*SLAP* “Wake up!” Jasper's hand reached fumbled for his sword as the guard captain violently shook him, but it fell impotent almost immediately as the crushing, blinding pain in his temples overwhelmed his other senses. Resigned to his death, he kept his eyes closed and waited for the final blow to descend.
His shoulders were shaken vigorously. “Damn it, Jasper, we need to get out of here, and to do that, we need your Spectral Wings. Wake up!” A soft hand - not the guard captain's hand - gripped his mouth and pried open his lips. A moment later he started to choke as a sickly sweet liquid dripped down his throat. “I killed the other guards, Jasper, but more will be coming. We have to get to the far side.”
“The Far Side? That….that was a good cartoon…” he mumbled drowsily.
“What?” The hands shook him again, each shake sending a wave of pain through his skull and he finally gave in, cracking his eye open.
Ihra - though it took him a second to recognize her - was crouched above him. A bloody gash ran down one side of her face, but she seemed unconcerned with her injuries as she stared down at him with a mix of concern and exasperation.
“Thank heavens," she sighed in relief. "Last time you entered that strange state, you were out a lot longer." If Jasper had his way he'd still be out, but it didn't feel the effort to say so. He settled for closing his eyes, blocking out the hateful light that tormented his head. She clucked her tongue sympathetically but didn't let him slip back into unconsciousness. "I know your mind is probably muddled right now, but I need you to focus. The bridge collapsed and we need you to cast Spectral Wings to get across. Can you do that?”
He breathed deeply, and even that tiny amount of movement was enough to send a railroad spike of pain through his skull, but after a few long seconds, he managed to summon the strength to push himself up against the cliff face and pry his eyes open. Ihra was right, after all. Their fight hadn't exactly been subtle; the guards in the city above were sure to have seen and heard the signs of the battle, and even if none of the others were still mages - there was a whole city of them and just five in his party. They needed to escape.
So though his body felt like it had been beaten black and blue, and his head throbbed with every pulse of his heart, he reached for his essence anyway. Please don't be empty. He was met, not by emptiness, but by an overflowing pool of essence, as if it had not even been touched in the battle. What the hell? His brain was a bit fuzzy on the details of what had just happened, but it all came rushing back then. The wings. The booming voice. Feed me your sins. He winced. Damn it. I burned some of my soul again. The source of the overwhelming amount of pain he was in suddenly became clear and he hoped that was the only real damage caused.
It was hard to focus through the pain. His first few attempts to cast the pain failed, the essence slipping out of his grasp as spasms of pain shot through his temple, but he pushed through until he managed to cast the first set of spells, a pair of wings on Tsia’s and Nēs̆u’s horses. It took them barely a minute to sweep across the yawning chasm between the broken ledge and the forest on the opposing cliff, but unfortunately the party's progress then came to a grinding halt. Spectral Wings lasted for ten minutes and he could only cast it on two targets at a time, so there was nothing to do but wait. Ten long, anxious minutes of waiting.
But Jasper’s head was throbbing too much for him to really care. He leaned it back against the hard cliff face, his eyes closed tight and drifted off to sleep almost instantly, only to be awoken seemingly a second later as Ihra shook him again. “The spell’s worn off, Jasper.”
With a groan, he pried his eye open and cast the spell again on Annatta's horse, but when he tried to set the spell on Kheresh, Ihra refused to let him. “No. I'm waiting right here until both of us can cross,” she insisted. "I'm afraid you won't wake up on your own." He was too tired to argue, so she got her way and the waiting began again.
This time it was not quite so uneventful. Only a few minutes of the spell had passed when the first signs of trouble appeared - a row of guards. Their green-tinted armor glinted furiously in the bright rays of the rising sun, and there were far, far more of them than before. Dozens of the S̆addu'â, armed to the teeth, stormed down the ramp that led to the smuggler's ledge.
Ihra promptly leapt to her feet and, nocking an arrow, readied her aim. "I'll hold them off as long as I can," she promised, but Jasper knew their numbers were too much for her to handle alone. Somehow he summoned the strength to rise and, bracing himself against the wall, he summoned a spell. Damn it. Just a few more minutes and we would have escaped.
But the expected battle never happened. The guards swarmed across the ledge like an army of fire ants about to inflict their wrath on the unfortunate traveler whose foot disturbed their home, but their progress came to a sudden and grinding halt when they reached the ruins of the impromptu room the stone mage had summoned. There was a moment of silence, a pregnant pause, as the row of guards piled up on top of each other. Then the silence was broken by cries and wails that pierced the air as the guards gathered around the desiccated corpse of their captain.
Jasper expected anger, outrage, a thirst for revenge - but there was only mourning. Glances were cast their way, but only one of the guards pushed past the rest to pursue them - and he had not gone more than a few steps before his mates charged after him, and locking his arms behind his back, forcefully dragged him back. What the hell was that? Why aren't they attacking us? His head hurt too much for him to think, and he settled for gratefulness.
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It was then that the wings on Annatta's horse dissolved back into the mists from which they had come, and summoning one last burst of strength, Jasper cast it on his and Ihra's mounts. Ihra helped up into Dapplegrim's saddle and then the two of them rose through the air. The wind roared around them as they darted across the chasm and swept into the waiting forest, finally leaving the city of Dūr-Ekal in their dust.
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Jasper wasn’t aware of passing out again, but he must have slipped into unconsciousness sometime during the flight. When he awoke again, it wasn't to the filling of Dapplegrim's sturdy flanks between his legs, or the steady rise and fall of her breaths but to the warm rays of Shamsha caressing one cheek while hard, stone dirt pressed uncomfortably against the other. Forcing himself up, he was distressed to find his head still throbbing, but he consoled himself that it was better than before. At least I’m conscious.
As he sat up, he saw their location had changed more than he'd expected. The rest of his party were clustered around a small firepit, and their mounts were tied to a row of mighty pines behind them. They sat in a small clearing, surrounded by a forest on all sides that, save for a few plants he was unfamiliar with, looked rather similar to those he’d seen in northern climates. Tall evergreens were mixed with smaller, deciduous trees, while a surprisingly thick and lush filled every available gap. There was no sign of the cliffs from which they'd escaped, but a cool breeze wafted through the trees - a welcome relief compared to the heat of the region's lower plains. We must be pretty high up on the mountain, he decided.
“So I guess we made it?” The others, not having realized he'd awoken, jumped when he spoke, and a lopsided grin slipped across his face, only to wilt as another spasm of pain ripped through his temple.
"We made it," Ihra confirmed. Standing up from the fire, she hurried over to him. "You feeling alright? Any side effects from, well, you know?"
Nēs̆u snorted, shifting on the ground to stretch out his legs. "He'll be fine, Ihra. The man slept damn near a whole day."
"Actually," Jasper interjected, "My head's still throbbing pretty badly. My essence seems to be perfectly full, but I feel like I'm running on empty," he complained. There was a moment of silence from the three warriors before Tsia, the only other mage, piped up. "You consumed some of your soul when fighting the stone mage, didn't you?"
Jasper frowned, not happy at the reminder. "Unfortunately, yes." He knew from what little history of magic he'd been able to learn that the mages of the past had once regularly relied on soul magic. Pretty much all of the great magical works that dotted the land had been constructed by that power, from the sanctums to the portals to the enchanted walls. And as far as he knew, there had been little to no serious side-effects for the mages themselves - unless, of course, you accidentally expired the entirety of their soul, which would kill you. The effects instead had mostly been relegated to the long-term, as the dramatic decrease in magical talent testified. Still, given the throbbing in his head, he was finding it hard to believe that everything was just fine. How the hell did they handle the pain? I barely did anything compared to creating something like a sanctum. His respect for the ancient mages' abilities increased.
Tsia's lips pursed into a frown. "I know you didn't get to train very long with my mother...I'm guessing she didn't teach you how to properly use soul magic?"
He wasn't sure that he would consider his time with Aphora "training," but he didn't correct the woman. "No," he admitted. "I've only used it twice, both times more on instinct than anything else."
Her face cleared. "Ah, that's your problem. You let your subconscious take over, didn't you?"
He nodded, wincing in pain from the movement. Tsia stood up and, after brushing a few crumbs off her skirt, sat down beside him.
"Abandoning yourself to your instincts can save you if you're desperate," she explained, "but it's a lot easier if you remain in control." She winked at him. "A lot less painful too, but I think we can fix that. Here, let me help you." She didn't give him to agree before she slipped her hands under his shirt. He squirmed immediately, shocked at how cold they were, and quite frankly, a little bit uncomfortable with the unexpectedly intimate contact. But whatever objections he might have made fell unspoken as he felt her essence worm its way into him.
The difference between her essence and his was immediately noticeable. Perhaps, since he knew already what sort of spells she could cast, he was only imagining it, but Jasper could swear he could almost feel the faint sizzle of electricity and the changing, ever-fickle nature of the wind imbued in her essence. His own essence responded to hers almost violently, fire and wind swirling together in a maelstrom. But her essence made him notice something else inside of him, a flavor to his own essence he didn't entirely recognize.
"That's interesting," she murmured. "But I guess it explains it. Don't resist," she commanded him, as she began to push more and more essence into him. Her essence into many different tendrils that tugged and pulled at the slightly strange essence in him, splitting it off from the rest. Then she began to push it out of him, and he gasped in surprise as a grey, almost smoky mist leaked from the tattoos on his hands. But the feeling of relief that accompanied it was almost instantaneous. When she finally withdrew her hands, Jasper flashed her a grateful smile. “Thanks - I feel a hundred times better already."
She shrugged his thanks off. "You saved all of our lives back there - or at least saved us from imprisonment. This was nothing. But before you do this again, I've got to teach you how to control the soul magic."
He leaned forward interestedly. "You know how?"
The princess nodded. "Of course. My father's mages wouldn't teach me, but my mother insisted I learn. 'Only use it in life or death situations, but don't hesitate when it's necessary,'" she parroted. She wore a grin on her face, but Jasper detected the flash of sorrow in her eyes as she spoke of her mother. "Think of it this way, Jasper - in a fight between a beast and a mage with equal magical prowess, who's going to win?"
"The mage," he responded instantly, and the girl nodded in agreement. "Yep. If you let your subconscious guide the magic, it will do whatever it takes to save you, but it's not really capable of thought, you know? It's just pure, animal instinct, and sometimes it can hurt itself - you - in its frenzy. That's what happened here - it must have drawn more heavily on your father's heritage than your mother's which, given your body clearly takes after your mother's. left you feeling sick."