22. TWENTY TWO #2
Seraphina raised her hands and began to chant in a foreign tongue.
Her eyes fluttered, then closed as pale tendrils of plasma snaked from her fingertips and encircled the girl in a veil resembling a shimmering cobweb.
The brothers silently watched. Too afraid to even twitch, I found myself holding my breath.
Only when the barrier was complete did she open her eyes.
“It's done,” she said .
Another barrier, I thought. This seemed to be Seraphina’s speciality.
I returned my attention to the girl and studied her with interest. Though she seemed as fragile as a pinned butterfly, I felt a sense of strength, even power, beneath her vulnerable facade.
I felt an intense desire to sketch her, so intriguing were her delicate features, and so similar she was to the unearthly creatures I’d created in my paintings.
Lulled by her appearance, I was unprepared to see her huge emerald eyes snap open.
The others watched guardedly, but she scanned the room with the alertness of a captured animal.
She began to shake at her restraints with a fury belying her delicate form, and the fairy-like creature I had assumed her to be began transforming before my eyes.
“Prepare yourselves,” Seraphina said in a cautionary tone. “Guard your energies. The Elorium awakens.”
Elorium? I thought, my mind racing.
Tense silence ensued as everyone watched and waited for the Elorium to awake. I cowered behind the door, wondering what kind of creature could cause such unease.
Suddenly, the girl’s body jerked. Her hands shook as she struggled to move them from the chains. As she gradually regained consciousness, she gulped down several breaths of air but seemed to have difficulty breathing. Finding herself restrained, she began to violently jerk.
I watched, anxiously wondering if she would be able to survive the atmosphere of this world.
“The Elorium has awakened,” Fionn said.
Seraphina and the brothers drew closer, formed a half-circle around her, and clasped hands.
Glaring at each with glassy doll eyes, the creature, for she was no longer a girl, began to snarl, shriek, and rattle at her chains in a frenzy.
Her head whipped around at impossible angles, her hair snapping like wires.
Her sharp, pointed teeth bared in a snarl as she snapped and lunged.
I flinched despite the distance, wanting at once to run away yet compelled to watch.
“She exists in the human realm now,” Fionn said. “Her Order can’t help her. Guard your energies!”
As he spoke, her green, orb-like eyes bore into him before they darted to rest on each face before her.
Fionn seemed to enrage the creature even more.
Not only did her struggles increase, but the muscles of her body also began to shift and flex in a terrifying way.
Her limbs extended, and her fingers transformed into talons.
What sounded like the cracking of her ribs revealed the stubs of wings emerging from her flanks.
Seemingly in pain, the Elorium began to wail and shudder. The chains rattled but the barrier kept her from pulling free. Now the creature’s gold-webbed wings began to extend and partially unfold.
“Don’t break the circle! Protect your energy so she can’t feed from it!” Seraphina yelled.
She stared at the struggling Elorium, who fixed its soulless eyes on her. Uttering rapid-fire words in a guttural language, the creature hissed in a way that sent shivers down my spine.
“She has little power here!” Seraphina shouted above the din.
The creature glared at her with increasing venom. Her skin pulsed, causing her tattoos to change form and undulate up her legs.
“She’s trying to break the spell!” Seraphina said.
She closed her eyes and continued to chant more loudly.
Seemingly oblivious to Seraphina’s words, the creature whipped her head toward Fionn and yanked one of the chains from the wall with unnatural strength. She hurled it toward him with a deafening shriek.
Moving so quickly he was merely a blur, Fionn grabbed her and hurled her back against the wall. She struck it with a thud and collapsed in a shuddering heap. Fionn walked toward her, his voice echoing as he spoke angrily in another language.
I almost missed the glint of the jewelled dagger Torin threw with deadly accuracy as the creature attempted to launch herself at Fionn.
The weapon sailed through the air and pierced the Elorium’s right wing before it completely unfurled.
The creature uttered an agonising scream so intense that I had to cover my ears.
Whimpering in pain, she flopped around on the floor like a beached fish and curled into a protective ball, her free hand feebly clawing at her remaining manacles.
“It would be easier for all of us if she simply cooperated,” Torin said walking forward to regain the dagger as it clattered to the floor.
Exhausted and stripped of the power that had triggered her frightening transformation, the Elorium’s baleful glare held Seraphina and the brothers for a moment before her eyes fluttered shut and her head dropped to her chest.
Only then did Seraphina relax.
“It's over.”
She and the brothers seemed to sag with relief now that the Ordeal was over, and the intense focus they’d previously displayed also dissipated. Fionn turned suddenly to see me peering through the opening in the door.