Sand surged beneath Aurelia’s feet and lifted her clear an instant before the tusks would have reached her.
She stared down in shock. Zayd was on his feet again, breathing hard, blood already darkening one sleeve, eyes locked on the beast below.
"Don’t worry, Aurelia." He raised one hand, sand gathering and hissing around his fingers. "Leave this to me."
The boar stopped mid-stride. Its small eyes narrowed. A low growl rolled up out of its throat, and then a series of sharp cracking sounds ran the length of its whole body.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Spikes forced their way through the thick hide along the spine, across the shoulders, down the legs each one growing longer and sharper by the second. The animal threw its head back and roared as more of them tore free along its back.
Zayd stared, some part of him still cataloguing even now. "So that’s your ability."
The boar could turn its whole body into a weapon and a shield at once, armor and blade in the same motion.
"Aurelia ice from above! Cover Cassian!"
She glanced down at Cassian, still motionless where he’d fallen. Her strength was already draining fast, but she clenched both fists anyway. "I’ll do it."
Chunks of ice formed above the clearing and rained down in a hail. The boar dodged the first. Dodged the second. A third struck its back and shattered uselessly against the spikes without so much as slowing its charge. It came straight for Zayd. He slid aside on a current of sand at the last possible instant, and the spikes tore a long gash through the tree behind him as the beast thundered past.
He landed and kept moving, never stopping he couldn’t afford to let it close the gap even once.
Aurelia kept firing everything she had left, but none of it hit hard enough to slow the charge. Zayd’s sand excelled at speed and control, not at breaking through armor like this. Against something built for exactly this fight, he had almost no way to do real damage at all.
The boar kept coming. Zayd kept dodging, buying seconds one slide of sand at a time, and both of them knew the seconds were running out.
His eyes flicked to Cassian still down then to Aurelia, whose face had already gone pale with exhaustion.
We just have to hold on until he wakes up. He’s the only one who can actually hurt it.
The boar wheeled and charged again. Zayd barely slipped past it, heart slamming against his ribs. He couldn’t keep dodging forever.
Aurelia looked at Cassian’s still form. "Please wake up..."
He didn’t move.
The boar turned and came a third time. Zayd raised both hands, sand swirling into a thin, failing shield around him.
"If he doesn’t wake up soon..." His eyes narrowed. "...we’re done."
Zayd’s breath had gone ragged and shallow, each inhale scraping his ribs like sandpaper. After lifting Aurelia clear and dodging charge after charge, his legs had begun to shake beneath him. Sweat ran into his eyes. His arms had gone heavy as stone.
He still had to fight. Not for pride. Not even purely for his friends anymore. Somewhere in the last minute, the only clear thought left in his head had narrowed down to one thing: he wanted to live.
The boar stood several meters off, watching him with pure animal fury, spikes along its body already stained dark with its own blood. It had taken every hit they’d thrown at it and it was still on its feet.
How is it still standing?
He knew, roughly, how abilities worked most people carried the potential for one, though the power never came from nothing. Particles filled the air, fire and water and ice and sand alike, drifting invisibly, drawn in with every breath. Somewhere inside the body, something processed those particles into usable force. The more of a matching particle surrounded a person, the stronger that person’s ability grew. A fire-user thrived near heat. An ice-user thrived in the cold.
Zayd had never once questioned how his own worked. He’d simply assumed it worked the way it worked.
Watching the boar now, a new thought cut straight through the exhaustion and the pain.
If people need something inside them to use an ability... what does that mean for animals?
This creature wasn’t only strong. It had an ability of its own, which meant it had to be processing particles somehow, which meant
It has to have the same thing inside it. Somewhere.
His eyes raced over its armored body, hunting for any gap at all. Spikes covered nearly everything legs, back, flanks, even the thick neck. Then he found it: one bare patch of dark hide, low on the underside of the stomach.
"The stomach."
"AURELIA!" His voice cracked as he shouted it. "I’LL LIFT IT AIM FOR THE STOMACH, ONE FINAL SHOT!"
She didn’t answer with words. She simply started pulling together what little strength she had left, ice already crystallizing around her trembling fingers.
Zayd stopped waiting for Cassian. The hope that his friend might wake up in time had become a luxury neither of them could afford anymore.
If I can lift it even for a second, she can drive straight through.
The boar charged. This time he didn’t dodge. He poured sand upward in a thick column, trying to hoist the animal’s full weight into the air the moment it reached him.
The plan failed instantly. He hadn’t accounted for the weight. The boar tore straight through the sand like it was mist and kept coming. He barely had time to twist aside on a thin platform before
One spike ripped clean across his upper arm, tearing fabric and skin in the same motion.
"AAH!"
Blood ran hot down his sleeve. He staggered back, clutching the wound. The pain was white and sharp and deep, but he couldn’t afford to stop moving. The boar was already turning for another pass, tusks gleaming.
He looked at the blood soaking through his fingers, then at the beast lining up its charge.
No time.
He clenched his good fist until the knuckles ached. "I didn’t want to use this. I can’t fully control it yet. I don’t have a choice anymore."
He glanced once at Aurelia still gathering ice, sweat beading on her pale forehead.
I can’t leave her alone against this.
He raised the wounded arm. Sand rushed around it in a sudden, heavy surge, darkening and thickening by the second, the limb swelling under the weight of it until it looked nearly twice its normal size. Power built inside the transformation until it felt ready to tear loose from him entirely.
Please. Don’t lose control now.
The boar came again, faster than before despite everything it had already taken. He held his ground, every muscle locked tight.
Closer. Closer.
"NOW!"
He swung the transformed arm with everything he had left in him.
BOOM.
The impact stopped the beast’s momentum dead for one precious second. Dirt and leaves exploded outward. Zayd grinned through clenched teeth that was the opening he needed. While his heavy arm held the animal in place, his free hand poured the last of his sand into lifting it, straining against a weight that felt almost impossible.
Blood kept running down his arm in thick rivulets. His muscles burned like they were tearing straight off the bone.
He had to finish this now.
For a long moment the boar didn’t move at all, legs kicking uselessly at empty air. Then, slowly, grindingly, it began to rise.
"NOW!"
A massive spike of ice tore free from Aurelia’s outstretched hands, larger than anything she’d formed before, and drove straight through the animal’s exposed stomach with a wet, tearing sound that threw the whole body backward through the air. It crashed into the undergrowth and lay still.
"D-did we do it?" Her voice barely rose above a whisper. She swayed hard on her feet.
Zayd stared at the spot where the body had landed. Even after everything the ice, the transformed arm, that final strike he couldn’t be sure. If it stood again, neither of them had anything left to give it.
His arm began to fade, sand crumbling away in dark flakes. "A-Aurelia..."
She looked at him, eyes wide with exhaustion and fear.
"R-run."
The word had barely left his mouth when the boar surged forward one final time, slamming into him with the full weight of its ruined body and flinging him hard against the ground. He was unconscious before he stopped rolling. His head struck a root. His eyes stayed shut.
"ZAYD!"
Aurelia’s scream tore through the clearing. Her legs refused to carry her anywhere. The boar was still wounded, its charge slower now, spikes broken and hanging loose in places but it was still coming, blood dripping steadily from the wound in its stomach, its eyes locked on her and nowhere else.
She couldn’t step aside. She could barely breathe. Her gaze flicked once to Zayd’s still body, then to Cassian lying pale and motionless a short distance away.
Tears filled her eyes. She closed them.
She was ready.
BAMM!!
The ground shook under a sudden, violent impact that sent leaves and dirt flying in every direction. Aurelia’s eyes opened slowly. She was still standing. The boar had been thrown clear across the clearing, its massive body tumbling through broken spikes and blood.
Someone stood between her and the fallen beast.
Cassian.
Flame wrapped his entire body from shoulders to boots, roaring, bright enough that Aurelia had to squint against the heat rolling off him in waves. She stared, unable to speak, unable to understand how he was even standing at all.
"Cassian...?"
He didn’t answer. His eyes stayed closed. He swayed where he stood, as if the fire itself was the only thing keeping him upright. The flames around one leg flickered and went out. His body tilted.
Then he collapsed face-first into the dirt.
"CASSIAN!"
From the deeper shadow beneath the trees, a tall man watched in silence, arms crossed, a faint smile touching the corner of his mouth as he studied the boy lying unconscious on the ground.
"So," he murmured. "That’s Moros’s son."
The smile widened, just slightly.
"Interesting."