28. Esther
ESTHER
The carriage glides through the air. Whatever enchantment is cast on it by the wind greer is seemingly flawless. It’s evident in her ability to guide such a weight with ease that she’s powerful.
The dull ache in my calf continues to keep me alert. The blood loss makes me drowsy, however time seems irrelevant in here. I can hear my own breathing, the greers sitting in regal silence.
I draw in another exhausted breath as I look up into the vast darkness of the carriage. The back of my head thuds against the wood as my throat burns with Grimace’s curiosity to appear. I shove him back forcefully, and I can sense his disgruntlement.
I try my hardest to gather my strength, waiting for the moment we land on the ground again to act.
I have to. I can’t while airborne or I’ll fall to my death, but the moment we arrive at our destination, I’ll have to take my chances.
I don’t know who this Lainteen Grimuoire is, but if these two work for him, I can’t imagine him to be a reasonable leader.
I wonder if, like his lackeys, he’ll assume my “performance” as an omni greer is a ruse as well. Maybe they’ll think of me as faulty goods, and often those are quickly discarded.
My magic rattles with excitement, a familiar earthly magic drawing near. My eyes spring open as my heart skips a beat. He didn’t abandon me.
“We’re under attack,” the fire greer sitting across from me says.
The wind greer sighs, irritated as she offers a one-word chant, and the back of the carriage flings open. “I was hoping for one easy job. But, no, there’s always something.”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t enjoy getting your hands dirty,” the fire greer says as they both lean over to look outside the carriage.
Magical elements flash around us, and what appears to be manifested soldiers fall from the carriage sides as a defense trigger.
When they hit the ground they immediately go into combat with Regent, who, at this angle, I can’t see, though I sense him beneath us on the land.
He’s likely catching up in speed thanks to Reene.
What I do see is rock-crafted soulless beasts giving chase and fighting against the magical metal soldiers.
I wonder then if this carriage was specifically crafted from a metal greer, especially to have such a formidable defense.
The four rocky beasts all eerily take a similar shape to the stormbears. One is sliced in two, crumbling into pieces.
How much pain does it cause Regent when his soulless beast takes such a lethal blow? But his pursuit is unwavering. The broken clumps form together again as if the incident never happened, and it continues its advance.
“Let me deal with this,” the fire greer says.
“Wouldn’t want to mess up your hair,” he snides before flinging himself out of the carriage.
I lunge after him, my heart pounding as I impulsively decide to throw myself out of the moving carriage, but the door slams in my face, the greer behind me at ease with her chants.
I’m thrown back, the weights of my chains on both ankles and feet slamming me to the ground, and a shooting pain erupts over my calf. She chuckles behind me, looking between me and her nails.
Magic around the carriage twists in violent bursts. My breath comes out shaky as I try to keep track of Regent’s magic among the chaos.
He came back for me.
We’re thrown to the side, the carriage jerking, the once-smooth passage through the air finding turbulence as Regent’s magic cocoons the carriage.
I wish I could see him rather than feel him so that I might be of better help.
Again, my magic whispers, delighted by the idea of linking with his, but I refrain, too terrified that I’ll leave him in a vulnerable position like I did when I took control of the croons.
Connecting with his magic isn’t the same as how I’ve practiced in the past. It’s never merged.
The wind greer snarls, chanting to open a window on the roof. Light bursts into the carriage, and I squint as clear blue sky spills in until she pulls herself out with ease and sits atop the roof to watch the commotion.
I shove myself up, the weights of the shackles heavy, and my calf radiating in pain. I barely stand, falling back into the chair. So, if I can’t use Regent’s magic, then let’s try our hand at air, shall we?
Identity be damned—they already purchased me for what I really was.
It was only a matter of time, anyway, until what I am became known.
Something shifts within me, peculiar but also like being able to step fully into my power.
Claiming what I am, even when I don’t inherently know what that is and what I’m capable of.
“Link.” My invisible chains wrap around the woman’s magic, as if grasping on thin air and feeling light. But the current of smooth power is there, tapped in and at my disposal.
The greer chants from above, casting waves of magic that I can only sense and not yet see.
The magic seems to lighten my mind, as if I’m ready to fall into ease with the clouds and into a subtle peace.
It feels warm and gentle, but I dig deeper, clinging to my wits and how I can best use it as a weapon.
Archaic text floods my mind, none of it making sense.
I try to grasp onto a tangible enchantment that I can work with.
Unlike the light touch of the air’s nature, there’s a dark rippling undercurrent of how it can be refined into a deadly, unforeseeable blade.
A subtle breeze sweeps through me with whispers of chants and understanding, not of my voice but my grandmother’s and hers before her. Of my mother and father and all those I’m bound to by blood, and it helps me search for enchantments I can use.
The greer swipes at her gold hoop earring pierced atop her lobe. “An earth greer is attacking us.”
Another wave of magic hits the side of the carriage, and pain shoots up my calf from the jolt, a lightheadedness trying to take hold. I force out a breath and move.
I gather what feels like the subtle current around us, catching on to text and trying my hardest to decipher it.
I sense the shift in the breeze changing into the points of her magic surrounding her, then suddenly turn against her and attack.
“What the fuck!” the greer screams, her magic slicing at the waves of invisible blades careening toward her face.
Blood spills as they slice along her arms. Her chanting picks up in pace, forcefully shoving out what little control I thought I had.
“You!” She looks down, her gaze narrow as a fine line bleeds across her cheek.
Her chant is fast and unhinged, the air suddenly being sucked out of my lungs.
My body feels as if it’s being pulled in, but I keep my wits, imploring all that I learned from my master.
Unlike contorting the motion of water or trying to forcefully control what I know of earth, I simply ask the wind to help.
It isn’t a physical element. It is a presence waiting to be acknowledged.
Powerful but unappreciated. It is a dance.
Another wave of magic hits the side of the carriage, breaking the woman’s chant as I’m thrown across to the other side.
My lungs fill with desperate breath, and I ask the wind to turn on the greer just as she did me.
It seems hesitant. If I understood its language and the text now downloaded in the back of my mind, I could force it.
It would call to my bidding, but it seems upset at the prospect, if an element could convey any type of emotion.
Perhaps because it didn’t like the stain of Felia’s influence, or that the greer already uses it, and so I ask it to help me in other ways.
The wind rips away the dark enchantment surrounding the carriage. An immediate nauseating swirl hitting my stomach as the walls become translucent, and the earth glides quickly beneath, reminding me how far up in the air we are. Now I can finally see everything that’s happening below.
“How dare you!” the greer hisses, setting herself upright. Her chants continue, and I call the wind around me to protect, something it much prefers over attacking.
A boulder careening toward us grabs both of our attention at the same time. It flies into the bottom corner of the carriage, immediately spinning it into calamity. The greer jumps from the carriage, catching on an invisible drift as if she were as light as a feather suspended in the air.
I, however, continue spinning, my stomach lurching as I try to seize control over the wind, imploring it to correct our course.
The blue and greens of the sky and land blend together before the carriage is jerked back onto a straight path.
Only to give me enough time to realize I’m barreling straight over a cliff edge.
My control over the wind bursts, evidently from the greer’s enchantment, who would rather have me dead than control her carriage.
Suddenly, I’m falling, my back hitting the roof of the carriage, my stomach pinned by gravity as bile creeps up.
Steep, sharp rocks greet me as I peer through the transparent floor and attempt to cling to the magic I’ve only just been introduced to, but sheer panic for survival takes over.
Regent’s magic claws around the carriage in the way of vines slithering toward me with unmatched speed, but my invisible chains rapidly shove out, grasping onto whatever will save us, my own need for survival kicking in. The moment I detect a water greer, I take it. “Link!”
Tears stream from my eyes, and the terror grips me like a vice. The rise of dark magic beasts calls to me, and I implore their help. They sift through the water toward me, my scream to survive omnipotent.
Water twists from the ocean, shoving up from the sharp rock edges and pushing the bottom of the carriage back up.
I hit the floor hard as gravity is corrected.
Water twists around me protectively, my heart in my throat, my senses prickling at the dark beasts swirling within the vortex I’ve called upon.
“Command.” Whatever the beasts are, they call to my nature, this power, stemming from the fear that I yet again won’t make it out of this alive. My magic acts on its own, speaking for me to ensure it protects its host.
“Kill,” my voice orders in a foreign language.
I call on the beasts that are willing to do my bidding at the same time my soulless snake beast rises from the ocean, washing the dark beasts out of the vortex and turning on even those who came to protect me.
My soulless beast is volatile as it thrashes against them, it feels as if time slows as I catch sight of them for the first time.
Female, humanlike bodies with scaled tails are shoved out of the vortex.
When they hit the cliff edge ground, they scream, terrified of the sun that immediately burns at their flesh.
Their screams force me onto my knees, as if my own skin was alight. When I feel the first one shrivel into dust, a deep miasma swirls around me and strikes straight into my heart, plunging me into darkness.
“Meet us at the bottom of the sea,” one of the Fates whispers.
“Not yet.” The other giggles. “This one is reckless.”
It’s dark and twisted, reminding me of Lake Mahoori’s embrace.
“Maybe if we eat her, we’ll become more powerful than any of the other gods,” one says with glee.
“No,” the other says more gently. “It will not make you better.”
“But we love the madness.”
“No, we need to help her become strong.”