her chest and filling her entire body.

He hadn’t captured her. She could teleport things apart now. She could kill this guy in an instant, like how Lilith killed Taro.

He stared down at her for a while longer, his eyes wide, staring into hers, then looking down at her body, then back up. “I’ll make you understand.” He started taking off his shirt.

“Wait,” Malena said, moving her inner eyebrows up as if she were suddenly attracted, and sliding her hand around the back of his neck. At that moment, for once, she wasn’t thinking about the future. She was only thinking about a way to get this disgusting piece of garbage off of her. “You don’t have to be so…” Her voice was distant in her own ears as her magic poured out.

It felt like her body wasn’t hers, like her arm and her magic were moving on their own, but they were just following her strongest desires.

Keith looked down, enraptured. And then, he fell.

Malena pushed him off her like the sack of garbage that he was, then stared at him. Her hatred turned to confusion at the realization of what she was looking at, now that her emotions were letting up. What did she just do!? If she killed Keith, that would definitely start a war between the kingdoms. Her emotions just put all of her friends in danger! What could she even do now!? If Voldia discovered this, Solis was done for!

Then, she heard an explosion. She looked out and saw the upper torso of a man falling back from a castle battlement, his legs and entrails falling behind him.

Ahead of him was Lilith, unfurling her wings and readying another lightning ball at the window.

Malena backed away far from the window, then watched as the ball lightning somehow went straight through the glass, wrapped around a metal part of the window, and only then exploded, throwing glass in both directions.Lilith flew in after and looked around.

“Huh?” She looked down at Keith. “Did the blast get him?”

Malena shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I, I did. I couldn’t.” She paused, then whispered, “I killed him. He was on me. It was just so…” She shuddered.

Lilith paused. “Well, off to the adit?” She asked again in a tone like this was an everyday thing for her.

Malena nodded, still shaking.

---

Prince Keith stared down at Malena as she slid her hand behind his neck, his eyes widening even more at the touch. But then, he lost all his sense of touch, and his body fell. He was right on top of her, which would’ve been nice if he could feel anything, but there was nothing.

She pushed him aside like one would push off a bag of garbage, and his head bobbed around with his body, yet he couldn’t feel it. Then he realized he couldn’t breathe either.

He could only stare at the room as he panicked at the lack of oxygen. After that, instead of feeling nothing, his entire body started to burn, like he had been dipped in fire. His vision started fading at the edges, and he could hear more and more ringing and static. No matter how hard he willed himself to breath, nothing happened.

He tried gasping for air, sucking it in with his mouth, but nothing worked. The world finally went black. He heard an explosion in the distance and felt glass shards scrape through his face, but that didn’t matter when he couldn’t get oxygen.

He couldn’t see, but he could somehow feel his memories up until now. He remembered his father being too busy to even look at him most of the time, writing on papers or dealing with knights instead. He remembered ordering a teacher to give him better grades and grinning when it worked, then giving her more and more demands. He remembered eating, so much eating, instead of doing the work assigned to him, because after all, it didn’t seem to matter to anyone whether he succeeded or failed. And then he remembered Malena, how beautiful she was, and how he worked to change himself for the better even as his muscles burned and his ears rang, for her. Yet at the very last point, he could feel how much she hated him. He could feel the hate burning throughout her entire body like a wildfire, with him the sole cause.

Suddenly, he could see again. Malena was beneath him again, but her body was a silhouette. No, it was the entrance to a void, to somewhere else!

“No. No! I’m sorry! I don’t want to die!” He tried to push himself off, but he couldn’t move.

The void in the shape of Malena reached its hand out to his face. It didn’t caress him, because unlike her, it didn’t need to lie about how much hate it felt for him.

He could feel his heart race as the hand covered his eyes, then his face, then enveloped his entire body.

---

Lilith grabbed Malena, carried her to the window, and was about to jump out when she saw the mage she just attacked in pieces, surrounded by other mages. Her eyes widened. He was a flight mage, so she really didn’t think that would kill him. “Uhh, I thought he could take it. Oops.”

One of the female mages, tears streaming down her face, looked over and yelled. “Kill the intruder!”

“But she has the Princess!” Another said. “We need to be careful.”

Meanwhile, Lilith flapped her wings and took to the sky. It was sad that the guy died, but she wasn’t about to let herself be caught and probably executed.

“I don’t fucking care!” The mage flew up to Lilith. She wasn’t weighed down, so catching up was easy. Lilith couldn’t even make it above the castle before a telekinetic force dragged them both down and the girl aimed her fist at Lilith.

“I’m sorry,” Lilith said, before extending her mana sense and pouring all of her electricity into the girl. She was dead in an instant, her nerves burnt. “I really didn’t mean to.” Lilith moved her magic back to herself and continued flying.

Once the girl hit the ground with a thump, the other mages rushed over. They checked on her, but one of them shook their head and then flew up after Lilith, but kept their distance, and the rest followed. A few pulled out bows and were shooting arrows after her, so Lilith zigzagged as she flew higher and higher, straining her magic. Still, a few arrows pierced her wings, but thankfully the leather mostly held, so she continued to flap them and gain some lift.

Then an arrow went right through her arm, and Lilith grit her teeth in pain. “Kkgh!” She poured all her pain and emotions into her magic to fly even higher as blood trickled out. But another hit her opposite leg, and she barely managed to avoid screaming. She neared the clouds above when she realized that If she wasn’t holding Malena, those arrows probably would’ve gone through her heart instead.

They kept up with her until she flew above the clouds, put her regulator in, and handed Malena the other one. After that, the castle mages could only watch from below as Lilith and Malena flew out of the range of their bows.

Then, Lilith spread her wings and glided. But she didn’t glide directly towards the adit. If she did that, the flight mages could follow her there. Instead, she flew over the farms towards the other mountains, rising higher and higher with her magic as she did. Soon, she could only see the mages through her binoculars, and now when she turned to the adit, they kept heading in the direction they were already going.

She poured heat magic in her wounds to keep them shut and to stop her blood from leaving a trail, and then kept on gliding, pushing with her magic. She soared far above the clouds for minutes, until the gauge read half. After that, she started to descend, until several minutes later when her gauge was near zero. She was still over the forest now, not yet at the adit, but they were far enough from the castle and the farms that no one would see them, so she kept on flying low towards it.

…

Eventually, Lilith touched down at the mouth of the cave, the arrows still through her arm and leg. Even with the pain from those she couldn’t help but smile at the pile of wood and metal just inside that was taller than her.

“What are we going to do?” Malena asked as Lilith let her down. “We just killed three people, one of them the Prince.”

“I don’t know,” Lilith said, standing on one leg and then holding herself up with magic. “I hope our friends aren’t in danger because of us.”

“Are you okay?” Malena asked, looking at the arrows.

Lilith shook her head and caught herself as she fell, then turned so neither arrow was poking against the ground. “There’s some thread in the cave. I’m going to need you to get that, and then pull these out.”