by Eric Vall
I nodded anyway. “That was pretty impressive,” I tried and gestured toward the place where the Flumen Mage had evaporated just before the wave overtook us. “Did Abrus teach you that, or Wyresus?”
“I’ve never seen a mage do something like that,” Aurora added as she came to my side, and I could tell by her tone she was trying to join me in engaging the mage if at all possible. Her expression and her vice grip on my arm gave away how little she trusted the approach, though.
“He likes me,” Yvette said blankly.
I furrowed my brow. “Wyresus? Yeah, he’s a nice guy.”
One of Yvette’s eyelids twitched a little, and her lips curled the smallest measure before she slowly shook her head.
Aurora shifted uncomfortably. “I studied under Abrus, too,” she told the woman. “He must have really seen promise in you, to teach you something like that. Is it very advanced?”
The compliment had no visible effect, and I was beginning to think talking with Yvette would get us nowhere. The longer she stared unblinkingly at me, the more worried I got.
After what seemed like ages, she finally spoke, and her voice was oddly childish and put out for her age.
“Abrus wouldn’t teach me,” she said.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Aurora offered. “He exhibited poor judgement in many ways when he was head of the Order. What did you do while you were staying in the Occulus?”
“Watched,” Yvette replied as her eyes bore into mine, “and waited.”
I worked to keep my tone casual, but my spine shivered lightly under the woman’s intense gaze.
“Waited for what?” I asked.
“A teacher who didn’t fear me,” Yvette replied.
I fought the urge to step back as the maniacal grin twisted at the corner of her mouth again, and I didn’t even hear Dragir approach on my other side.
When I looked over, his serpentine eyes were narrowed on the Flumen Mage, and he discreetly dropped the silver coin with the rune on it into my pocket.
A low rumble of thunder rolled through the clouds above the ocean, and it slowly travelled to where we stood in the cove with Yvette.
Dragir flicked his gaze toward her weaving fingertips, and I tried to decide what my next move should be. Yvette hadn’t given me anything useful to work with yet, and even though fear was admittedly a finicky concept, the idea of Abrus genuinely fearing Yvette made me question if I should cut my losses early on this one.
Then again, he wasn’t too fond of me from the start, and the look on his face when I’d destroyed his staff could only be defined as fear. Or rage.
Hell, it was probably both.
The frigid breeze that had been biting at my skin only moments before grew hot and muggy in the cove, and the smell of brine and seaweed overpowered the scent of rain drifting in from the ocean. It mingled with the subtle hint of pine coming from Aurora at my side, and I could tell she’d already sparked her magic and was only waiting for my signal now.
I cleared my throat.
“Abrus wasn’t too eager to teach me either,” I told Yvette, and I hoped she would find some sort of comradery in this. “I mostly learned by practicing, and with the help of a few mages I’ve met. Did you teach yourself as well?”
“For a while,” the Flumen Mage admitted.
“I’m guessing the Master helped you a bit here and there?” I led, but I kept my tone unconcerned.
Yvette’s left eye twitched again. “Yes. He likes me.”
I nodded slowly. “I’m sure he does,” I allowed. “You’re talented. The Master needs as much power behind him as he can get.”
Yvette didn’t seem to like my reasoning, and her head tilted ever so slightly as her fingers abruptly stopped their weaving.
“He likes me,” she insisted again, and her voice dropped threateningly. “I make him smile.”
“What do you two talk about?” Aurora asked gently. “What makes him smile?”
Yvette turned her piercing gaze toward the half-elf, and she continued to stare unblinkingly at her for a long moment before she suddenly spoke.
“He smiles because he likes me,” Yvette snapped. “He smiles because I’m his friend, and he wants to be near me. I make him smile.”
“I can understand that,” I told her with a smile of my own. “You’re a fascinating woman.”
Yvette’s lips curled to reveal her pleasure at the acknowledgement, and I made sure I didn’t cringe as the crazed glint in her eye fell on me.
“You are fascinating, too,” she assured me, but her brief kindness slowly diminished as she continued. “You destroyed my beautiful wave, and then you escaped my boiling flood. You defeated my Master’s army that we worked so hard for, and you even peeled the flesh from the bones of a little child.”
I swallowed at this last accusation while Yvette’s gaze became disgusted.
“I wasn’t trying to torture him,” I quickly clarified. “I was saving him from the rune possessing his mind. It isn’t right to brand a child. Your Master should have known better, don’t you think?”
“I branded the child,” Yvette hissed angrily. “I worked hard to drown him, but not too much. I made my Master very proud with the brat, and my Master certainly does know better than anyone.” Yvette relaxed by a degree, and she took a small step in my direction while she continued in a low voice. “My Master knows how to make creatures bend to his will, and he can give me power unlike anything the Order could teach me. Abrus could not even do this for me. He could not even do this for you.”
I furrowed my brow as she finally hit the mark I’d been waiting for.
“What sort of power?” I asked. “Did the Master teach you to evaporate like that?”
“He taught me to hold still and accept pain,” she responded hollowly.
Dragir abruptly stepped forward. “You lied,” he accused the mage.
Yvette’s deep blue eyes snapped to Dragir as she sized him up, and her lip twitched angrily while her fingers began to weave once more.
Dragir nodded to himself. “How many times has he branded you then?” he demanded.
I looked back at Yvette in confusion, and her twisted smile peeled her lips back from her still bloody teeth.
Then she began to giggle.
The giggles turned into nearly hysterical laughter, and we all stepped away as she threw her head back and shook with unrestrained enjoyment.
When the mage finally calmed down again, she had tears streaming down her cheeks, and the remnants of her giggles still shook her slight shoulders.
Then she pulled a sleeve up one of her bony arms, and I realized why the Master valued Yvette. The mutilated flesh she exposed was a brilliant red in several unhealed areas with the rest made up of blistering pink scar tissue, and every mark formed a different rune he’d tried out on her.
I couldn’t even count how many there were in every size, but some were recognizably branded, while others appeared to have been violently carved into her pale skin.
Dragir’s eyes went wide, and the Flumen Mage studied his reaction with a twisted smile on her face.
“I lost count,” she told him, “but I like to practice for myself sometimes. He likes when I am creative. It makes him smile.”
“Yvette,” Aurora breathed, “he’s destroying you.”
The half-elf’s voice was tight as she crinkled her brow, and she avoided looking too long at the woman’s tender flesh.
Her concern fell on delirious ears though, and after Yvette tore her sleeve down to cover her arm, she quickly slashed Aurora’s cheek with her nails before anyone could blink. Then she spit her words like an angry cat while she came within an inch of the half-elf’s face.
“He’s creating me!” she hissed, but Aurora held her ground while the woman raved louder. “He’s making me more than any mage has ever been, and more than even you, Mason Flynt! More than any of you!”
Yvette’s slender frame trembled with her fury, and as the temperature dropped again to
bring a frigid wind into the cove, she closed her eyes and straightened her stance.
A serene smile spread across Yvette’s face, and she calmly tilted her head up toward the darkening sky.
“We will all be more soon,” she said softly to herself. “We will all be more than we could have been. The Master will help us to rise.”
When Yvette’s eyes slid open, they landed on me with a hazy smile.
“And you will thank him, Mason Flynt,” she told me. “You will be honored to be his masterpiece.”
“You’re confused, Yvette,” I countered as I took another careful step back. “The Master wants me dead.”
The Flumen Mage’s smile spread painfully wide, and an attempt at tenderness flickered in her eyes while she came closer to me.
I flinched when her icy fingers settled on my cheeks, and the woman held me there while she stroked my skin reassuringly.
“Do not think this,” she urged and shushed me. “He will not kill you, not now. You are too valuable. You are worthy, Mason Flynt, and he will help you to rise. You will help him to change the world. We both will.”
Chapter 19
My eyes went wide as I stared at the deranged devotion gleaming in Yvette’s penetrating gaze, and while I tried to pull my head back, she only held me closer.
“Yvette,” I mumbled, and I reached up to pull her arms down and free myself, “let go of me now.”
The vice grip it took me to pull her away caused her smile to waver, and her face seemed to twitch between at least five varying expressions at once.
I patted her arms to try and settle her a bit, but I casually pushed her back a ways at the same time.
The fact that Yvette was apparently more focused on trying to get me to come with her than kill me was a perk, but I didn’t doubt that line of attention was paper thin with this lady. As unpredictable as her demeanor already was, the scores of runes adding to her mage powers made her even more of a time bomb just waiting to explode, and the clock was already ticking.
Dragir’s hand was locked around the hilt of his sword, and with Aurora already poised to strike, I slowly cocked the hammer of my revolver as I loudly cleared my throat.
“The Master does have plans for our world,” I allowed, “but I don’t think I can join you in this one, Yvette. He’s not going to help any mage to rise. If he carries on like this, he’ll turn us into killing machines and use us to overrun every region. Only the Master will rise. Not you or me.”
Rage twitched in Yvette’s left eye by the time I finished, and I’d just begun to summon my Terra magic to hold her in place so we could strike fast, when her piercing gaze snapped to my hand just as I slid the revolver from the holster.
“You are ungrateful,” she hissed, and she swiftly slammed her palms into my chest to shove me back.
As her hands struck me, a strange sensation settled behind my ribs, and I began to cough.
Then I couldn’t seem to fill my lungs all the way, and when I forced another cough to clear my throat, water gurgled up my esophagus and filled my mouth.
I spluttered and gasped, but there was nowhere for the air to go, and I dropped to my knees as I gagged and fought for air. Saltwater surged up my throat and poured from my mouth, and Yvette sighed while she looked down on me.
“Be more grateful, Mason Flynt,” she advised. “I could kill you, but I will save you instead. I came here to help you.”
I vomited another gallon of saltwater as the woman extended her hand to me, and my head began to spin as my chest expanded with water.
“Please,” Yvette urged, “come with me.”
I shook my head and collapsed forward onto the slate of rock, and I heard Aurora curse before the air sparked with her flames.
The Flumen Mage and Dragir both jumped as the ring of Aurora’s fire closed around her, and I swiftly locked her ankles in the stone beneath her feet.
My lungs swelled again, but they seemed to be warring against Yvette’s powers, and as I caught a glimpse of Shoshanne emerging from the mouth of the cave, I realized the Aer Mage was countering the attack.
Meanwhile, Yvette giggle gleefully and clapped her hands at Aurora’s flames, but then she dissipated into droplets of water that leapt clear over the barricade and dove into the sea.
Another gallon of water forced itself from my lungs, and I braced myself on the stone as air finally won out.
I desperately filled my lungs through the grating of the salt left behind, and Dragir stooped to pull me to my feet.
“The coin will not let you drown,” he assured me as I swayed and coughed violently, “but it will allow you to suffocate and remain conscious through it.”
“Fuck that,” I choked out as more water spilled from my lips. I spat and gagged at the rancid flavor of seaweed on my tongue, and Shoshanne came to a quick stop at my side.
She was out of breath and held her palms on my chest while she worked to steady my breathing, and after a few deep breaths, my vision gradually stopped swirling.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what was happening,” the healer said. “Yvette was distracted, and I crept into the caves to find Deya like you said.”
“Did you get her out?” I asked hoarsely.
“No,” Shoshanne replied, and she sent Dragir a strange look. “She’s busy.”
Dragir furrowed his brow. “What do you--” he began, but an ear splitting crack of thunder suddenly shook the sky and caused us all to jump.
All of our attention shot toward the ocean, and just as my gaze settled on the jetty, a wave crashed and threw spray up all over the embankment, only for the water to converge and form the watery figure of the Flumen Mage.
Yvette shifted into a solid state, and her deep blue eyes peered at me through strands of streaming black hair. Then she raised a bony hand to send me a small wave, and another clap of thunder rolled through the clouds.
“Now, we kill her,” Dragir decided.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s cool.”
There wasn’t much more I could learn from the woman if the Master had sent her to abduct me and bring me in for my own branding, and there was no way in hell that was happening.
Crazy or not, Yvette had to go.
I raised my own hand to return the woman’s creepy wave, and as I did, the boulders that stretched behind her rose up and came crashing down.
Yvette looked up, and when a boulder struck her forehead, she burst once more into droplets that cascaded into the sea.
Then she fell from the next wave to break, landed in a crouch where the jetty met the land, and without missing a beat, she thrust her palms out in front of her.
A massive swell surged over the slate, and we barely had time to fill our lungs before the full force of the water slammed us back against the cliff face.
I could feel Shoshanne working to keep me breathing as I was dragged across the rock, and I grappled to catch hold of anything along the way.
Aurora was dangling beside me at the edge of the slate when the water coursed over us, and we kicked hard to get back onto land while I looked around for the others.
Yvette was laughing maniacally from the jetty, and Dragir was sprawled far off near the nest of the baby dragons. It looked like he’d been knocked unconscious when his head hit the cliff, and Shoshanne was trying to crawl to his side.
“Shit,” I cursed.
Then a shot rang out, and Yvette abruptly fell silent.
I whipped around but the mage had exploded in a rush of water and disappeared.
“Godsdamnit, that’s irritating,” Aurora growled.
The wind became stronger, and the air grew muggy once more, and I turned my gaze to the spiraling clouds not far from shore.
“She’ll reform herself soon,” I called out over the howling wind. “Be ready to light her up.”
Aurora nodded, and I sprinted toward Shoshanne.
The healer had Dragir conscious again and propped up against the rocks at the edge of the cove, and the elf held his
bleeding head between his palms.
I dropped down at Shoshanne’s side, and I kept half an eye on the cove while I scanned for any sign of the Flumen Mage.
“You alright?” I asked Dragir.
His gray hair was stained with blood all across the top, and I thought I saw a glimpse of bone between the deep splice in his skin.
The elf nodded, but I could tell he was waiting for his skull to heal before he did much more than that.
“I need you to counter this storm, fast,” I told Shoshanne. “It might be too late, but we’re gonna have a fucking hurricane coming at us if we can’t control the temperature.”
The Aer Mage furrowed her brow in confusion, but as she looked at the clouds, understanding dawned on her face.
“She’s changing the water temperature,” she breathed.
I nodded. “Cold to hot and back again,” I explained. “If she keeps this up, that storm’s gonna break loose right on top of us. Can you counter the effect the water’s having on the air?”
Shoshanne nodded diligently, but before she could speak, I heard Aurora give an angry hiss.
Flames flew across the cove toward the Flumen Mage on the embankment, and I raised my palm to lock her legs in stone up to her knees this time while I ran to Aurora’s side.
Yvette only giggled and looked down, though, and before the flames could reach her, a wall of water shot over the jetty and drowned out Aurora’s fire.
Another flash from the Ignis Mage’s fingertips sent out an even larger jet of flames, and Cayla’s rifle fired as I ripped a few more boulders up and hurled them at the Flumen Mage.
All three onslaughts converged on Yvette’s twisted smile, and fire peeled around the boulders that struck and shattered across the jetty.
Then Aurora snuffed out her flames, and only rubble lay crumpled where Yvette stood seconds before.
“Fuck!” I growled and scanned the thrashing waves. “How the hell is she doing that?”
“It must be one of those runes,” Aurora said and kept her palms extended. “We need to catch her off guard.”
I nodded and turned toward the cliff, and then I waved to Cayla and motioned for her to change her position. I sent her further south to the cover of the trees where Yvette couldn’t see her take aim, and as she pulled her bazooka from the ground, I turned back and eyed the layout of the cove.