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“Awake?” Mother Sorine’s blunt and to-the-point voice questioned just moments after my eyes snapped open.
“Awake,” I replied, feeling disoriented while lying flat on my back in a simple cot.
“Dizzy?”
“Very.” I tried telling her about the dark magic I had noticed before but again found myself unable to utter a word about it.
There was a pause as if Mother Sorine was searching for the most concise response again. “You have too much animus. You need purging.”
“Purging?” I mumbled. “Will it hurt?”
“No. But I’ve made numerous attempts already with limited success. I’m too drained to continue now,” she said, rising slowly. “Rest more. Focus on soothing thoughts. I’ll do the same.”
Soothing thoughts? Easier said than done when you’re a captive! Glancing around the sterile room, I couldn’t help but groan in disgust. The uneven stone walls were adorned with Skreethi pelts, the only decorations in the otherwise empty chamber.
“Have them take those down!” I exclaimed in weak revulsion. “Those could have been my acquaintances!”
“You’re acquainted with Mustelids?” Mother Sorine sneered over her shoulder. “No wonder you have so much animus...”
“They had nothing to do with this! It was—” My words caught in my throat as a sudden wave of nausea threatened to bring back my last meal.
“I’ll instruct the knights to remove them,” she said bluntly, sweeping out of the room.
I waited impatiently in bed, tucked under stiff covers, but no one was hurrying to carry out her orders. Indistinct murmurs of conversation drifted by intermittently, too muffled to discern.
“Captain Lightbringer?” a familiar voice later questioned from the other side of the stout wooden door. “May I come in?”
I sat up slowly to avoid embarrassment. “Yes,” I answered Volker.
He opened the door carefully. “Mother Sorine said to take down the decorations in here…”
“I find them in the poorest of taste,” I murmured. “I’ve met some nice Skreethi, and seeing their skin on display is very upsetting.”
“Skreethi?”
“It’s practically their philosophy,” I explained, trying to sound whimsical. “They’re quite intelligent.”
“I’ve never heard anyone call them either of those things before,” he made a wry face as he carefully removed the skins. “Vicious… vindictive…. sure, but Skreethi? No, and certainly not intelligent…”
“They have a poor reputation, but they’re not bad... just...” I stumbled a bit.
“Smelly?”
“That’s an understatement. But that doesn’t make them bad.”
“Bad…” he said softly. “You probably don’t even see me as bad, do you?”
“Bad? You’ve been nothing but kind to me this whole time,” I replied. “I can’t find any fault in your actions.”
“Sorry…” He turned and picked up the pile of pelts, pausing as he did so. “For disturbing you. Rest well.”
After he departed, I curled up in the starchy sheets of the bed, trying my best to conjure up some soothing thoughts. Playing with Chester now brought up a sharp pang of homesickness, so I quickly discarded that scene from my imagination. The idea of food was equally unwelcome; there was no need to induce additional nausea. I settled on a contrived vision of the future when I’d be reunited with my friends. However, as I tried to imagine their relief at finding me safe and sound, things started crumbling apart. I knew I had made a colossal blunder, and the thought of them NOT reacting negatively to that was strangely unsettling and ultimately unrealistic.
Nora’s never going to let me forget about this. Pulling the blanket over my head, I pretended once again that this was all a bad dream, and when I woke up, I’d find myself laughing sheepishly about how weird one’s thoughts could get.
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The surrounding structure convulsed as a sudden earthquake struck, waking me with a jolt as it dislodged the plaster between the previously sturdy stone blocks. Panic rose into my throat as I clung wild-eyed to my cot, trying to determine if anything above was in range of falling on me. There was always the ceiling itself, so I stumbled into my boots, making my way unsteadily to the door as the shrill cries of terrified horses and knights filled the air.
The wooden door groaned on its hinges as I slowly but forcefully pushed it open. Volker’s eyes, wild with fear, suddenly appeared in view as he lunged towards me. With a frantic grasp, he seized my arm and forcefully yanked me away from the doorway.
“What’s going on? How long was I out for?” I asked in bewilderment, my chest tightening, but he ignored my questions. We ran, not toward the main entrance but back into what appeared to be a giant storage area. His gauntleted fingers dug painfully into my forearm, and I pulled back to escape his grip.
“That hurts!” I exclaimed angrily. “I’ll run better if you don’t cause extra injury!”
He muttered a curse under his breath, and an eerie, smoky lattice of runes materialized over the clothing covering my arms and legs. “Dark puppet!” he shouted, and in an instant, my limbs were no longer under my control.
I tried my best to resist. “You…! You’re the one who—”
“Puppets don’t talk,” he snapped as he twisted his hand with uncharacteristically cruel resolve.
“Mmmfffm!” My voice was muffled by his sudden spell that robbed me of speech.
Against my will, I became an animated human shield, taking the lead in front of him as he had me test each corner before rounding it himself. The relentless tremors continued to rack the building, and the discordant rumbling around us grew louder, eventually climaxing in a series of deafening explosions.
“A few Silvers I could handle easily… but that crazy wench!” he spat at one point during our perilous flight. “She’s too powerful to take head on…”
Oh please, let that be the crazy wench I know and love!
The observant senior knight who had watched over us earlier stepped out from a side corridor. “Captain Lightbringer, Volker! This way! We’ve secured the exit ahead! Wait, what’s wrong with her?”
Before the knight could manifest his aura, Private Volker struck him with a pulse of dark force, knocking him into the wall before dropping him into a noisy metal heap. “Thanks for the tip, old codger, but I’m not splitting the reward!”
Oh, I really know how to pick ’em, don’t I?
As we made our way down the long hallway, the latest explosion’s reverberation disappeared, displaced by the sharp, continuous clash of steel against steel in the distance.
“I thought he said the exit was secure?” Volker asked aloud, confused by the barricaded door before us. He gestured, but his repeated force blast only cracked it open slightly.
Then, an oh-so-familiar voice came through the door with a snide shout: “Here, let me help you with that!”
Could it really be—
An instant later, the entire rear wall of the building disintegrated into the finest grains of sand, taking the door with it. As the hazy air cleared before us, I coughed and saw two figures cast in silhouette. With her staff raised in a commanding gesture, the shorter figure undoubtedly belonged to Nora, who was panting heavily from her recent efforts. Yet, the other, tall and slender, appeared unfamiliar and did not seem to align with anyone I knew.
“If you want your champion back safe and sound, you better meet my demands!” Volker shouted before the dust fully cleared, jerking me back behind him. “First, you’ll provide me with a fresh warhorse and full saddlebag of—” his demands cut off suddenly as Nora somehow set the garments under his mail plate ablaze with an imperious jab of her staff. Luckily, he panicked and threw himself on the ground, distracted by what I could only imagine was searing pain.
Meanwhile, a gold-glowing magic circle materialized under my feet, lighting the ground clockwise. As its two ends met, I felt a flowing surge of energy course through me, restoring my strength and granting me full control over my body once again.
“Rachel Emily Smith, get out of my sight this instant! Before I decide to punish you, too!” Nora screeched at me, gesturing to the right, her dark mage orb ablaze with an angry purple glow. I glanced with apprehension first at Nora, then at the somewhat smoldering Private Volker, and finally to the remarkably tall, handsome, blonde-haired man standing at her right-hand side.
Gawk later, Rachel!
“Y…yes ma’am…” I gulped and got out of the direct line of fire.
“Lady Nora,” the priest standing by her side bowed deeply. “While I stand in profound admiration of your formidable powers, I humbly beseech you to grant me the privilege of tempering the sword of justice with the fires of compassion and mercy.” His harmonious but somewhat windy speech contained a hint of barbed resolve as if he had been personally insulted by Volker himself.
Nora’s stony face hardened even more as she turned to him. “You better not let him off with a warning,” she declared with a hiss. “If he went this far, what’s to stop him from doing it again?!”
“I solemnly promise you, dear lady, that he will never find himself in such a situation to act as such again.”
While still writhing on the ground, Volker managed to turn towards the duo. “You?! Impossible!” he shrieked, scrambling away.
The young priest focused on Volker, extending his hands outward as a radiant aura enveloped him. His robes began to billow with an ascending whirlwind of air as his long blonde hair flared outward from his shoulders. “Rejoice, Volker, for today, your Purpose has been fulfilled. Surrender your burdensome implements, and embrace a well-deserved retirement, free from toil until her Supreme Holiness beckons you to cross her threshold.”
He was as long-winded as he was handsome, but damn he sounded cool!
Now pinned in place by a gold magic circle under his feet, Volker screamed in fear as wisps of inky vapor emanated from his trembling form. They converged into the priest’s outstretched palm, coalescing into a ponderous, swirling sphere of darkness. The priest’s fingers slowly closed around the ethereal void, extinguishing it with his shining golden aura.
As I witnessed Volker’s tortured tantrums upon losing his dark magic abilities, his froth-tinged lips contorted in madness. “Damn you, Relias, damn you!” Volker wailed in howling anguish as he frantically clawed at the unyielding stones beneath him, his fingertips stained with his blood. “I wish I had never sworn my loyalty to you!”
That’s… him? The cover art didn’t do him justice. But why… how… For a few moments, I forgot how to exhale.
“If only you had remained true to your oath and service, none of this would have transpired,” Holy Sage Relias replied with a heavy sigh, his sorrowful expression causing my heart to pound. “Your greed led you astray, inflicting unwarranted pain upon the one I hold most dear.”
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