31 Sealed in Gold
It took her.
Antal and Ixli smelled the aedari a moment too late. He was hurtling through trees when he saw the flash of gold. Saw Fionamara fall from her horse. Saw the beast’s arm around her.
Then it took her.
It ran. They chased.
Antal chased that wretched creature as fast as he could teleport, as fast as he could catch its burnt scent amidst the decaying leaves. Not fast enough.
They lost the trail.
They searched the forest, Antal fast as a flicker of Void, Ixli struggling to keep pace.
All his life, he’d been told to fear the aedari. That they would hunt him down. That they would carve him open with their blazing swords. That they would send his energy back to the Void screaming. Nothing as savage as taking her away from him.
She was strong. She was clever. She’d survive.
She was strong. She was clever. She’d survive.
Antal repeated the words like a plea to the endless Void.
When he saw the horse take off through the trees, he followed without question.
When he heard that cry of distress, not even Ixli’s hiss of caution could slow him down.
And when he spotted the aedari in the road, holding Fionamara by the wrist, Antal lunged from the trees, poised to rip this immortal apart with his bare claws.
It turned at the last moment. Antal caught the aedari at the base of its neck, claws carving fabric and flesh, across its chest in a spray of golden blood. The creature snarled.
When it staggered, Ixli was there, fangs bared and spear angling for her quarry’s throat.
The aedari ducked. Evening flashed into day as its wings unfurled in blinding light.
A cloak of energy feathers deflected Ixli’s spear, sparking red against gold.
She lunged again, a binding cord ready in her fist, aiming to snare the aedari from teleporting.
It cut her off with a flap of wings. The scorching plumes billowed heat, forcing her back.
Another flash of light arced from its palm as it materialized a sword—then swung the gold-honed edge at Antal.
The snarl at his side was human.
Fionamara shoved past, brandishing her crimson energy blade. Antal hadn’t even seen her snatch it from the aedari. She parried the blow. An energy capsule glowed in her palm, cracked glass as she crushed it. An uncanny talent for explosions, this human.
The blast sent the aedari backward. Fionamara Shaped a cloak of energy to protect them from the brunt of it. Antal took the rest. He pushed in front, wrapping her in arms and tail, shielding her softer flesh from percussive energy. They both hit the ground with a grunt.
Pain lanced his arms. Burnt flesh, easily healed. Antal ignored the sting and pushed to his knees, no time to hesitate with an enemy immortal at his back, but he didn’t care. He hoarded one selfish moment just to look at her.
One shaking breath as he cupped her cheeks in his hands, warm and alive.
Fionamara looked up at him with lips parted, golden light glinting against dark eyes.
Then, she shoved him off with an elbow to his ribs.
“There’s two!” Fionamara shouted. “Ixli, there’s two of them!”
A chill struck the core of Antal’s ether. Ixli squared off with the aedari, parrying a sword strike, then snapping a startled look across her shoulder.
Another flash of gold struck the clearing.
Then a streak of flame.
Ixli dodged as the blaze lashed toward her. Leaves incinerated beneath the golden fire, the heat sweltering. Moving with unnatural speed. Lines of flame erupted along the road, chasing at Ixli’s heels, at Antal as he pulled Fionamara away.
At the center of the inferno stood a second aedari, wings spread, eyes molten.
“Veshri’s fucking teeth!” Ixli shouted. “A magician!”
The aedari raised its hand. A ripple crossed its skin, a glamor unmasked, revealing a tapestry of black tattoos inked down fingers, swirling up arms, hardly an inch of space unutilized. Aedari didn’t Shape energy, they altered it to new forms with their glyphs.
“Well, shit,” Fi hissed at Antal’s side. “Those weren’t there before.”
When the aedari twitched a finger, three glyphs on its arm flared gold. Another lash of flame lit the clearing, embers singeing Ixli’s hair as she evaded, hot on Antal’s cheeks as he and Fionamara dodged the other direction.
Two aedari. The warrior with the sword was dangerous enough, armed with limited glyphs to bolster strength, to hone the metal edge of its blade. Magicians were the deadliest of all aedari. Two arms filled with glyphs to burn, carve, rend daeyari into pieces.
Avroz and Syvr had split off to search more ground. No telling if they’d join in time.
While the magician honed its attention on Ixli, the warrior charged Fionamara, growling something in its airy language.
“Try it, fucker!” she shouted back.
Antal drew the daggers Ixli had given him, Shaping red energy to form the blades—an unfamiliar weight, but deeper strikes than claws. Fionamara was ahead of him, already parrying the warrior’s sword, gold blazing down metal and the tattoos on the aedari’s wrists.
Dread curled in Antal’s stomach, watching her face such a foe. One strike of that sword could end her. One brush of those molten wings would melt human flesh.
Antal intercepted the next blow. His daggers stalled the aedari’s sword. The creature shoved, sending Antal stumbling into Fionamara. She hissed her displeasure and moved to parry.
Just as the aedari’s wings arced down at them.
Fionamara tried to duck one way, but Antal had her by the waist, pulling her backward. They both stumbled. She barely lifted her sword in time to deflect the aedari’s blade. She hissed her displeasure louder.
“Together, Antal!”
They were fighting together—fighting one of the most dangerous beasts in the Shattered Planes, when they ought to be home, safe, Fionamara teasing him with smirks rather than dodging the lethal arcs of a sword.
But they’d chosen this fight. And he’d promised to trust her.
The aedari’s next swing came for Antal’s neck. He staggered, daggers driving the blow off target. When Fionamara charged the opening, it sickened him to leave her unguarded. Energy roiled hot in his chest as the aedari’s golden eyes snapped to her.
But merciless Void, she was beautiful when she fought.
Radiant with that crimson hair. Unflinching with her aim. Her strike sank deep, biting into the arm the aedari raised in defense.
It snarled. Another opening. Antal pushed into the gap, daggers raised, forcing the aedari to block—leaving Fionamara beneath the flare of its wings. She drove her sword into the golden feathers, energy fracturing. The aedari’s cry came furious.
A boom shook the ground.
Down the road, the aedari magician snapped its fingers. Gold zapped through the air, igniting a glyph beside Ixli.
Then a pinpoint explosion. Boom. A shudder of leaves. Ixli stayed nimble, dancing past one explosion. Another. She pounced with binding cord in hand.
The aedari raised its arm. Clenched a fist. New glyphs glowed on its wrist.
Ixli shouted as she slammed into the ground. She didn’t get up. As the aedari held its fist, Ixli writhed and snarled against the dirt, unable to stand.
Unable to defend herself. The aedari raised its other hand.
“Go!” Fionamara shouted at Antal.
Go? Leave her alone? What did this woman think, that he was made of stone?
But there was no time.
Trust her. Trust her. Trust her.
Antal was gone in a blink. Out the other side of the teleport, daggers driving into the magician’s arm.
Never fight an aedari magician alone, said every single tactical guide his species had ever written. And fuck him if he’d ever paid attention. Why do I need to know that? said his stupid, na?ve younger self. I’ll never have to fight an aedari. That would be absurd.
The magician’s focus slipped. Ixli leapt to her feet when the glyphs extinguished.
Trust, it turned out, ran multiple ways. Ixli spun, lunging for the warrior aedari, blocking his strike at Fionamara. Her spear slashed his ribs. Fionamara swung at his neck, a shriek of energy as her sword met reinforced flesh. Not deep enough.
The magician grabbed Antal by the throat.
He snarled as it lifted him off the ground—abnormally tall, their entire wretched species. It snarled back at him. Its sunlight and burnt honey scent clogged his nose as glyphs glowed on its arms, the punctures he’d carved with his daggers knitting back into unmarred flesh.
Antal kicked hard, striking its belly with the claws of his feet, stabbing a dagger at its golden eye. He sliced its cheek as it released him.
A lucky blow. And a cautious aedari. Antal wasn’t made to face a magician, was counting down the seconds until it realized he wasn’t as much of a threat as Ixli. It raised both arms, cloaked in a constellation of lighted glyphs.
The warrior aedari let out a sharp cry.
The magician’s attention snapped to its partner. The warrior bled gold from several deep gashes, barely keeping pace with both Fionamara and Ixli striking like angry hornets. The magician’s eyes narrowed, darting from the warrior, to Antal, to… oh no, not again.
“Drekanmis!” A new set of glyphs lit the magician’s arms.
Antal lunged for Fionamara, tackling her to the ground as the explosive glyph went off. Golden fire flashed through the clearing. Heat scorched his back, acrid smoke thick in his nose.
The light burned out in time to see both aedari flee—in opposite directions.
“Dust-woven cowards!” Ixli jumped to her feet, a snap of red mending seared flesh down one arm. “I’ll track the magician. You two go after the—”
Antal pushed himself off a cursing Fionamara—alive, just angry, not in immediate peril—and grabbed Ixli’s arm before she could teleport away.
“They’re trying to split us apart!” he said.
Ixli yanked at his grip. “We can’t let them get away a second time!”
“Shut up, both of you!” Fionamara said.
She tossed a flash of carnelian. Ixli caught it in her claws—a transport stone.
“The other half’s in his pocket,” Fionamara said. “Activate this one, you’ll zap straight to him. I’ll be pudding if I teleport like that again. You go, slow him down. We’ll catch up.”