CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: THE CALL

A lone victor rose, swatting aside the clouds of dust and darkened snow. Once perfectly smooth, a crack rent the face carved forever into sorrow.

Vex? Heart skipping a beat, Bridget ripped her eyes away from the scene and screams in front of her to peer at the sharp fistful she clutched. Dull, the Relic’s shards barely even reflected the light, let alone her face anymore.

Be realistic, Briddy scolded herself. The voice hadn't even sounded like Vex. And what was she thinking? Gail and Asher needed-

Are you ready to die, Bridget Vasily? Sculptor, the similarity to her own was eerie to the point of clamping Briddy’s teeth together. Whatever spoke was using the exact tone of voice she did when her friends were hurting; patient, open and gentle. The words were slow, the edges softened by exhaled breath.

What? Of course not-Bridget cut herself off. She hadn’t even finished her first year at the school, let alone graduated. How on earth could she be ready?

Her life had barely started.

Hesitating, Briddy’s fingers closed around the broken bits.

In the space of indecision, time blazed on, forging her surroundings into a horrible, warped reality.

To the left of the trunk, the clash of dark limbs and a shining relic rang all the way up the lawn to shake the windows of Courage House. Still swiping at the two beasts that harried him with mutating limbs of onyx, Hennigan sank his great axe deep into one of their pulsing sacs once more. Hooking the sharp tip of the blade in, he yanked down, hard.

Bridget’s hands flew to her ears as a high whistling tone threatened to rip straight through them. Barely audible save for the keening pitch that shredded the sensitive inner bits of her skull, the sound blew in a long, ceaseless note. Staggering back, the Strange creature’s limbs began to spasm and jerk so badly that the churning body, and its great diamond head, could no longer be held aloft.

Like a maple seed released in the autumn, the injured creature spun away from Hennigan, shuddering and jerking even after it collided with the massive trunk that Briddy balanced atop. This might’ve been considered a victory, if not for its spastic, confused movement patterns.

Plus the molten metal.

Ever since the great axe had pierced the sac, a fountain of dark, sluggardly viscous orange liquid poured forth, steaming its way into the night. Briddy had seen Hennigan’s initial dodge, but when the spasmatic creature had lost control, the flying pats of burning orange and red went everywhere: they smoked on the lawn, hissed atop the tree trunk near Bridget’s bare feet, and covered a bellowing Professor from head to foot.

Leather fused to skin, the metal studs beginning to glow as Hennigan continued to flail and swat away the creatures with his weapon. Something twisted deep inside Bridget, her stomach falling past her feet. Chiming twice, the Strange creature still standing lifted its jointed arms, and descended upon the staggering man with a series of snicks. Horrible, bloodcurdling shrieks filled the air.

Great sickness and weakness roiled across Briddy as she captured this across what felt like a lifetime and a few seconds. Asher’s scream pulled the thread of time back into its rapid pace, and she whirled back around toward the purple shield to the right side of the tree. She couldn’t help Hennigan but–

“Barrae!” The shield spell was followed by the sound of tinkling glass. “BARRAE!”

Over and over again a featureless face rained blows upon Asher’s shield, shattering the magical barrier each time he recast. Gail was a long, unmoving lump on the ground behind him.

Swallowing the sour rot at the bottom of her stomach, Bridget turned her back on Hennigan’s screams and slid down the side of the tree. Bark roughly tore at her skin, leaving raw patches on the already savaged skin. With a rough thud, she met the ground.

Bridget looked up in time just to see the creature swing from overhead with the flat of a sickle arm, cracking onto Asher’s shield like one would a spoon onto an egg. With a ripple of force, it shattered, and before either he or Briddy could react, a drilling arm shot forward, piercing his side so violently that he folded forward from the force, and it struck through into the earth behind.

For just a second, their eyes met. Briddy caught a glimpse of Asher grimacing through the tall, articulated legs of the creature. She scrambled to her feet.

Then the Strange monstrosity lifted him high into the air, skewered on the point as though he was a piece of filth caught underneath its nails. Chiming once, it flicked the limb. It sent Asher sailing off toward the tree line, where he met one of the standing trunks with a sickening crack. Seconds after, with a thud not far off from the sound Bridget had made just moments ago, he hit the ground and stayed there.

Briddy never got to scream his name; the word choked to a halt in her throat.

Unlike her, the attacker hadn’t stopped to see where Asher had landed. Instead, it chose to turn towards the prone form lying ready in front of it and had already begun making its delicate incisions.

“NO!” Gail began screaming, thrashing on the ground.

Chiming twice, two limbs arced up, reconfiguring themselves from scythes to finely angled scalpels.

“GET OFF OF ME! I’LL RIP YOUR LEGS OFF AND FEED THEM BACKWARDS UP YOUR–NO!”

Bridget was already moving, taking a step forward, but it seemed like every movement she made was from a body of stone and lead. Gail’s screams took a fevered note that she had never heard before, her friend’s pinned form seemed miles away.

How do you answer, Bridget Vasily?

Her voice again, no less jarring, distracting, or ill-timed than the last.

“PLEASE!!”

Just–what are you trying to–? The thoughts seemed as fragmented as her breaths. Were Gail and the Strange creature even further, now?

I’m asking what you want. The sound of a voice speaking in her own amusement needled at Bridget. It’s about time someone did.

Is this really the best time–?

Within the space of a breath, she was just only a few steps behind the creature, its jointed limbs slicing and picking at Gail’s writhing, still-living flesh.

It is the perfect time. Are you ready to die, Bridget Vasily?

Bridget was suddenly confronted with the realization that even if she ran in, ducking underneath the churning sac and dodging the creature’s legs, even if she still managed to somehow reach Gail, she had nothing left to give beyond that point. But there were other options, right? There had to be. In a slow, horrible swivel, her head turned away, toward the trees to the left. A groaning pile slowly stirred near the roots where Asher had fallen. The wall of fallen bark blocked her view of Courage House. Hennigan had finally gone silent.

Are you ready to die, Bridget Vasily? Her voice whispered within. Fear broke free from the stables of Bridget’s control; it rode without abandon through her body in roiling, shuddering waves.

Not today! Not while I still have the will to live!

Desperation narrowing the field of her sight, Bridget fought to form a plan, looking for pieces to put together for the purchase of precious seconds, a currency which none of them could afford. Asher seemed to be barely conscious where he lay, and there was no way he could be there in time. Raw, ragged screams, hoarse with rage, issued forth from Gail.

Her head moved in sharp, sudden jerks as Briddy searched for something, someone, anything. All she found was a tattered landscape, walled by ripped-up trees and lit by a ring of flames in the distance, devoid of any figures save the players splayed across the macabre stage.

All the pieces slid together as the Strange monstrosity, still skewering Gail to the ground like a bug, raised a glittering black limb. With chilling clarity, Bridget saw her father, lying on his back, stomach gored through by the bulbous tail of the Mountaincore. Mutilated, just like Gail was going to be.

Something pulsed, deep at the core of her.

No.

A rejection as intensely pure as it was invigoratingly revolting rang like the tone of a great bell, growing deeper and louder as the images began to line up in her shaking vision, and history threatened to repeat.

No.

She must’ve stumbled back a step, because Bridget nearly lost her balance when her voice spoke once more. The words were so clear that she could have been standing behind herself, speaking into her own left ear.

Are you ready to die today, Bridget Vasily?

Her response caught at first, snarling at the pieces of Briddy that tore in so many separate directions. Fear grasped with sticky fingers; pain begged her to act, self-preservation clung and wailed at the consequences.

Throat choking, a glint caught the corner of Briddy’s eye. Firelight touched the jagged edge of the only remainder of what had set her apart. Not only from her peers, but from her family.

Then her eyes returned to the girl on the ground; she heard the cry ripping from one of the few to not care about what was special or not, only the human at the heart of who she was. The same person who had stayed up through entire nights with her; who shared her darkest pains but refuse to let them be a weakness. This was Gail, the friend that had gone toe-to-toe with their headmistress when she felt her wrong, and the woman who had been willing to stay behind and die for Briddy atop a broken windowsill.

Never alone. A memory whispered, laid out on the bed between two tear-stained girls. Her death was returning to a life without those that made it worth living.

Gail cried out, and an answer burst free at the same time a flurry of steps from Briddy’s feet.

Without stopping, she sprinted under the creature's legs. Her arm flew out, flinging the handful she had clutched toward the convulsing sac with a fervent prayer. Golden pricks of light winked their farewell as the pieces of metal sped out of her hand, slamming the creature’s churning abdomen with several ripping thuds. Soundless whistles pitched higher than hearing burst forth overhead, sending Bridget’s teeth chattering with intensity. Pushing aside the pain, she darted to the prone figure still pinned beneath.

Sliding to a halt beside Gail, Bridget threw herself between her friend and the pointed limb that dangerously danced in the air. Throwing her arms forward, she covered Gail’s body with her own. If it’s for her, She took one, deep breath, releasing the reply that had lingered so long. Then, yes.

Then Briddy closed her eyes, hugged Gail close, and waited for the end.

Death was…an immediate quiet. And it smelled a lot like honey, spices, and blood.

Briddy raised her head, hair hanging loose in a limp curtain around her face. Swiping it back, she glanced at Gail, whose eyes flickered underneath the lids. Well. If Briddy was dead, then Gail was with her, and still halfway there from the looks of it. And if that was true then…slowly, Bridget’s eyes began to raise.

The spindular creature was still stretched over them, a pointed limb poised in the air. However, the horrible whistling no longer screeched at its inhuman pitch, and she noted a very marked lack of the spattering liquid metal that she had expected. Instead, the baggy bulk of its pouch had resumed its usual undulations, tan folds rippling.

Bridget felt her chest sink into her stomach as though someone had tied a tombstone to it. She had hoped, prayed that the last of the pieces of her Relic would be enough to slice the sac open to a similar effect of Hennigan’s success but–No, she was not Hennigan, and what she had thrown were just bits of metal.

A chime sounded. Bridget’s head snapped up to the creature’s flat, metallic face, but the head didn’t move. She looked closer at the appendages, frozen completely still, and made a quick decision.

“Gail, Gail can you hear me?” She began slapping her friend’s cheek with a frantic beat.

The creature chimed twice, as if to reply in her stead.

“Gail?!” The girl’s eyelids twitched once and then went still.

Three chimes. Bridget’s eye’s swivelled up. It still stood perfectly still, the shimmering tip poised to bore through Briddy’s back and into Gail’s torso. But beneath the arch of obsidian metal, the bellow-like body compressed and compacted at an alarming rate, wrinkles appearing across its surface as arcs of white sparks raced between them. At the rate it was moving, the bulging thing had begun to look less like a sac, and more like the folds of a brain from one Bridget’s medical texts. Then, appearing within the creases like struck flames to kindling, bright spots of light illuminated one after the other, burning like the sun behind lidded eyes.

Hollow, wind-filled chimes began to ring, repeating in a neverending loop. Through the din, Bridget heard an exact replica of her own voice, clearly speaking as though they were in a secluded room. Well, then.

Stealing another shuddering breath, Briddy looked around for the source.

If you have learned to live, Bridget, At an intensity that was beginning to hurt her eyes, the lights in the sac brightened, standing out as glowing points against the writhing folds.

And you are ready to die for others, The voice within her on, but instead of continuing as Bridget’s mimic, it shifted, speaking in the voices of Gail, Asher and Tuck simultaneously.

In the distance, something whistled as it shot through the air. Without thought, Bridget shifted further over Gail, her ears pricking at the sound. Whatever it was, sliced through the air as though some distant thing, or rather, many things, shot through the night with furious speed.

It occurred to Bridget that she should duck her head, and she was mid-motion when something whizzed past the delicate hairs of her neck. Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of the dirty-blonde pieces of hair drifting to the ground. She was worried less about her beauty, though, and more concerned with the thud that had accompanied whatever missed her head. Daring a peek from under her arm, she saw another spot of light had bloomed within the sac.

THEN, Titanium Kerr’s voice abruptly rumbled, her father’s echo sounding deep inside. Bridget froze, deadly still as the creature jerked around. From above, falling from the sky like dull, deadly rain, bits of golden metal shot towards them. A bit of hilt here, a sword tip there, all of them disappeared into the creature’s sac. Each turned to a prick of light after it disappeared behind the thick walls. With every blow, the beast shuddered from side to side, chiming incessantly.

WE, a thousand voices roared, rushing into her ears just like they had to cheer Adelaide on towards harm. Heat built in Briddy’s palm, not in the painful way it had when she held her brother’s pin earlier, but in warm, tingling pulses. In marvel, she raised her hand, flexing its fingers. A glow responded, within the skin, illuminating the webbing of veins and solid arches of each bone. What in the world?

FIGHT, Hennigan's familiar snarl took the place of the crowd, the sneer smearing across Briddy's consciousness. Her eyes snapped up. Within the creature, the spots of light seemed to pulse and dance, syncing her heartbeat to an unknown rhythm that carried each beacon to an insane brilliance. Twenty-two different points beamed out at her eyes, painfully bright.

ON! Warping once more, the voice cried out, halfway between her and a thousand different tones. With one motion, Bridget’s fingers snapped closed. She tore her hand away from the Strange beast, as though ripping back the cloth of its diamond head to reveal the horror beneath.

Stars came hurtling out, perforating the creature’s abdomen in a glittering white-gold storm. Spasming backwards, articulated limbs jerked at odd angles, tearing out of Gail with vicious rips. With a low moan, the tall girl's eyes languidly began to flutter. Bridget rose to her knees protectively.

Soaring, swooping so fast they left streaks of light behind them to linger in the air, white-hot bits of light surrounded the girls like a swarm of Ashbees, closing in with golden speed.

Sucking in her breath, Briddy watched in silent amazement as a shining point of light lowered from the swarm, a second lazily circling behind. Yellow trails followed them, hanging in the air like paint suspended in water. The ends faded after a moment or so. Circling close, the lights spiralled around each other in parallel slopes, meeting in conjunction at the bottom like a pair fluttering of wings.

Entranced, Bridget lifted a finger, as though to let them rest.

As they neared, she caught the merest glimpse through the glow and realized that they weren't stars at all, but individual scales of gold, keenly edged and covered with an unmistakable golden scrollwork.

Vex? Briddy's heart swelled with equal parts confusion and wonder.

Like the shuddering coat of some great beast, a wave of motion rippled through the golden cloud floating in the air between her and the monstrosity. Bridget felt the earth shuddering under her feet as if to carry the sinuous movement on.

Startled, Briddy snatched her hand away, and swarm shifted to follow just as a dark leg spasmed through, scattering some of the pieces with metallic clinks. A yelp burst out of Briddy as a curved, chitinous edge swung straight for her face. She threw up her arms in a panic. Her ears were painfully serenaded by a long, shearing screech, but she was not torn to shreds.

Gasping in relief, Briddy parted her elbows just wide enough to see all of the glinting scales tightly pressing together to form a sheet of metal over her. Although the glow seemed to be fading, each of the twenty-two was no longer a cracked fragment, but a perfect, tipped scale, larger than her hand and softly glowing like it was still fresh from the forge.

Is that you? Bridget whispered.

Still chiming, albeit at a lower volume, the creature suddenly collapsed onto its back, the perforated sac wheezing empty darkness and convulsing air. With a final screech of parting metal, the spasming limb slid off the pieces, retracting to twitch and quiver with the others like a grasping hand. Slowly, Bridget straightened and lowered her arms. Instantly, a wave of fatigue roiled through Briddy’s limbs, as though she had been the one pushing the beast back.

Vex is gone. Her ear tickled, someone was speaking within and next to her at once.

The cold finality of the words sunk into Briddy’s chest. It could say that but... in front of her, the golden bits shifted, dancing through the air in an intricate pattern as they rearranged themselves. Almost familiar, Briddy squinted. If she concentrated, she could see in her mind’s eye–

When all was said and done, even arranged in the shape of the sword, what floated in front of her was not Vex. Bridget frowned, lifting and then clenching her fist, as though she could somehow will it back into the weapon she had wielded and now so desperately needed. The bits complied, pressing together with vibrating ferocity as though clinging to the form for dear life.

And yet, Bridget couldn’t bring herself to touch what passed for the handle.

Looking over the jerking monstrosity in front of her, and then back at Gail, who was starting to stir behind her, Bridget’s skin crawled. Hollow sickness clawed with uncertain fingers at her chest. Nothing felt right. This night, these creatures, or trying to fight with a sword she had broken.

So what now? Bridget whispered. She had promised to fight but– Barely had the thought ended when the crude mockery of her relic burst into a shining cloud, golden scales swarming around her in a flock of glinting edges and gilt scrollwork.

Vex is gone. Despite her best efforts, Bridget couldn’t pick out any voice that she recognized among the many that blended into the one-that-was-not-hers. The effect crossed somewhere between an echo and a layering of sound: different genders and ages confusing the senses.

You might’ve mentioned. Briddy took a deep breath. They needed to get out of there soon or–

Call a new name.

Her brow creased. She had her suspicions of course…but was it possible?

Tell a new tale.

In her raised left palm, the throbbing began to quicken, and the pieces around her picked up speed as they soared in their increasingly acrobatic, orbital loops.

Fell the old giants, for we have outgrown their shadows to breathe our own air. Urgency tainted the words, echoing all the way down to the quiet roots of Bridget Vasily, a broken girl surrounded by glass and shattered swords, cracked and sharp.

Bridget felt her hair lift; long strands and shorn chunks alike rippling with a growing gale. The golden pieces were flying at such an intense speed that she could barely see them, or anything else except a massive wall of wind, now. Whipping at the ripped nightclothes on her body, a tunnel of air around the two girls towered around the two girls on Courage’s lawn, twisting in time to the golden dervishes’ whirl.

Will you fight? Booming so loud that her teeth bounced, Bridget was shocked that the voice wasn’t echoing off the fallen trees around them. WILL YOU STAND?!

Hesitation held no place in her heart. For them. For her. Briddy glanced at her pulsing hand. For me.

Without warning, the wind died, and golden bits rained to the ground, exploding into glistening sparks. Right behind the curtain of wind, the Strange creature twitched in a pile of oddly-angled limbs, diamond head facing her as if to bear witness.

In Briddy’s heart, a voice whispered, tickling its way up to her throat and leaving an unknown secret to bear its first fruit.

Then call, Bridget. And know that you are never alone. We stand together.

VEXELA!! Briddy’s lips called soundlessly; curving around the word as though naming an old friend for the first time.

Pulsing with rhythm over overlapping heartbeats, a burst of shimmering mist fizzed over her raised palm in pouring fountains. But when her fingers closed to grasp it, the golden strands twined through them in intangible strings, flowing down her arm. Bridget’s lips parted in a soft gasp. Rather than settling into a hilt, what remained was a shining vambrace of scale and scrollwork, firmly clasped to her forearm.

Vexela… She repeated the word, stroking the metal with her other hand. Even though the glow from the beast’s heat had faded, the scales were still warm.

Hello again, Bridget. There it was, a quick tinge of Vex’s flat, emotionless tone, flashing through the expression of a new voice in a way that was both strange and comforting.

Hot vices of guilt and shame clamped Briddy’s throat, burning her eyes till they watered. You broke.

So did you. Bridget’s borrowed voice stood out against the mixture, gentle. And yet here we both stand.

I’m…so…sorry. Tears broke free, wetting a path down her cheek. It was my fault.

Pressure, slow and slight, spread through the vambrace she wore as the scales contracted ever so slightly. It felt no harder than the touch of a comforting hand.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The only thing that can break the broken is themselves. Vexela replied.

A wet cough broke into the reunion, weakly knocking about the chest of the girl lifting herself up off the ground and onto her elbows.

“Hey…trouble.” A small trickle of blood stained the corner of Gail’s mouth.

She attempted to sit up, face immediately contorting in pain. Fresh, dark liquid still slicked from the wounds on her shoulders, arm, and leg, coating her in red.

“Don’t…” Briddy bit her lip. The word had come out strangled and tight.

Another wracking, wet cough rattled through Gail, and she collapsed back into the dirt. “They got me good, hey?” Her lips cracked into a smile that barely quirked a corner.

Staring into Gail’s eyes, bright grey to lidded hazel, Bridget fiercely swore: “They will not touch you again.”

Then she turned to face the twitching mass, a golden gauntlet shivering at the ready on her arm.

With a crossward slice, she carved a path in the air with her hand, and Vexela’s scales lifted from her skin with the motion, blurring into a glittering line. Bridget felt a distinct, tactical shudder vibrate through the palm of her hand as they moved, some deep beat pulsing within bone and vein.

Her eyes came to rest on the nest of quivering limbs, and its hole-filled sac gaping emptily at her. Some of the legs lay motionless, while the tips of others mutated in rapid bursts, changing in triangular ripples between curved and straight, twisted and needle-fine points. Taking a step closer, Briddy slowly noted that the head was not moving. Was it dead? Had Vexala’s exit somehow done enough damage she could just leave it–

Whether it was a trap, or a parting blow, one of the motionless legs on the ground shot up, the point seeking Bridget’s heart.

“BARRAE!” Two shields of plum and one of gold meshed together in a beautiful match of magic and metal. Bridget could just see a black tip poking through.

Not alone. Vexela whispered to her, golden scales shifting around the point of the dark limb, wrapping forward.

Bridget adjusted her chin back just far enough that she could see behind her. Then, she did a double take.

“Tuck??”

She nearly dropped the arm directing her Relic.

Two figures crouched near Gail, holding purple shield spells aloft in their hands. One, dark curls bobbing furiously, was applying a thick orange plaster from a round glass flask onto her arm, the other held his free hand over Gail’s savaged leg while trickles of golden green magic pulled the exposed flesh back together. Both of them looked slightly off, as though he had swallowed just a little poison before arriving.

The larger, more broad-shouldered of the two called, “I’d offer a hand Briddy, but…”

“Wha-How are you here?”

Whatever Tuck replied, Bridget missed, because a great shudder ran through her arm, and seconds later, both of the shield spells shattered as one. Briddy had less than a split second to hear the chimes, each of the three sets layered over top of the other, and then her body was rolling, already falling into the ground in a little ball.

Air tickled the back of her legs, letting her know how close she had been missed.

Cries of alarm rang out from her friends, and Vexela whispered: To your right.

Landing on her knees in torn-up grass, Bridget spun to the right, raising her arms. A golden cloud coated the air, catching the swinging leg with one, two, three, and then four of the scales, wrapping upwards and around the limb as though they were overlarge petals on a wayward pond log.

Below!

Briddy’s hand felt so slow, too slow, as she tried to pull part of the swarm down in time to catch the drill that shot for her leg.

Above you. To the high left. Vexela’s warnings came faster and faster.

Briddy was still in the middle of trying to address that and hold back the other two when–

Behind. These things were too fast, and holding off two or three on her own was impossible.

“Bridget! Get out of there!” Her head snapped back.

Gail was on her feet, halfway to the treeline with Tuck, Asher hadn’t moved and was waving her toward him with a pale face.

Bridget glanced between him and the many limbs her pieces of relic were holding at bay. She didn’t know what the range she could control them at was, but– wait. Briddy squinted at the edges of Vexela’s pieces, noticing that the seams flatly were pressing into the mutating legs, almost as if the metal were trying to–

Run. Vexela urged.

This time, Bridget took the advice.

Giving a great, final push with her hand, she sprinted toward Asher. The moment she turned, the curly-haired boy chucked a bottle over her head. A soft fizzing pop! erupted behind Briddy’s heels, and clouds of powder-blue foam began to rise on either side of her with alarming speed.

She reached Asher, without stopping, seizing his hand and sprinting toward Tuck and Gail.

“That won’t hold them for long.” Asher winced as she tugged. “Careful.”

“Sorry.” Golden bits of Vexela soared to meet them, settling to rest one by one back on Bridget’s forearm.

Asher looked down at them with a sickened face as they ran. “Briddy I need to tell you–”

Just then, they reached the other two at the tree line.

“Tell me what?” Bridget panted, slowing down a step.

He shook his head.

“Where in all the rivers Tuck came from?” Gail was standing mostly by her own merit now.

They all turned to face the sandy-haired boy, who stood in shadow. “We need to get to Courage House.” He said urgently, thumbing the cudgel at his belt. “It’s not safe out here.”

Briddy blinked, once, at the weapon he hadn’t had before, twice, at his abrupt tone, and then followed as the large boy took off toward the towering wall of wood that cut them off. They sprinted down the length, pulling Gail along in turns. When Tuck paused to help the injured girl clamber over the splintered stump at the end of the trunk, Bridget’s words got the better of judgement.

“Your shoulder…” She marvelled. The gaping, sucking hole that had been drilled into his back no longer wetted his clothes, though the fabric still hung tattered where it had been struck.

“Doctor Gektu stopped the bleeding.” He said quietly. “There’s a triage set up at Administration with the Headmistress and everything.”

Bridget halted for a moment, grasping at a branch to help balance as her mind whirled in a tipsy axis of thought and understanding. Stark as ash on the blackest snow of memory, she could see two backs, turned as they ran away from her. “You came back.” She murmured, half to herself.

Tuck turned and looked her dead in the eyes. “I never wanted to leave.”

Gradually, in what felt like rusted increments, Bridget’s chin dipped into a nod. “I understand that, but–”

“How?” Asher supplied, his blue eyes seeming even wider in the dim light cast by the edge between forest and fire.

Screwing up his face into a grimace, Tuck started and stopped saying several one-word answers as they darted forward, creeping closer to the flames that rose to, but never touched, the roof of the Upper Dorm. Just as Briddy was about to prompt him once more, the sandy-haired boy straightened, and Gail’s one-worded gasp sucked the opportunity out from underneath her.

“Hole.”

Briddy came within inches of smacking her head into Asher’s as she rocketed from a partially stealthy crouch to full standing. Even then, she had to push through him and Gail before she caught sight of what they were ogling, and her jaw loosened like someone has snapped a string within.

Gaping across the Courage lawn like a great mouth, a yawning circle edged by crumbling plaster and hanging bricks had opened, a sloped side leading down into the earth. Flickers of amber torchlight escaped a soup of dark roiling shadows that stretched across the opening, cut through by the ringing, screeching crashes of metal and indistinguishable battle cries. As the group stared, a stray fireball streaked out, its brilliance briefly illuminating the ruin of an arched ceiling, tiled in blue, yellow and orange. Then the darkness swooped in to fill the massive mouth of the ground once more, and the fireball landed with a smoldering crash somewhere down the lawn.

“The underroads.” Briddy breathed. She could kick herself–she had completely forgotten that little mystery. It felt like a different lifetime that some carefree version of herself had spent Yuletide searching for one of the entrances with Asher. The thought of the holiday brought another face glaring into her mind, and before she could stop them, her eyes flickered the side of the enormous tree trunk they had now walked around.

“-later.” Tuck had said something, but she couldn’t hear it. There near the middle, a pile of what could only be described as meat, burnt black and ripped to red ribbons with the white points of bones revealed. But she recognized the studs of the armour that had been peeled back on either side of the ribcage that splayed open like a pair of hands reaching in supplication toward the person that had abandoned them–

The bracer on her arm shuddered, tightening at a frightful speed. Bridget thought for a moment her hand was about to snap off, and then she heard the chime.

A pointed leg dug deep into the top of the tree, followed by another, and then a cascade of splintering steps as their three pursuers scuttled down the side with alarming haste.

“Go.” The word fell hoarsely from Bridget’s lips.

A chorus of protests rose to meet her.

“River’s rush, Briddy do you really expect-”

“That’s suicide!” Tuck cut over Gail. “Wait–”

“Absolutely not.” Hard and short, Asher’s tone left no room for argument.

Not that it stopped the group from dissolving into a knot of bickering turmoil as they slowly backed away from the trio of approaching nightmares. Behind them, the mass of darkness that filled the hole, occasionally flirting with the edges of firelight, burgeoned up to peak like a great mound, separating from the opening in a hissing sigh.

A dark curtain fled over their head in a rippling satin wave; it crashed in a shimmering spool of shadow at the creature's feet, splitting into a thousand whisper-fine threads. With a snap, the strings of darkness were completely intertwined with the limbs of the creatures; no matter how they mutated or hacked, more ripped fine fibre ripped from the darkness on the ground with which to tie and tangle.

Silence fell, and the four of them closed ranks. Bridget’s shoulder knocked into the others. Their backs faced in, and they faced out, gazing at the inky curtain that surrounded the monstrosities.

“Students.” Briddy couldn’t help but flinch. One disembodied voice in her ear a night was enough.

Similar reactions rippled through her friends, with Gail letting out a word so colourful it required a several-second pause for the group to absorb. Only one of them remained stoic, his face wan, a thumb running over the weapon at his belt.

“Hello Doctor Gektu,” Tuck replied.

“Glad you made it back in one piece. We don’t have very long, so I’ll try to be brief.” Their teacher sounded much like this was any other day in his vent-filled classroom. “Now, let’s see to those wounds–”

Gail leaned away as tendrils of smoky black leaked from the ground and up toward her arm. “Not until someone tells me what’s going on.”

Briddy glanced at Tuck. Her gut had said something was off about his reappearance, and that this was the final piece missing.

“You didn’t think Mr. Sanlaurant would be allowed to leave Administration unattended, did you?”

A sudden shock of cold up the back of Bridget’s calf, and the jagged flesh peeled apart by one of the creature’s drills began melding back to a smooth consistency. She looked down and saw a spiralling piece of shadow around her ankle. Faintly, so soft it could’ve been mistaken as the hiss of wind, she caught the hiss of Vigni slithering in the dark.

“Doctor Gektu, what are you, exactly…?”

“How would you know that?!” Asher suddenly snapped, pulling away their group. “I haven’t even–”

Bridget caught his gaze, brows lifting, and then meeting. “Know what?”

“Nothing.” He avoided the question and her eyes.

“One more order of business.” Doctor Gektu continued. Gail was now peeling chunks of tangerine plaster from her arm, the skin new and red beneath.

Tensing as something touched her head, Bridget looked up just as a shower of darkness slipped its chilly touch over her head, pooling at her shoulders. The sigh of a spell pricked at her ears, but she couldn’t quite separate word from whisper. Something novel tickled at her skin, the fine touch of thin cloth.

Doctor Gektu mused: “We haven’t had to pull these old spares out of storage for years, but the enchantments are good as ever.”

Looking down, Bridget found a weightless, diaphanous garment of pure white adorning her arms and shoulders, the fabric rippling with a wind that wasn’t there. Gone was the signature pigment that gave the greencoats their moniker, but the cut and cloth of the Shroud were unmistakable. Running her hands over the smooth silk, Bridget caught Tuck plucking at the grey collar of his own covering.

She looked over at Gail, also clad in the Heir’s course white, and a jolt ran through her body. Her friend’s eyes were hazel platters of shock, staring at something behind Bridget’s shoulder. Pivoting on her heel, Bridget turned to find Asher, dressed in a pale Shroud that matched both of theirs.

Plucking at the pale cloth miserably, he began: “This wasn’t the way–”

“Nor, sadly, is it the time.” Doctor Gektu cut in. “Our visitors are quite demanding, and I’m afraid I cannot keep them from getting free much longer.”

Bridget glanced over at the creatures, thrashing at the hundreds of thousands of individual bonds, limbs shifting and curving at odd angles as they pulled away from the living, reaching shadows.

“How are you, exactly-?”

“With great effort, Miss Vasily. Now, I have an assignment for you all.”

Gail’s head swung around, making her disbelief known in all directions. “An assignment?” She spat.

“This is a school, after all.” Doctor Gektu responded.

“We’re under attack!” Bridget cried. “People have died–”

“Live through a few campus catastrophes and you’ll learn to adapt.” The older man’s spectral voice was firm, but kind as he cut her off. “Violence is often as unpredictable as death itself. The only thing you can go about controlling with it is how you respond.”

Eyes flashing, Briddy opened her mouth-

“I am sorry, Bridget, for what you have seen.” Doctor Gektu continued. “But before the high calls of morals and ethics can be answered, you must earn your right to survive.”

Her head hung. If he only knew.

“The good news is, your objective is simple enough. Professor Maistwel’s Cell should arrive any moment, and I’ll be taking this one-”

“But we’re not.” Asher spoke up. “A Cell, that is, I’m on–”

“I see a functioning unit before me, do you not?”

Four sets of eyes turned to look at each other, flickering away before they held gazes too long. Weight shifted, arms crossed, but silence reigned. Even Bridget had her doubts, given Asher’s lack of an explanation, but seeing Gail’s flash of uncertainty had hit her deeply. Why wasn’t anyone talking?

Why aren’t you? A shudder ran up her spine at Vexela’s touch.

Bridget bit her cheek, forcing the trembling pill of dubious bitterness down where it wouldn’t be a problem. She cleared her throat and lifted her chin. “Just what exactly is it you need from us, Doctor?”

After hearing the plan, the pill had spread into a boulder. Everything sounded simple, but those were usually the kinds of plans that found the best ways to go wrong. Get the creature into the hole, then let the older students and faculty below finish the job. Simple enough, right?

“It won’t work.” Asher insisted to them, as Tuck drew his weapon. Professor Maistwel had already levitated one of the three restrained creatures away. “I’m not a substitute for another Heir, so I’m no use.”

Seeing their odd looks, he opened his mouth several times. Pained noises escaped instead of words. “Eh--I– It–just…tonight.” The last part came out in a sigh, and he turned away, his face screwing up in a sickened expression.

“What was that?” Tuck squinted at him.

Briddy’s hand fell on Asher’s shoulder. Her mind flashed back the pile of charred meat, and leathered studs. The teacher she had left behind. “Asher…” She whispered hoarsely. He had to know it was her fault.

You made a choice. Vexela soothed. You can only live with it, now.

“Are you ready, students?” The hiss of cool air whistled around them. “The other Cell has already engaged.”

Asher straightened, looking at back Briddy quizzically.

“It’ll be alright.” She said, instead. He nodded, and they both turned to face the two remaining creatures.

“Your Cell is responsible for the right-hand one.” Gektu’s voice was already fading. “Remember the plan…” A tidal wave of shadow surged from the ground, crashing down on the diamond-headed attacker to the left. Onyx spikes erupted and burst, battering the creature about. At the same time, the threads holding its counterpart to the right faded, and it began to swing about with chiming vim.

Three sets of lips moved in silence, a vambrace glittered in reminder, layered gauntlets slid into place, and for the first time, the axe whose blade curved like two crescent moons appeared in the hands of a new wielder.

Gail and Tuck looked at the blade in silent horror. The large boy nearly dropped his cudgel, the points of the pick half-slid out.

“But Hennigan was just–” Tuck whispered.

“I know.” Asher gritted, sounding like he’d been punched in the gut.

“I knew,” Briddy said. Their eyes met in a moment of brief, horrible understanding, and lack of time in which to share the pain.

Shouts rang out from the Cell to their right, breaking the shock of the moment. Returning to the task at hand, the group readied their weapons, their shadows reaching out to meet the spindly lines cast by the creature scuttling towards them.

“Remember,” Bridget managed to get out before Gail and Tuck took off.

“Don’t cut the sack!” They chorused back.

The ground under her feet shuddered like a live creature, and the hole behind her widened a bit more. Green, crackling explosions lit the sky to Bridget’s right, and she caught sight of a cluster of students, led by Maistwel’s bobbling cap, slowly driving one of the creatures into the enormous opening in the ground.

Such a simple plan.

“Watch out for Gail!” Asher cried next to her.

Bridget’s head snapped around, and moments later, the twenty-plus pieces of her relic had formed a shield between Gail and the beast’s limb.

“Can’t you cast a shield spell Briddy?” Asher inquired, moments after forming a timely barrier around Tuck.

“Never learned.” She gritted her teeth, shifting the pieces to block another attack.

“Want to?”

Bridget would’ve swatted him–she saw him grinning out of the corner of her eye–but then Tuck manage to get the crux of his pickaxe hooked around two of the creature’s limbs, and yanked them to the side. He dropped to one knee, driving the other end of the weapon deep into the ground. With two steps, Gail was on his back, launching off his shoulders with a one-legged leap, over-sized gauntlets swinging down in an overhead strike.

“Our turn!” Asher urged, digging in his bag. “I’m right behind you…”

Vexela’s golden pieces swung in a keenly edged, wide circle in the air around Bridget’s left hand. “Doctor Gektu said–”

“Just two seconds.” He promised, tucking his newly summoned axe underneath his arm awkwardly.

Gail landed, gauntlets bouncing off of jet-dark limbs in a rain of bouncing blows and alien ringing. Black legs darted in to protect the sensitive center like the bones of a ribcage. One was knocked to the side by a mighty backhanded swipe, and just before it could dart back in; something caught it at the tip, the joint and the point where it met the sac. Golden scales, folding like fabric to wrap around the leg and push.

Running as fast as she could, Bridget directed more bits of Vexela to catch the limbs that assaulted Gail. Together, they peeled back one leg, and then the next. To their left, a screeching crash sounded as the second invader was battered into the ground, darkness flooding in after. It seemed like there was almost a chance that if they could just get theirs off balance–

Almost, that is.

Before the last of the legs could be removed, a phial went flying over the attacker’s heads.

Glass shattered as Asher's missile struck home. Silvery, shimmering fluid spattered over the diamond face.

Deep in Briddy's palm, the shuddering rhythm that she had come to associate with Vexela’s control took on an erratic, frantic pace. Some golden scales that were currently melded against a jointed scythe-leg began to ever so slowly peel up, and away. Suddenly breaking loose of their hold, the limb sliced toward the exposed skin between Gail’s Shroud and her shirt.

A thick column of pitch black shot up from their feet, knocking the leg away.

“Back on course, students.” Doctor Gektu reprimanded.

Liberated from danger, Gail pivoted, gauntleted fists flying up.

Bridget’s eye's widened. There were still two legs bent in between Gail and the sac. Was she just planning to plough through them with her freshly healed body?

Her wrist flicked, pulling as hard as she could on the golden scales that floated away toward the monstrosities' spattered head. Following the minute directions with shivering reluctance, a group of plates caught quick a drilling tip, closing around it like a bud blooming in reverse.

Pulling her hand down, she smacked one leg into the other, knocking the scalpel-edged limb from Gail's path seconds before her green-armoured knuckles filled the space.

Slam–whump. The sac caved like a pillow; albeit a convulsing, wriggling one.

Teetering back, the legs still skittering on the ground wavered and sought purchase in the grass.

“Now!”

Bridget pushed her will into Vexela’s bits, forcing the pieces to strain against the limbs they held back. Gail shoved, Tuck heaved, and the diamond-headed monstrosity staggered a few steps toward the hole.

“Only a little more.” Briddy gasped, sweat beading on her brow. Where was Asher? The effort this was taking caused her to brace one arm with the other. Violent waves of reverberating force kept shuddering back through her left hand, threatening to pull it up, or away. She gritted her teeth as the three of them shoved again, fighting to bring the beast to the precipice.

Just as she was about to call out his name, dark curls appeared in her periphery. Asher’s arms were cocked behind his head, his fingers had already partway loosed the axe before Bridget’s head could finish turning.

Whup, whup, whip. Gleaming head swinging over the long handle, Asher’s relic spun into a silver disc, curving upward in an unusual arc.

“What are you–?” Bridget cried, but he waved a hand in assurance.

“It’s fine, I made a target. The amalgam is magnetic.”

Her voice going flat, Briddy’s eyes snapped over to his. “It’s wha-”

Right then the spinning axe struck the flat, featureless face of their opponent, sticking fast as though attached by glue. It jerked back from the force, straining first toward the hole behind it, then toward Tuck, whose hands slipped over his quivering pick. Finally, it bent toward the limbs Briddy restrained. Shining pieces peeled away against her will, shuddering in some wavering, ephemeral wind before they too, stuck to the spattered bits of silvered paste, one after the other.

Vexela? Bridget pulled and clawed with her hand, but the pieces remained stuck fast. “Dammit, Asher!”

“I told you I’m no use!”

A dark limb, with triangular facets shuddering across the surface, flexed its tip now that it was free from golden bonds, and then stabbed down into the earth.

Dropping her summoning, Briddy watched each of the glinting pieces wink out of existence, each point more achingly slow than the last. Chiming in an exhaled rush of sound and metal, the Strange monstrosity shifted its balance onto its newly dug-in braces. Racing forward, the other legs surged toward a path to freedom, which led directly through Gail.

Vexela, hurry!

“No!” Tuck roared, surging in from the side. Abandoning his pick, he grappled the two legs in his big arms and yanked back. His bulk shifted the balance between stability and void, and the two went toppling into the hole together.

“Tuck!”Bridget screamed, flinging out a hand that was still partially covered in shimmering mist. Two golden pieces went soaring into the darkness as she sprinted towards the edge. Then she was following, into the shadow and air.

Her surroundings became a blur of brown, and then there was a flash of Tuck, pinned to wall the by two golden scales that dug into his shirt. She managed to snatch a fistful of it as she fell past, toward the sounds of screams and the waiting creature below–

“Briddy!” Asher's embrace closed around her waist, cutting off her air. The three of them hung there for a second, in some odd human rope. Asher hung over the edge of the hole, clutching Bridget, who gripped Tuck by his shirt, which was…starting to rip. With a loud tear, Tuck’s top wrenched away from Vexela’s metal, seconds pulling him, and all three of them down into the fray until–

“RIVER'S RUSH! “ A hard sudden yank reversed their trajectory, dirt and exposed archways were replaced by a blur of green and the flicker of reaching flames. Seconds later, Bridget and the boys hit the ground in a pile.

Panting and red-cheeked, they laid on their backs, listening to the skittering scrabbles and high whistles faintly audible from under the ground. The field around them was clear, except for the crackle of arcane flames and crunching footfalls of the other fighters, flattening the grass. As long as their night had been, it ended even quicker.

“We did it.” Bridget breathed.

Together. Vexela agreed.

"You all do realise that I'm the only reason- " Gail began.

"And the only reason you're standing is Doctor Gektu and ‘the cheese potion’." Asher cut her off. "So hush."

Tuck lifted his head. "Cheese potion?"

Amidst the chuckling that rippled across the Cell, Bridget raised her hand. The merest memory of a pulsing tingle danced in the palm, but the tan-flush flesh was otherwise as it had been when she woke that morning. Even if nothing had outwardly changed, inside, Briddy felt raw and frayed. As though she needed assurance that the night's passage was no nightmarish fugue, an indecipherable mimicry of Bridget’s voice silently joined in the laughter, blending into those around her.