CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO—RUNIC STONES

Watching Debaku and this stranger do battle in the void…

It was like nothing Shiro had ever seen. Was it because they were in the void that they had such power, or was Shiro truly so weak and inconsequential?

Staying far enough away that their magic attacks didn’t affect him, but still close enough that he could see their tiny figures dancing in the darkness with tails of flame, Shiro waited.

If Debaku was killed, Shiro would be next, surely.

With his hands on their chests, Ali studied the rhythm of their heart beats. His alarm was such that his own heart was beating quickly, his brow dripping with sweat.

“Come on, Shiro.”

“Hey,” one of the crew said from behind. “Is everything all right—“

“Get away!” Ali snapped. “We told you not to interfere with this.”

“All right,” the sailor said then stamped about the deck annoyingly as he picked up some items and went away.

Turning back to the unconscious Shiro and Debaku, their chests heaving and their bodies sweating almost as much as his was, Ali wondered if something terrible was happening to them.

His eyes flicked to the rune stones atop the mat.

Shiro growled with frustration. There was nothing he could do to help Debaku, and knowing how alarmed he was, his heart rate must have been pounding right now in the physical world.

“Don’t do it, Ali.”

He couldn’t wait any longer. Debaku said if they were lost to the void, their bodies would be nothing more than mindless husks!

Ali picked up the rune stones and hefted them in his hands. The sound they made was one of gemstones knocking about one another.

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He glanced from the rune stones to Debaku and Shiro, then back to the rune stones.

“How much longer can this persist?” Shiro asked to the open void as he watched Debaku and their assailant.

Are they slowing? he wondered, thinking that the pauses between the two figures was becoming longer in between bouts of deadly magic wielding.

If they were beginning to slow out of a lack of endurance, one of them would tire first, or one of them would make a mistake.

A fatal mistake.

And then—

Shiro jumped, a single convulsion of surprise, as a new disturbance revealed itself behind him.

Turning, he glanced about, seeing nothing.

Oh no, he thought. Is this some ally of the man who had attacked them?

Shiro would not be able to hold the attacker off, and Debaku was fully occupied with the first man. How could he—

In his sudden distraction and fear, and unfamiliarity with the void, he hadn’t quested out to sense the intensions or nature of the approaching presence.

Who or what is this new presence?

Shiro’s heart was pounding so hard it hurt his chest. Was that his chest here in the void, or his chest in the physical world?

The person became visible as he approached.

No.

It was a woman.

It was Jessamine!

He went to her and they both came up short.

“Shiro!”

“Jessamine!”

“You’re alive,” she gasped and went to him. She embraced him then, holding him firmly. Then her eyes went to the battle. “What is happening?”

“Debaku is fighting some stranger—I don’t know who he is!”

“Debaku?”

Then he looked at her, realizing she had no idea what he was talking about.

Kami-sama!

“I can explain later. But now we must escape!”

“You have my lamp?”

He stopped. “No.”

“What? Shiro, who has my lamp? Shiro, tell me—who?”

“It’s… it’s the sultan.”

A look of fear and horror crossed her face, then her glance went from Shiro to the battle. “Then… then that’s him. Yes, I can sense his nature.”

“Are you certain?”

She closed her green eyes for a moment, then snapped them back open. “Yes, I am certain. Shiro—you can’t let him take me back!”

“I won’t! I will rescue you. Even now, we are on a boat to gather more strength so we can sneak into the palace and take the lamp back, either by treachery or by force.”

“Shiro—Shiro, you… you must!”

“Jessamine!” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “I will get you back. I swear it.”

She looked at him, her eyes misting, but also a strong determination in her countenance. “Shiro?” she asked, as a thunderclap of magic echoed toward them.

Both of them ignored it.

She put her hands on his shoulders and Shiro reached up and embraced hers as well. He smiled with a nod. “I will come for you.”

Jessamine smiled. “I know. Shiro, I—“

Suddenly Shiro’s world moved.

He snapped his eyes opened and shouted, his breathing coming fast and ragged and his heart thundering.

“Shiro!” Ali exclaimed, “Are you all right?”

With wide eyes, Shiro looked around, then he turned his head to Debaku. He too was breathing heavily, his brow slick with sweat, but he did not seem to be in as ragged a state as Shiro felt.

“I’m—I’m all right! Ali!”

“What?”

“Jessamine! She was there! And so was Darius!”

Ali’s eyes widened as his mouth hung open. “What are you waiting for, tell me everything!”