CHAPTER 824: FEAR

The night darkened as the last fires of the explosion died away. The last surviving patch of mountain felt impossibly small, a trap as sure as any cage. It swayed under my feet, causing my stomach to clench, swimming with butterflies.

The skyship drifted closer. Eighty feet, sixty, then thirty. Close enough I could make out the worried expressions of the soldiers, and follow their gazes as they shot around the mountainside.

"He left you, didn’t he," Wizlen said, breaking the tense silence.

I tightened my grip on my staff, fighting to keep my composure. The warrior held my gaze until I looked away, biting my lip.

"I see," he said, nodding matter-of-factly. "Then there’s no sense worrying about an ambush. How typical of filthblood scum, abandoning their own to preserve their lives."

The nervous shifting and mutters of the crew stilled at the declaration. They relaxed, focusing their attention on me. I counted twelve bowstrings drawn taught, and almost a dozen mages with the final words of their chants hovering on their lips. Their combined auras made me squirm, a slight cough forcing through the tightness of my throat. The back of my hand came away crimson.

"I’m impressed you manage to survive this far, though judging from your looks, it hasn’t been easy. I’m kind of disappointed to see filthblood bleed as red as humans. It’s insulting."

"Did you just come here to mock me?" I asked.

His eyes narrowed. "I came here to kill you, to avenge the thousands dead in our fair city. But the wise leaders, our mighty, hallowed overlords–" He sneered, spitting off the side of the ship. "–asked that I give you a chance to surrender."

I took a short breath, looking over the ship again. Thirty soldiers, the weakest being fifth-level. My odds weren’t exactly favorable.

"I won’t."

His sneer turned to a smirk. "I was hoping you’d say that. I’d kill you myself right here and now, but that would be too quick for filth like you. I couldn’t deprive these men and women the chance to fight for the city you ruined. Every soldier needs that closure, don’t you think?"

He waved his hand, and the order was given. A dozen spells exploded atop me, followed by a hail of arrows. I cried out as one sliced a hole through my wards, leaving a shallow gash on my ribs. The teleportation spell flickered as the mountain trembled, disintegrating beneath me from the force of the attacks. I started to fall.

"No," I whispered, grasping toward it with my hand.

The world spun as I fell, the sky and earth trading places. Disoriented as I was, I barely managed to conjure a Binding Winds to break my fall before slamming into a boulder. My ankle twisted and snapped on an uneven facet, and I tumbled another five feet to the ground.

Somehow, my spell had survived, floating twenty feet above me. I’d gotten so close, yet now it might as well have dispersed. Had I the mana, I could reposition it beneath me and maybe pick up where I left off. But I didn’t.

The skyship loomed closer, filling the sky and blotting out the last of the morning stars. Just beneath the curved hull, the sun broke, sending sunbeams racing across the mountains. A cheer went up, echoing across the mountains.

"How fitting. A creature of the dark perishing in the dawn. Push on, soldiers. Finish her!" Wizlen cried.

It was then, as the weight of despair brought me to my knees, that Fate’s voice rang in my mind.

"Stop holding back."

It came as clear as when she first told me, reverberating through my entire being.

"I’m not, " I sobbed, pressing a hand to my side, warm blood trickling through my finger. "I’ve done everything. I don’t have anything left to give."

A lightning spell exploded against the side of the boulder I sheltered behind, showering me in gravel and sparks, making my hair stand on end. Another burst of mana entered my soul as Adaptive resistance sucked up the residual backwash. It flowed into my wards, renewing their strength.

It was too inefficient. I would never gather enough mana to finish the spell. Too much was lost in the gap between my wards and my soul.

Stop holding back, I whispered, letting my hand drop from my staff. What exactly was holding me back? Was it my mana? My skill? Or was it...me?

The thought sent a tingle running from my horns to the top of my tail. It was so simple, so obvious. It was the reason why Adaptive resistance was weaker against magical techniques. And that reason was me. It wasn’t my mana. It was my fear. The fear of being hurt, of dying. The fear of losing everything I’d worked so hard to build. The fear of never knowing the light like I had known the dark.

Fear. There was a time when fear paralyzed me, gripping my heart stronger than any chain or curse. Were that time now, I would be inclined to roll over and hide, waiting to be captured or killed.

But that time had passed. That frightened, helpless girl belonged in the shadows of Haven, trembling beneath Lord Byron. They belonged in the abandoned city at Tormod’s breach. But I’d left those places behind, rising through my fear and reaching for the light. I wouldn’t allow the fear to claim me anymore.

I straightened, facing the sky ship with a determined expression. As magic exploded all around me, I let my wards flicker and die.

The moment they failed, magic enveloped me, pushing in from all sides. It was hot, cold, tingly, and ticklish all at the same time. I shivered, closing my eyes against the glare, and soaked it all in, protected by Adaptive Resistance’s warmth.

As I adjusted to the sensations, mana began to well up in my soul. My wards had always served as the medium of conveyance, and without those, the resulting flow was raw and powerful, like a flash flood forced through a narrow canyon. It was the safeguards built into Emlica’s technique alone that saved my soul from being torn apart.

I took a deep breath, bathing in the power. It still couldn’t quite match Emlica’s performance, but I was now absorbing over twenty percent, almost double what I had through my wards.

I sent a surge of mana into my spell, clawing it toward me. It sank like a golden leaf falling from a tree, settling beneath my feet. The circles began to spin faster as I poured more mana into them, the runes appearing by the dozens.

A gust of wind tore the dust cloud apart, revealing me to the world again. There was a moment of stillness as Wivlen stared at me, open-mouthed, the other soldiers gaping.

"You survived?" he finally asked, a hard look entering his eye. "And casting a spell, no less. We can’t have that now, can we."

He swung his sword up, pointing it directly at me. A group of archers released a small volley of glowing shafts. I stood tall as they struck around me, blasting me with rock chips and fragments of wood. One clipped my hip, tearing my dress and cutting to the bone. Another pierced my sleeve, nipping at my upper arm, tasting blood. Perhaps it was Ernyst’s training, or maybe I’d already reached the threshold of pain my body could feel, but I barely flinched.

An arrow passed within an inch of my face, leaving eddies of wind that lifted my hair. I met Wizlen’s eyes, not in challenge, or issuing a dare, but in promise. More arrows and several more spells whizzed around me, none finding their mark.

"Damn you all. How hard is it to hit a mangy filthblood?" Wizlen growled.

He rose, hefting his sword, and leaped from the ship. He cleared the hundred-foot gap effortlessly, landing on the spell-scorched and shattered mountaintop. The mountain trembled as he unfurled his aura, the air growing cold and stiff. My breath caught in my throat, my weakened body trembling, but still I didn’t let my gaze drop.

"All of that, just for you to fall before my blade," he said, advancing steadily.

He stopped a few feet in front of me, the tip of his sword a hairsbreadth from my chest. Currents of water magic swirled around the blade. The temperature dropped, my body growing numb, as ice crystals formed beneath our boots, cracking with every shift and groan of the destabilized mountain.

"What’s with that look?" he asked.

I held his gaze, not daring to move, waiting for him to drive his sword into my chest. But he hesitated, waiting, something flickering in his eyes. The circles stopped moving beneath me, filling with dark shadows. My heart fluttered, my tail twitching furiously. Just a few seconds. A few precious seconds I didn’t have.

I bit my lip, holding back a wince, as his blade dug into my chest. A small bead of blood eased from the tip, running over Luke’s ring. My mana reacted, filling my aura. Small flecks of gold materialize around us, drifting like snow in the wind.

"Open your eyes," I whispered.

He recoiled as warm, golden light wrapped around him like a cloak. He stiffened as stars appeared in his eyes, and for a moment, I felt my aura take hold. Through the stars of fate, I was conscious of fragments of a vision of Vesna Port, the city we left behind. A fair-faced woman was holding a child to her breast, and a boy five or six years old at her side. They were waving, shrinking on the ground as our perspective lifted into the sky.

And then it was gone. Wizlen’s mana surged, forcing the foreign aura away. He blinked furiously, eyes clearing and turning hot with fury.

"No! How do you know her? I’ll kill you for this!" he cried, lunging forward, his sword slicing through the air.

But that brief hesitation, that heart-beat long vision, was all that I needed. With a small, grim smile, I vanished, swept away in the shadows of the Wayward Compass.