Amy took a few steps forward, assuming a fighting stance at her side, her sword pointed at the ground. She earned a sidelong glance from Abigail.
What did she think she was doing?
"Get out of here," she told her. No, he ordered her.
"We've had a hard time rescuing Desmond. I won't let us go back to square one."
She didn't know why, but she had expected that answer.
She'd say she appreciated the sentiment. But the truth was, she didn't. In the end she would only be a hindrance to her, having to worry about her life might cause her to lose the battle.
And for the life of Christina, who lay unconscious in the girl's arms.
Seriously, what was she thinking?
But Abigail had a feeling she couldn't be convinced. Even if she had time to try. Which wasn't the case.
"As you wish," Abigail said at last, resisting the urge to sigh.
Speaking of hindrances, it was late at night and there wasn't a single person on the street. Apart, of course, from them.
That was something.
Abigail didn't particularly care about the lives of innocents.
But she knew Desmond did.
So, if there had been civilians, she would have felt the need to protect them as well. These golden masks fancied themselves knights of justice.
Defenders of the realm. Protectors of the innocent.
That way they had of seeing the world and themselves could say that they wouldn't harm innocent people. Their own people.
But... who knew.
Abigail was well aware that ideals were trivial compared to fear and despair.
At the moment of truth, the final hour, especially, even a righteous man would prove capable of the worst of atrocities.
Such were human beings, after all.
Two degrees of separation from beasts.
Only two degrees. At most.
They were on one side of the street and the golden masks at the other end.
Standing. In silence.
As if waiting for something to happen.
And it did. Four of the golden masks broke away from the group. To go after the princess, who was carrying Desmond.
He could still be seen above the line of buildings.
Time was dragging on so long that it seemed like it had been a long since she put Desmond in that girl's arms again. That she should be halfway to the palace by now.
But no. Actually, very little time had passed.
Amy threw a hail of ice daggers after them.
They dodged it with ease. Abigail wasn't really surprised, the way they moved, almost as if they were flying.
Almost. There was no affinity that allowed for true flight.
Well.
There hadn't been. Desmond and his black wings came to her mind.
In any case. She couldn't say she was really worried. Not because those golden masks had slipped away. Sometimes it was hard to remember, but she hadn't left Desmond in the hands of a helpless little girl.
At least she could be sure she could handle four of those guys. Even if only four of them.
What worried her wasn't that. But whether Charlotte would make it to the palace in time.
If Desmond could get medical assistance in time.
But that wasn't something she could control. She needed to focus on what she could change.
Abigail looked back at Amy, in time to see a jolt of energy rip her feet off the ground. Sending her flying away. At least ten meters.
She hit a house. The impact was hard enough to half bury her in the wall.
She and Christina, the one she was still carrying in her arms.
Despite the impact, she had held on tightly to her. The sword had fallen to the floor, had rolled across the wood of the porch.
But not that girl. She had clung to her tighter.
She understood that. Of course.
And the sword wasn't the only thing rolling across the porch.
Fragments, too. Shards of broken ice.
I see. Abigail hadn't seen the attack coming, she had been distracted for a second, just long enough. But Amy had. And she had managed to protect herself at the last moment, by erecting a barrier.
Had it not been for that, the attack would probably have killed her.
Amy was a mage. But that didn't make her much tougher than normal people, like Abigail and like Desmond.
It was too easy for her to die. It must be terrifying to fight in spite of that.
Abigail didn't know that.
She had forgotten what that felt like long ago.
She turned away.
"I told you," Abigail whispered scornfully.
That she'd just be a hindrance. She hoped the girl would now catch on and run away. The golden masks, at least, had no reason to hunt her down. So she would have a free pass.
She had to be unwell, because Abigail stopped paying attention for the second time. Only this time it cost her dearly.
A... A water snake manifested around her.
Coiling around her body, squeezing to choke her, to crush her chest. But it didn't stop at that. It was lifting her a few feet above the ground, stretching out.
If Desmond had been in this situation, he could have broken the hold with relative ease.
She didn't have that much strength, not by a long shot. Any attempt to fight it would prove futile.
She tried with her magic. Countering the water magic with her own capabilities.
However, she wasn't succeeding in undoing it or gaining control of it. Perhaps, in time, she would succeed. But she wouldn't have time.
She noticed the next thing: that a fire serpent joined the water one.
It rose up in front of her.
Looking closely, it almost looked like it had a face. In the fire, she could almost see the eyes, the line of the mouth. Even the bridge of the nose. Almost.
She figured it was from things like this that legends about dragons came.
It was the least of it, but she wasted time thinking about it, anyway.
The water snake and the fire snake came together.
They slammed her to the ground with great force, from a height of at least ten meters. With the impact they vanished, washing over her.
A devastating attack.
That is, it would have been for anyone else. But Abigail was perfectly fine even before she hit the ground. As long as her head wasn't smashed in, she could recover quickly.
And even then, it didn't take too long.
Her powers of regeneration far exceeded Desmond's. Well, they did for now.
Maybe it was just a matter of time with how fast he was evolving.
That hasn't stopped...
She didn't finish the sentence. She couldn't.
Two had launched the attack. A water mage and a fire mage. Of course.
It wasn't hard to identify them, as she could feel...the traces of energy. Abigail extended a hand toward them.
Both mages began to shake, coughing loudly.
Their lungs were filling with water, after all.
"What the hell is this? What is going on?" shouted one of the golden masks, looking around desperately, as if he was going to find another answer besides her. Or some solution. Or both.
Abigail rose slowly but surely to her feet. She clenched her hand into a fist.
Instantly, the effects increased in intensity.
The mages who attacked her fell to their knees almost at once and, almost at the same time, began to spurt water from their mouths.
"She! The witch!" It had taken them quite a while to figure it out, considering that it literally could only have been her from the beginning.
"The magical energy should form a protective layer. That... that's not possible. It shouldn't be possible."
Abigail snorted. It was almost funny to her how much they had underestimated her.
By now they should be aware of what a rare prize she was. Because everyone wanted her for themselves...or out of the way, like them.
Compared to her immortality, her control of all the elements or the 'lasso' that bound her to her knife, piercing the natural resistance to magic to create water directly into the lungs of her enemies was no big deal.
In fact, she could go much further than that.
And she would. Soon.
"Don't just stand there! Whatever it takes, she must be stopped!"
They prepared to attack collectively.
Abigail assumed a different posture, spreading her legs further apart, she began to make wide, quick movements with her arms.
She was controlling the flow of the water. It wasn't something easy or natural, even for her.
It required focus. Effort.
So one of the mages was released from her grip. At this point, she couldn't be sure if it was the fire one or the water one. Neither did she care.
Though if the water one was the one who was left at her mercy, the one who would die at her hands like that?
It would have a touch of sweet irony.
The barrage of attacks, behind which they had put all their strength, began shortly after she was done with her thing.
In time, still.
Abigail clenched both fists. Then, the mage she had trapped exploded. Quite literally.
Scattering his innards like the contents of a piñata. That was all that was left of him, and it was divided among all his comrades. Some, surely, even swallowed some of it. Either through their mouths or their noses.
Even with masks it would be hard to avoid.
The explosion shook the group of enemies like the explosion of a grenade.
Stopping attacks, deflecting those that had already been launched, causing many to stagger, to fall.
They had never fought anyone like her before, and it showed. They could be many, mages with powerful affinities and great skill. But they weren't as strong as they could be.
They were used to crawling on the ground, like rats.
In the dark.
They were used to quietly and efficiently dealing with the problems of the realm. This kind of battle wasn't right for them.
They weren't even well organized.
And... despite that, they were the enemies that had given them the most trouble so far.
She didn't even want to think about what a terror they could have been with a good leader.
Although the truth was that she couldn't give them all the credit. The truth was that she was partly to blame. She had been careless.
She shouldn't have allowed this to happen in the first place.
But... she wouldn't repeat such a mistake.
She would kill every last one of them, so that there would be no one left to continue the mission.
Abigail turned her head back, thinking whoever it was had failed to approach silently. But it was only Amy, who had finally rejoined the battle.
Where had she left Christina?
Well. Wherever. It's not like she cared more about Christina than Amy. She would trust, for the moment at least, that she had simply left her in a safe place.
Abigail had enough headaches without worrying about that too.
They launched more attacks, but this time Amy was ready. She erected a wall of ice, defending both of them, which withstood the initial charge.
Affinities related to the elements were the most common. The most predictable, easiest to see coming.
And for her, stopping attacks of that type or even turning them against her was relatively simple.
The real problem was the more esoteric affinities.
The ones that you might well not realize they had done something until the effect hit you. Possibly literally.
But they weren't doing badly. No, they weren't doing badly at all, at the moment. All things considered.
But what would become of Charlotte?
And of Desmond, whose life was, literally and figuratively, in that little girl's arms?
——
It was bad of her to say so, but she was handling herself surprisingly well.
Charlotte had never used her affinity in this way, the way Abigail had suggested.
She had lived a life full of privilege, so she had never needed to do anything crazy like this. If she wanted to go somewhere, there was always someone else who was willing to take her.
Quickly, but safely.
Now...
Now she was seeing her kingdom as she had never seen it before.
Practically flying over buildings. Cutting open portal after portal. Entrances and exits.
She was putting a portal where she was going to fall and then the exit portal as far away as physically possible. And in the air. So yeah, it was practically flight.
Complete insanity.
She knew that, in theory, if she screwed up she could stop her fall before she hit the ground. Or at least slow it down.
But that didn't take away the fact that she could fail and that she was a normal person, whose organs would be scattered all over the roadway if she fell from such a high altitude.
Like a bug squashed on the side of the road.
That would be all that would be left of her.
She didn't want to die like that.
She didn't want to die at all, but much less in such a way. Her parents had died nobly, for the good of the kingdom. And she would have such a pathetic death?
No, no, no. A thousand times no.
That wouldn't be honoring her parents' memory. And that was what she lived for.
That was why she was doing this madness to save Desmond. Because she needed him for that. Right?
She had explained that her affinity for portal creation was limited by what was in her line of sight.
And while that wasn't a lie, it wasn't entirely true either.
After all, if she climbed a high enough building, she could easily 'see' all the way to the other side of the city. Or almost. But her portals couldn't reach that far.
They had a certain limit, apart from the field of vision.
A broad limit, a limit that had always seemed to her no limit at all.
But in a situation like this she felt it like a noose around her neck.
Tightening, slowly tightening.
If her powers worked in such a convenient way, a portal wherever she could see, no matter the distance, then she and Desmond would already be at the palace.
She could be... relatively certain that he'd be saved...
She didn't even want to think about it. But there was a chance that even if she did everything right, even if she got there in time, Desmond would die anyway.
Charlotte gritted her teeth.
It couldn't be. After all... the lengths they'd gone to rescue him. Everything he'd done to her. Everything...
Everything they'd been through together.
It just couldn't end like this, damn it.
In freefall, again. She had the feeling that the wind was roaring through her, the cold getting to her bones.
She also had the feeling, or rather the fear, that the howling wind might push her slightly out of her path.
That she might not fall into the portal she had opened in the ground, out there in the darkness of the night.
If not to the side and everything would end just like that.
Violently but trivially.
It was hard to not be afraid in such a situation. If humans were supposed to fly, the gods would have given them wings.
She remembered that in her arms was a person who had been given wings by the gods after all.
She fell well, in the end. Fell through the portal and in an instant, in the blink of an eye, she found herself falling again, but a great distance ahead.
She could create a portal as long as she could see the location clearly. That was a better way to explain it.
The boundary line was sometimes, ironically, a bit... nebulous.
It could be dangerous here.
But she was doing well. And Charlotte believed she was getting the hang of it, the trick of it all. Besides, it was no more dangerous than what she saw minutes later, as she turned her head for nothing more than a strange sensation.
An instinct that turned out to have hit the nail on the head.
Four of those golden masks, coming after her. Not far behind, in fact.
Practically flying, just like her. But with different methods. One was continually tossed and caught by another of her companions, while another glided across the rooftops like the ocean waves. It was dark, so she couldn't see how she was doing it, exactly.
Not that it mattered much anyway. Regardless of the individual method, the thing is, they were gaining ground. Slowly, but surely.
She wasn't as far ahead as you'd think.
Frankly, Charlotte was starting to get scared.
She told herself that they hadn't done anything to her yet, hadn't even tried anythingmore than to follow her around because they were worried about making her fall to the ground and kill herself.
She told herself that, but the truth was that she found it hard to believe.
And with good reason.
They took advantage of the time it took her to fall from one portal to another and pulled her, throwing her far away.
Charlotte felt like screaming. But the scream was caught in her throat.
Too afraid to utter a sound. It was almost a miracle that she had dared to try this in the first place.
And now her bravery would come to naught. She'd crash and die.
Just like that.
After fourteen years... After only fourteen years...
She would be reunited with her parents.
The thought made a sense of peace wash over her. But that was wrong.
She squeezed Desmond tighter, temporarily more worried about the thought of him slipping from her arms than her own life.
Her back hit a pane of glass. Causing it to explode into a thousand pieces.
Charlotte went through it and kept falling, illuminated by the moonlight as if it were a spotlight. An ethereal, distinct, otherworldly light, mingling with the rain of falling glass.
Am I going to heaven, she thought, is that what's happening?
Charlotte shook her head, trying to fight the illusion.
It was still some time before she hit the ground. And she was still okay. She could still count on the portals, she would until the day she died, because it was part of her, her affinity.
Charlotte could still get out of this one.
If she focused. And didn't fail. One mistake... it wouldn't just mean her death.
She had always carried the responsibility for other people's lives. Billions of other lives.
But this was different. More personal.
Charlotte turned in midair and cut as fast as she could, but well, trying to maintain her composure, trying not to fuck it up.
She created the entry portal just below her, of course, her only option, it's not like she could move in mid-air. And as for the exit portal, well....
The ground was too close.
She could almost hear the sound of all the bones in her body breaking on impact against the ground already.
She could almost feel the cold death spread throughout her body.
No, she wouldn't even feel it.
If she fell to the ground, she would die instantly. No time to suffer. But no time for regrets either.
She—
Charlotte cut.
Randomly. Without really looking.
The second portal wasn't too close to the ground, so the fall was hard, anyway. Against a bookshelf, knocking it to the floor, along with everything on top of it.
The iron bars dug into her back and Charlotte gasped. Her lungs emptied.
For long seconds she felt as if she were drowning on dry land.
But the sensation passed, thank the gods. And she hadn't let go of Desmond for a second. She'd made it.
No, she hadn't gotten shit done yet. This was just the beginning. There were four golden masks chasing her. Soon they'd be coming down on her. After them.
So she had to get moving.
Charlotte managed to get to her feet, though it took longer than she thought. She even came to fear from the pain, from her body's protests, that she wouldn't be able to.
Charlotte looked down at one of her arms. In the forearm she had a good piece of glass stuck deep.
She almost got dizzy looking at her blood sliding down the glass.
Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the piece of glass with her other hand. She knew it would cut, but she wanted to get it out. Had to.
It didn't come out too well. It required several tugs.
Watching as it slowly slid out, watching as more and more blood came out, due to her efforts. And all without looking away. Because she literally couldn't.
This was the first time in her entire life that she had ever seen her own blood. The first time she'd come so close to dying, too....
Charlotte looked at Desmond's face. And remembered their first encounter.
Okay. Maybe it's not the first time.
Anyway, she ran through the building. She needed to get out of here. Leaving through the same window she'd broken on the way in wasn't an option. The golden masks would come in that way.
It wasn't a question of whether she could fight. Surely she could crush them.
But this had been a race for Desmond's life from the beginning, not a fight for her survival. Not to mention she'd already lost enough time.
She heard what was surely the golden masks landing behind her. She resisted the urge to turn to look.
On the other side of the rows of shelves, she found a door that she didn't open normally but with a single slash, breaking it down.
Charlotte was in a hurry. She could apologize to the owners later. Pay for the damage.
Right now, she should have no such qualms.
They'd just be a liability.
She advanced through the building in the same manner. Knocking doors down with her sword. She had no idea where she was, but she didn't hesitate about which way to go for a second.
Any direction was good with those psychos on her heels and Desmond agonizing.
If there was a door, there was a way.
And if there was no door, if there was not even one door, a path could always be created. Straight through the wall.
That she had to do once, otherwise she would have been captured.
The golden masks were on her heels.
They were always on her heels.
In the end she won, though. She threw herself out a window, trying to shield Desmond from the broken glass with her body, creating her own way out.
She cut a portal in front of her. Resuming her new way of traveling.
But she wasn't out of danger yet. The golden masks hadn't been far behind. Frankly, she was considering it, though not very seriously.... The merits of turning around and killing them, after all.
Her heart was pounding a mile a minute. It felt as if it had risen into her throat.
A knot she couldn't get rid of. A block that made it hard to breathe.
The princess was bleeding.
She could feel her warm blood sliding down her pale skin and falling to the floor. The first time she had ever seen her own blood. In her entire life, her entire fourteen years.
It was also the first time she had ever been so scared.
——
Abigail and Amy were still fighting. They were getting by as best they could, despite the large numbers gap.
Something had changed in the last few minutes. How could it be otherwise.
Now they had spectators.
But at least they were prudently staying out of the way. Lights in the windows, shadows rippling behind the curtains. But nothing more.
Good thing they were wise enough to stay out of the way.
Though not so wise enough not to turn on the light. That was like painting a target on their backs. Of course, this group, the golden masks, most likely wouldn't harm civilians. At least not on purpose.
But they had no way of knowing.
If they were sensible, they would be cowering and with their lights off. Waiting for the storm to pass.
Anyway. At least they weren't getting in their way.
Which was the least of it, but...
But nothing, Abigail supposed.
They were getting by, but, inevitably, the scales were balancing towards the golden masks' side. Slowly, but surely.
So Amy shouted an order.
"Die!
Amy didn't warn her of what she was going to do. Of course she didn't. Because her power couldn't affect her.
The power she had bestowed upon Amy swept through the golden masks with the force of a wave. Many stood frozen like statues, struggling against the command that had been burned into their brains.
To Amy's surprise, and to her surprise even, they didn't follow it.
Most... managed to somehow resist the effect.
Most of them.
But one of them fell. One thrust the knife into his skull, pushing with both hands, with a frankly disturbing expression. Even for someone like her.
An expression that wasn't human, but more like that of a doll.
For he had been reduced to that in his last moments.
Much to her regret, she felt some pity for that inhuman wreck. Fortunately it didn't last long. It vanished like dust.
The power had only claimed one victim, but the effect was felt on all of them all the same.
Many turned to see what was left of the comrade who had committed suicide in front of their eyes.
Still confused and affected. Touched by an alien will.
Abigail imagined they would be feeling almost as if they were dreaming. If only this was all nothing more than a dream, her imagining the worst possible situation. If only Desmond's life wasn't hanging by a thread.
Concentrate. Focus.
"Gods, Ev..." said one of them.
He had been about to utter the name of the fallen.
Evan? Eva, perhaps?
It didn't matter what their name was or whether they had been male or female. Because now there was nothing more than a piece of meat. That would rot away like all the others.
"Another monster we should take care of.
"The power to subvert the will of human beings. Yes. She too is too dangerous to let live."
That was the voice of the leader of this pack of animals.
Abigail was one hundred percent sure.
I will never forget that voice. The voice of the one responsible for all this.
——
Charlotte fell again.
This time she did worse, though. She felt a searing pain seconds after making contact with the ground, as if the pain was too much to process.
The waves of that pain then seemed to spread throughout her body.
Charlotte feared it was her skull. That she had broken something, that she was going to die, again she was as scared as if her heart was going to explode.
But it wasn't.
She breathed a sigh of relief that she had only broken her arm.
Mentally she apologized to Desmond. For putting him through this. For not being more careful. She was doing everything she could, but it didn't mean anything if in the end her efforts didn't do any good.
Charlotte tried to get up and couldn't. It was only her arm, not a leg, but the pain was too much.
It wasn't that bad. It wasn't that much.
She was almost there, she'd almost made it. By there, of course, she meant the palace. Her palace.
She couldn't get up. So Charlotte crawled with Desmond in her arms to the front door.
She raised her hand to test it. She found it was locked. Locked, of course.
She broke it down as she had done with all those doors in that building.
It was a metal door, but not much stronger than an ordinary door, after all. She could take care of it. And the repairs. If there was anything she had plenty of, it was money.
Money, but not time. Not anymore.
Crossing the gate, Charlotte felt... safe.
Stupidly.
It's not like they can't cross without being invited first. Like some old legend.
Charlotte turned her head to look at them. They were like shadows of the night that had come to life. Nothing but shadows. Dark to the bottom of their hearts.
Like them.
Like the enemies of the Empire.
How had she allowed herself to think that they could be her allies, that they could wish her well? They didn't even see her as a human being. Just another piece on the board.
Like everyone else, really. Even themselves.
They were so cold... there was no light in their eyes. And so convinced they were right.
Conviction could be a poison.
"Get away. Walk away or..."
"We're not going to hurt you."
"I said stay away from me!"
Hysterical, she thought. It's too noticeable.
That I'm so afraid.
She was going to attack, regardless. But then Desmond stopped breathing in her arms and Charlotte came to know the true meaning of fear.
It might not be the best thing for someone sick. Someone in his sorry state.
But she shook him up as if to make him react.
She couldn't control herself.
"Desmond! You can't do this to me! Come on, Desmond! Desmond!"
Her desperate efforts, her screams, were to no avail. Only the oppressive silence of the night, like a cloak, enveloped her.
Before the golden masks could get the drop on them, her guards appeared as if from nowhere, carrying spears and swords, ready to use their affinities.
They hadn't appeared out of nowhere, of course.
Not literally.
She just hadn't been paying attention. Hadn't been able to.
Some maidservants, too. That she hadn't noticed either.
It was about time, Charlotte thought.
As the guards faced the intruders, said things that to her sounded only like buzzing, she was helped to her feet by three maidservants. Despite her protests over her broken right arm.
"Princess. We will get you medical assistance right away."
Charlotte could take no more. All the stress that had built up during the night and especially on this ride exploded out of her.
"Not me, for fuck's sake! I can wait! Do it to him! Do it to him! Now!"
Words came out of her mouth that she never thought she would hear. She couldn't say she regretted them, though. Quite the opposite.
It was... liberating.
In fact, she released so much tension all at once that her head was spinning. That must have been why. She watched as the golden masks that had chased her turned and disappeared into the night, instead of choosing to continue fighting.
But she didn't see much else.
Due to the pain of her broken arm, Charlotte ended up passing out right there.