Destroying the Fallen

by Rebecca Bosevski

  “Did they come through my portal?” I asked, looking to each of them.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so, but it was activated the second your portal was. We were waiting for the energy of you leaving to close so we could cast the barrier when they...”

  He looked down at Gerald. His eyes were shut now, and his breathing had slowed to a steady pace.

  “Okay, well we all have stuff to take care of, if that’s it?” I asked, taking a step back.

  “Wait!” Jax’s voice echoed down the hall. I spun to see him round the doorframe and come barreling into the room. He tripped on a bed frame and stumbled a few paces before he righted himself and landed in front of me. “Tai...” Jax said, pausing to catch his breath. “He has...” Another breath.

  Either Jax was really out of shape or he sped here.

  “What about him, Jax? Spit it out.”

  “He’s coming... has message... Grace.”

  “Grace?” the council said at once. Jax leaned on the end of Gerald’s bed and took long deep breaths. I was about to nudge him for more when Tai came through the door.

  “Des, council. There is something you need to know.”

  “What is it Tai? What do you know of Grace?” my father asked before the others could.

  “She was taken by the darkness.”

  “She’s possessed?” I asked

  “No, I don’t know, maybe. She was with the council when they tried to stop it taking the tree. She went behind where the path to the sprites was, I was there trying to help get the children to safety. The mist, it reached out and swallowed her along with the tree.”

  The council began rattling off to one another about what to do now. Maylea’s worried eyes stared back at me.

  How can you fly with so much blood on your wings? You have taken so much from them, just look at what you have done.

  “Des,” Tai whispered, pulling on my sleeve. I blinked back the tears that had been forming to look at him.

  “What?”

  “Not here, out in the hall,” he said, nodding his head a little to the right. Jax had recovered by now and while the others continued to argue about what was to be done, we left unnoticed.

  When we reached a few steps up the hall Tai turned back to me and said, “It left a note for you.”

  “What left a note?”

  “The darkness.”

  “How did the darkness leave a note?”

  “Here, see for yourself,” he said, and from his back he pulled an old piece of rolled parchment. “I found this at the edge of the crater where she was taken. It won’t open for me, but it has your name on it. I figured you would know how to...”

  “How do you know the darkness left it? It could have been from his study under the tree,” Jax whispered before quickly checking over his shoulder that no one was coming. “There was probably heaps of things with her name on it down there.”

  “No, Grace emptied the study and the lab. There was nothing left down there but dust,” I said, reaching out to take the scroll. “Thanks, Tai. You better get in there. Let them know Jax and I will be at home for now, then we’ll be going with the two teams Bella Crow chooses.”

  Tai nodded and stepped around us to return to the still bickering council.

  “Des,” Jax said, taking my arm. “What do you think it says?”

  “I have no idea, but let’s open it out of here.”

  I handed the scroll to Jax and he slipped it behind his back.

  “Let’s go home,” he said, taking my hand and leading me out of the hall and into the light of Sayeesies.

  I looked up at the twinkling glittery mist that was the sky. Something wasn’t right. It was paler somehow. Muted almost.

  “Jax are you seeing this?” I asked, pointing up.

  He followed my direction and his mouth fell open. “What the hell happened to Shulun?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because the sprites were hurt, and they are connected to it again?”

  “Maybe, but Des it looks like half of its glow is gone.”

  “Let’s hope that’s not it. I couldn’t take any of its magic to return it to the sprites, remember?”

  “Exactly, so what could do this?” he asked, pointing up. I reached around him and grabbed the scroll.

  It looked like a tube for the most part, except when you looked from the side. My name was written centered and in perfect script.

  “How do you open it?” Jax asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, turning it over in my hands.

  “Try saying your name.”

  “What, like the book?”

  “Exactly, I mean it has your name on it, it makes sense, right?”

  I leaned close to the scroll and whispered, “Desmoree.”

  A seam appeared and the scroll began to unfurl.

  “Jax, you were right.”

  I held the top of the parchment and let the bottom drop.

  “Jax, are you reading this?”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “That fucker took her. Jax, Traflier took Grace and he wants me to meet him or he’ll kill her.”

  “You can’t, he will try to kill you.”

  “I don’t have a choice, Jax. She is there because of me. It’s my fault.”

  “Des, no.”

  “I have to.”

  “Then I’m going with you.”

  I knew I had no way to stop him, not with his magic back. But I couldn’t stand the thought of him getting hurt again.

  I nodded my agreement, secretly hoping I would think of a way to keep him from it later.

  The scroll went on to describe a portal, one I had seen before. With Ava. The lone beach portal that Drendor took us to.

  Do you really think you can save her?

  A boom echoed out across the land and I dropped the scroll.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked, looking around us. A plume of black smoke rose into the sky on the far left of the backlands.

  “The caves. Jax, that’s where the caves are.”

  “The yowies!” he gasped.

  I grabbed the scroll and shoved it at Jax as we phased and took off towards the smoke-filled sky.

  The closer we got to the caves, the harder it was to see, and finally the smoke became too thick to continue by air. We landed in the woods before the cave’s main entrance, slipping carefully between the tree tops.

  “Des, look,” Jax said, pointing at the ash floating towards us in the breeze.

  We ran through the trees, using our wings to help disperse the smoke a little as we went, but finally it was too thick to see far enough ahead, and we had to slow to a walk.

  Jax coughed beside me. “Try to put up a shield around you, to keep the smoke away,” I said as I raised my own. Jax had been practicing all of the casts I knew, some he got a hang of immediately, others like the shield, not so much.

  “It is sort of up,” he said as he scrunched up his nose.

  My own shield held strong, but only helped a little, the smell still got through. We pressed on, weaving in and out of the thickening forest, until finally we found the cause of all the smoke. The woods were on fire.

  The section of trees between us and the caves burned a vibrant orange and sent embers floating on the breeze in all directions.

  “This is impossible, we need to put out the flames.”

  Jax smirked at me with raised brows. “Well you are better at portals now, how about you try what you got Ava to do in the park?”

  “Oh, right. Yep, okay. I’ll try.”

  I swirled my right arm around and focused on the pond behind where Traflier’s tree once stood.

  “Not the water from the pool of light though,” Jax said and I froze.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t expect the creatures inside would be too happy if you drain their home or send the water back with ash.”

  “Oh, okay, where then?”

  “Do you know any water in the human realm you cou
ld draw from that wouldn’t mind the ash? Not salt water either.”

  “Man, any other requests. Like only from a well on the east coast of Australia?”

  “Ha, ha, Des, come on. The salt will make it impossible for anything to grow.”

  I rolled my eyes, full well knowing that fact and swirled my arm again. The only lake that came to mind was one I had visited with my mother as a child. Crater Lake. It sat above Mount Mazama a volcano that could erupt again, so the ash returning with the water wouldn’t damage the ecosystem there.

  I tried to picture it, but my memories were from so long ago that I struggled to get a clear picture of it in my mind.

  “Ahh, Des the fire is getting closer,” Jax said, moving to stand beside me. “Can we hurry this up a little?”

  “I’m trying, I can’t picture it properly.”

  “Just picture the water, the rest will come.”

  I thought about the trip we made, it was cold. Snowing.

  “It was winter,” I said aloud, focusing my thoughts. “The snow was thick on the ground but when we reached the village we were going to, we could see the clear blue water of the lake.”

  I felt it then. The magic latching onto the image and the portal opening. I opened my eyes and pushed the magic to move the small portal out and up. It settled over the edge of the flames and then when the connection was strongest, the gateway opened and water began to flow though.

  The crackling of the flames being doused by the cool water made the hair at the back of my neck stand up.

  “It has to go higher, Des, can you fly and keep it open?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll help,” Jax said, and I felt myself lifting up off the ground. Jax held me around my waist and brought us into the smoke-filled sky. “Can you make it bigger now?”

  “I can’t, just move me faster.”

  He flew me through the smoke, back and forth, moving forwards as we went. The sizzle of the flames continued and soon the smoke began to clear. When the caves could be seen through the blackened forest, I changed the portal and moved it to collect the water running off the soaked ground, sending it back to Crater Lake.

  A few flames still burned and Jax used the telekinesis cast to cover them with saturated dirt, dousing them too.

  The entrance to the caves glowed yellow and orange, smoke funneling out into the sky in a single stream.

  “The fire started in the caves. How?” Jax asked from beside me, as I saw a shadow move through the cave’s glow. Someone stumbled out; two Nazieth soldiers, identifiable only because one still wore part of her blue uniform, most of it burned off, exposing red raw flesh. The other figure was all burns.

  Jax and I ran to help. They collapsed to the ground before we reached them, the partially clothed one heaving on hands and knees, the other unmoving, face down in the dirt.

  “Jax, you help her,” I said as I landed knees first beside the other. My hands shook as they hovered over the bubbling flesh. I bit back tears and focused my magic to push out into the Fey. But it wouldn’t go. I pushed again. Still nothing. I looked for the fey’s energy, their magic.

  “No!” I cried when I saw it.

  “Des, what is it? Were we too late?”

  “It’s not a fey, Jax, it’s a yowie.”

  “What?”

  The magic was white and gleaming like the opals they treasured. It hovered just below the surface of its skin, shrinking back as the seconds passed until there was nothing.

  “He’s gone,” I said as the Nazieth Jax was helping turned to sit beside it.

  “No,” she said, reaching out to the dead yowie. “He was the last, the only. They all... the screams...”

  “All of them?” Jax asked, finally removing his hands from her. The burns were still there, but far less brutal than before. “Des, can you do the rest?”

  I scooched over and laid a hand on her shoulder. My magic went through her easily.

  “You didn’t take the potion?” I asked, suddenly realizing this shouldn’t be possible.

  She shook her head. We were stationed out here, they ran out before getting to us, so we were going to take it after you finished the next lot. “I’m pretty glad right now I didn’t, to tell you the truth.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was some kind of explosion from inside the caves. We ran in, Sezzex and I. We were stationed here to prevent fey entering and stealing opals. The yowies weren’t that bad. We talked to them often, and I really believed it wouldn’t be long before we could trade again.”

  “The explosion?”

  “It echoed through the cave and we knew something was wrong, so we ran in. I know we shouldn’t have, but we just knew...”

  “How did you get in? Des, you had the council create the cast right?” Jax asked.

  “I might have slipped in a small loophole in the wording of the cast.”

  “What?” he asked, shaking his head.

  “The cast banished any being who sort to deceive the yowies, or with intentions to steal the opals. This way if they needed help, we would be able to enter,” I said, and the Nazieth nodded, giving me a half smile that fell as soon as her eyes landed again on the dead yowie beside us.

  “So whoever did this?” Jax asked, pointing to the cave. “They got around the cast because they didn’t want to steal anything, they wanted to destroy them?”

  More blood on your hands. More Fabled paying for your choices, your mistakes.

  “There was so much smoke,” she continued, pulling me from my internal voice. “We couldn’t see a thing, and then suddenly, light grew through the smoke, but it wasn’t the light from magic or opals, it was the light of the yowies running through the cave, burning alive. They screamed, most fell before reaching us, the smell of their burning fur was sickening.”

  I didn’t want to interrupt her as her eyes took on a glaze as she relived every moment in her mind. So I continued to push the magic through her. But as I did, it latched onto the words she was saying and I saw what she was describing in my mind. The magic was connecting her memories with mine.

  She threw a cast collecting the dirt from the floor of the cave and swirling it around the coming yowies. They froze in place as all air was sucked out of the funnel she had created. The second the flames were out, she dropped the funnel and both her and Sezzex ran to them as they struggled to catch breath.

  “Maya, what do we do?”

  “We try to heal them, the way Desmoree can. If she can heal so can we, right?”

  “But...”

  “Just try.” They closed their eyes and they tried to push their magic out into the yowies.

  It didn’t matter. Even if they had the power of the fabled inside them, a fey’s magic cant heal a yowie. I doubted if even an equillis could.

  “It’s not working,” Sezzex cried beside her. The yowie beneath her hands began to shake, then heaved in a gasp of air before going completely still.

  “It’s dead. Maya what do we do?”

  “We try to get them out. Maybe she can heal them, or the equillis? Someone has to be able to help them. Grab that one’s arms.”

  She stood up and latched onto the smaller of the three still breathing, the skin was hot to the touch and began to slip a little, like it was coming away from the bone. “What about that one?”

  “I have an idea,” Maya said, phasing into her fey form. She turned and let her wings lay on the ground behind her. “Put them onto my wings.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Do you know another way? Come on, if we don’t get them out, they are dead for sure.”

  Sezzex nodded and pulled the smaller one up onto Maya’s wings. Laying her down softly as she could manage. Then she went to lift the next one and it moaned as she latched onto its arms.

  “Leave me,” it said. “Take the others”

  “There is only you three, we will take you all.”

  Another moan and Sezzex laid it down next to the other one on
Maya’s wings. “Are you sure you can pull their weight? It’s going to hurt.”

  “Not as much as they do. Come on, you grab the last one. Let’s get out of here.”

  Maya took a breath and one last look at the burnt yowies on her wings, then began to move forwards. Her wings scraped against the floor of the cave and she bit her lip against the pain. After a few meters, she stumbled a little towards the wall and leaned her hand against it to catch herself before falling. As soon as she did, she felt stronger.

  I smiled at the memory as she realized the opals in the cave walls could help give her the strength to keep going.

  “Sezzex, how you doing back there?” she called as she looked back, but Sezzex wasn’t there.

  “Sezzex, where are you?” she called into the rising smoke. No reply. Maya looked down at the two yowies on her wings and back into the smoke.

  I knew what she was thinking. If she phased back there was no way she could get them both back onto her wings herself, but she couldn’t look for Sezzex with them on there either.

  “Sezzex!” she called again, and a rumble came from above. The cave shook and a large section of rock fell beside her. She heard more fall deeper in. She wiped away a tear and turned her back on the burning cave, moving forwards.

  She could see the light of the sky of Sayeesies, a pinprick of hope in the distance. But then the cave collapsed beside her and part of her wing became trapped under a rock.

  The yowies moaned as she phased back, the only choice to retrieve her wing and have any hope of getting any of them out of there.

  “I can’t take you both at the same time, I’ll come back for you, I promise,” she said, grabbing hold of the one on the left.

  “No, take him, please,” the yowie begged and the desperation in the yowie’s voice brought more tears flowing down her cheeks.

  “I’ll come back for you, I promise,” Maya said again as she released her and reached down to lift the other yowie up enough to half carry half drag him towards the light of Sayeesies.

  “Just get him out, we are the last. She killed the rest, please, get him out.”

  “She who?”

  The yowie fainted. Maya tried to think of who would do this. The firebirds had the power, the dragons too, but they would have no reason to go after the yowies. She shook off the distraction of who did it and refocused on getting them out.