I jump out of the vision with my breath rapid and Indel fanning my head. “Oh, dear, Hattie, Hattie, are you alright? It grieves me to see you so.”
“Something happened. I don’t know — Copper’s gone. Their base is gone. I don’t know- I don’t know how. But Achillea attacked, and our best move might be to take their base now.”
“Take their base?” Mailis sounds on the verge of frustrated tears. “If they could wipe out Copper, what the fuck can we do?”
“We could kill eight of them and take the bracelets,” Nym offers, honestly the best plan we’ve got.
“No.” Indel is firm, and she’s far sexier like this than when she’s fussing over me. “I know it tires you love, but we must have more. We must know.”
“Syrene saw me — she looked right at me. If I go back-”
“The scouts, my love. Use their eyes.”
Holy shit that’s genius. If I can find them, at least.
There must be something to this sort of frantic, on edge adrenaline. It’s doing strange things for my magic — I’m seeing like I’ve never seen before. Brilla and Ivandi. Brilla’s the half-boar with the tusks like mine and the bristly black hair. I know that. I just know.
Just like I know Ivandi’s the light green-eyed lynx (the shapely and enticing, with gorgeous silver fur — keep it together — lynx). An Evoker, by her armband. Brilla’s an Alterationist.
I see them roughing it through the snow, divided against each other — Brilla thinks Indel should be in charge, but Ivandi prefers Mae. I see them embrace as the wretched tundra turns to rolling grassland, and their journey becomes easier. I see Brilla staring through a spyglass, watching me and Svelgi in the tower. Ivandi sends a message back — Evocation long-distance communication isn’t as reliable as my direct link, since you have to send the energy the right way and anyone can intercept it, but it gets the job done here.
The team teleports in, but the scouts can see Copper’s base in the distance, and think the now empty Blaze base is the perfect staging ground to investigate.
Brilla boosts Ivandi over the white stone wall, and they cross the unspoiled estate grounds under the shade of rustling cherry trees. They pick over the ruins.
“We haven’t heard anything from the base,” Ivandi says, her voice like a snake in the grass. “We must each take a bracer, in case the Blaze succeed in their attack and Achillea have destroyed Dawn.”
“You would dishonour us.” Brilla’s voice is like a shuddering train. “And for what? For your paranoid fears?”
Moments later they are in stasis, and Tailina gently encourages them to give up.
“You see? Take the bracer, if only for caution.”
There’s a pause before Brilla grunts “fine.”
As the two ascend the Mystic’s Tower, far off explosions shake the ground beneath them, and the two instinctively hold each other, worried the Tower might collapse on top of them. But in a minute it’s over, and they continue their climb.
In the top room with Svelgi’s corpse, Brilla and Ivandi try to make sense of the ruined Copper base, but the smoke makes it almost impossible.
“The Blaze attack?” Ivandi offers. Brilla struggles to disagree, and when Ivandi unbuckles her vambrace the half-boar doesn’t even object. Indeed, she does the same, and Blaze gains two members.
“We should get up there,” Brilla says, still unable to see through the blanket of smoke, even with the spyglass.
“It might be better to hold this position. Or… if we can return to the base… we might free the Orc. It would buy us some goodwill.”
“Wait, I’ve got something.” The smoke shifts, and the rough beast beats its wings, emerges from the depths of hell. Its six snarling heads snap at the air, each one breathing a different colour of flame, and death comes wrapped in a rainbow. Syrene sits atop the hydra’s back, nestled in a ridge between its slimy black flesh. Its bat wings swoop forward, and smoke billows behind it as it streaks towards the Tower.
Brilla grabs the cat and carries her down the stairs, but they only make it a few steps before twin jets of purple and red turn the estate to slag, burying Brilla and Ivandi’s bleached bones.
“It’s just us and Achillea, and we need to get downstairs, now,” I say, the moment I wake.
Mailis hears the fear in my voice and makes for the catacombs, setting off a stampede of others, the scaled cheeked woman and another bundling the still unconscious Katarina down with them.
Indel stays, and to my surprise so does Nym.
“I don’t wanna hide,” she says, earning a nod from the Princess.
“Tell us what you saw, love, and let us strategise.” And so I tell her everything — the ruin of Copper’s base, the hydra, how she summoned the hydra, and how I couldn’t summon anything from the tear in the dungeons. Even with my enhanced abilities, I’m no match for a monster like that.
“We must be decisive,” Indel says.
“Take the initiative,” Nym agrees.
“A titan of our own would tip the scales.”
“We could teleport there.”
“Yes! We need only protect dearest Hattie for a moment; then I shall teleport us right back.”
“No,” I say. “Just me and you. Nym — I need you to stay here and see if you can buy us some time.”
“B- What do you think I could do against a hydra? Even a dozen Illusionists couldn’t cloak a palace this big.”
“You can’t do anything against the hydra; I was hoping you could distract Syrene.”
Nym’s face goes bright red in an instant. She looks everywhere but me. “I don’t see how I’d possibly do that,” she says, lying really quite poorly for an Illusionist.
“No,” Indel says, with a slight smile. “Hattie’s right. The girl seemed oddly… compelled by you.” With a gentle claw on Nym’s cheek she says, “would you do this, for Blaze? For me?”
Redder than before, Nym nods.
“Into the breach, my love!”
Before I have time to orient myself, Indel rips the memory of Syrene’s room out of me and teleports us there in a flash. The moment we hit the stone a wailing alarm sounds. Of course she trapped it!
Indel’s quick, raising an ever moving orange shield before the narrow doorway — it looks like honey’s trickling over the entrance. I waste no time getting to the corner and scratching at the patched over stone.
Alyx appears on the other side of the barrier, face twisted in laughter and drunk with wine. “Oh shit, Hattie! Princess! Audacious.” Her fingers twirl, lightning fast, but every attempt to cast through Indel’s shield fails. In the end she settles for whipping branches against it, which will shatter the barrier eventually — just not before I’m done.
It’s definitely easier from here. My hands grab at many-forked strands, connecting them together to form matter where there isn’t — that’s all the arena’s simulation is, after all: matter where there isn’t. I give Alyx and the rest of Achillea’s guards something to worry about with a handful of legionnaires storming the cove. I need to keep them busy: Alyx’s assault is symbolic, but an Alterationist could just open the stone around the shield.
But that’s all the time I can buy before my full attention is devoted to the main task. The hydra will be on them any second — it might already be — and if Blaze has any hope it needs something to meet it. But… But what? It’s a godsdamned six-headed hydra. Just… Just think.
“Hey, Princess,” Alyx calls. “If you let me in me and Hattie’ll pass you back and forth like a wineskin. You’d like that.”
“Silence!” Her voice is flustered.
As Alyx whips away at the shield, Mathilde appears behind her, blonde hair spattered with blood and dripping shortsword in hand. “Stand aside, Conjurer,” she barks, shoving Alyx out of the way before she can even answer. The grinning girl runs a hand along her blade; menacing red energy engulfs it, shimmering like a desert mirage. “The prey corners itself.” When the blade meets Indel’s shield there’s the alarming sound of glass shattering. But Indel pours more of herself to answer the challenge, and the barrier reappears as fast as Mathilde can strip it away.
“Please do hurry, love,” she says, voice strained.
I’m trying!
I’m assembling our monster through gut instinct alone, just trying to call forth something powerful, something that can tear their hydra to bits. Something we can ride to victory, damnit.
Something fierce, something strong, something titanic. And something fast.
I scramble for anything, and I see the beast born.
Nymeria stands at the base, just after we’ve left. She considers a few illusions that might, maybe, buy her a moment or two before she has to face the music, but in the end she decides to simply wait, sword in hand. A creaking door shocks her to alertness, but it’s just Katarina, slumped against the frame.
“I refuse to hide. Let us fight,” she says, still weakened by Mae’s Restoration magic, ever-toxic to undead.
“No!” Nym says, quickly. “More hiding — wait to ambush her. Get some others if you can and wait in the kitchen. I’ll get her off the hydra.”
The plan sounds stupid to Katarina — I know that because I’m really seeing right now. But what else is she to do? The alternative is just dying with dignity, and even a slim shot at victory is preferable. No matter how you slice it, dying’s for suckers.
Nym only has a minute to steel herself before a jet of purple flame shears the roof from the throne room and reveals Syrene, high above her. Against the gathering stormclouds the Mystic rides her dark horse, and brings death wherever she goes.
Fear bubbling across her skin, Nym gulps and ignores the slavering heads. “I-” she begins, but a mote of purple light strikes her before shooting back to Syrene. Here there’s no need for her usual restraint, no need for the cord — she takes Nym’s voice permanently.
The hydra lands with a crashing boom. It stares at Nym, six heads and six thousand teeth. But it doesn’t snap, doesn’t whip out any of its long necks to swallow Nym in one angry bite. It bends to Syrene’s will entirely — and she has other plans.
A head lays itself beside Nym. Syrene slides down the neck. Nym begins gathering mana, just to have some, but two shots of the crossbow turn her hands to ruined stumps of fused flesh. Two more cut her legs from under her, buckling her knees. She screams in silent agony.
“Is the Princess here?” Her own voice asks.
Nym just keeps trying to scream; Syrene silences the pain with a wave of her hand — the damage remains, but any perception of it is gone. “Is the Princess here?”
Nym stares in confused terror.
“Because I’ll make you watch what I do to her. Is she here?”
She shakes her head. She wonders what she can do, hobbled as she is. Maybe flop over and bite her? But then a hand’s on the back of her collar and Syrene drags her over and deposits her beside the kitchen door. There’s a brief moment of excitement for Nym, but it dies the moment Syrene, standing over her, levels the crossbow at the doorway and calls, in her voice, “Gods, Gods! I did it! I, I got her! Everyone! I got her!”
The two who come rushing out in excitement die within a second of each other, cut down by a blazing bolt of light. (Try and ambush a mouse and her neck fur stands on end; especially a mouse as disproportionately competitive as Syrene.) Katarina, more cautious, sees this happen from the kitchens and bursts out low to the ground, moving fast enough to dodge three streaks of energy and crash into Syrene.
Nym wants to call out, wants to warn Katarina what Mystics (particularly this Mystic) are capable of. But she’s silenced forever, and as the vampyr looms over the mouse, Nym can give no warning before Syrene’s magic strikes Katarina.
The vampyr falls upon Syrene’s neck but shouts in confused alarm as her teeth struggle to puncture skin. Syrene’s stolen fangs have no such issue with the vampyr’s neck. Blood flows into the Mystic’s wet maw, fills her cheeks and coats her tongue. It’s delicious. Every drop makes her stronger.
Katarina tries desperately to wrench herself free, batters her arms against Syrene’s sides, but the mouse just digs her fangs and claws in deeper. Her iron grip on Katarina’s arms pulls the vampyr closer as the last of her life drains into her. When there is nothing left but a withered corpse so pale the sun reveals its empty veins, Syrene draws a golden dagger from her belt and plunges it through Katarina’s heart. The corpse burns up in a flash of light.
Cream-gold fur stained with blood and body drunk with victory, Syrene stumbles over to Nym and forces a bloody kiss on her copper lips. “She died afraid.” Her eyes are wide. “But you will die loved. I’d never hurt you,” says Syrene, who is nowhere near done hurting Nym.
The ground shakes. “A trick?” Syrene’s barely audible over the terrible tremors, the cracking of stone and heaving of earth, the white-blue floor of the ice palace breaking into chunks, falling away. The hydra roars and takes to the sky, but the Mystic just stands there, crossbow forgotten, one hand on her dagger and the other on Nym’s hair.
From the stone egg, my dragon emerges. Its dark purple fluff (the precise shade of Mae’s hair) is dazzling, streaked with strands of shining gold. The silver fur around its galaxy eyes ruffles in the galing wind. Fierce and brilliant and terrible, the Mae-dragon snaps her teeth into the hydra’s stomach, and the two entangle mid-air, ripping and tearing at flesh.
“You think this is enough? You think you’ll stop me?” Nym’s voice shouts, Syrene once more staring right at me. “Come, then! Come! Face me, Hattie, and we’ll see who’s willing to do what it takes to win.” With one smooth motion she drives the dagger through Nym’s back, cooing a tearful apology.
I wake to Indel standing over me, her legs buckling, every ounce of effort spent on the shield. I struggle to my feet and grab her shoulder. “Get us to the Dawn kitchens,” I bark.
“Y-yes, love,” she forces out, the barrier collapsing — everything happens very quickly when it does.
Mathilde pounces, everything in one barbarous lunge, her sword clattering to the ground. She seizes Indel by the arm.
At the same time, Alyx shouts “Hattie” and throws a dagger. I get my hand up just in time, so the silver blade sinks into my palm instead of my eye.
Energy crackles and we leave Achillea’s base as abruptly as we arrived, dropped into the kitchens — Mathilde with us. She’s lightning quick, forming a blade of dancing red light in her palm. She drives it through Indel’s stomach before I wrench her off and throw her across the kitchen — she smashes through the weakened wall, buried beneath chunks of ice.
“Princess,” I say, hand on the gushing wound.
“Oh dear, my love. It seems she got the better of me.”
“There’s gotta be something we can do.” But she’s already gone.
Seeing all my friends die is shaking me, but I need to think later and fight now. Alyx’s clumsy attack has given me a serviceable weapon, but silver’s a poor metal for blades, so I tuck the dagger into my belt and take up Indel’s shortsword.
There’s only two of us left. I don’t know who else is out there, but I know there’s someone. Doubt she’s here, though. So it’s up to me.
The throne room’s destroyed. All the floor but for a thin ring around the sides is gone, exposing the gnarled catacombs underneath, cracked open like ribs as the dragon emerged. Nym and Mae’s bodies lie amongst the rubble in that perilous pit.
Syrene’s made good use of her time and gotten herself up on the throne, dagger sheathed and crossbow pointed right at me. I can’t clear the yards between us. If it were just a straight shot, maybe — but I’d have to skirt along the ring, and she’d have plenty of time to line up her shot.
“Not another step, Hattie,” she says, in the voice of my murdered friend. Above us, the dragon and hydra claw at each other like angry gods. Every time the hydra wins a chunk of flesh, bright Restoration magic seals the hole in my dragon. But for every head she snaps off, two more take its place. A perfect stalemate.
“You don’t want to face me down properly? Give them a show?”
“Damn their show, Hat — I play to win. I just wanted to commend you for giving me a good fight. It’d have been boring without you.”
“Well, I suppose I felt a certain kinship. We’re both Mystics.”
“Oh, cute. Such delightful rapport. What exactly do you imagine happens if you keep me talking?”
I shrug. “I believe in her.”
“Hah! She’s dead. That thing is a cry for help.”
I’m about to reply when she pulls the trigger. But the bolt never makes it more than a foot. It goes through Mailis’s chest — the fox stands before Syrene, sword in her stomach. “Fuck,” she grumbles. And then, just as quickly as she appeared, she crumples and disappears, rubberbanding back to wherever she was — the catacombs, I guess.
Just me now — the last hope for Blaze.
Syrene tumbles down the dais and vanishes amongst the dungeons, giving me a run for the crossbow — maybe some fire support from the ground will help my dragon triumph. I need it to; even with Syrene down, there’s a base full of Achillea left to contend with.
No sooner have I wrapped my hands around the crossbow — scarcely heavier than a knobbled driftwood branch — than I’m turning and firing at the ragged Mathilde, hot on my heels along the ring.
Dad always said the crossbow wasn’t a true legionnaire’s weapon, not like the blade. My clumsy shots strafe the wall behind her and I settle for throwing it at her to buy time as I draw Indel’s sword.
The girl’s quick and savage, but she can’t keep up with me. The duel’s over in three swift strikes, the third through her stomach. With a kick, I send her body into the catacombs.
Okay. That’s the last of Achillea here. Take down the hydra, then — no. No. No, it’s under Syrene’s control. She mustn’t be dead. Finish her off, and the game’s ours!
I spot a tall pile of rubble and leap down, launching off the crumbling landing and rolling into a crouch. I scan around me. A trail of thin blood, smeared across the gravelly ice, leads me down the hallway and-
Towards the dungeons…
Into my cell…
I burst through the door on frantic feet, sword in hand. Syrene lies in the corner, breathing shallow, paw thrust into the exposed ball of purple light. “Almost, Hat. Almost.” In a second my sword’s through her chest. I stopped her. I stopped her!
Except, back out in the exposed ruin, under the open sky, the full moon glints off my armour. The two serpents ensnare each other for an audience of a million twinkling stars.
Why did she make it night?
The growl is low and vengeful. After two humiliations, it will not brook a third. Covered in shaggy, honey-coloured fur, her face a maw of bristling fangs, Mathilde bowls into me and sends me flying through a pile of cracked ice, pain lancing across my body.
A werewolf! Are you fucking kidding me?
Chest heaving with hunger, she sniffs at the air and comes closer. My clumsy fingers grope for the silver dagger and find it punctured through my thigh. Lumbering over me, the werewolf howls.
Mathilde’s sickle claws slice through flesh. She lifts me into the air, squeezing — blood streams from ten separate holes. There’s just enough strength to stab her eye, again and again, driving it through fur and flesh as she spasms.
We both slump to the ground, and that slim chance for a Blaze victory bleeds out with me, beneath the moonlight’s pitiless caress.
As I wake from the stasis simulation, I find myself back in the field where we all started, still within the Dome. A leaderboard is blazoned across the sky.
I’m surprised to find the scent of vanilla against my nose and a tightness in my chest, but as the daze wears off I see Syrene hugging me, beaming.
“What a rush!” she says, in my voice. “What a thrill! What a game!”
The voice comes rushing back immediately. “Oh, I’m glad to-”
“I mean! Look at that!” Syrene points to her spot at the top of the leaderboard. “I fucking love gaming! Thanks for making it so exciting.”
“Hell, you’re welcome.”
It seems all the emotional pain vanishes with the physical pain, because I can’t help but wrap my arms around her and laugh. At #2, I’m well above Alyx on the leaderboard, which is a consolation. Mae appears at my arm and I pull her into a hug too, checking the leaderboard to find her in 5th place.
“Mae! You made the Guardians! I mean, of course you did, but… The Headmistress didn’t object to your methods?”
“I asked her.” The casual relationship Mae has had with Headmistress Lyra ever since she tamed her dragon never fails to boggle my mind. “Apparently seduction is a valid strategy against enemy troops. They actually gave me points for it.”
Huh. Guess they took that into account when they ranked Indel #3, if almost leading two teams to victory weren’t enough to land her there. On queue, she collides into me from behind, and I find myself absently placing an arm around her as I absorb the rest of the list.
#4 - Mathilde Iceforge
#5 - Mae Maiven
#6 - Mistari Maglovich
#7 - Mailis Thecla
#8 - Katarina Domoclov
#9 - Posy Primrose
#10 - Gelstra ‘Greenthumb’
“Guess Nym and Alyx didn’t make the Guardians,” I say sadly.
“Hattie, Hattie, Hattie,” says Alyx, appearing in our group as if she’s always been here, “I bent over backwards dodging the Guardians. And guess what! I still won!” She taps her tie clip.
“You weren’t even there for the fight! That was Syrene and Mathilde’s victory.”
“Oh, I’d have been there for the fight if you didn’t die on me. So disappointing! I was gonna kill you good.”
I go to reply, but my voice is currently in use by Syrene, intercepting Nym. “Are you proud of me, baby?”
Confusingly, Nym loops her arm through Syrene’s, beaming. “Of course I am! I’ve got the sexiest girlfriend in the Academy.”
How much have I missed here?!
“Thank you everyone for an unprecedented game, it was a most exciting watch.” Headmistress Lyra floats up above us. “This is the most promising group we’ve had in a while; the competition was stiff, but if your name appears on the leaderboard over there, it means you’ve earned a place on the Guardians. You shall learn more after the Gauntlet. Until then, everyone, take time getting to know your Temples. The Custodian spirits will be happy to answer any questions you may have.” She claps her hands together, and I feel a mark burn into my wrist. “Feel free to talk amongst yourself while Tailina prepares the arcane device.”
I investigate my new mark to find a deep purple stain in the shape of an ox. Diligence.
“Drive!” says Mae beside me, holding out her wrist with the shape of a hare like a deep red birthmark.
“Hey, me too!” says Nym.
“Samesies,” says Alyx, showing her hare-shaped patch of white fur.
“Oh dear!” cries Indel: new, black feathers also forming a fucking hare. “Beloved, we will be separated!”
“For a few evenings a week,” I mutter, but I’m about as upset as she is. “Are you seriously all in Drive except for me?”
“Not me,” says Syrene in Nym’s voice as the Arcane device swirls to life and the world drops from beneath me.