With a hand against the rough stone wall, Ranvir attained his feet. With a moment to clear his head and regain his senses, his surroundings came into clear focus. Saleema descended from the skies on a platform of hardened space.
Ranvir stuck on the weaving and unweaving of space as she descended. Despite the outward simplicity of the descent, it was far from that. It was a technique about as complex as they got. Moving hardened space while not simple — you had to figure out how to change the position — was far from a complex affair, yet she’d taken it to a difficulty that most tethered would struggle to understand, let alone repeat.
Ranvir stepped away from the heavy blocks, letting his hand fall to his side. Wings and back ached, but a quick twist revealed no broken bones. The ice dome covering the city had cracked in place of him. Thankfully, it seemed most of the dome remained, and it was only an outer layer that had torn off.
He needed an edge. But he really didn’t want to pull from his remaining collections, especially not considering where they came from. Yet…
“Can’t you see it’s hopeless?”
Ranvir blinked, gazing intently at Saleema. That hadn’t been Elensk, at least not as he knew it, but close. A sister language? Except, of course, that Elusria’s isolation compared to the other nations held this option off the table. She was speaking Elensk, an ancient dialect of it.
“I can see that you can’t convince me to stop.”
She cocked didn’t react outward, but her spirit flared in anger. Yet, no blow followed. “You play with words you don’t understand the consequences of.” It was strange to hear her speak, especially in a language he kind of understood. Previously, her spirit hadn’t so evoked the sense of child, injured or otherwise, and even if it had, it would be a language he didn’t understand.
There was a sliver of injury in her spirit. More like a bruise than anything, but one that should still hurt. His attack had worked, even if hers had worked better. He needed to turn things around. It felt like desperation was eying him like a predator, soon to make its move but not there yet.
Ranvir licked his lips and focused on the Ankirian again. “What do you remember?”
She rolled her eyes. “Please, like you care.”
“Maybe I do. You—“
Her spirit reared, more angry toddler than kicking stallion. She closed the gap in a flash, back-handing him. He sailed backwards into the wall once more, crashing with a crack of stone. He coughed around the dust as scrambled to his feet.
“Just like Frija,” he muttered, wiping his mouth. No blood. “Though she doesn’t leave as much mortar on my clothes.” To be fair to her, it had been at least a month since she threw anything at him. Longer since she hit.
Saleema narrowed her eyes at him. “I sense your flippancy.”
This time, he bounced off the wall and rolled in the snow. I really should dodge these. He swung around, only to back into her. Ranvir’s chest tightened, color rushing to a surprised white as he dodged away. He hadn’t sensed her move.
She smiled smugly. “That got your attention.” Her self-satisfied air mimicked something closer to Menace getting into the pantry rather than a toddler this time. He’d given her exactly the reaction she’d wanted. But he hadn’t done so on purpose.
Alright, you gorilla looking freak, let’s test this idea of yours. Ranvir cursed himself, throwing aside caution and delving into his spirit towards Loce. A foot took him in the chest before he could more than think about how to approach the issue.
The impact struck with actual force, thumping hollow against his breast. Righting himself with a minor effort, Ranvir glared at Saleema.
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“Eyes on me, Pretty Boy.”
Ranvir hissed out a breath through his teeth. He split his focus, turning his honed attention towards the effort of both spirit and mouth. One reaching toward Loce, the other. “I don’t know what’s worse, you calling me pretty or son.”
“Son?” she began circling him.
Above, the crackling sound of ice resumed as power blossomed at stations all around the city-wall. The dome slowly snapped together, once more whole. Powers blazing within the city, a severe and frightened edge to them.
“You don’t look like Ziyaad nor Umair.” Her expression halted, her spirit rippled. Like a painted vase, fractured and reassembled, was pulled apart. The depiction distorted, but not yet lost. Her lower lip trembled, her eyes glistened, and specks of yellow appeared. Her tether-sense flailed before locking on him. Ranvir tensed, attempting to work faster but achieving less.
Cursing to himself, he slowed back down. Due to the source of his current experimentation, he’d kept a careful distance from it, but it was surprisingly simple. Easy if neat work. And with her distracted, it was the perfect time to get as much work done as possible.
“Umair,” she pleaded. “Baby, come here. Mommy will save you.”
Ranvir halted his work, really seeing her at the moment. Heartbreak all over her face, tears sliding down her cheeks, she crawled on her knees, pushing the snow aside.
“Come back, baby, please.”
His stomach hollowed out, all the racing fury from before turning to languid dark poisons inside him. A very different, but equally painful, injury had reared up within her spirit. Equipped with adulthood, it hadn’t cut such a vulnerable path as her childhood, yet they were inextricably connected.
Ranvir refocused on his work. But he’d lost valuable time. The depiction on the vase returned to clarity. She took in a deep breath, rolling from her knees into squat, then straightened, brushing the snow from her pants.
“Umair,” she said, far more control in her voice. Her spirit shuddered with a mixture of emotions too potent and mixed for him to break apart at the moment. “Yes, you have his…” she trailed off. “Calling it talents would be a disservice to you and to him. I don’t know what else you are, but you shared an element and control type.”
She returned to a squat, cocking her head to look at him. Ranvir shivered under her inspection. “I am aware, you know.” She licked her lips. “I know what has happened to me. What is happening? Perhaps you should kill me. If you could.”
Ranvir nodded. “The list of your victims couldn’t be contained on all the paper in Vednar.”
She bit her lip and nodded. Her voice came out more vulnerable than he’d thought her capable of. “I don’t wanna die. Still, despite it all.”
Ranvir’s heart raced. Emotions tumbling through him too harshly for him to react. Off-white pity and dark-blue fear slamming through orange-red anger and sickly green disgust. He simply remained, steadily knitting at his soul.
“Do you know where he is?” she asked. “My dad? I don’t want to be alone.”
Ranvir hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t.”
Tension strained her neck and shoulders. Fingers creased to fists hard enough to make bones groan. Her face went dead cold, and she stared at him with lifeless, purple eyes.
It was a scam. He saw them. An act to make him drop his guard. She hadn’t been on the edge of emotion at all. Ranvir’s chest constricted as all the emotions were struck to a sudden halt.
“Have they come to you yet?” she asked, staring at him with the pitiless eyes of a vulture Ranvir could never match. “The People,” disgust saturated the word. Ranvir shook his head. “Then you cannot kill me, otherwise they’d have found you by now. They wouldn’t risk a Ralith running after you.”
“Ralith? The Flesh-torn?”
She smiled and bobbed her head from side-to-side. “Certainly. You can’t kill me. There’s only one of us that could. Well, he has the ability.” She hung her head, reaching out with a finger to toy with the snow. Her hair slow down in front of her face, though that hindered her senses only slightly, if at all. “Do I have to die, you think?”
The sheer vulnerability in her voice made Ranvir reconsider his previous statement about her attempting to manipulate him. “Have to?”
She nodded, hair wobbling back and forth.
“I…” Ranvir couldn’t afford the freedom to scour her soul sufficiently. Even then, her injuries ran deep. “I’m not sure.”
“I don’t blame him, you know. I couldn’t have done it either. Losing Umair, that almost unhinged me. He can’t be around me. The shame and guilt eats him up. I know, but…” her voice broke, hidden beneath her lanky hair. “I could really use my daddy right now.”
Ranvir’s work finished with a snap that vibrated through his spirit and body. The sign on his human arm, marked by a bite from Loce’s ancestor, changed.
Saleema’s head shot up, revealing a swollen face. Her eyes, red and bloodshot, were cold with fury.
Loce burst from Ranvir, fueled by all the power he could manage. Generated space wrapped around them all and flashed away. Then she was on him. Warp-sword ripping the air. Ranvir barely dodged, then sparks of purple burst all around them and the locust descended.
Ranvir leapt back as Loce struck Saleema. The swarm rippled with mana. Energy lines, thick as Ranvir’s arm, were disassembled and devoured. Colonies of insects were ripped from the world, only to return moments later as they devoured the mana holding them.
Tan and white, like sand, Loce reflected the sun’s light. Tan and white with a slight purple tint.