28. The Pact #4
There’d been so many presences and people in my head over the past six months, it felt impossible to pull them all apart.
The labels might not be important. I did know this thing didn’t owe me anything.
I had to think if I had anything to offer it.
Wasn’t that how things worked in the old myths?
The gods could be reasoned with, sometimes at least. They were also occasionally open to bargains of various kinds. Trades.
I don’t know if I have anything you want, I thought at it finally. Is there something from me that you might want? Something I could give you or do for you? Name your terms. I’m not sure if I could fulfill them, but I’m willing to––
Agreed, the presence sent.
That one word felt like a pact written into stone.
Like an ironclad contract.
I didn’t hear thunder peal overhead, or the chiming of a great clock somewhere in the cosmos, but something shifted. Whatever that something was, it made me think of both things.
What? I asked it. What is it you want me to do? I’ll do it now if I can.
The presence didn’t answer.
While I strained, listening to that silence, everything else grew silent, too.
Norrick’s sobbing cut out first. Christian Orrin’s voice stopped in mid-sentence next, followed by Scar, who let out a yell that also ended abruptly, without tapering off or changing tenor first. It just… stopped.
For a scarce few seconds, our section of the field grew almost silent.
Grass waved and rustled by my ears. I heard more distant sounds, music from one or another of the dorm rooms, laughter and talking either from open windows in Grathrock and Valarian, or from another area of the open outdoor space.
I heard the river flowing in the distance, and felt the tickle of grass on my face.
Everything smelled of summer and wildflowers and sunlight.
The sun shone hotly down on me, too, having gained strength as it rose higher in the sky.
I fought with the silence of that timeless space.
I felt the dark presence high over it, and over me.
I don’t know how much time passed while I lay there, listening, fighting to breathe.
It probably was only a few seconds.
It might’ve even been less than that.
In the end, I heard a final, soft crack from near where I lay, and then a heavy thud.
Abruptly, all three spells Mordopast had cast released me.
My vision returned without warning, causing me to gasp, then throw up a hand to protect my eyes.
The sun and sky erupted overhead, and I found myself lying on my back once more.
I must have kept my eyes open all that time, without knowing.
I closed them, even behind the shade of my hand.
I gasped and realized I heard the gasp, even as I sucked in the first full lungfuls of air I’m managed since he hit me with the lightning curse.
Pain exploded over my whole body.
My muscles continued to clench and unclench outside my control, even though the active current died when the other spells ended. My head hurt, my jaw hurt from clenching it, my back and legs and arms all hurt as they continued to spasm.
My wrist and shoulder felt like they were on fire.
It hurt to breathe.
I think I might have just lied there and sobbed, if I hadn’t felt completely unsafe. As it was, all I could think about was I had to get out of there. I had to escape, ahead of everything else. I had to get somewhere safe before I could think about anything that happened.
I wrenched myself up to a sitting position, one-handed.
My other arm and shoulder were basically useless, and hurt so much that when I sat up, I could only sit there for a few seconds, eyes closed as I gasped air in and out of my lungs.
That I managed to get upright at all felt like sheer force of will.
Electricity continued to burn and vibrate my skin, making my muscles and nerves twitch painfully.
I nearly lost my balance after I’d been sitting for a few seconds, but managed to use my hand and fingers to grip the grass stalks, to keep from falling to my bad side.
I sat there, gasping until I could open my eyes. It took another few gasped breaths before the reality of what I was seeing finally sank in.
Once it had, I froze, my eyes wide.
Then I stared around at everything in the vicinity of where I sat. I looked in every direction, cataloguing everything I could see, for as far as I could.
The college stood above me, the same as I remembered.
I was further down the grassy hill and closer to the river than I’d realized.
It now made perfect sense why no one had seen me from one of the dorm windows of Valarian, regardless of time of day.
The steep hill rose in front of me, blocked by the tall grass and the steep slope.
I hadn’t exactly had time to gauge where I was while I’d been running, tripping, and sliding, trying to get away from the five royals.
My wings were broken in several pieces on the hill itself, but they lay in shadow, also hidden from most of the dormitory windows.
But all of that I noted almost in passing, and only after I’d clocked the most important thing I noticed when I first opened my eyes.
I was alone.
Vlad Mordopast, Christian Orrin, Norrick Voltaire, Scar Maskey, and Pants Panzen were nowhere to be found.