We entered a valley next, slowing as we went. The enemy wasn’t in sight although the clouds overhead were swirling. My heart thudded. Irla and Aerona led, keeping watch, while Yenifer and Ebrill fanned out at my sides. The others were behind us. Our only injuries so far seemed to be on the soldier who had saved me, who I had since heard Gertrude refer to as Riland, and Aerona seemed to walk with a bit of a limp although it didn’t slow her down.

“Don’t let your guard down,” Gertrude said, moving behind me with cautious steps. The shadows danced across her smooth skin, light catching her armor in occasional flashes. She wasn’t the woman I knew from my time, that was for sure. I had to wonder what had changed between this time and then.

“I’ve cast a cloaking spell over us,” Ebrill explained. “It’ll take them some time to locate us but it won’t keep them off our trail for long.”

Working our way down the gravelly hillside, we passed an area where gnarled trees grew out of the hillside at an angle, likely from strong winds that were giving us a break at the moment. It reminded me of a beach we had visited on the way to my grandparents’ house when I was younger. Skipping along, playing with my cousin Sarah, my dad singing “The Sky Boat Song.” That had been a much simpler time. But, looking around at this team, at what I was part of, I wouldn’t trade it for all the peace and simplicity in the world.

“Tell me your story,” Riland said, walking closer now, his posture more relaxed now that he knew we were cloaked.

“Not much to it,” I said. “Until very recently, I didn’t even know that magic existed.”

“One of them,” Ebrill said with a chuckle.

“Excuse me?”

“No offense meant.” She gestured out to the mountains far in the distance. “Past those peaks, there’s a land of men who don’t believe. But… I take it you’re not from there, exactly.”

“My land… Isn’t discovered by our type, yet.”

That earned a confused look from Riland, but he gave a grunt. “You learn fast. That’s good. Stick close to this one,” he gave Ebrill a nod, “and you’ll be safe. Healing, defenses, you name it. Then there’s Yenifer—one of the best warriors alive. I say one of the best, only because she and I haven’t gone toe-to-toe yet.”

Yenifer heard this and scoffed. “Riland, you get your sword anywhere near me, I’m yanking it off for a trophy.”

“Not what I meant,” the man said, but chuckled. He gave me a wink, which I took to mean he wouldn’t mind getting his ‘sword’ near her.

“And Rianne?” I asked.

“She can take care of herself,” Ebrill replied, but glanced back the way we had come, unable to hide the worry in her eyes.

We reached the bottom of the valley and turned left, moving along where foliage above hid us from prying eyes.

“Rianne has been fighting the good fight since before many of us were born,” Yenifer explained, eyes roaming the areas above for trouble. “The day she’s gone from this world is the day I’ll truly worry for my safety. Until then, not a concern.”

“Is that why you fight so ferociously?” I asked. “Not worried about taking a killing blow?”

Yenifer chuckled. “I fight like I do because it’s what I love. What I know. It’s not the only thing I put my all into.”

This time it was her turn to wink, and I couldn’t help but notice the jealousy with which Riland eyed me after she had turned back. No time to dive into it, though, because we came to a ledge that led down to an area of red stones that bottomed out and then peaked again. Here, the clouds moved in, hovering just under the edge of the hills and giving the area an atmosphere of peaceful calm.

“The heart,” Aerona said, sharing a look of excitement with Gertrude. “This is it.”

“On me,” Gertrude called out, leading the way.

With each step closer, the area in the center became clearer, until we were close enough to see that there were rings in the stone around the heart.

Gertrude was the first to enter the ring, but immediately her feet sank into the stone. The two men rushed forward to pull her free, and now all three of them were sinking fast. I held my hands out to keep the rest back, not sure what to do.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“It’s a curse!” Ebrill shouted, hands thrust out and glowing green as she apparently tried to counter it. “My power’s not enough.”

“They knew this would be our only move,”

“We did,” a voice said from behind, and we spun to see Fatiha standing there. Not the Fatiha from my time, but one with tendrils of shadow magic streaming from her like a long dress as she floated above her army. It was the same woman, but somehow way more powerful. “None of you will ever leave this spot.”

A mage at her side thrust out his staff and rings of red rose from the ground, hitting the two men and Gertrude. All three were consumed by the rocky ground, becoming one with it, merging until they were gone and in their place the rocks jutted out, sharp.

I shouted, enraged and confused. Gertrude was supposed to live, to be there when I showed up at the house. She was supposed to help me figure out how to use the Liahona, to save everyone.

Now she was gone and it was up to me.

“If I can just…” Ebrill charged forward, pushing against an invisible force, hands stopping the curse from taking her, and from letting the ground absorb us as it had the others. As it had my aunt.

“Maybe I can help,” I said and accessed my transmutation power, attempting to transform the curse, to use it to our advantage. Indeed, it transformed, but even as it did I realized the irony in the situation. Instead of killing us, the curse was transforming us. Or rather, them. I pulled out the Liahona, gusts of wind and debris flowing around me as the curse hit the others. Ebrill was still pushing forward but her fingers were growing claws, and horns emerged from her head.

A thought made my gut clench—I was the one who turned them into this!

But we were through, charging past the now-visible rings carved into the stone. We had made it past their barrier and overcome the mage’s spell—at the cost that those remaining looked like demons with their horns and tails, and skin in purple and blue. One piece of the puzzle didn’t make sense, though, or didn’t until I heard the words Fatiha spoke next.

“You can’t keep my magic from working,” Fatiha shouted after me. “My magic is strong, and with the last of it my curse will see them changed to stone. Wait and see!”

How little did she know, while I was well aware of what would happen next. They would be stone, all right, until I managed to wake them far in the future. Even then, they would be stone each day, only flesh at night.

It was the price they paid to get me here, so I made the most of it.

“I’ll find you,” I shouted to Ebrill. To all of them, really. “Trust me. I’ll find you and wake you.”

The last of them turned back on the enemy, now in full gargoyle mode as they fought to keep me safe. Like the eye of a storm, the winds and debris continued to blow all around me, pushing even Fatiha and her army back. They dared not enter the nearby area, now that they had seen what happened to my team. Or was it something else? I took a step forward, moving for the center of what appeared to be a room carved out of stone with openings on one side and water visible far below.

Only, it wasn’t so far below, I realized. It had been but was now rising fast.

Waves crashed up against the side of the mountain and sent water spraying past the caves and the openings. Some of it flowed in, so that my knees were wet as I knelt and began to chant. I wasn’t sure what, exactly, as I touched upon my transfiguration power and let it flow. It felt like I was speaking in tongues as the words emerged and created a spell of their own accord.

In a flash, the water rose around me, the land folding, spinning, and expanding, and then a burst of magic shot out from the Liahona. A doorway opened and it all froze. Light hovered in the air and the water stopped mid-flow. Only I was moving. A glance around showed that the ladies, poised in their defensive positions and ready for anything, had completed their transformation to stone.

If not for my knowledge from my timeline where I had first met Ebrill and Kordelia in the exact poses I saw them in at that moment, this would have been even more shocking.

It wasn’t only me moving, I realized. Somehow, Fatiha was pushing forward, moving through the magic of the curse. She was growing in form but in a way that made her seem like shadows and blurred light. My first instinct was to attempt stuns and other spells, but nothing worked. They all fizzled away as soon as the spells hit the magical wind. I tried using my transmutation magic as I had before, but all it did was vibrate through me in a way that let me know what sort of power I was dealing with here.

She was strong, and I was fucked.

Unless… My eyes went to the Liahona in my hands. It was opening this portal, supposedly doing something that would cause the magic of the world to change. If I could redirect some of its power at her, maybe… As I thought it, with my transmutation well already open for access, a blue beam shot out at Fatiha.

Her eyes went wide. The light and shadows faded, flowing through the light and back at me and into the Liahona, until she collapsed just outside the circle of my stone friends.

“No…” she muttered, and then slouched in defeat.

My power told me one thing about her at that moment—she was no longer a threat. I had stolen her magic, and now it was time for me to finish the mission. I went for the doorway that shone like an opening of light, floating there and calling me to it.

As I paused in front of it, the waves crashed again and this time rose, flowing all around me and the portal, surrounding us and carrying Fatiha and the others away. My magic told me that there had been a major shift. I closed my eyes to reach out and feel my surroundings. It was true—the armies of darkness were gone, mostly defeated. Others pulled back and retreated into the shadows and underground even as waves rode over the land, submerging much of it in magical water.

Avalon was no more, although it didn’t seem to have ceased to exist. It was simply not there anymore, not where it had been. It was as if the water had taken all of Avalon to another place. Maybe that would make sense to me in time, but for now, I only knew that I needed to keep my end of the promise.

I clutched the Liahona to my chest with both hands and stepped into the portal.