by Helen Savore
“Do as you must, I will take care of Raebyn, child.”
Alexandrea’s dashed for the door, her hand already on the knob when Raebyn’s voice hit her ears. “But our conversation is not over, little fledgling.”
She didn’t look back, so she didn’t know what Moralynn did to let her out, but nothing stopped her escape.
Alexandrea slammed the door behind her and leaned against it, breathing heavily. She splayed her hands along the wood, her fingers rubbing it, and could almost believe she imagined the fae battle behind her. But no, the fact she could sense the wood of her store meant shaping was still real, and this door would not contain them.
She held her head high, shook it, and dropped into a more casual posture. She had a thought of how to convince people to go away. Psyche shaping was an encouragement; it didn’t overwrite someone’s mind. It presented a version of events, but people tended to reject it the more unlikely it was.
The floor shifted. Not a lot, but Alexandrea was feeling for changes. It wouldn’t be long until it became noticeable.
Alexandrea rushed to the front of the store, her gaze latching onto Karen, then the others. “You’re still here?”
Karen rolled her eyes, but smiled. “Of course we are.” She turned her phone and showed the time to Alexandrea. “Did you lose track of time back there?”
Alexandrea grabbed the phone and thumbed through it. “No, your calendar didn’t send an alert? Oh shoot, I sent the wrong date.” She winced and returned the phone. “We’re supposed to have our luncheon at the Bistro today.”
“It’s next week, Alexandrea.”
Claire came around the corner, holding a pile of books. “I didn’t think that was today. Are you sure you don’t have the date wrong, Alexandrea?”
Alexandrea leaned into them both, trying to fill them with the strong impression the lunch was today, doubt of their original thoughts, and disgust at Drea for screwing up the date.
Karen sighed, “You know, she’s right.” She grabbed her purse and tapped Claire on the shoulder. “Alexandrea, you really should leave the planning round here to me.”
“That I should.” She glanced away, trying not to be too obvious, and took that moment to scan the store. Two people were browsing.
“How about you head out and I’ll follow once I close up?”
Claire frowned. “It’s just the three of us, we can wait.”
Alexandrea hummed and stirred a touch of wind, exerting the smallest bit of pressure on both of them, urging them towards the door. “No, seriously, I have this. Go enjoy. I’m right behind you.”
The women shrugged, but left.
It took Alexandrea only a minute to round up the two browsers and send them off with a free book each. It was a small price to pay, and probably didn’t matter. Given the rumbling underfoot, the inventory might not be in any sellable shape for much longer.
Alexandrea walked the customers out and gazed along her storefront. She didn’t specifically know what Raebyn was capable of—nothing had broken yet, so she thought the town itself was safe. But her store shared the building, and they were scuffling along an interior wall.
She marched into Trefor’s Teashop and propped the door open. Eight patrons, including one she’d just hustled out of her own store.
Another tremor reached her feet. She cast an eye towards the wall adjoining her office. The people paused, too. Stopping mid-sip, hesitating too long on a book page, or furrowing their brows. They didn’t know what they felt, but that wouldn’t last for long. The glamours that kept fae and their activities hidden wouldn’t extend to major changes to the landscape or property.
She had to convince them away. Now.
Alexandrea called on psyche to help her like she never had before. She usually used it to make sure she saw clearly, and a bit to police herself, to make sure she didn’t use more than words when she told stories.
Now she had no such worries. They were simple things, but they were still stories she told, stories she sold to give each person a good reason to leave.
She was speaking to the fifth patron when Trefor approached.
“Alexandrea!” His voice echoed within the small store. “I always knew you had it in for me and my shop.”
Alexandrea’s eyes goggled. She had no idea what he was talking about. But the distraction was enough, and she lost her hold of Ms. Jones. She gritted her teeth. A tremor danced across the floor and tickled up her leg. She could hear bashing against the wall. They were running out of time.
“Mr. Trefor,” she said. “I want nothing of the sort.”
He pointed a thick finger in her face. “No, don’t lie to me, girl. You want the whole building for your ridiculous bookstore. Just because you were daddy’s little princess doesn’t mean you can have anything you want, Alexandrea.”
Her lips fell into a frown. She’d had no idea he felt this way, but this was not the time. She reached an arm out, meaning to calm him, but he stepped away.
“Don’t touch me, girl.”
She frowned. “It sounds like we’re long overdue for a conversation. Let’s take a walk and settle things.”
“Professionals don’t close their places on a whim,” Trefor said with a smirk. He stood there defiantly, waiting for her response.
The wall crumbled behind him.
8
The blast sent Moralynn through the wall and counter, but the wooden planks slowed her momentum.
Moralynn's mind flared a brilliant white; it was unnecessary to focus her healing after the centuries of practice. She no longer felt pain, but would need everything in its proper place to face what came next.
Heat permeated the mess on top of her. Whatever had punched her through the wall lingered. She shifted her way out, pulling on strained muscles, and bruising new skin.
“Moralynn!”
Relief flooded her; Alexandrea was not hit by the explosion, but she could not spare the attention to find and protect her. Relief would not quench fire. It did not dissipate, instead it hung tight to the stubborn dead wood. The demolished counter did not hold off the fire, and soon it would become fuel.
Moralynn threw her arms wide, working to contain the inferno. Inside she became a blaze, like she was in the Earth Marrow again. Flame wielding was tough, the licks of fire too chaotic, which required a Shaper to use more skill, and more of themselves, to exert control.
She rolled her will round the blast until she held back the fire. Her foci screamed. They were already beyond taxed from her quick jaunt in the Marrow. A small part of her regretted bonding the new shield to Alexandrea. The girl would not even brandish it in daily life, it likely lay amid whatever mess of the workshop Raebyn had left behind. By Merlin’s beard, after all this time how had Raebyn gotten into the Estate?
Ash tickled Moralynn’s nose, and despite her efforts, some of the heat still escaped. She brought her hands closer together and the flame ball receded, the stench dispersing.
Raebyn laughed. "Amazing stuff, this modern architecture."
The fire had shrunk enough to note Raebyn’s position. She was Moralynn, Phoenix Sparked, doomed to immortality, and she should fear nobody. Raebyn was one of the few that still elicited panic within her. One does not forget the face of their killer, even if they failed. Neither knew how she survived, and the fact that she had puzzled him. That she concurred with his own confusion made him all the more fearsome.
Flames licked along the edge of a pair of overlapping holes in the wall. Raebyn’s skin flickered, ridges and lines of darker blues dancing along it.
"Such wonderful amenities,” he said. “We should consider some in our realms. A fuel for fire, conveniently delivered in gas form. The Flame Stokers would be most pleased."
"Please be quiet," Moralynn said through clenched teeth. "I am concentrating on containing your mess."
"Admirably so." Raebyn pointed beyond her. "More so than your apprentice—she seems to have fallen again. Is she always on the floor?"
&nbs
p; Moralynn twisted her head, careful not to disturb the fireball. Alexandrea stood, her arms held high maintaining an air wall. Six humans cowered behind it. Moralynn glanced round the store. Yes, she had protected them all, unless there were others underneath the crushed counter.
Moralynn's legs spasmed. She’d drawn too much from her fire foci when rushing through the Marrow. She growled. Fire shaping was too useful to lose; she did not want to break any of her fire foci.
"Oh, allow me. You have blamed this mess upon me, so I shall help clean it up." Raebyn waved and the fire disappeared.
Moralynn screamed. She was not as immune to pain as she believed. The sudden disappearance burned her fire foci to slag and a mixture of platinum and steel melted into her shins. Bone splintered along her leg, shredding muscle, and tearing skin. She yelled again, not suppressing the mixture of pain, weakness, and shame inside her. Better to embrace it and fix the tear sooner.
The cursed bone grew, becoming stiff white fins extending from her calf. This was not a simple wound her body could heal without thought. Her mind fractured as she tried to track all the parts that needed fixing. It was difficult to discern what else was happening given the mental battle. The only thing she knew for sure was that the burning stopped.
Before her mind became coherent, a blue blur rushed past her.
"Alexandrea?" Moralynn yelled. She was in no condition to move.
"It's okay," Alexandrea's voice lingered. "My barrier is holding."
"I will come back to you later, fledgling." Raebyn came round to face Moralynn, and smirked. His eyes rested on her ruined legs. "If you would like to take care of that first…"
"Many thanks," she grunted, lowering herself in stages to minimize the pain. Her hands reached for the thinnest part between her skin and new fins, grabbed and cracked the bone, tossing them at his feet. She massaged her calf and resealed the skin. It would take longer to replace the metal damage, but at least she could move. "That will do for now."
"You know, there are simpler methods for someone in your—"
Moralynn glared, silencing him. Now, with a recognizable injury, she set her inner light to addressing it. It would require attention, but Raebyn needed all of hers. This would not go well. "Get on with it, Raebyn."
Raebyn reached into his back shoulder, his skin opening to allow his hand to pass. It stiffened around the rim of the hole, becoming more of the crystal he actually was instead of the skin he imitated. He dragged out a grey metal disk, scrapping something of himself as it was bigger than the hole. He flipped the disk, splatting blue particulates across the room.
Boderien’s latest foci, the new fire shield. He had been to the Estate, he had killed Boderien. A rare anger filled Moralynn. She thought she was beyond strong emotion, but this burned her. Raebyn represented everything she hated about the fae, the way they could take, and kill, and still not be satisfied. The way they acted, instead of speaking. If they had reservations about the human Shapers, why did they not say something instead of killing them all? They were rash, yet they never paid for it, because life was still reborn.
Raebyn had taken her family, her first life, so many things. Why could he not allow her this Smith, this one way to reclaim some hope, some pride? Her one path to finish what they both started.
Raebyn tossed the disk into the air. The light hit it, catching on the facets of the diamonds and rubies, transforming the disk into a deadly rainbow blur.
Why did Raebyn grab this of all the creations in the forge? A final taunt? What more could he do to her?
“Tell me what this is, and I will bother neither of you further.”
Moralynn exhaled, hope sinking. This wasn’t just an attack on them, or about eliminating Life Smiths. Raebyn damn well knew what they were up to. He might claim speaking out loud would end this, but no, there was power in words saying it in earshot would make it worse.
Although it already was. What more could a truth heard and witnessed do to this situation? This might have been a close step towards the Investiture, but now with Boderien gone there would be no Grail. And there were no more Life Smiths left. It was over.
Though quivers of something that resembled fear filled her, she did not have to say all was lost. “It is not yours.”
“In all honesty, I do not want it,” Raebyn said, juggling the disk. His fingers kept to the rim, more blue bleeding out to encase it. “Nevertheless, I still need to know what it is I do not want. This is no simple fire foci, and it is obviously not yours, Moralynn.” Blue clung and burbled into thicker strips, developing a sharp edge. “As I told you ladies, I still have some questions.”
Raebyn let it go in the air, and the shield spun in place.
Looming Luck.
That was going to do some sort of damage, and she could not afford to lose a foci, especially that one. It had taken her centuries to convince a Smith to work for her, and he was gone now. While another Life Smith was impossible, another Smith was still improbable. She was an angel to the fae, the only one who could reincarnate their rested souls, but they treated her like dirt, as if she owed them that service simply because she was the only one who could. Oberon passed along his intolerant attitude towards humans well and wide, beyond logical conclusion, and the fae followed their GodKing.
The shield sprang forward and she lifted her left arm, presenting a section of undecorated chain.
The blue of Raebyn's essence cut her metal, skin, muscle, stopping within the bone. The pain she should have experienced from a mundane deep cut was replaced by a sense of wrongness and horror. Raebyn's cristiline body was the chill one feels when one is at their most vulnerable, when one realizes they are not alone, that an unseen malice lurks nearby.
Using her right gauntlet, Moralynn shoved against the unblemished part of the disk. It slammed into the wall. With Raebyn out of her, Moralynn tuned out the buzzing and focused on her arm.
"There is no point, Raebyn. I require you to leave these premises." She sprung at him and grabbed her water dagger, placing it above her mineral sword’s scabbard. She triggered the change grind, figuring Raebyn could use some fire of his own. When she drew the sword, the dagger scraped the thin line of bronze on the sword’s edge.
She arced it towards Raebyn’s neck and it burst into flame. “Leave the face of the Earth,” she cried.
A brief flick of Raebyn's eyes was all the attention he paid towards Moralynn's weapons. "I still do not have what I came here for."
The rotating disc pulled away from the wall and buzzed towards Moralynn's side. It bounced off her dagger, but the blue border splattered and oozed around the turquoise, bronze, and leather worked into the hilt, before slamming into her flank. This time the essence did not cut the chain or her body. It stuck to her side, crawling through the chain links and spreading along her skin.
Moralynn ground her teeth, fighting panic. She willed her right hand to drop, but it stopped. Her blade could not pierce the cristiline today. She would need more than physical might for this fight, and the chill spreading up her chest disrupted her concentration.
Raebyn smiled. "Oh, come on, fight it."
"No, not like that." Moralynn scored her dagger along her mail, scraping at the growing blue mass.
"Oh, please, do not be so demure, Moralynn. It has been too long since I have crossed blades with the Phoenix Sparked."
She resented hearing that title cross his lips. Raebyn always enjoyed rubbing in her situation since he had failed to kill her the first time. His failure benefited the fae, though. With Merlin’s death, his apprentice—the Phoenix Sparked—could perform some life duties. But she never could find that force to fuel life, the true strength of the Phoenix. She had to be satisfied with harvesting shorter lives to perpetuate the fae.
Moralynn lowered her sword arm. "And it will continue to be long until you confront me in a less despicable manner. I will not fight you like this."
"Would you prefer to fight me like this?" Raebyn stamped the floor. Blue tendrils
grew from the spot and traced the wood grain. The planks shook. The remaining boards on the walls tilted and canisters spilled onto the floor.
"Raebyn, no!" Moralynn fell, hands to the floor. The room stilled, but the blue essence on her began to climb again.
"I would not want to insult you by making this easy, Moralynn." Raebyn cracked his teeth and unhinged his jaw. A plume of fire shot out, creating a hole in the weakened floor.
Moralynn jumped back. She looked to Alexandrea, whose eyes were wide, but lips twitching.
She must be muttering to help with the air shield. How long could it hold? Raebyn is going to destroy this place.
The fire grew, not expanding outward, but down. It twirled until it became a pinwheel of heat, sinking into the ground.
Moralynn could not control the fire; those foci were in ruins. She considered wind, but could not risk borrowing air from Alexandrea's wall. She reached for water, drawing it out from the blown fixtures in the wall. Raebyn's blue gunk thinned out but continued to crawl over her. Its tendrils pulled on her muscles, ruining her movements. She concentrated on summoning the water forth.
Raebyn flipped his wrist, and the disk returned to him, intercepting the water stream. "You are right. You should not fight me like this. Fight me fairly, instead. Meet me in the Trials this upcoming Equinox. If you do not, I will return and I will not leave so quietly." He tossed the disk into the air and stepped on the fire. “I can still recognize life smithing materials, Moralynn. Such a blatant display of diamonds within this stone. Your duties do not require any amplification or additional direction, so what use do you have for life foci?”
“What do you know of life, Raebyn?” Moralynn said. “You are heartless stone.”
He glared at her. “If you do not attend the Trials, I will return for your apprentice.” His eyes drifted to Alexandrea.
The fire accelerated, boring deeper into the ground and guiding Raebyn down. He waved. "Goodbye for now, fledgling."
"Oh no, you do not!" The blue tendrils fell away from Moralynn and crawled towards the fire twirl. She could move again. "Not yet." She grabbed them and yanked. Raebyn did not come back, but the tendril held, and drew taut.