The pair rushed out the door and saw people running in every direction. There was smoke and ash rising from the king’s estate in the stance, and there were masses of armored men and women racing there. It seemed like something awful had happened.
“What’s going on up there?” Rhys said. He turned to Andromeda and saw her eyes were glowing again.
“What?” She asked. Rhys grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Andromeda, you need to get away from here. I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s causing your symptoms to flare even through the voids.” He said.
Another shockwave, more of an explosion, ripped through the streets. Every window in the estate shattered, and the ground shook like there was an earthquake. Andromeda felt her mind getting foggy again, but there was no pain in her chest.
Rhys saw how Andromeda’s eyes were starting to glow ever more brightly, but by all appearances, there was nothing else wrong with her. He couldn’t even venture a guess as to why. But he wasn’t going to wait to find out.
“I’ll head up there to see what’s happening, I need you to get out of town before things get worse.” Rhys said.
In the distance, they both heard a familiar voice yelling over the crowds. The voice belonged to Argo, and he was running with his empty wagon behind him.
“Rhys! Andromeda!” He yelled. He ran up to them and was caught off guard by Andromeda’s glowing eyes.
“Argo, what the hell is happening up there?” Rhys asked.
“I don’t know, I finished putting down all the marble the mages asked for, and then the building just exploded.” Argo said.
“We need to help, there might be people hurt up there.” Andromeda said. Argo looked at her and shook his head.
“No, That’s hell up in there, I barely managed to get back out before the building fell on my head. I’d say the town isn’t even safe right now.” Argo said.
“Andromeda, you just barely managed to survive something that should have killed you. We aren’t even sure what is wrong with you, anything is a risk to your life at this point.” Rhys said.
Andromeda felt the pain in her chest again. But she felt the burning as well. Both meeting violently in the middle. She was still a bit worked up from a moment ago, the Adrenaline was still working its way through her body. She felt sick and fired up. Like she was a moment from collapsing and from leaping over a mountain at the same time.
Then the last shockwave came.
The town was rocked. Windows in all directions shattered and buildings shuddered from the force. Everyone who wasn’t already on the ground was sent there.
Andromeda, Rhys, and Argo were all sent flying. Andromeda felt as her limp body flew through the air, she bounced off something hard, and it made her see white. Then she came to rest on the ground several yards away. There was a cold feeling coming in her chest.
She moved her head in a daze to look and see what had happened. In the distance, she saw raining debris in the sky. There was shattered wood and broken glass all around her. But in the middle of her vision was Argo. He was laying on the ground, a small puddle of red pooling beneath him. Not far away was Rhys, who was already leaning up against a nearby wall, clutching his arm.
She wasn’t panicking, she wasn’t scared, not upset, or worried, or concerned, not even alarmed. There was a strange calmness in her that she couldn’t place.
She could feel the fire in her chest, but it was subdued, like an ember in the bottom of a fireplace. As if a single breath would ignite the flame again and burn away anything that laid before it.
But she could also feel the sickness, but it wasn’t unpleasant anymore. It was more like pressure, pushing on her. Like something was wrapped around her that she couldn’t see.
Andromeda pulled herself up off the ground and heard a tiny “clink” of metal. She looked down to see the necklace she had a moment ago had fallen off, the old latch broken from the landing. She still couldn’t feel much of anything. Perhaps she was in shock? Maybe she hit her head and was dying, or something else she couldn’t fathom. But she wasn’t scared.
She crawled forward on her hands and knees. She felt the shattered glass dig into her hands, and cut her knees. But when she lifted them, there was no blood. She stood herself up and staggered toward Argo.
He was still. He seemed quiet, almost like he wasn’t really there. Like a statue of him lying on the ground was made as a cruel joke. She heard a noise. It sounded like something she knew. Possibly a word, or words, something she could understand. But it was just noise.
No thoughts passed through her head, she lifted her hand and placed it on Argo’s back. As he was laying face down on the ground. The burning in her chest increased and the pressure in her stomach expanded. She felt something inside her move, something she couldn’t describe with words. Even her own mind was unable to process what she was feeling. The only word to describe it was “flow”.
Her eyes blurred, but also tinted, she saw everything turn tinted white. There was a glare from a source she couldn’t place. She was blinded.
Then the fire burned out, the pressure softened. She saw Argo’s chest begin to move, the blood on the ground disappeared, the feeling that a faux version of him laid there was gone.
Andromeda turned toward Rhys, her arms and legs moving without her input. She felt like a passenger in her own body. His eyes were wide, his breathing was panicked and rapid, she could feel something coming from him. What it was she didn’t know. But she moved toward him.
It was slashed and torn to pieces. It looked like ground beef more than an arm, mangled in the landing and lashed by the elements.
The same feeling passed through her again. A flow of feelings she couldn’t understand. The fire flared, the pressure increased. The same invisible glare blinded her.
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The arm was clean. The surrounding sleeve was repaired.
Rhys was still wide in the eyes, like a specter had risen in front of him and petitioned for his soul. His mouth moved, but only noise came out. Andromeda felt her mind go completely blank. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t hear, she couldn’t feel anything.
It was all white.
-----
Rhys watched on as Andromeda collapsed in front of him. Behind her, Argo sluggishly rose to his feet. Dizzy and confused.
His mind was racing, more than that he was utterly beyond understanding.
He watched her crawl along the ground, he saw her hands punctured with glass and splinters, but then her flesh just sealed itself back up. She put a hand on Argo’s back and… he didn’t know what she did. It looked like nothing happened at all, but then Argo moved again.
Rhys remembered in the few moments he was flying through the air that Argo had smashed his head on a pole near them. There was still a faint mark of blood on the pole from the impact. Even without looking at him, Rhys was sure that Argo was dead, or very close. He couldn’t do anything for him with his arm broken like it was.
But she did something, he didn’t know what it was, but Argo was on his feet again.
Then she moved toward him. Her eyes were glazed over, not aware in the slightest.
When she crawled toward Argo, Rhys tried to tell her to stop. That it was no use, and that she was injured. But she didn’t even react.
She looked at him, blank, no emotion in her eyes. Dead in every way but literal, she moved toward him and put her arm on his.
Then he felt the most bizarre feeling of his entire life.
Words couldn’t do it justice. He felt a wave of calmness flow over him, and the pain in his arm soothed. He saw that the gnarled flesh and splintered bone had come together and healed.
Rhys had healed such injuries before. It was his nature as a Medea to have done so. But nothing of what she did was Medean craft. It couldn’t have been.
Her skin was fair, but not pale. She had that glow of normality that Rhys and the rest of his people hadn’t known for millennia. Her eyes were not red, they were blue. The deepest, brightest, most glowing blue that he had ever seen in his life.
And her hair was red.
A bright, burning red that seemed like a flame resting on her shoulders.
But just like that the energy left her, and now she was still on the ground, her breathing told that she wasn’t dead. Her eyes remained open just the same. She wasn’t awake. You wouldn’t believe she was standing a moment ago.
Rhys picked himself up and reached down to pick her up. But he saw the necklace, broken, sitting on the ground. Its chain was destroyed. The gem in the center was void and blank. The enchantment was broken.
But she seemed fine. Her breathing was slow, but steady. Her body wasn’t reacting violently anymore, or if it was, she wasn’t being bothered by it. Rhys couldn’t think straight, he felt his head spin from the probable concussion he had. He picked her up and handed her to Argo, who by this point had gotten to his feet firmly and was trying to salvage anything from his now destroyed cart.
“Argo, I need to go somewhere. Tell Andromeda to not bother coming down. I won’t be in my clinic for a while. Just keep her safe and secure. It’s important.” Rhys said.
Without giving Argo a moment to answer, Rhys turned around and left.
Rhys didn’t know exactly what to say. So he didn’t say anything. He could have explained himself, to try to get Argo to understand what happened. But he didn’t have the heart to tell a man he was just dead.
Argo retreated from the chaos. He didn’t know what else to do, so he took the unconscious girl home. Hoping that he could do something for her.
This red haired girl would disappear from the minds of those involved for a long while.
-----
Three shock waves tore through the building. Every window was shattered and every inch of the floor was covered in the shards. Mass panic was spreading through the area, and guard contingents were mobilizing on the royal estate. Over 30 of the visiting nobles were either injured or unconscious. One was dead.
An even greater sense of terror swept through the mages who remained, and all but a select few escaped, fearing for their lives.
Valotia was running back and forth between every room of the building trying to find everyone. She had no clue what had happened, but from the blood she could taste in the back of her throat, she knew it had to be related to mana in some way. The walls around her churned as she ran. Every moment that passed, she could see a new crack in the walls. Worse yet, she had seen neither heads nor tails of the king or any of his personal retinue.
As she was bent down restoring the broken arm of a noble, she saw a familiar face carrying a woman in his arms.
“Valotia!” Orden screamed. Valotia rose to her feet and met him. He was carrying one of the other mages in his arms. She vaguely remembered hearing her name at one point. Eliza.
Valotia could feel what was wrong from a distance.
She was shaking, her breathing was ragged and uneven. In the brief moments she tried to open her eyes, Valotia could see they were glowing. She was critically saturated in mana. There was a mana void floating near beside her, but it wasn’t pulling the mana quick enough from her.
“Have you seen the king?!” She said. Orden shook his head.
She had too many people to look after, and now a case of mana poisoning. It had barely been a few hours since the flash, and now there were ground shaking shockwaves.
Her every instinct told her to run, leave all these people behind, and save herself. But if she did that, then all manner of hell would be invited upon her by the church. She’d prefer to die than see that happen.
“Leave her with me and get some of these people out of here.” Valotia said. Orden didn’t want to leave Eliza alone, but he knew things would get worse if people started dying.
“Fine.” He said. Then he handed Eliza to Valotia.
He lifted both his hands and a field of yellow light shrouded the entire room. Everyone in the room besides Valotia and Eliza were lifted off the ground and floated down the hall. Orden walked behind them and negotiated the floating group through the nearest exit.
She traced the length of her arm from her wrist to the inside of the elbow. A green orb of light rose with her finger and she touched Eliza’s head. The mana void above her and the green orb merged together and started absorbing mana at an incredible rate. But it wasn’t enough to stop the radiating mana. Something was wrong.
She cupped both her hands together and violently slammed them against her chest. A shadow of red burst out from her spine and then quickly returned to it. The same red shadow wrapped around both of her fists. She brought them down on Eliza’s chest, and the shadow entered her body. The moment she did, a small shockwave erupted from her body. Eliza’s eyes shot wide, then closed again. Valotia’s stomach sank.
Valotia had just replaced the entirety of the woman’s mana with her own. But it turned sour instantly. She didn’t know what to do with this.
She considered for a moment that it might be some kind of illness or poisoning she had never seen before. But what it could be or how this woman had contracted it was beyond her.
It was at that moment, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
She looked up in shock to see a young man with silver hair and a smile on his face.