Nora dropped to Bannen’s other side, her grimoire already out, hands flicking through the pages toward the back of the book. “I can stabilize him, but we can’t afford for you to sit here and hover.”
I knew what she meant, what she was saying, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from Bannen’s face. He looked so still, so beaten, barely breathing, and my heart hurt as much as the bond screamed at me. How am I supposed to focus if the center of my world is literally fighting for breath?
“Rena. RENA.”
Jerking my head up, I met Nora’s eyes, and she looked a little misty around the edges. Likely because of my tears.
“Rena, you need to move,” Nora demanded harshly. “Move, or he really will die, because we can’t treat him properly with those two things hovering over us. Do your job if you want him to live.”
The words felt like a slap in the face. I didn’t blame her for them. I knew she was right. I jerked my head into a nod and forced myself up to my feet, tears leaving wet trails over my cheeks, feeling ungainly and uncoordinated. The stupid tears burned at my eyes and I rubbed them roughly away with the palms of my hands.
The insane, crazy notion I’d had not five minutes ago just became viable because Bannen had minutes, maybe an hour, before his life faded out of him. None of my logical, orderly spells would work quickly enough to save him.
My entire life had been about control—control of my strange magic, control of my failing body, so that no one else got hurt, not even me. There was a very good reason for that control. I felt, strongly, that day to day I needed that control. Right now, this situation was not even remotely similar to my daily life. I couldn’t afford to pull my punches here, as Bannen would put it. I needed to unleash every ounce of magic I had to combat Toh’sellor.
I had enough sense left to turn my head, ordering Maksohm, “Don’t follow me.”
He jerked around, mouth opening in protest, but I didn’t hear him.
In a single step, I left the shield, and as soon as I did so, I let my magic go, for the first time ever, giving it control. It ripped free like a chained beast that had broken out of its bonds, disintegrating the Big Bads, destroying even the ground I stood on, so that a crater formed around my shoes. It felt like fire and ice, all at once, as if I had unleashed a maelstrom, energy charging through me. I’d harnessed a lightning storm inside me and had battened it down to a candle this entire time. I turned my head in a slow circle, reveling in the feeling. It was so liberating. Why haven’t I done this before?
I didn’t have to tell my magic to leave the people alone, to protect them from the fallout, because my magic was part of me. Of course it would protect them. But everything else was more than fair game, we both understood that, and a feral smile curled at the edges of my mouth. For the first time, I told my magic, “Let’s destroy everything, shall we?”
My magic hummed happily, electrified and racing. I felt it so strongly I nearly quaked with it. It felt like quicksilver in my veins, like a cool fire raging, and I thrilled at the feeling. Must, must let it free more often.
Laughing in exhilaration, I continued my walk, steadily going, not at all bothered when anything tried to approach me, as nothing lived. Even the strange energy that made up Toh’sellor, whipping around me like a tornado, couldn’t affect me, although I noted its attempts with amusement. It couldn’t get close, couldn’t touch me. I was its natural enemy. Just standing there and breathing, my magic loose around me, destroyed it all in an instant. Trammel had been right. It really couldn’t touch me, not like it could with everything else.
As liberating, energetic, and alive as I felt, I could sense, too, that this would be short-lived. I expended too much energy letting go like this, my magic draining much faster than I’d ever felt. I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long.
I stopped walking, started jogging, heading straight for the core. The air around me vaporized, my magic cutting straight through it like a sharp burst of wind tearing into a cloud. The tentacles shriveled and died near my feet, and I could see Toh’sellor losing form and energy, disintegrating everywhere I touched, everywhere my magic could reach.
The core flickered, writhing and thrashing like a live animal caught, pulsating with energy only a few feet from me now and I could feel the oppression of this monstrous creation trying to press down on me, trying to expel me, but the pressure of it didn’t faze me. Nothing could, not in this moment.
The power of the moment made me a little cocky. I pointed dead ahead. “There.”
My magic leapt to obey, attacking viciously, cutting through what remained of the core and then whipping up and forward, tackling every trace of energy forming the body of Toh’sellor. I stood within a tornado of energy, light, sound, darkness, chaos, and saw it slowly unravel and lose speed, stuttering in places before loosening altogether in others, dissipating into nothing more than air. Even the smell changed, turning into something more earthy, metallic, then clear of both and into something I’d never experienced before. It almost felt like my breath was stolen from my lungs before I could properly draw in the air.
Sweat poured off me in exertion, my heart beating fast enough to go straight through my chest, but I kept it up. I let my magic continue, not willing to do this half-way, because that way led madness. Toh’sellor shrank steadily, no longer the mountain creature that loomed, but now as tall as a steep ravine, still shrinking, the tentacles evaporating as if they had never been.
Sounds came from behind me, like people shouting, but I could barely hear over the sound of the heartbeat thudding like a war drum in my ears. I hoped they were sounds of victory, sounds of delight, as Toh’sellor lost the energy to fuel all of his minions. I couldn’t look, couldn’t take a moment to even glance, as I didn’t have the energy to spare. My legs started shaking from the exertion of keeping me upright. I kept on my feet through willpower, not even trying to rein my magic in.
I was not going down before Toh’sellor did.
Pain and darkness, every breath a torture to my lungs; the bond twisting like a mad cat in my chest, demanding; a hard ground underneath me that smelled strange, not that I could smell all that well with something sticky coating my nose; and the tingling sensation of magic focused on my chest and head.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong but I found it hard to focus, to get my eyes open. I didn’t dare try to sit up, not yet; I had a bad feeling that I’d done something worse than crack a rib this time, as every breath in burned agony and fire. I couldn’t draw a proper one, either, and that told me ample about my state right now.
More important than all of that, though, was, “Rena.” The word ripped out of my mouth, dry and tortured. Speaking hurt.
“She’s focusing on Toh’sellor, in…ah, no danger,” a male voice said reassuringly. Chi. Chi said that. Although part of it didn’t sound right. “Bannen, buddy, you with us?”
Since both eyes wouldn’t cooperate, I forced just one open, and didn’t feel at all better for it. All I could see above me was Maksohm and Nora’s shield, and a weirdly colored sky of blue and green above it. I looked down, uncomfortably at this angle, eye nearly level with my cheek. Ah, there was Chi. And Nora. And…I knew the face, recognized the uniform, but the name escaped me just then. The blow to the head that I could feel reverberating in my skull likely could be blamed for my lapse in memory. Both Nora and the other agent had their hands on me, magic coursing fast and steady, which I appreciated. Pretty sure I’d be dead right now if they weren’t actively working on me. “Wh—” I managed before coughing, hard, feeling like a lung would come up.
“Whoa, whoa, don’t try to really talk,” Chi said frantically, face drawn in with worry, voice rough at the edges. “Let me see if I can guess what you want to know. What happened? Yeah? Okay, one of those big uglies got a swing in at one of the teams—they managed to duck—but the tip of it hit you square in the chest and sent you flying. You’ve got three broken ribs, one of which punctured your lung, a concussion, broken shoulder blade,
and I think your nose is bleeding, but that could be the head wound, it’s gushing a lot.” He gave me a feeble smile as he leaned over, putting pressure on my head wound, which didn’t make it feel any better. I didn’t protest, as I didn’t want to lose too much blood, either.
I grimaced. My nose didn’t feel broken, fortunately. Must be the head wound, then. Still, that was quite the tally and I absently realized that this was literally the worst I’d ever gotten hurt. Not that I ever want to top my personal record with myself on this, but at least it makes for a good story later.
“Rena’s seriously fine, going to town on Toh’sellor,” Chi continued helpfully. “The way she’s tackling that thing, I don’t give it more than a few more minutes before it’s dead. If you can consider something not truly ‘alive’ as ‘dead’ but anyway, you get my drift. She’s shrunk it down to about the size of MISD’s headquarters. It’s awe inspiring to watch, really.”
All good to hear. I sank back a little and regretted that, as it jostled everything, which all hurt, and you know you’re injured when every single twitch sends pain racing through you. I’d be on bed rest for a good week at least from this.
Something popped in my chest, coming back into alignment, and I let out a wordless exclamation of relief and pain.
“Shh, shh,” Nora soothed, still working. “We got the rib out of your lung, let Agent Sherri close that up so you can breathe. We’ve got your ribs all in place now, just putting a cast spell on you so that you can’t do anything stupid and knock them out of alignment again. We have to draw the blood out of your lungs first, before we close it out, so don’t move. This is not going to feel comfortable.”
“But if we don’t get the blood out, you’ll drown in your own lungs, so it’s very necessary,” Sherri added firmly.
I loved how people assumed I was going to do something acrobatic and energetic with a hole in my lung. What did they take me for, a complete idiot? I mean, if it were just some bruised ribs, that was one thing, but I did draw a line on punctured body parts.
The spells did their magic (no pun intended, okay, maybe slightly intended) and I could breathe again without blood bubbling, which I appreciated. It no longer felt like I was half-drowning, either, so the situation was definitely on the up and up. I still didn’t try to draw a full breath as that would be painful. Especially with the bond screeching like a stepped on tiger. The fact that I registered the bond more strongly in my chest normally didn’t bother me much but, strangely, I disliked having it pull and contort on top of multiple broken ribs.
They closed up the gash on my head as well, bandaged that, and Chi cleaned the blood off my face. I got rolled carefully onto my side so they could put another immobilizing spell on my shoulder, arm now pinned to my chest so that I couldn’t jostle the broken bone. Doing all of that hurt and dark spots danced in front of my eyes through most of it. I had to fight to not pass out.
Yikes, but the next few weeks would not be fun.
Then, very carefully, they sat me up a little, which I really appreciated for multiple reasons. Trying to breathe with broken ribs while lying down was simply not a fun thing to try, but I also wanted to see Rena with my own eyes. Something was not quite right with her, and Chi’s assurances aside, I could feel it through the bond. Maybe my own injuries skewed things around so I didn’t see it properly, maybe not. I couldn’t tell until I saw her.
Chi propped me up himself, carefully, keeping his hands on my arms and not anywhere near my ribs. I leaned against him heavily, head coming up, looking for my Rena. There she was. She wasn’t far, fortunately, nothing more than a stone’s throw away. It looked like—my breath stopped in my throat. Oh no. No, no, nonononono. “Stop her.”
I could feel Chi jerk around. “What?”
“Stop her,” I demanded, desperate and angry that my body wouldn’t move. “She’s about to go into a mind down, someone stop her!”
Swearing, Vee started past me, only for Nora to grab her around the waist and dig her heels in. “No, Vee! Not without a shield!”
“Then shield me,” Vee snarled, still moving, because very little in this world could stop a giant when they want to go somewhere.
“I will,” Maksohm stated calmly, waving his cousin off, falling into Vee’s pace. “Go, Vee.”
The shield snapped up around the both of them and I should have felt better about them going for Rena, but I didn’t. Panic thrummed through me like a heartbeat. They weren’t moving fast enough, and I could see Rena’s magic going into that terrible nonexistent phase that meant she had no energy left.
Toh’sellor still had presence to him, about the size of a two story building, and still Rena’s magic whirled wildly around both of them, although she too faded fast. Some part of her realized she had people coming toward her and she turned, said something, what I don’t know. I couldn’t hear her at this distance, not with the wind still whipping around her, especially not with how soft spoken she is.
“Chi, could you hear her?”
“No,” he responded, agitated.
Yez dropped down at my side. “She said that what’s left is chaotic energy that she can’t figure out how to destroy.” When we both gave him a look askance, he explained, “Read her lips.”
Figured a spy can do that. “What did Maksohm say?”
“His back is to me, can’t tell, but Vee said that it should work, whatever he suggested.”
“So they’re going to stop her?” The words came out as a plea because Rena still hadn’t stopped that destructive swirl of magic, which alarmed me on several levels. I had never seen her magic so out of control. My Rena was usually the epitome of control, so I didn’t want to imagine what had pushed her this far. Although I had a bad feeling it was me going down.
Yez stared hard at the trio and the look on his face did not bode well. “I can’t catch most of what they’re saying, they’re facing the wrong direction. But it doesn’t look like she’s stopping.”
She wasn’t, and that terrified me. I couldn’t even yell at her, not with my state. I tried tugging at the bond, forcing her to look at me, and I know she felt it, but she didn’t turn.
If she survived this, I’d kill her.
Minutes dragged by, the three of them still not moving, not doing anything, and if I didn’t have three different immobilization spells on me and Chi’s hands solidly holding me down, I would have lunged toward Rena. The concussion made it harder for me to focus, too, sard it all. “Yez?”
“Vee just asked if that was enough. They’re waiting on something, I’m not quite sure—wait, I think Maksohm just pulled out his grimoire. He did.”
We all saw it when our team leader threw a thick barrier around what remained of Toh’sellor. It had been reduced down to a good sized house, flickering erratically, literally fighting to stay in existence under Rena’s onslaught. Nora ran to join them without prompting, also throwing a barrier around it, then stepped back, clapping and cheering loudly.
That looked promising.
Nora turned to yell something, and we caught the tone, but not the words. Yez duly translated, “It’s perfectly caged now, no chance of it getting free. Rena’s fine—”
“Rena is NOT fine,” I snarled. Forget this, I’d sent three people over there to stop her, and apparently they all couldn’t manage it, so I’d sarding do it myself.
Even as I wallowed, trying to win free of Chi’s grip, Rena staggered in place and I could see her magic return to her, or what was left of her magic return to her. Vee lunged, catching her before my fiancée hit the ground, and I pounded my good fist against the ground, growling in frustration. The movement jarred every broken bone I had, a fresh wave of pain grating along my nerves, but I didn’t care. It just ramped up my anger to another level. “This is why I said to stop her!”
Vee hefted Rena up in her arms and ran back to me, and I didn’t understand why at first, then I realized of course, that was smart of her. Never mind that trying to do magical first aid on Rena right n
ext to Toh’sellor was a Bad Decision, but my familiar bond would literally tear me apart trying to get to Rena when in a mind down like this. Rena wouldn’t recover right either unless she was within arm’s reach of me.
Bless Vee for realizing this. I owed her chocolates, flowers, and maybe a kitten.
The giantess nearly skid in on her knees, dust puffing up and swirling around at the motion, then she dropped Rena next to me quickly, cradling her head to avoid injuries, but setting her down swiftly. I grabbed Rena’s hand with mine, eyes darting over her anxiously as I took in her condition. She looked just as bad as the first time she’d done this, perhaps worse, skin beyond pale and almost grey, body so lax that she reacted like a puppet with its strings cut. I could barely see her magic at all, nothing more than a wisp of it. My heart trembled in reaction, my own breath stuttering to a near halt. “Is she breathing? I can’t see her breathing. Vee, make her breathe!”
Vee immediately put both hands on Rena’s chest and pumped magic into her.
I looked around wildly for the other agent, the one that had helped me, but she’d left at some point, probably to help the other injured. I knew there were other injured, but right now, Rena needed help. I opened my mouth to yell for Sherri, realized I couldn’t—sarding hole in my lung—and pleaded with Chi, “Get Sherri back over here.”
Chi promptly turned and bellowed, “SHERRI! RENA’S DOWN!”
A woman swore colorfully and I could hear someone sprint to our side. She arrived on skidded knees, took one glance at the situation, and slammed her hands against Rena’s breastbone, forcing magic into her.
Nora and Maksohm, not able to keep up with a giantess at full speed, finally caught up, also crowding around us and lending their magic in as well, so that four different mages worked to revive Rena’s core. I watched in silence, feeling helpless and angry at my helplessness. I hated my familiar bond in situations like this as it demanded that I do something, but there was nothing I could do, literally nothing, and that lack of ability nearly killed me.
The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2) Page 34