by Lucia Ashta
Whatever these things truly were, it was a remarkable feat in magic, and Mordecai, the wizard who loved the study of magic more than most things in life, couldn’t help himself.
With her master looking away, and with Marcelo looking at me, rendered useless, Sylvia was the only one who saw what was about to happen. Three similar actions of attack converged in the same second.
Count Washur steeled his eyes on Marcelo, noticing the young man’s eyes elsewhere. For a magician of the Count’s skill, this was opportunity enough. Magic meant to inflict worse than death was a few spoken words away.
Winston and Salazar drew back their hands to launch a ball of death similar to the one Salazar had attempted to kill me with in the subterranean cave after he kidnapped me. Winston wasn’t a real threat to Sylvia’s master. His power wasn’t strong enough to do real, permanent harm; he lacked experience and the necessary magic in his blood to do anything more than grave—not deadly—damage. Salazar, however, couldn’t defeat a magician as powerful as Mordecai under ordinary circumstances, but with Mordecai looking away, Salazar could kill him. The ancient magician knew better than to leave himself vulnerable like this, but the childlike enthusiasm for the magical arts, that was ultimately responsible for his long life, made him forget himself for a moment too long.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t in mortal danger just then.
Sylvia had choices to make. They weren’t easy ones and she had no time in which to make them.
Like me, like most humans that hadn’t given their souls to the darkness, Sylvia allowed love to guide her. In those moments that were too fast for reasoned thought, love always trumped. Sylvia put her master before his son, and she roared fire at Salazar and Winston, who dropped the balls of death they were in the process of creating. The balls evaporated into the nothingness they’d come from, and the young men jumped out of the way of the continuous stream of white fire.
By the time I was able to open my eyes and drop my hands from my ears, my beloved lay on the ground at the Count’s feet, and Mordecai, roused from distraction by Sylvia’s flame, held Salazar and Winston pinned in place with a magical prison. He steeled his hand that created the prison, and only dared flick his eyes away twice: once to the man that was like his son on the packed dirt, and once to the ceiling, where the creatures, darker than black, continued to drip in their descent toward all of us, including the unconscious Marcelo.
Salazar struggled against his bonds, but Winston couldn’t. He didn’t know how. Mordecai’s prison kept them both contained.
But Salazar’s power was building behind the invisible bars that held him.
Mordecai couldn’t let them go, and Sylvia knew it. She flew, with short, powerful bursts of wide wings, and in five strokes, she was atop Marcelo’s prone form. As soon as she landed, spreading herself across Marcelo’s body as much as possible, Count Washur struck her with a spell that she was only able to partially deflect. She slunk more heavily onto Marcelo, and hiccupped a small flame.
I watched, horrified, as Count Washur drew his hands back to attack again, displaying the same actions Salazar had to create a ball of death. Meanwhile, the black gelatinous things were inches away from the opalescent crest of Sylvia’s head.
I stood on unstable feet and still hadn’t regained my wits. Yet. I’d be damned if I’d just sit there, like one of the helpless damsels from childhood fairytales, while I allowed the man who’d risked his life to help me be killed. Wits were overrated anyway, right?—at least where my magic was concerned.
I couldn’t think, hear, or see straight, yet I stood, and I turned to face the undead count. I could feel the darkness of his things—pets, whatever they were—but I didn’t look up to watch their dreadful descent. Too much had been suffered from distracted gazes.
I stared once more at those blue eyes of ice, with all the intensity I could muster, willing my eyes to focus. The ringing in my head was subsiding, and I prayed that my strength would come more rapidly than coherent thoughts.
Count Washur turned the death ball he was in the midst of creating away from Sylvia and Marcelo and toward me. I continued to stare, and I watched frozen, as a tight, mirthless smile cracked his white face.
He drew his hands back and prepared to launch. Mordecai watched too, in fascinated, frozen horror, wondering if more tragedy was about to happen.
Deep within me, the five-petal knot that had been murmuring in comforting, reassuring whispers, now spoke in clear, succinct commands I understood. The five elements urged me to be who I was, and the Count never saw it coming.
Chapter 29
The Count skipped a beat when he saw the glow beginning to form at my chest, and the ball he held within his hands, mostly formed, faltered. Washur’s hesitation lasted only a second, however, and almost immediately the ball grew darker and more distinct. His weapon was almost ready.
But so was I.
It was then I realized it didn’t make sense to wait for the perfect circumstances or for my perfect, complete training. Neither of these ideals would ever come to be. Magic, like life, was messy. It was raw and mostly unpredictable. It made my heart clench at times, and soar at others. I couldn’t wait for perfection, or I’d be waiting for it all my life.
I had no idea what I’d do or how I’d do it. The ball in Washur’s hands was well defined now.
I tore my eyes from the ball that might be my death, and moved to act before my thoughts could paralyze me. I hardly noticed the ringing in my head anymore for the rushing sound of blood pulsing urgently through my brain.
The Count drew back his arms, ready to launch. And the time was now or never.
On wobbly legs, I locked my knees to hold me in place, commanding my feet not to move.
A shiver began to rise up my spine; my body was aware of the unbelievable nature of my situation even if I was doing my best to ignore it.
I clamped the shiver down angrily. Come on, body. You need to cooperate. I can’t do this without you. I was scared, but I wouldn’t show it.
Everything was silent around me. What I did next drew out in slow motion, as if every movement could be broken down into individual still frames.
Washur released the ball, which began its journey toward me.
I didn’t look at it though. I didn’t worry about it at all. There was nothing I’d do to stop it.
What I was going to do was to take out this man. A man like this shouldn’t live any longer. He shouldn’t have lived as long as he had already.
The glow within me intensified, and I knew it because the Count’s eyes widened in surprise as I stared into them. He’d known there was something special about me. He hadn’t known I was this special.
I put into motion the action I meant to take against the Count, and I released my hold on it. It would either happen or it would not. The Count would die, or not. I would live, or not. The results of my choices, and his, were out of our hands.
I sensed my chest radiating heat. The five elements that encompassed all magic were on my side. Within all of magic there was the potential for good and evil. But good is where the satisfaction of creation lies.
The five elements pulsed in front of me, forging the path of goodness, doing for me what I would have chosen had I known this was possible. Like a sound wave, or a heat wave, the five elements shone before me with a soft, white light. It looked innocuous, mesmerizing even.
Count Washur knew better, even if he’d never seen this before. So did Salazar, who struggled valiantly against his invisible bindings. Did he really want to save his father? More than anyone in that room, he must’ve known it’d be best if the man finally died, allowing his body to go as it was meant to so many centuries before.
The light continued to spread in front of me, like the ever-lapping waves of Lake Creston. With each pulse, the light reached for Washur. Soon, it’d be close enough to touch him.
After that first step of retreat, the Count hadn’t moved. Wide-eyed, he watched this marvel. unfold. Dar
k magic was powerful. Up until now, the Count had never encountered a limit to his magic. Still, nothing had made him feel like this. There was a part of him that wanted to dive into the light, as if it were what he’d been missing all along, without realizing it.
I didn’t actually know what the light was capable of—something flickered behind those icy eyes. I didn’t see it coming, nor, it seemed, did the Count. Regardless, it was there: a reckoning.
In the same moment that the light connected the five-petal knot in my heart with his own heart, the dark blobs made contact with me and everyone else in that room except the Count.
A cattish squelch of pain rose from the dark recesses of the dungeon that no candle illuminated. My head whipped around in search of Gertrude. Before my eyes had a chance to bring to the forefront their still-developing ability to see well in the dark, I lost my sight to an enveloping darkness that was trying, very effectively, to sink its non-existent claws into me.
A chorus of cries, from friend and enemy alike, sang out around me, reminding me that I wasn’t alone. The dark hopelessness that made up the blobs attacked everyone who had a soul.
I didn’t know what to do. I flicked a helpless look behind me, where Marcelo and Sylvia were still unconscious, covered in blobs that attached to them like leeches, sucking the life out of them just as effectively. I looked to Mordecai, but he didn’t meet my glance. He was writhing, as were his prisoners. Soon, Mordecai would let the prison fall. Neither Salazar nor Winston would be going anywhere, though.
I turned to look ahead of me.
The Count was gone.
I didn’t know what the light had done to him. Obviously his body had survived the five elements enough to escape. But had his dark magic survived as well?
The Count might have succeeded in killing us, after all. I scrunched my eyes shut tight as I had a ridiculous amount of times since arriving at Washur. If I was going to get out of here, and do anything to help everyone else, I had to focus before there was no chance of recovery.
I forgot about the Count, and I forgot Marcelo, Sylvia, and Mordecai. I forgot about Salazar and Winston, and I even let all thoughts of Gertrude go. The way to my salvation was within, and there was only one way to get to it.
I forced myself to ignore the icy chill the blobs dripped into me, as if they were poisoning my blood. I pushed away the panic that wanted to rise up in my throat. I used all the strength I had left to me, each time less as the dark blobs burrowed further within me.
I needed magic now, and lucky for me, the source of all magic hummed contentedly within me. Darkness was nothing to concern the five elements.
My thoughts were foggy. I plowed through them aggressively. Five elements, here I am. Keep me with you. Hold me to you.
My focus was fading. My heart beat slowed and almost stopped.
Then there was a spark. The spark of magic flared within me, and not a second too soon. My heart began hammering, alive with a five-petal knot more beautiful than a stolen kiss at the base of a hill.
My eyes sprang open with a will of their own. I didn’t know it then, but the Count activated newfound power within me.
Magic and the good within it were extremely powerful. Yet magic that has confronted the darkest dark and survived it was even more powerful because of its survival, because it had met its opponent and conquered it. Life is one of contrasts: light and dark, good and evil, day and night, heat and cold. Extremes allow the opposite condition to be appreciated in fullness. And so the Count’s darkness allowed me to see my power in its entirety.
Finally, though I didn’t realize it then, I was a match for the Count. As unbelievable as it would have seemed to either one of us, I now had the power to kill him if I chose.
First, I had to save those I loved.
I moved into action, the pulsing beat of my heart clearing the way for me as I went.
Chapter 30
I released panic and the acute sense that I had no idea what I was doing astonishingly easily. If the five-petal knot hadn’t illuminated the way for me, we would have all died right then, moments apart one from the other, our eternal souls hostage to the clutches of unrelenting darkness.
There would have been no such thing as heightened destinies for us anymore. The blobs would have swallowed our purposes in one final, deciding gulp.
As inoffensive as they might appear, lacking the needle-sharp teeth and claws of some of the Count’s other beasts, they were among the most terrible. Neither the giant black elephants nor the monstrous dogs that attacked Irele were as bad, even though I’d believed then that there could be nothing worse. I gulped with a sudden sense of awareness. I hoped I wasn’t wrong again, and the Count had something more terrifying than these leeches of darkness, because if he did, I wouldn’t wager on our survival.
The sounds of my loved ones writhing permeated into the bubble that seemed to encompass me. With sudden urgency, I gave the pulsing five elements the go-ahead before I lost focus again.
The pulsing at my heart center built strength. It became easier to resist the blobs. My knees didn’t wobble when I stopped focusing on holding them straight. My back straightened, and the shiver eventually dissipated from my body.
I turned to Marcelo first. Like Sylvia had before, my first impulse prioritized based on affection. My fiancé was nearing the point of no return. Perhaps he’d been foolish to leave half of himself behind in Bundry to search for Carlton. Yet it was the kind of person he was.
I hoped the five-petal pulsations could reach him in time. Already, his heartbeat was perilously faint. I bridged the few steps between us and bent over to touch him, hoping that would make the light pulsations reach him sooner. I didn’t know how to speed up the magical process that took place within me.
I bowed my head so as not to see Sylvia’s thrashing form and be tempted to save her instead. Her body was still strong, the vitality within a firedrake stronger to begin with than a human. Marcelo didn’t thrash any longer; he’d been too weak to thrash even when the blob attack began. I closed my eyes to Sylvia’s red ones rolling around in their sockets and to the sounds of three other men behind. I even released the faint meowing, far away, that I had been tracking.
I tightened my hold on Marcelo’s thigh and waited, knowing that Marcelo’s fate would be decided very soon. He was too near death for it to be much longer.
I didn’t know what else to do other than what I was doing.
I fought the tears, knowing that now wasn’t the time for them. I was the only one there that had the chance to do anything other than submit to a fate worse than death. Although I resisted, a tear slid down the bridge of my nose, before it finally broke free. It fell gracefully, wetting the tip of Sylvia’s tail as it moved across Marcelo’s body.
And then the pulsing light reached Marcelo; I knew it because the magic of earth, air, water, and fire heated my hand where it had grown cold with dread against the fabric of Marcelo’s riding breeches. The light of the five elements spread through my hand and the coarse weave that sheathed Marcelo’s thigh. I held onto him as long as I could, although it was not nearly long enough, and then I let go.
The magic of the five elements would continue to work on him—I hoped; I had no real way of knowing for sure. Still, if he survived, he would find fault if I lingered over him too long and allowed his friends—and enemies—to die. A situation like this distilled itself into a simple matter of life and death, and one life in these circumstances was not always more valuable than the next. At times, you just needed to save whoever was still capable of being saved.
I lifted my hand from Marcelo. Immediately, I missed the feel of him, mostly because I realized it might be the last time I felt as much warmth in his limbs as I just had. I turned from Sylvia and her pain simply because she was the strongest of all of us there. She could hold on the longest, even if it meant she would endure more pain. Though she had been in the radius of the pulsing waves, they had not been directed at her, and so it wasn’t enou
gh to free her from the constantly deepening hold of the blobs.
I turned my back on her, even though I knew that the blobs the five elements forced to abandon Marcelo were then slinking toward her. She shrieked horribly, but I continued. I had to, or Mordecai would be dead before I could save his pet.
The more the light of the elements pulsed within me, the more the slow motion effect that gripped me cracked, threatening finally to shatter. I still couldn’t yet walk at my normal pace, but I could see more clearly.
In ten long, sure strides in my elven shoes, I reached Mordecai. Although the magician was strong, his body was old and weathered. His hold on life was greater than Marcelo’s had been, but it wasn’t strong enough. His breathing was raspy and shallow, and though he faced me head-on as I approached, I wasn’t certain if his eyes registered me or not. He seemed already to be looking toward another place, and it was one from which people didn’t return.
Mordecai’s hands were at his sides. His arms hung slack. The prison he had held Winston and Salazar in was a thing of the past, although the prisoners hadn’t escaped far. They writhed next to each other atop the hard-packed dirt stained with the stench of others long dead. If Winston and Salazar had not been friends in life, they were companions in imminent death.
I clasped my hands around Mordecai’s wrists and received no reaction from the three-hundred-and-seventeen-year-old. I wondered briefly if he was in a place where he could experience Albacus, the brother that helped him feel whole; wherever he was, he wasn’t here, right in front of me.
Without calling him back, and only trusting that what was best would be done, I tightened my hold and closed my eyes again until I sensed the warmth of my hands permeate through the thick fabric of the dark cloak Mordecai wore equally in summer and in winter.