If I had a silver for every fight with her that ended with me trekking through the snow, Alice thought to herself. She stared up at the treetops, breathing in the cool mountain air. After taking a moment to calm down, she began her short trek back to the cabin. She definitely needed to ask Mattias how he even found this place. What alarmed her was how calm she felt. Everything was still. She didn’t even know what emotions she was feeling, but they weren’t the despair or fear that she’d come to expect. When reading about the world, she’d come across accounts of something called a tsunami. Water was drawn out like a low tide, only for a colossal wave to obliterate the coastline. That’s what this felt like. A calm before the storm felt too commonplace, its meaning chipped away at over the millions of times she’d heard it. Tsunami fit better, in her mind. It reminded her that everything was about to come crashing down.
The cabin came into view as she passed through the trees. None of the expected sense of urgency overtook her. It would have been easy to use the dagger to teleport the rest of the way, but something in the back of her mind stopped her from doing so. She couldn’t even say it was fear. She wished she could say it was fear. It wasn’t fear that bade her listen to the sound of snow underneath her boots for those last few steps before she found herself at the entrance to the cabin.
She hesitated before knocking on the door, her hand resting in the air in front of her. She could leave. It would be so easy to just turn around, walk away. Avoid all of this, pretend it never happened. Her hand lingered.
Pretend the best thing that ever happened to me never existed.
Her entire body tensed. She knocked on the door.
A moment passed before she could hear footsteps behind the door. They were light. It creaked as Mattias opened it. He opened it fully as he realized it was her.
“They sent the kid to open the door?” she muttered.
“They sent the kid who can teleport to open the door.”
She rolled her eyes, stepping into the warm hut. “Touche.”
“Do um, do you mind if I ask where you went?” he asked quietly, closing the door. The two of them stood in the entryway, both leaning against opposite walls.
Alice glanced into the living area. The only sign that anyone else was there was the crackling fire and Natalia’s wings visible around the corner. “Needed to cool my head. Snow probably helps with that.”
“...Was that a pun?”
“Does it matter if it was?”
“It just didn’t seem like you.”
“Oh? What do you expect from me then?”
“Not sure. I knew about the quips, but I always thought you’d be more… brooding, I guess?”
She flicked a few strands of hair out of her face. “Was that the impression I gave?”
“Alice, the first time I met you you were trying to kill a court mage.”
“So were you.”
“Touche.”
“You’re remarkably chill about that.”
“Do you expect me to be torn up about the man who got off on killing poor people potentially biting the dust?”
Alice was quiet for a moment, staring down at her boots. “It’s not about you being torn up though, is it?”
“It isn’t for you, either.”
She gave a wry smile. “Touche.”
Another silence passed between the two. Mattias dematerialized and rematerialized, this time sitting next to her against the wall.
“You’ve gotten braver, kid.”
“You haven’t.”
Alice winced. “Man, I'd love to say you’re wrong.”
“But you can’t?”
“Pretty much.”
She slid down the wall, sitting next to him. She brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and leaning her head down. That night was always going to be one that stuck with her. It was a normal contract. Some woman showed up at Keaton’s, wanting a contract. A mage up at the castle kidnapped her husband, leaving nothing but a bloodstain. It was far from recent. Alice shuddered at the memory. The woman sold her body to pay for the contract. Alice took the job.
When it finally came time to kill the bastard, she was surprised to find him monologuing of all things. She had no idea how someone so insane had managed to find himself as a court mage, but that was another entry on the list of reasons she hated the crown. The man was preparing to kill a small elven boy, berating him for trying to stop his schemes. To call slipping out of the shadows to slit his throat child’s play was an insult to children.
“Hey, Mattias?”
“You’re not calling me ‘kid?’”
“I don’t use nicknames when it’s something I should probably take seriously.”
“I guess that makes sense. What’s up?”
“Why are you so… okay with me? Don’t you want someone better for your sister?”
He blinked, staring at her. “I always thought these kinds of conversations happened with younger siblings. Or kids. Like, ‘what are your intentions with my daughter,’ you know?”
She glared at him. “I can’t tell if you’re taunting me or not.”
Mattias shrugged. “Maybe a little.”
“Gods,” she rolled her eyes. “You gonna answer the question?”
“I mean, I guess it’s because I think you two need each other.”
She tilted her head. “The hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve heard her talk about you. I’ve heard you talk about her. You two do things for each other beyond her giving you food and you plowing her into the mattress.”
“Okay it feels weird hearing her younger brother say it like that–”
“Yeah and you’ve been dropping the ball like a damn anchor from what I’ve heard so deal with it.”
Another wince. Not like she could argue.
“If you want an actual answer though… It’s because you know how to wait. You know how to pause and think something through instead of just dealing with what’s in front of you. Ingrid has spent so long making decisions off the seat of her pants that she doesn’t know how to look beyond a few weeks. Maybe months if she’s really putting herself out there.”
“Waiting is what got me in this mess in the first place.”
“Too much of a good thing can always turn sour. I thought you were good for each other. I might’ve been wrong.”
Silence.
“You really don’t pull punches, huh,” she choked.
“Should I?”
She shook her head. At this point, she deserved it.
“Where is she right now?”
“With Malori. She fell asleep.”
She buried her face in her crossed arms.
“I fucked up, Mattias.”
“Obviously.”
“I fucked up and I don’t know if there’s anything I can even do about it,” she leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes. “Damn it. It’s happenin’ again and it’s my own damn fault.”
The fear was starting to make itself known. The wave on the horizon, approaching far too fast. Ingrid was going to ask the next time she saw her. To say the time for lies and hiding was over was an understatement. It had already gone on for far too long. It dawned on her that she might not have nearly as much time as she thought she did.
The door to the bedroom opened.
Are you lonely too?
Ingrid startled awake. The motion made her wince in pain, which was painful in and of itself. She let herself slump forward onto the bed. She’d had neck cramps before, but none as bad as this. The downsides of having someone use it to support her entire body weight. It probably would have been worse if not for the magically light armor. Rubbing sleep and dried tears from her eyes, she heard traces of conversation through the door. Her heart lurched. Alice would likely be back by now. Already she could feel irritation building in her stomach. She gripped the covers, trying to calm herself. Alice wouldn’t walk away this time. Ingrid wasn’t going to let her.
She sat up, trying and failing to massage the aches and pains from her neck. Rising from the chair, she turned to exit the room.
She stopped.
Her head turned back to look at the bed.
Malori wasn’t in it.
She blinked, rubbing her eyes again like it would change something. The prone form of the esper didn’t suddenly appear in the bed. Ingrid gulped, rushing to the door and throwing it open.
“-it matter?”
Ingrid only heard the end of the sentence. The living room was tense. Natalia leaned against the wall, a few more of her wounds fully healed. Sitting beneath one of her lower wings was a very concerned looking Mattias, his eyes meeting Ingrid’s as silence overtook the room. Standing in the kitchen near the entryway was Alice, hand on her hip, and looking at the most defeated, depressed looking Malori Ingrid had ever seen.
When the poison was taking hold, the esper had looked horrified, overcome by despair. Right now she just looked… tired. There were bags under her eyes like she hadn’t slept in a week, and her face was still lined with traces of black veins.
Alice turned to Ingrid in surprise, then looked back at Malori.
“Why wouldn’t it? Shortie, you just–”
“Don’t.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t do that,” the esper’s voice was quiet and hoarse. The screaming from earlier was catching up with her. “Don’t use a nickname. I never liked it.”
Alice frowned. Ingrid was taken aback by the bluntness. She stepped forward.
“Malori, how are you awake?”
The esper sighed. “Again, does it matter?”
“Of course it matters! Malori, I thought you were going to di–”
“I was supposed to.”
Ingrid faltered as she closed her mouth. Malori wasn’t looking at her so much as her general direction. Her eyes were unfocused and uncaring. It was like talking to a corpse. A lump formed in her throat.
“If… that’s the case, then I don’t care how. I’m glad you’re okay,” she said quietly. She stepped forward to give the girl a hug, but she flinched away. The first real emotion on the esper’s face was a grimace.
“I’m not though.”
Ingrid frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m not okay,” Malori said, her voice shaky. She still didn’t meet Ingrid’s gaze. “I don’t know if I ever have been, but right now? I’m not. I just–”
Her voice hitched.
“Breathe, Malori. Everything is going to be okay.”
“No, no it isn’t!” she growled. “What part of this aren’t you getting?”
“I just want to help-”
“Of course you want to help! You want to help after everything is already gone!” Malori spat, “You never cared when you actually could have helped. Guess what. The time has passed.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Once more Ingrid found her heart in a vice grip. She did care. She did want to help. Malori was right though. There was no changing what happened.
“Colette was in love with me.”
All eyes were on Malori.
Ingrid blinked. There wasn’t a trace of doubt or dishonesty on the esper’s face, but she still couldn’t wrap her head around it. Why would Colette fall for a fugitive? Were they lovers? Her mind swam through the questions in her head, unable to answer even a single one before Alice spoke up.
“Malori, no she wasn’t. She was trying to get into your head, figure you out. Maybe she was suspicious, thought you could use magic or something,” the dark elf sounded like she was attempting to comfort her. The look of anger on Malori’s face said she failed.
“Alice, it must get really miserable assuming everyone is as terrible of a person as you are.”
Ingrid looked at the esper in shock. Her lover looked like she’d just been punched in the chest. She floundered briefly, clearly at a loss for what to say.
“It’s hypocritical of me to say, because I thought so too,” she said with a wry chuckle. “I thought she was trying to get close to me for some sort of scheme that I couldn’t wrap my head around. I kept my walls up. But things kept happening. We kept talking, and she kept caring. She didn’t give a damn whether or not I was open with her. She didn’t care that I could use magic, she didn’t care that I was Cordelian. For the first time, someone actually cared about me.”
“...She knew you were Cordelian?” Natalia joined the conversation, “Did she not tell the King?”
Malori shook her head. “Like I said, she didn’t care. Right up until the very end, she was only worried about me,” her voice trailed off, fingers brushing against her lips. “Espers can open their minds to others, share emotions directly. They aren’t something that can be faked. It wasn’t a lie. Not something like that.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Each statement left Ingrid reeling. If Colette knew that Malori was Cordelian, didn’t that mean she knew about the rest of them? Yet nothing changed in their interactions. Was it a ploy? Trying not to let on that she knew until they finished their objective? Or did she really not care? It would have been horribly negligent for an Archmage, treasonous, even. Yet she couldn’t help but admit it as the truth.
“Did you love her?” Ingrid asked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alice give her a surprised look. It was the first thing asked that made Malori look like she was actually considering it. It only made her look that much more miserable.
“I… don’t know,” she finally met Ingrid’s eyes. The pain was evident behind them. “I don’t know if I loved her. I cared for her. She was the first real friend I had. I don’t know, but I could have found out. I could have explored those feelings with her, parsed through them to see if they bore fruit. I can’t do that anymore. You… It was all I’d ever wanted or asked for, and the four of you took it away before I even realized it was there.”
Ingrid felt sick to her stomach. “I don’t understand, why didn’t you try to heal her? Were her wounds that dire?”
Malori shook her head. “It didn’t work.”
“What do you mean it didn’t work?” Alice muttered.
“I tried. I did everything I could. Something stopped it. I don’t know what it was. I don’t care anymore. Knowing isn’t going to bring her back. Nothing is.”
Ingrid didn’t have a response. Something stopped her healing? Was it something Berith had done? No, it couldn’t have been. The wounds he gave Kallen had healed just fine. Even if he wanted them to be responsible for Colette’s death, it didn’t make sense to not use something like that on all of them.
“Hey, where the hell are you going?” Alice said, snapping Ingrid from her thoughts. Malori was at the door, her back turned to the group.
“Somewhere that isn’t here.”
“Malori, we need to get back to Cordelia! The King is looking for us, who knows what–” Ingrid was cut off before she could finish.
“I’m not going. Not back there.”
Alice furrowed her brow. “Look, I get that you’re torn up. That’s fair, I would be too. This is asinine though. You’re gonna get killed.”
“Let her go.”
All eyes turned to Kallen. Even after Ingrid’s healing, the human still looked like a bloody, beat up mess. There was still a lot more work to do to heal her. They might have ended up back in Cordelia before she finished tending to every wound on her.
“We’re not gonna change her mind. Is this really something we want to fight over?”
Malori tensed, her hands clenched into fists as she stared at the ground. She didn’t say anything.
Ingrid’s gaze fell. She leaned against the wall, wincing at the pain in her neck. Kallen was right. If Malori left, she didn’t know what would come to her. Maybe she’d die in the wilderness. Maybe she’d be discovered and brought before the king again. She could see the pain in the esper’s eyes. Whatever fate awaited her, it was less painful than staying with the group. Closing her eyes, she nodded. She didn’t want to see the girl she’d failed march to her death. Not after seeing her die once. Soft footsteps got further away, until she heard the creaking of the door as it opened and shut.
When she opened her eyes, Malori was gone. She bit her lip so hard she thought she’d draw blood. She slammed her fist against the wall before burying her face in her hands.
“Ingrid, it’s okay–”
“Would you stop?” she snapped at Alice as the dark elf tried to comfort her.
Alice frowned, looking irritated. “I know I’m gonna get shit for agreeing with Kallen again, but she’s right. Malori made up her mind. Sure as hell wasn’t gonna be something we could change.”
“That was us, Alice. We did that.”
“What?”
“I mean that this is our fault! All of us!” Ingrid cried, sweeping a hand around the room. “We were the ones to treat her like garbage! She just wanted to be our friend and we spat on that! The one person who actually tried to care for her from the beginning? Her death is on us! We fell right into Berith’s hands, ignored everything about those two, and then we killed her. We might as well have killed Malori too.”
“No, Berith did that,” Alice insisted.
“She survived, Alice. I don’t know how, but she did. Maybe you could have said that before. It would have been true. You saw the same look in her eye that I did. She would rather die than come back with us. That is our fault. The only one here who doesn’t have a hand in it is Mattias.”
“That’s not true,” the boy murmured, his knees against his chest. “The only reason we could even get there was because of me. I brought you there. Berith… Berith used me to do it. Oh gods what have I done?”
Ingrid hurried to her brother’s side, falling to her knees as he clutched his head. “Mattias, don’t say that! You had no way of knowing he was–”
“Ingrid, I started this entire thing! My incomprehensibly stupid decision to go to Reach! That kickstarted all of this! If fingers are going to be pointed, then they deserve to be pointed at me!”
“That isn’t fair, Mattias! There were so many places along the way where we–”
“Would all of you shut up?” Natalia snapped, her booming voice silencing the room. “Gods, you sound like overly passionate children. Last I checked, only one person in this room matched that.”
Mattias shrunk under her gaze.
The illian crossed her arms, taking a deep breath. “Kallen, let me see your glaive.”
Kallen looked at her, confused, but passed her the weapon. Natalia nodded in thanks. She hefted the blade. Examining it for a moment, she held it to her palm. With a swift pull, she cut her hand.
“Alice, your knife.”
“All yours,” she frowned, tossing it over.
Natalia snatched it out of the air, repeating the same motion she had with the glaive. She frowned down at her hand, tossing the blade back to Alice. “There’s a reason Malori didn’t heal Colette. She tried.”
She displayed her hand to the room. Scored across her palm were two gashes. One looked exactly like her other wounds; filled with a golden radiance, skin already knitting itself back together. Just below that was another. Crimson blood flowed from the wound, dripping towards the floor.
“Kallen, I’d recommend trying to find out what that glaive actually is. There’s no telling what else lies dorman–”
“How the fuck did you not know about that?” Alice hissed, “A weapon that prevents healing magic? Who gave you tha–”
She was cut off as Natalia loomed over her. “I believe I’ve made my thoughts about interrupting me clear, Alice,” she growled. Alice glared at her, opening her mouth to respond before hesitating. She slumped back against the wall, grumbling something under her breath. The illian crossed her arms, sighing. “Trying to shove the blame solves nothing. Ingrid had it right the first time. We screwed this up. Everyone had their own part to play. No amount of blame or self loathing is going to make Malori walk back through that door, nor will it bring Colette back.”
Ingrid bit her lip. “What do you propose we do then?”
“About that situation? Nothing.”
“That’s not right! There has to be something!”
Natalia’s wings twitched in annoyance. “And what might that be? The time passed, Ingrid. There were plenty of chances to stop it from getting to this point. We took none of them.”
“I don’t get it,” Ingrid murmured, “How can you be so cold about this.”
“Is that what this is to you?” her wings drifted apart, spreading out like a predator. “I don’t like admitting it any more than you do, but it’s true. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, Ingrid. You can spend years thinking about all the ways you could have prevented it, but none of them will ever happen. All it will do is drive you insane. So yes, we drop it, we recover, we move forward, and we try to make sure we don’t make the same mistake again.”
Ingrid’s shoulders sagged. She ran her hands down her face, sinking to the floor. Tired didn’t even begin to cover it. This was a fatigue that she doubted would be fixed by sleep. She wanted sleep, but she didn’t want to wake up for the next week. The idea sounded divine. Just a break from the stress and anxiety that had built over the past few weeks.
“I can’t keep doing this…” she muttered under her breath.
“Um, hey, Ingrid?”
She opened her eyes, her gaze being met by an awkwardly shifting Alice. The dark elf sat down next to her, seemingly being extra careful not to touch her. Ingrid frowned, even if she appreciated it. The idea of physical contact made her want to scream.
“Berith… He didn’t get to say the full story. About me, I mean. I–” she stopped herself, her lips pursed as she mulled over her words. “You should know. You deserve to know. I… fuck this sounds like a copout. I wanted to tell you now. Not like now now but like the next time I got the chance, but that was before Malori came back from the friggin’ dead and I just–”
She slumped back against the wall.
“We’re going back to Cordelia, right? That’s when. Once we’re back, I’ll give you the rundown. Full story, no more lies, no more smoke and mirrors,” she glanced down at her dagger. “Including the magic. Especially the magic, I guess.”
Ingrid was too tired to give a proper response. She simply nodded, letting her eyes drift shut. A bridge that could be crossed later. The fact that she didn’t mind Alice waiting a little longer surprised her. She thought she would have been furious at the woman putting it off yet again, but she didn’t think she could take another emotional revelation or emotional deconstruction. Learning that Kallen had such a terrifying weapon with her the entire time? She was barely holding herself together as things stood. Her head rolled to the side to look at Mattias. She didn’t need to say anything for him to understand the question.
“It’s still more people, but we’re going into a place I know well. I’d say six or seven jumps before we’re back in Baile Cothrom,” he explained. He quickly froze, looking around. “Um, that’s if everyone does want to come. It’s not necessary.”
The other four exchanged hesitant glances. It made Ingrid feel small. Everything was dawning on her all at once. She’d found Mattias. They were about to go back to Cordelia. They’d accomplished what they set out to do, even if it came at a cost. Natalia had made it clear that she was only there out of convenience at first, and duress soon after. Would she want to stay with them? What would they even do? If they wanted to, they could wash their hands of the entire matter. Leave someone else to deal with Berith and Moloch and Lilith and whoever else was involved. They could be done.
“I’ll come,” Kallen said softly.
Ingrid looked at her, unable to hide a bit of surprise. She was certain that Kallen would leave as soon as things were over, once again following her wanderlust. Alice wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding her disappointment.
“Are you sure? You don’t have to. You said you’d be here until we found my brother, right?”
She considered it. “I did say that, but things kind of changed. There’s more to this, right? And you don’t really seem like the type to walk away.”
The lump in Ingrid’s throat returned. The temptation to walk away was indescribable. The past couple of months had been the most terrifying, stressful, and dangerous of her life. Walking away, finishing her training, living a comfortable life with Mattias sounded like the heavens themselves.
But she looked at her brother, anxiety and fear on his face. She thought about Berith’s smug, terrifying grin. Of Colette’s limp body. Of Malori, trudging off into the snow, potentially even to her death, and the fact that she preferred it to spending another moment with any of them. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.
“I’m not walking away. I won’t. To keep pushing ourselves is foolhardy and reckless. We need rest. Actual rest, not the poor substitute after the first encounter with Berith.”
A smile spread across Kallen’s face. She rolled over on the couch, resting her chin on her hands. “I’m not opposed. Besides, Berith beat me twice now. If there’s a third time, I’m not letting that happen.”
“You sound awfully determined,” Natalia muttered, “Are you that eager to see him again?”
“Not eager, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a bit of anticipation. He’s the first person I’ve really lost to. I kind of want to change that.”
Natalia sighed. “I suppose I can’t argue with that. I’ll follow you back to that gods-forsaken country and decide my next move there. The situation has changed, now that I know where Lilith is. Other aspects of it have not.”
Ingrid breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t mention the fact that she intended to report everything that had happened almost immediately to Labhras. The illian’s disdain for him and the king was not what she needed to deal with at the moment. Her heart sank. Labhras was going to be furious with her. Beyond furious, even. She took another breath. Panicking about it wouldn’t change anything. She could face whatever was coming once they were safe and sound in Cordelia. She turned to Alice.
The dark elf was biting her lip, staring at the ground just in front of where she sat cross legged. One leg bounced anxiously.
“I’m going,” she said quickly, leaning her head back. “I’m not letting myself back out of telling you everything. I work there anyway. Gonna have to go back sooner or later, right?”
She wasn’t doing a very good job at masking her fear.
Ingrid turned to Mattias. “Just let us know when you’re ready to leave, okay?” she said softly.
The boy nodded. “Yeah. Alright.”
He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even further. It was the most stressed Ingrid had ever seen him. Supporting herself on the wall, she tried to stand up, only for a jolt of pain in her neck to send her back down. As if reminding her, her brother vanished, only to appear directly next to her.
“Next time, I come to you. Alright?”
She smiled, nodding. “Let’s try and avoid a next time? I like having my brother around. Please don’t scare me like this again.”
“I’ll… do my best. I think there’s going to be a lot of mutual scaring coming up, if we’re being honest with ourselves.”
Ingrid didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to admit that he was right. As terrifying as everything here had been, some sinking feeling in her stomach told her that things were only going to get worse. She wrapped her arms around Mattias, hugging him close. He hugged her back.
“We’ll do our best,” she muttered. Her eyes drifted shut, hoping to focus on something other than the impending consequences of their actions. It made her miss Cordelia. She missed being able to close her eyes and be greeted with the presence of countless living things, each linked to her and to each other. In the wintery forest they’d found themselves in, there was precious little. A morbid curiosity crossed her mind. She extended her reach as far as she could, putting a focus on any larger creatures. She didn’t know what she expected. Not a trace of Malori. The girl had vanished into the snow. The only people around were in the cabin with her. Mattias, Alice, Kallen, and–
Ingrid blinked. She scanned the room again. It was the same.
She shifted her position, letting go of Mattias as she tried to focus harder. Maybe she’d been doing something wrong, the injuries of the fight affecting them in ways they hadn’t foreseen.
“Ingrid? You good?” Alice asked, giving her a concerned look.
“I–That can’t be right. I felt it. I–” she stopped, turning to Natalia.
The illian gave her a confused look. “Can I help you?”
Ingrid looked her over. “Natalia,” she said, “You aren’t alive.”