by Rainy Kaye
As the rest of the group trailed off to their hiding positions, Ever bringing Fiona along with her, Randall came to stand in front of me.
I blinked up at him. “What if I have to pee?”
He blew out a laugh, shaking his head.
“I hope he hurries,” I said. “It’ll be lunch soon.”
Randall stepped closer. “When he shows up, just try to sell that you’re afraid.”
“Oh, that will take very little acting on my behalf,” I said. “You should probably go stake out so I can start my damsel-in-distress routine.”
He nodded, but didn’t go. I thought he might intend to comment on our moment earlier, probably while I couldn’t run away, but instead, he turned and headed off in the snow to the cluster of trees to wait.
As soon as his footsteps had halted and I was confident he had settled into position, I let out a slow breath and, as I inhaled, I sucked up magic from the earth, letting it tingle through me. Careful not to singe my ropes, I guided the magic to the surface until it glowed on top of my skin, heat building like it had when I’d been buried by the avalanche. Focusing my thoughts, I maintained the sensation everywhere but my hands, not accomplishing anything but activating my magic and hoping the necromancer would pick up on it.
Heat welled under my clothes, caught by the layers of insulation. Sweat formed on my back and under my arms, and trickled down to my waist. My legs became sticky and my hair became increasingly limp as I grew hotter, and sweatier, despite the winter around us.
The snow at my feet melted with a hiss that billowed up steam around my calves. The heat continued to rise, trapped in my clothes, and I desperately wanted to unzip my jacket, except my hands were bound.
I hadn’t really thought through what kind of magic I was going to use, but I doubted a few glowing magic crumbs was going to be enough to intrigue one of the seven deadliest witches and mages to have ever lived.
With a silent groan, I tipped my head back against the rough bark of the tree, straining to catch the chilled breeze the split second it brushed against my face before it warmed on contact.
The world grew uneven. I wasn’t going to be able to keep this up much longer. I needed a chance to cool down before I steamed myself alive.
Snow crunched. Just once.
I snapped open my eyes as I jerked forward, cutting my magic.
Standing in front of me, among the trees, was the necromancer. He stared directly at me through his plague mask.
My heart lurched, panic swarming my mind. I screamed. My cries echoed through the trees as I yanked and pulled at the restraints. Randall had gone all in, and the ropes held as I braced one sole against the trunk and twisted until sharp pains shot through my wrists.
This was a dumb idea. This was an awful idea. This was the worst idea ever in the history of ideas.
The necromancer took a step toward me.
I tipped my head back, unable to stop screaming. Maybe I had not expected him to show up.
My limbs went weak, and I had to struggle to stand as he took step after step toward me, robes billowing around his legs, his boots not even leaving footprints on the snow.
He took one more step. My scream caught in my throat as I stared at him, panting.
He lifted on hand, and it pulsed green.
Green. That was the color he had used to kill Adam.
With a war cry, everyone burst from hiding. Sasmita, Ever, and her sisters charged toward the necromancer. From behind me, the rope around the trunk was cut and I toppled forward, wrists still bound.
The necromancer pulsed blue. I was slammed backwards, into the tree. I slid to the ground. My vision blacked out and then returned, as everyone climbed to their feet, shaking off the disorientation of being thrown.
The necromancer turned and stalked through the trees, in the direction of the path—and the portrait.
“No, no, no.” I rocked forward, trying to get to my feet.
Randall stepped up next to me and yanked me up, and then cut my hands free.
I shook off his hold and charged after the necromancer.
Shadows moved among the trees. I skidded to a halt and turned.
The undead army marched forward. I spun around, but they broke through the trees in every direction.
They had us surrounded.
I turned and bolted in the direction of the necromancer, ready to charge through the soldiers standing in my way.
One swung a sword. I redirected so fast, my feet slipped from under me and I fell on my ass, staring up at the soldier.
It rolled its flat eyes down to me, sword still extended, and took a wobbly step forward.
Without thinking, I pulled back my leg and slammed my sole into its knee. The soldier faltered, and then swung the sword low, at my head. I threw myself back in the snow as the blade swooshed over me. I scrambled backwards, palms against the snow.
The necromancer crossed the path, headed towards the painting, his cloak swishing over the snow.
Fuck.
He couldn’t destroy the portrait, but he could certainly make sure I never got my hands on it again.
I started to call to Randall, but clanking and yelling broke through the fog in my brain. Breathless, I took in the sweeping reality around us: my small team of decidedly alive humans were fighting hundreds of dead ones. Randall worked in a pattern of swinging at their skull and then stabbing his knife under their jaw and yanking their heads free. Their bodies would drop to the ground in a heap for a few minutes before the head rolled back to the spine and reattached. He started chucking the heads farther, but it didn’t seem to slow them down much.
Paisley swung her kukri in her ballet of destruction. Her sisters followed behind, swinging and slashing with less skill but as much vigor. Soldiers went down, but they didn’t stay that way.
Sasmita siphoned up magic and unleashed red flames toward the soldiers, working around her comrades. The soldiers she reached caught fire and dropped to the ground, melting the snow in a hiss that extinguished the flames. They did not get back up.
Fire killed the undead. We had discovered that when Isadora had been reanimated.
Soldiers stomped around me, marching toward Sasmita. I remained on the ground, squeezing my eyes shut, willing they forget my existence long enough for me to find fire again.
Fire, fire. I needed fire.
I remembered how it had felt to unleash fire at Isadora’s house, the rush of heat that wasn’t unlike the magic I had used when tied to the tree, just shaped differently. That was all my magic was, just shapes and colors. If I could find the feeling, then I just needed to twist it until I manifested my intention.
Easier said than done.
I welled up the heat magic again, letting it warm my skin and build sweat under my clothes. Around me, my friends continued to fight the soldiers. Randall and Ever and her sisters knocked them down, and Sasmita set them ablaze.
My magic filled my hands with heat, so much that when I pressed against the snow to stand, I sank down to my wrists.
Now I just needed to burn.
Gritting my teeth, I charged forward.
“Move!” I yelled.
Everyone scrambled backwards as I thrusted out my arms and unleashed fire across the skeleton army. I let the flames roar up in a wall of billowing red, the sound filling my head as the world turned orange.
When it finally ended, I dropped to my knees, unable to remember how to breathe in. My vision blinked in and out until it cleared.
Hundreds of piles of bones lay smoldering like campfires. The rest of the undead army had shifted backwards, their heads moving back and forth as they analyzed their next move.
Then, they surged toward us.
I scrambled to my feet, boots slipping in the melting snow, and turned to run. A blow landed in the small of my back. My knees collapsed, and I pushed up off the snow as another solid strike caught me in nearly the same place.
I twisted around as the soldier on me swung the hil
t of his knife again. I shot out my arm, catching his bony wrist, and then grabbed with my other hand. Face scrunched, I bore down, trying to snap his arm. He yanked back, pulling me partially upright. I staggered to my feet as he spun the knife around, pointing the blade at me. He swung the weapon. I ducked down, and then lunged forward, slamming my palm into his skull. He stumbled backwards.
I needed to find my fire again.
He darted forward, swinging at me. I backed up, trying to put distance between us, but he moved in. The remaining soldiers turned and stormed toward us, bones clacking.
I tried to pull up my magic. A soldier swung a sword at me. I dropped to the ground, on all fours. They swung again, and again. I landed on the ground and rolled over, and then back.
There was no way I could get my magic going like this.
Anger bubbled in my chest as I realized that was exactly what they were doing. Even if they couldn’t yet take me out, at least they could keep me busy.
“Randall!” I screeched.
Another swing, and I darted between a soldier’s legs. It spun around and stomped after me.
If we had any hope of getting out of here, Sasmita and I needed to roast these fuckers. That meant the others needed to keep them busy—and off us.
The soldier swung at me and I skittered away. With each step, it swung again and again, forcing me farther away from the rest of the undead army.
My back pressed into a tree trunk. Behind him, several of his comrades moved in, all brandishing bladed weapons.
A knife flung through the group and landed right above my head. I yelped, looking up.
Now they were just being dicks.
The soldier directly in front of me pulled back his sword.
I desperately searched for my magic, but I could only get it up out of the ground. I couldn’t find the feeling of fire, couldn’t find its shape or color.
A soldier in the back crumpled into a heap. Behind him stood Ever, kukri drawn. She swung at the next one, cleanly beheading it.
The soldiers turned to her, but she ducked and swung, knocking off heads. It wasn’t going to keep them down, but it would give me a chance to burn them.
They swarmed around her. She struck again, and again. I brought my magic up, filling me with its heat, and began to shape it.
Ever swung again, dropping the next. And the next.
The final one turned on her and swung back its sword.
Ever froze, kukri barely lifted.
The soldier glared down at her, and it sneered with what remained of its face.
Ever didn’t move, but her chest heaved in gulps of air.
“Ever…” I whispered, unable to find my voice.
Why wasn’t she moving? Why wasn’t she taking it down?
The soldier swung, the blade passing centimeters from disemboweling her.
Still, she didn’t move, just gasped for air, her body trembling.
I started to say something, and the soldier staggered forward, the remains of its long dark hair shifting over one eye.
My heart stalled.
It was Jax.
Jax, but dead. Jax, but reanimated.
Jax, about to kill his sister.
“Ever, no!” I started toward her.
Dead Jax raised his sword.
“Kill him!” I screamed, charging forward. “Ever! Kill him!”
She wasn’t going to. Her body shook and she loosened her hold on the kukri.
“It’s not him! It’s not him! Kill him!”
Dead Jax swung his final blow. Ever jutted out her kukri, blocking the sword with a clang. Dead Jax tightened his hold and pulled back. With a sob, Ever jutted her kukri forward and up, yanking his head from his spine.
He collapsed in a heap at her feet.
She staggered backwards, dropping her kukri.
I barreled into her, wrapping my arms around her from behind and pulling her backwards.
“Go, go, go.” I tried to push her away, but she stared over her shoulder at the remains of her brother, a sob halfway out, her eyes wide.
“It’s…I killed…That was...” she stammered.
“It’s not him,” I said, my heart clenching because I wanted above all else to believe my own words. “It wasn’t him. He’s just a spell.”
I turned back to the bone heap as it came back together and pulled up my magic. As his head reattached and he pushed himself to sit, I unleashed another gush of fire. The flames engulfed him, but the roar wasn’t enough to drown out the sounds of Ever’s sobbing.
When the blaze ended, he lay in a burning heap of rubble like the rest of the town around us. My comrades stood among the flames, sweaty and covered in soot, breathing hard as smoke filled the air.
“The necromancer.” The thought sprung to the front.
I turned and darted through the trees, my soles sinking in the softened snow and ice as I barreled onto the path.
The necromancer stood staring into the trees, as if watching the destruction of his army with as much sympathy as a wooden door. It was probably easy to whip up a new batch.
He turned and started back for the ledge.
I slid to a halt. My heart pounded in my head as the necromancer glowered down at the painting. He knew, without a doubt, what we had been up to now.
If he had his way, my death would not be painless.
He didn’t make any move, and it took me a moment to realize he couldn’t reach the painting. If he jumped to the ledge, he risked touching the portal and being sucked in.
This was my moment. I charged him.
He flicked his palm up, and blue ropes, like vines, sprung from the snow, wrapping around my ankles. I fell face first into the ground. Twisting around, I kicked at them and leaned forward, palm burning with my magic, to sear them off.
The necromancer swung his arm. The portrait flung off the ledge, the anchors ripping free, and toppled down to the houses and trees below.
Gritting my teeth, I grabbed at the vines around my ankles, but they disintegrated before I even touched them. I pushed to my feet, and found I was no more than an arm’s length away from the necromancer.
My brain stalled. I couldn’t ram him into the open portal, and that had been our only move. If I tried to attack him, he would kill me without breaking a sweat.
He glanced at me, and then turned and leapt off the edge. He landed in a crouch on the ledge, palm bracing him, and then lunged forward and dropped again.
The portrait. He was going after the portrait.
Farther down the edge, Ever, face red and puffy with tears clinging to her cheeks, rammed an anchor into place. She held a harness which she had already attached to carabiners.
I jogged over to her. “You can’t take him on alone. That’s far too dangerous.”
“I’m not letting that bastard get away,” she said, barely opening her jaw. “He deserves to die.”
“You can’t kill him. He’s—” I didn’t have time to explain how impossible that would be. His punishment had been eternal imprisonment for the simple fact he couldn’t be killed, not by mortals, and not by witches and mages far stronger than me.
Our only hope for safety—and the justice Ever rightly deserved—was to get him back into that painting.
I squinted down over the edge, scanning the trees and buildings. His dark silhouette stalked against the snow. He stared up at a tall tree right below me.
The corner of the golden frame stuck from the top of the tree, the portrait cradled in its branches.
“I have to go,” I said, reaching for the harness in Ever’s hand. “I have to get down there.”
She pulled it back. “It’s really dangerous if you don’t know—”
“Not more dangerous than the necromancer.” I looked at her, pleading and desperate. “How do I stop?”
She blinked.
“Once I start falling, how do I make it…you know, not fall?”
“Oh.” She stared down at the harness, and then handed it to me. She
indicated a rope. “There’s this one here. And this one, you hold with your right hand. Keep it up a little and when you’re ready to stop, bring your hand down past your waist. But Safiya—”
I was already strapping into the harness. Before I could contemplate exactly how ridiculous this plan was, I pushed off the side.
Cold air rushed up over me, my hair flying wildly around my face, as I zoomed down the line, straight toward the ground. I would have screamed, but terror froze my throat.
I had only moments. I conjured up my magic, forcing it to collect in my chest until I burned from the inside.
With one hand, I gripped the stopping rope. With the other, I released the other line and flung my arm out, unleashing the flames in me.
Fire roared out in a plume, engulfing the tree. The necromancer spun around to face me as I yanked down on the rope. My descent ended so fast, my heart floated up to my head.
I yanked off the harness, dropping to the ground, and then pushed up to my feet. The necromancer stalked toward me.
Behind him, the tree burned like an homage to the old gods, the heat billowing toward us in waves against the cold air.
He stopped a few feet from me. As his gaze roamed over me, I felt like a specimen, a subject in his lab.
He had a plan for me.
A tree branch crackled and fell to the ground, sparks flying in all directions. The portrait shifted and, a heartbeat later, it dropped down next to it, falling back against the burning trunk.
The rope harness around it burned red as the fire chewed through it, glowing like runes over the face that had once been the necromancer. The flames licked the portrait, but the blue spiders scurried along, putting out the fire and repairing the damage. The ropes fell apart into ashes.
I had to stall him. I had to give the blue spiders enough time to fix the painting. Otherwise, the portal might not work. I didn’t know for sure, but I only had one chance to get this right. He wouldn’t be fooled twice, if I could even pull it off once.
Unexpected. I had to do something that would give him pause, something that would be the last thing he would expect from me.
Something that would make no sense, that would pique his intrigue.
The spiders were so close. The fire on the portrait had dissipated, and only his painted hand remained charred. They scurried along, weaving it back into place.