I wake violently from the vision to a cocoa furred, lop eared bunny, face scrunched in concern, crouched over me and dabbing my head with a damp cloth. “Are you alright?” she says, pink nose bobbing nervously.
“A little shaken, is all.”
“You just started sweating and crying out. I thought you’d burn my fur off.”
“Thanks for looking out for me…?”
“Svelgi.”
“Hattie.”
She helps me to my feet. There are still tangles of terrifying lizard about me, and it takes a moment for my body to stop shaking. The green Conjuration handkerchief on Svelgi’s arm makes me ask why she’s here.
“I’m your personal guard — a few others are holding the tower door. I’m kinda really banking on nobody making it past them.”
“Katarina’s already left?”
She nods. “You were out cold when she came up. No time to delay, she said.”
Gods be with them. I’m loathe to face Mistari. Our hopes rest with Katarina, even if they seem slimmer than before. I press my fingers against the bracer and focus. It’s like hearing underwater, but I can make out Katarina’s voice, issuing commands. I swim towards it and a connection forms.
I tell her everything I saw in the vision, and she affirms they’re going in regardless. When I come back to myself, Svelgi’s shaking in the corner.
“Can you make me some armour?” I ask. If I’m going to be unconscious dreaming, I need protection — and she could use a distraction, it seems.
“Uhm,” she stammers, “yeah. I could, uh, but I’ll need to take your measurements.” I see the reason for her hesitation as she feels along my hips, my sides, under my chest, awkwardly blowing air out her nose whenever she reaches a sensitive spot. After a while it starts to feel intimate, if only because of how much she’s overthinking it. “Okay,” she says at last. “I’ll get started.”
As she begins pulling the blueprints together (Alyx has tried to explain this to me a hundred times, but I’m still only halfway sure about what Conjuration Visualisation actually entails), I slip my perception loose to survey the battlefield.
My consciousness, directionless at first, feels the tug of Mae’s destiny pulling against my own and shoots toward it. There’s a sickening sensation of speed that should make my heart race but, in my current state, it seems I don’t have one. The indistinct blur of speed leaves its impressions on me, computed by my brain seconds after it has disappeared. A flush of grass turning to rocky earth, the twist of a river — and then snow, snow for great distances. The occasional blur of trees spotting the landscape turn to vicious, arrowhead pines.
And then the structure, rushing toward me like the ground after a fall: an ice palace, spires twisting into the sky. I rocket straight into the blue, passing through the walls in a moment of utter terror.
And then I see her, short and fierce and bewitching, and stop short. Just like everyone else in this tight, underground planning room, I’m basking in her light.
“We’ve got a good position,” Mae says, “now is the time to fortify it.”
Indel, fitting the uniform as if born to it, clucks and shakes her head. “You would have us abandon any momentum and allow them time to fortify? This is defensible, yes, but their island is the best position one could ask for. Ballistae could pick ships apart for miles — we must launch an armada before they have time to prepare.”
“None of their preparations matter if we make them come to us.”
“It is not how wars are won, peasant — though I wouldn’t expect you to know that.”
Another steps forward, a pale raccoon with yellow tie blazing against her fluffy white fur. “Yes. Let us make a slaughter of it. Let us seize upon them while they sleep. The blood needs letting.” Her teeth chitter excitedly as she speaks.
“You two speak of madness,” comes another, a dark skinned Evoker with streaks of colour through her long, braided hair, red tie perfectly straight. “These labyrinthine halls are perfect. We could fill them with runes. Explosive traps, lightning tripmines… None could reach us.”
“Listen to Maddie,” Mae says, leaning imploringly against the table. “An attack right now will do nothing but count us out.”
Indel clucks her tongue. “You are a fool. It is obvious that a leader as experienced as myself should be esteemed over a mere peasant.”
“I follow the Princess,” the raccoon pledges, and the room bursts into shouted disagreements.
It’s always hard to leave Mae, but I’m forced to admit team Dawn, sequestered beneath their icy palace, aren’t an immediate threat. I allow my consciousness to withdraw — not back to my own body yet, though. I propel myself up through the walls and toward the island.
The cold of Dawn’s territory gives way with unnatural speed to the sparkling, tropical waters of team Achillea. I surge forward toward the cove base, bridges and platforms of wood constructed within a massive cave, the opening a narrow gash across the green blanketed cliff face. I see Syrene, looking out, wind whipping her pink hair, and fly straight into her head.
Defences: catalogued. Orders: issued. Rewards: soon to be reaped.
It was a thing of beauty, taking command, and I feel strangely like reliving it, strangely like relishing in it. It’s the first time in a while that something other than Nym has provoked that reaction from me, that thrill through my centre, and I have the time.
I close my eyes to the smell of the sea, the smell of early days, away from home, when smoke and ash gave way to gulls and waves. I push the memories away and focus on today, on my victory.
Kivali, (still feeling spurned, apparently, because she was looking unnaturally irresistible. What is it with me and Illusion mages?) climbed onto the rickety driftwood table with her grey fur, ready to give orders like cats always are, blue eyes already closed in satisfaction. Until she found herself forgetting what to say and how to say it; I stood up next to her, all the leader that she was just moments ago.
“Get down,” I said, “This is a game. I love games. You’re all gonna listen to me.”
Kivali dismounted the table and handed power to me without a struggle. She never puts up a struggle, when it comes down to it. People follow her, though; they do it without thinking twice. So with all her ability (and her voice) in me, they followed.
“Axiom One of War, as formulated by Gawain in her seminal work The Fundamentals of Victory: open your bristling mouth. That is to say: good defences kill your enemy; great defences ensure she never attacks in the first place. Evokers — trap the entrance. Trap all along the shore. Trap the stream flowing in. Conjurers — ballistae and battleships, understand? Once they’re out to sea, fill them with with powder and tar. Nobody onboard; but, Illusionists, it should look like there are people onboard. Alterationists — get the thickest shield you can over us, but make sure the ships are on the outside. Restorationists — audit our supplies.”
Everyone stared at me wide-eyed.
“Go!” I spurred, sending them rushing about. “Except you,” I said, pointing to a human woman with jaw-length, golden blonde hair and a cocky smile across her pretty face. “I’m our Leader, and you’re my bodyguard.” And my voice, should I need it.
Only when everyone was well away and to their tasks — when she couldn’t stir up trouble — did I give Kivali her voice back, ignoring the wounded look she threw me that I know has nothing to do with the games (it’s not that I don’t regret breaking her heart; I do. I just don’t have room for anyone except for Nym right now).
And then came this, the gazing out to sea as they all work for me, as they all follow my commands, my instructions, follow them to the letter — good and quiet and obedient. It’s exhilarating. It’s me.
I gesture for my Evoker bodyguard, Mathilde, to follow. The cove has a cozy little bedroom for its captain, and I gesture for her to allow none in. I can’t be disturbed. This is too important.
The room — created by setting a coconut wood door into a thin, natural passage, has a lovely little bed and a stuffed liquour cabinet, but I ignore them both — pointless distractions. There is nothing but victory.
All I need from this room is the privacy. The privacy to twitch my nose and sniff, to think, to focus. The Dome doesn’t look like this — it’s created. It’s all created. It’s created by magic; so it’s all magic, all around, which means I can manipulate it. The rules are whatever I want them to be. My nose finds a weak spot.
I scratch and scratch and scratch at the bare rock wall. It refuses to yield, refuses to budge, doesn’t realise my will is stronger — it wants to be rock but I want it gone, want it shredded, and I know if I want it gone and keep scratching then it’ll go — it won’t have a choice.
Scratch scratch scratch.
“Yo, I wanna talk with the big boss,” Alyx — the showoff — calls from the door.
“Boss isn’t to be disturbed,” Mathilde says.
“I have strategies and-”
“The boss has a strategy. You have your part. Back to work.”
Remember to reward her. So hard to find good help. Reliable help.
The first flecks of stone give way, which is the wall’s fatal mistake, admitting it can crumble — my resolve hardens and the wall softens, and then I’m tearing huge chunks from it like paper, scrunching it between my claws and tossing it over my shoulder.
The hole reveals a pulsing mass of golden light that forces me to screw my eyes shut tight against it. I dive my hand in — all my fur stands on end, lashes of energy tickle up my arm, the taste of copper fills my mouth. But I endure. I gather strands together and overrule the world — it says there’s a bed in the corner; I say there’s a golem in the corner, a metal soldier to stand tireless watch over the cove’s entrance.
I squint my eyes open and see it standing there, molded after Nym, a huge, lumbering iron version of my hated lover. I point it outside, and it obliges.
I’m only just getting started. How overjoyed I am to know this, to know I can do it, I’m so overjoyed it’s like I’m just learning for the first time — even though I’ve had this theory since the moment the Headmistress brought us here.
The glow thinks I can’t see, but I insist I can. And there she is, attached to my soul like a leech.
Hattie.
Bite for the throat.
I screw my eyes shut and picture that sweet Mae Maiven, the Restorationist. I picture her face driven into the dirt, my paw on the back of her head. I kick her onto her back and she stares up at me with a love-drunk face of devotion, desperate for a beating as long as it’s from me. My claw carves SLUT across both her cheeks, jagged, bleeding scratches that despoil her face forever. “Thank you!” she says, in her honey voice. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was so bored of that stupid Orc!”
I wrap my tail round her throat. Her eyes almost bulge out of her head she’s so happy, so grateful, knows she’s nothing compared to me; wants me and only me — sheknows I’m better than you, Hattie.
My fingers push their way into her mouth, she accepts them happily, sucks on them. I push her lips open, force her to open up and stick her tongue out as her face contorts with pleasure. I spit down her throat and she swallows like a good girl.