It was like a scene from a snow globe.
A very hot snow globe with no water to cool everything down.
Alyssa stood on the floating reality sliver that had once been directly beneath the Cardinal Virtue of Justice, which itself was above the deep crater where the Justice had pinned the demon down. There used to be a forest around the crater. A mostly destroyed forest thanks to the Justice’s sword, but a forest nonetheless.
Now? There was nothing. Not even a stump was left behind. There wasn’t even a single blade of grass. A heat haze hovered above the ground, which would have made everything shifty like a mirage, but there wasn’t anything to shift around. Everywhere Alyssa looked, there was nothing but flat, smooth terrain.
Dusk grey ash drifted throughout the sphere. Most had, thankfully, settled into a snowy blanket covering the ground. But there was still enough that Alyssa had pulled out a small handkerchief from her satchel and pressed it over her mouth and nose. It wasn’t completely working. She could taste the ash on her tongue.
The view of the Endless Expanse, the demon realm, and all the other worlds in the larger dome was completely occluded. Some of the fractured panels glowed with a little light that managed to pierce the layer of ash. But there wasn’t any way to see the actual worlds behind them. Only about a third of the dome was lit in such a way. Alyssa had to assume that it was the Endless Expanse shining through. The demon world had been dark even before the ash and the Earth-like worlds weren’t as bright.
If not for the impending suffocation hazard, the scenery would have been quite pretty, even with as empty as it was.
“This must be from Irulon’s ritual,” Kasita said, looking around. “I hope she’s alright. Shall I try a Message?”
“Go ahead.” While speaking, Alyssa tried to keep her mouth as closed as possible and her tongue as close to the roof of her mouth as she could. The less ash that got into her lungs, the better. Even if it meant swallowing it with saliva. Her stomach could probably break it down a whole lot better than her lungs. “But we need to leave. Right away. I’m not going to be able to survive here for long. Unless Adrael wants to clear the air?”
Adrael, floating just above Alyssa, just glared. “Having you die here would be advantageous to me.”
“All those questions you have about me and the Throne might just become impossible to answer.”
“I’ll live,” she said, voice flat and uncaring.
“You’ll never find out what happened to your staff.”
That got Adrael’s attention. She tried to hide it, but there was a very subtle twitch in her wings and the start of a snap of her head toward Alyssa. “What do you mean, what happened to it? What did you do?”
Alyssa just shrugged as she started walking. The bridge of reality slivers was still up, but all the segments that were outside the smaller sphere had a good few inches of ash covering them. Between the fine grain of the ash and the perfectly smooth surface of the reality slivers, it was like walking on a sand dune made from ice. Alyssa had some spells to slow her fall if she did end up slipping off, but landing even lightly in the caldera of ash would knock it back up into the air. Keeping the air as clear as possible would be necessary to get out of this place without suffocating.
She was trying to think of all the spells in her deck for any that might help with that, but there wasn’t anything like Draw Water for air. At least not in her library of cards. Maybe somewhere out there. Neither did she have a water breathing spell, an air filter spell, or anything else that she thought might work. Maybe an Annihilator would atomize the ash to the point where it wouldn’t matter, but the dome was large enough that even her beams would only hit a fraction of it all. Unless the dome reflected the beam, which was still a concern.
Despite Adrael’s presumed concern for her staff, she didn’t come to Alyssa’s aid. Iosefael could probably be bullied into helping and Tenebrael might just offer on her own. Assuming clearing the air didn’t break any rules, which it might. But even if it did, Tenebrael would probably be willing to teleport Alyssa out. Kasita might wind up left behind, but Kasita didn’t seem to be having any problem with breathing or walking around.
Hopefully Irulon had a better solution. The draken and Fela would otherwise end up walking around, breathing in the ash. Alyssa had just gone through hell to save Izsha. She didn’t really want to do it again unless absolutely necessary.
“Any response from Irulon?” Alyssa asked as her feet hit solid ground.
With all the heat and ash, she had been a little worried that whatever Irulon had done would have turned the ground into glass and that it would be just as slick as the reality slivers. But this, she felt she could run on it if necessary. At the moment, Alyssa wanted to avoid that. Sprinting across the land would not only kick up a bunch of the ash, but it would make her breathe harder too. At the moment, her rag seemed to suffice. She wasn’t feeling like she needed to cough.
“Not yet, I…”
For a moment, Alyssa thought Kasita had frozen again. Accelero wasn’t active, but she had gotten so used to it that it was basically expected at this point.
“She’s somewhere out in this ash field.”
“Really?” Alyssa let out a small sigh of relief, glad Irulon was safe. She had professed faith in Irulon’s skills earlier to Kasita, but she would have been lying if she said that she hadn’t been worried in the slightest. “I would have expected to see her from where our sphere was.” It had been at an elevated position. But… relative to the rest of the dome, Irulon and the draken would have been small dots in the distance. The heat haze must have disguised them. The shimmering grey on grey overlapped what tiny dots her friends would have been.
It was much hotter down near the ground than it had been on the sliver platform. The ash didn’t burn her bare skin and her dragon hide armor protected the majority of her body, but even the snowflakes that had been drifting through the air landed with the feel of a heated blanket. And it was getting warmer. Her head and hair was almost completely covered at this point. She couldn’t see her face, but she was sure that it was coated as well. Every new bit of ash that clung to her just helped to insulate the rest.
She was fairly certain that she had heard stories of heaps of ash spontaneously combusting. Having that happen to her would be… unpleasant, to say the least.
In the distance, a fireball shooting straight up distracted Alyssa from her impending fiery demise. “That has to be Irulon,” she said as she pulled out her own Fireball spell card. It was a spell that she had probably used once and never since then. There were just more useful alternatives, or less lethal alternatives, for most situations. But acting as a signal flare? Alyssa couldn’t think up a better use for it. Technically speaking, Kasita had a few actual flare spells. But they all had meaning based on their color. The situation might appear over with at the moment, but Alyssa didn’t want to cause any confusion.
So a fireball it was.
Irulon’s fireball didn’t look like it was far out. There was a limit to how far it could be with the dome in place, but even relative to that, Irulon was probably only a few minutes worth of walking away.
But the ash was slowing Alyssa down. She couldn’t make haste through it. Not even if she was willing to ignore the ash she would end up kicking into the air. The real problem was what the ash might cloak underneath. A small divot in the otherwise smooth blanket might be nothing to worry about, or it could end up being a pitfall. Suffocating to death underneath a ton of ash that would collapse on top of her sounded like an even worse way of dying than spontaneous human combustion.
Alyssa took her time in heading toward where that flare had come from, making sure that the ground could support her weight before fully committing to any step. A tactic that did not go unnoticed by her companions.
“If you aren’t going to lie down and die, would you mind picking up the pace?”
“Maybe if you would clear this ash away, I wouldn’t have to watch my footing so much.”
“Want me to run ahead?” Kasita asked. “I shouldn’t have much to worry about. Irulon probably has a way to get rid of or survive inside this place. And I can keep an eye out for anything that might trouble you.”
“Getting separated would be bad. If I do fall into a pit full of ash, I need you to know where I fell so that you guys can recover my body and let my mother know what happened.”
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“You’d figure a way out of a pit. Even if you had to use an Annihilator to get rid of the ash. And if you used an Annihilator, Irulon would see.”
“Can you turn into a bird? If you could fly to Irulon, you might be able to keep both of us in sight.”
“I could, but I don’t think I could fly very well.”
“The ash in the air?”
“No,” Kasita said with a small giggle. “I just don’t know how to fly. Never bothered to learn. Might be fun to do so, I should think about it—maybe as a proper harpy rather than a little bird—but that doesn’t help us at the moment.”
“We’ll just keep walking then. Our impatient angel can either help out or quit complaining.” Adrael opened her mouth, but Alyssa interrupted before she could start. “Don’t make me chain you up and gag you.”
Adrael’s mouth clicked shut. Alyssa tried to look like she was ignoring the glare, but she kept an eye on the angel. Iosefael, Kenziel, or Tenebrae, she might have ignored. But not Adrael. The one angel who had demonstrated the ability to harm mortals had to be watched, even if keeping her eyes open was painful with all the ash.
Irulon wasn’t as far off as Alyssa had thought. It helped that Irulon had started moving toward Alyssa when she fired off her own flare. Thankfully. All the ash clinging to Alyssa’s eyelashes was making it almost impossible to walk in a straight line, let alone keep Adrael in sight.
And Irulon did have a way to combat the ash. Again, thankfully. Though that had been more or less expected.
A dome surrounded Irulon. Not a dome like the sliver overhead, but intangible dome of swirling wind. It kept the ash at bay while leaving the interior clear. Walking through it felt like a slap in the face—hopefully a slap that knocked most of the ash off her—but the interior was blissfully calm.
Though Alyssa had to go back outside the dome, grab hold of Kasita, and drag her inside. The poor mimic got flung across the ashfields when she tried to walk through on her own.
All of Irulon’s group were present. The draken, Fela, and Catal. No one had wound up left behind. No one looked particularly good either. They were all just as coated with ash as Alyssa was. Fela and the draken in particular looked worn down. Fela’s fur was matted with the ash, something she was trying to clean through vigorous combing with her claws. It really didn’t seem to help much, but whatever spell Irulon had active whisked away the ash into the swirling cloud, keeping the air inside clear enough to breathe without worrying.
Facial expressions on the draken were always hard to read, but Izsha just had this look to it that spoke volumes about how done it was. The eyes. It was something about how those slit pupils were half-lidded and staring without really focusing on anything.
“Full disclosure,” Alyssa said once they were all safely on the inside of the shield of swirling winds. As she spoke, she took a fresh rag from her satchel and tried to wipe the ash off from around her eyes. “Archangel Adrael has decided to follow me around until I tell her what happened to her staff.”
“Which you could do now that you can breathe, right?” Although Adrael said she wanted to talk about her staff… her eyes were locked onto Irulon. She wasn’t even blinking.
Alyssa clenched her deck of cards, wondering if she shouldn’t just chain up Adrael now before the Archangel had a chance to do anything. She internally debated for a moment. So far, Adrael was being cooperative. But…
Spectral Chains lashed out. There was no sense taking more chances. Adrael’s wings, already spread out, strained against the links as the chains constricted around her. But she didn’t break them. A light tug pulled her out of the air, dragging her to the charred ground.
“What are you—” Adrael started shouting.
“I don’t like how you’re looking at my friends,” Alyssa said, wondering if she sounded like someone overly obsessed and protective.
“Archangel Adrael,” Irulon said, narrowing her eyes at the chains. Adrael was almost certainly invisible to her, but the spell was not. “That was the one who…”
“Yeah. She was.”
“Hm.”
Alyssa sighed, glaring at Adrael. “We can talk later. For now, just… sit and don’t make a fuss.” With one more sigh, she looked to Irulon. “Are you all alright? Looks like you guys have been through the wringer more than I have.”
“I needed six spells cast at once while simultaneously performing the ritual. Only Fela was capable of assisting in the spell casting due to the high rank nature of the spells.”
Fela stopped trying to clean her fur long enough to give Irulon a withering glance. “I hate magic. I had to hold three of those papers at once without dropping them or she said we were going to die.”
“There was a bit of an inferno to outrun as well,” Irulon added. “It might have all been for nothing. I didn’t even see any of the Astral Authority when I dropped the sliver to cast the spells. I’m not saying that there were none, but I presume most fled or otherwise dispersed after you felled their leader.”
“I did end up killing the Justice then?”
“Or you forced it to retreat. No sign of the demon either. Though I suppose I might have a hard time noticing its presence.”
“The last time I saw her, she was chained up right in the path of the Justice’s blade. Which I assume could actually kill her if it hit?” Alyssa asked with a glance toward Adrael. If it couldn’t, there wasn’t much point to their fighting.
Adrael didn’t respond. Her teeth were clenched together and her glare was fixed on Alyssa.
At least she wasn’t staring at Irulon.
“Is there any reason to stay here?” Alyssa asked. “The Justice and demon are gone. I’d like to get back to Illuna and make sure that nothing went wrong over there.” Brakkt was keeping an eye on things, but there were still so many elements to worry about. Demons, Astral Authority, the monsters, the visitors from Yora, the Illuna guards. Probably more than that. They had only been gone a few hours, but so much could happen in only a few hours. All one had to do was look at what had been accomplished here.
The Justice, gone. The Astral Authority and demon along with it. A few acres of forest had been completely destroyed, burned to ash. And not just the forest. Everything that had been living in the area was gone as well.
“Leaving would not be a bad idea,” Irulon said with a nod.
“Good. I need a bath. But…” Once again, Alyssa glanced off to Adrael. For a moment, Alyssa considered just dragging Adrael around until Tenebrael showed up. Which was something that Alyssa hoped would be sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, sooner in this case might mean days off. She had to sleep sometime and couldn’t keep Adrael locked up forever. So… “Iosefael has your staff.”
“The Principality slave to Tenebrael?”
“Is she a slave? I don’t—”
“Why does a Principality have my staff?”
“Would you rather it have stayed in the hands of a mere mortal?”
“You are not a mere mortal, abomination.”
Alyssa opened her mouth to deny Adrael’s likely not-so-baseless accusation, but hesitated as a better idea came to mind. “So you would rather I have it.”
The angel glared. “Release me,” she said, voice a low, angry tone. Her mouth barely moved as she spoke.
Alyssa let the chains drop from around her, keeping ready in case she had to cast the spell again. But her caution was unnecessary. After just one more moment of glaring, the angel exploded in a flurry of feathers. All of which got swept up into Irulon’s whirlwind before disappearing. Alyssa snapped her head around, looking to make sure that the angel didn’t just teleport somewhere else nearby. But she couldn’t find any evidence that she had. No more feathers appeared and got caught in the whirlwind.
“It’s gone?” Irulon said, stepping closer to where the chains had been.
“As far as I can tell.” It was possible that Adrael had teleported outside the whirlwind. With all the ash kicked up into the air around them from the swirling winds, she couldn’t see very well beyond. A flying shield might be able to penetrate it, striking down one of them… but Alyssa doubted that would happen now. Maybe the second after she teleported, but there was no sense in delaying an attack any longer. And she had a goal away from the puny mortals that would be dead in a mere hundred years anyway. “I think she’s gone off to recover her staff.”
“Good. I didn’t want to mention this with an angel present, but…” Irulon stepped closer to Alyssa, moving right up to her. Alyssa started to pull back until Irulon clasped a hand around her arm. “I don’t think I can do this,” she said in a hushed whisper.
“This?”
Irulon tapped the side of her head twice, eyes flicking black and white before returning to their usual violet. “The timing was so precise, I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it even with my companion’s assistance. If one syllable had come out wrong, if I had made a mistake in any element of my cards or the ritual circle, if I had even a split second of hesitation… let’s just say that you and Kasita would be finding your way out of here on your own.”
“Ah…”
“I was a genius before, make no mistake. But without… I… We… We’re me.”
Uncertainty. It was such a foreign look on Irulon’s face. She had shown such a face before, the day after waking up from her divine revelation. But it had been momentary. Almost just a fluke. The next few weeks after that, she had returned mostly to normal. There had been a few times, such as following Izsha’s revival, where she had shown a bit more panic than normal.
“I had been trying to work up the courage, to muster up some semblance of rationality. If we don’t split, we’re very likely both going to be dead. So I was going to ask… but then you cut off your tie with Tenebrael’s power. It was a relief, in a way, to see you walk around without glowing eyes. It meant that I could delay and procrastinate more, take more time for deliberation.
“But after today, after all… this,” Irulon said, waving a hand about. “I have to thank Tenebrael that I was such a coward. My… our mind keeps racing back to what would have happened if I had been alone out here. We just—”
Irulon didn’t get a chance to continue. Alyssa’s first time hugging the princess might have gone sour, but this was definitely a hugging situation. With Irulon’s hand still clamped around Alyssa’s wrist, she could only use one arm, but that was enough. She wrapped it around Irulon’s shoulders and held her position. Even with Irulon stiffening, Alyssa didn’t let go.
She held on tight. Even as Irulon’s eyes flicked from violet to black and white, making it seem as if both the dragon and the princess were glaring, Alyssa didn’t let go. She didn’t let the situation get awkward enough that Kasita had to step in.
“We’ll figure something out. We’ll go back to Illuna, sit down in your room, and come up with a plan. Tenebrael should be done with the Astral Authority soon—” If interrupting the fight between the demon and the Justice hadn’t interrupted Tenebrael’s work. “—so she’ll likely show herself to me sooner or later. She’ll help out too.” Or else… “We’ll figure out a way to resolve the situation so that you and the dragon are both happy without killing either one of you. Slowly or quickly. I promise.”
It was a long moment of staring before Irulon’s black and white eyes flicked back to violet. Slowly, the princess nodded.
Alyssa offered Irulon what she hoped was a comforting smile before removing her hand from Irulon’s shoulders.
Now she just had to find a way to keep her promise.
A prospect that likely involved bullying more angels into submission.