In the midst of it all, Oscar looked back at Aurelia and smiled with the
baby, which had started crying, in his arms. "Looks like we did it."
Aurelia bowed her head, utterly astonished. "That was incredible! Let
me see your injuries."
"Heal him first," Oscar replied, hurrying over with the baby, whose back
was bleeding a little.
Aurelia quickly took the infant into her arms and intoned a healing spell.
Oscar breathed a sigh of relief as he watched.
"There, that's sorted now… but we're not done yet," he muttered. While
Oscar had gotten tangled up in a creepy forbidden curse, he still needed to
find Tinasha.
Oscar glanced toward the distant fortress. The magistrates were probably
worried, so it was best that he return to them first. Fortunately, the baby
looked to be all right. Just as he was going to tell Aurelia his plan, he sensed
someone new appear behind him.
"Oscar!" shouted a familiar voice frantically.
The word filled the king of Farsas with profound relief. He'd only just
thought to search for Tinasha, and now here she was. He turned around,
prepared to give her an earful of some kind, but froze when he saw the state
she was in. "What… what the hell happened to you?!"
"Oh, I'll be fine," Tinasha said, flapping a hand dismissively.
No matter how you looked at it, she was a mess. Her dress was ripped to
shreds in places and practically dyed red with blood. There was some sort
of inexplicable sigil emblazoned on her chest. What concerned Oscar the
most, however, was that the long hair he was so fond of had been hacked
into a bob.
He stared at the choppy, uneven ends. "What happened?"
"Oh, uh, nothing? Anyway, what went on here?" she asked.
"Do you really think that will work?" he responded dryly, walking up to
Tinasha and pinching her cheek.
"Aaahh, that hurts!" she squealed, even as she reached out to heal the
burns on his skin. Aurelia watched the pair of them, wholly slack-jawed.
Once Tinasha was released, she finally noticed Aurelia and the baby in
her arms. With her head tilted curiously, she inquired, "What's going on?"
"That baby had some leftover remnants of Simila sealed inside him,"
answered Oscar.
"He did?! O-oh, I see… I'm sorry I didn't catch that," Tinasha replied,
sounding crestfallen.
"Don't worry about it. It's not your fault, and it wasn't too hard to fix,"
Oscar assured her, patting her head comfortingly. Then he turned back to
Aurelia. "Thanks. You were a huge help."
"Oh, not at all. It was my pleasure," Aurelia said politely, curtsying to
him. Then she turned anxious eyes on Tinasha.
"Aurelia's looking for the bastard. Who were you fighting with?" Oscar
asked Tinasha.
"Oh, so Travis isn't back yet? Hmm… What if he lost?" Tinasha mused.
"Do you really think I'd lose? Think before you speak," chided a
grumpy voice as the demon in question appeared behind Aurelia.
She whirled around. "Travis! Where have you been?!"
"I told you to be a good girl and wait for me. What could've possibly
brought you all the way out here?" he questioned. The gentleness in his
eyes belied his stern tone.
Aurelia rubbed her thumbs over the edges of his eyes. She hadn't seen
him in so long. "I—I was worried about you, of course! Stupid!"
"I was completely fine. Unlike her." Travis smirked.
"You know, if you had such an easy time, you could've helped,"
remarked Tinasha, crossing her arms and giving Travis a look. Her
exhaustion bled into her tone.
From that exchange, Oscar gleaned that Tinasha's opponent had not
been Travis but some common enemy of theirs instead. He decided not to
kill Travis today.
That said, he didn't intend to stop prying. Tinasha's face grew tight as
she sensed the silent pressure emanating from the man next to her.
Nervously, she glanced up at him and gave an excuse. "Umm, so basically, I
owed Travis, and he asked me to help him."
"Not getting killed because your enemy changed their mind is hardly
what I would call owing them," Oscar said sourly.
"Well, there were a lot of other things, too, you know…"
"And I'll hear all about them later," Oscar stated coolly. Tinasha looked
abashed.
She recovered soon enough, however, and looked to Travis. "So does
that mean it's all over now?"
The demon nodded. "Yeah, and I'll keep my promise. But wow, you got
beaten to a pulp. She went pretty hard on you, huh?"
"She was really strong! Ugh, I want my hair back," Tinasha huffed,
waving her arms in a fit of pique. She had already healed all her wounds,
but she couldn't restore her locks.
As she watched Tinasha struggle—and fail—to pull back the hair
tickling her face into some sort of ponytail, Aurelia bowed to her. "Um, I'm
sorry Travis pulled you into this."
"You've got it all wrong," Travis cut in. "You should be thanking her,
not apologizing. She stood in for you during that fight."
"She what?"
"Why did you have to say that?" Tinasha hissed, grimacing
uncomfortably.
Oscar patted her head. "You just had to get involved."
"Urgh…"
Aurelia's eyes grew wide. It had never occurred to her that she was the
one in danger, and she would never have guessed that this beautiful queen
had agreed to take her place.
Noticing her discomfiture, Tinasha smiled and waved to indicate it was
nothing. "You don't need to feel bad about it. Travis was the one at fault."
"I didn't do anything wrong," the demon king countered.
"You need to fix your whole lifestyle," Tinasha shot back.
"I already am," he grumbled. With a little wave of his hand, he made the
mark on Tinasha's chest disappear. At the same time, her hair grew back to
its original length. The three humans present were left stunned.
"Wow," Tinasha said.
"I'm pretty good at that stuff, you know. Let's just call it a little
recompense for battling Phaedra. Aurelia, we're leaving now," Travis stated
arrogantly. The girl looked up at him and nodded obediently.
At last, she would return home with him. Relief pulled her lips into a
smile.
Travis pressed a gentle kiss to Aurelia's forehead, and the warmth of it
filled her with deep comfort. It had always been like that, ever since she
was young. And she wanted things to stay that way forever, if possible.
Aurelia offered the demon a bittersweet smile. Feelings she was helpless
to express in words were building inside her. Perhaps that was happiness.
But right at that moment, a woman's voice muttered something.
"You… tricked me? It wasn't that woman? It was this little brat here?"
"Tinasha?!"
Tinasha clapped both hands over her mouth. Oscar stared down at her
with concern.
A voice that wasn't her own had come out of her mouth. She twisted her
body, trying to shake off the curse-like presence.
Her head throbbed terribly. It felt like it was going to crack open. An
uncomfortably warm, muddy nausea surged within her.
"You little… You planned an aftershock?!" Travis shouted with clear
panic.
Dizziness came over Tinasha. Something was crawling around inside
her body.
Suppressing her malaise, Tinasha leaped into the air and teleported
away. She reappeared in the sky far above the other three. Clutching her
throat, she rasped out, "Get out of me… You have no place here!"
On Tinasha's final word, she made the magic in her body explode. After
an impact that almost tore the young woman apart, a violent torrent of raw
power struck her.
Travis gazed up at the tiny speck in the sky that was Tinasha and cursed
under his breath. "Dammit…"
"What just happened? Has she been possessed?" demanded Oscar, an
ominous look on his face.
The demon king flung an answer back at him. "Not possessed. Phaedra
can't do anything to her. It's just the very last bits of her. Nothing that little
could seize Tinasha completely. The equilibrium of the demon realm must
have been thrown off after the loss of two of its mightiest inhabitants.
There'll be some aftershocks until things settle back to normal. That's why
some of Phaedra's consciousness is lingering."
"So what are you going to do about it?" Oscar pressed.
"Nothing. The dead can't come back to life. What Tinasha just did
probably blew away the last of Phaedra, and as for the demon realm, those
of us who remain are enough to maintain a new balance, so long as we
don't touch anything. If we'd lost any more of us, then things would be
different, but the death of two just means a temporary fluctuation in the
current of power."
Oscar frowned at that unsatisfactory explanation. "Then what are you
worried about?"
"No one can stop the disruption, even if they're short-lived. Aftershocks
will keep rolling through to try and fill the empty spots until a new
equilibrium is reached. Power is pouring into Tinasha—the one who killed
the demon. And unfortunately, no matter how high her magic tolerance
is…"
An explosion sounded overhead. An incredible mass of magic emerged.
In the center of it stood a beautiful woman.
Her long flowing black locks danced in the wind. In a voice as clear as a
bell, she laughed loudly. "Ahhhhh… ha-ha-haa! A-ha-ha-ha!"
Tinasha's shrieking howls reached the ears of the three people below.
The noise was downright unhinged and didn't resemble her usual demeanor
at all. Oscar's eyes shot wide open.
Behind him, Travis shrugged. In a blasé tone, he remarked, "Ah, she's
gone out of control."
Oscar and Aurelia had no words.
A light drizzle was falling, dampening her thin frame. Tinasha cast an
annoyed glance at the raindrops on her shoulders. It was like she was
burning on the inside. Her emotions were all muddled and chaotic; she
didn't know whether to find it funny or infuriating. Her soul threatened to
split into pieces, and she clutched at her throat.
"Ha-ha! Ha… ha-ha…"
Power was gushing forth unbidden. It poured into Tinasha ceaselessly,
as though to reforge her from the inside out.
Tinasha touched her cheek; her fingers came away wet with tears.
"Hmm?"
She had nothing to be sad about. She shouldn't have, anyway.
At present, she possessed enough heat inside her to sear away
everything around, and that was all that should've mattered.
Tinasha glared at the gloomy, overcast clouds and the incessant
precipitation. They were ruining what should have been a gorgeous view.
She snapped her fingers, and a blast of wind shot upward, sending all the
clouds flying and clearing up the sky in the blink of an eye. Soft sunlight
filtered down to earth.
"Excellent…"
Now things were a little better. She hated the cold. It made her feel like
she'd been alone in an unfamiliar place.
Roughly wiping away the tears on her cheeks, Tinasha assessed the heat
building within her. She wanted something, and she wanted it very badly,
but she couldn't determine what.
That uncertainty left her wanting to destroy everything in her path.
She shook her aching head as her gaze darted around wildly. When it
landed on the fortress of Ynureid, she scowled. "What an eyesore…"
Before she could cast a spell, someone suddenly roared at her from the
ground below.
"TINASHA!"
His voice carried well. She cocked her head like a kitten, gazing at the
man glaring at her from below.
Oscar and Aurelia were both dazed by Tinasha's ability to change the
weather without any sort of incantation.
Travis scowled. She was growing more powerful than he'd imagined. It
had reached a point that she now surpassed a forbidden curse, if only by a
little.
"What do we do?" Oscar asked.
"Well… she's getting used to her magic. It should take about half an
hour for her mind to gain control over the power. By then, the terrain
around here might look pretty different, though," Travis replied.
"We just rebuilt that fortress," Oscar said sourly.
"So? Tell that to your lady," Travis retorted.
This was all too ridiculous. Oscar massaged his temples. Behind him,
Aurelia had gone pale as she clutched the baby to her.
Travis patted her shoulder. "We'd better find some shelter. Wanna head
back?"
"Hold on just a minute! Can't you do something to stop this?!" she
cried.
"Not possible," Travis answered flatly. "Normally, she's about as strong
as I am, but I could always handle her. Now, though? No way. I can't do a
thing. Besides, children of the spirits—spirit sorcerers, that is—get the best
of everything in this world. Letting her be is the best course of action."
Aurelia frowned at her guardian. "Come on. You sound like a coward."
"I just don't make a habit of overestimating my own abilities. I do what
I can and nothing more. Killing Tinasha's about the only way of stopping
her."
"Absolutely not!" Aurelia cried.
"Thought so," Travis responded, throwing his hands up theatrically.
Oscar threw him a stony glance, observing how this beautiful man
seemed to be enjoying this somehow. He unsheathed Akashia again. "Then
I'll do it."
"Are you out of your mind? Sure, Akashia can beat her, but getting too
full of yourself's only gonna get you killed," said Travis.
"There's a way to restore her. Besides, I'd rather not rebuild that fortress
for a second time. I'm going to get close to her, and you're going to help
me," Oscar stated in a tone brooking no refusal.
Travis's lip curled scornfully, and Aurelia poked him in the back. At that,
the demon nodded. "Fine. Do you mean get close to her physically?"
"Pretty sure I don't need any help getting close to her emotionally,"
Oscar shot back, and Travis burst out laughing.
While these two men were not on good terms by any stretch of the
imagination, they worked out a simple order of operations and then set out
to subdue the woman lingering in the skies.
Tilting her head to one side, Tinasha observed the man down on the ground.
Irritation flashed in her dark eyes. "Who are you? Stop bothering me."
That cut Oscar deep. Keeping his eyes focused straight ahead, he asked
Travis, "Has she lost her memories?"
"It's more likely they're all temporarily jumbled," the demon answered.
"Phaedra's consciousness may be gone, but her emotions are probably still
there. She really, really hated mortals. If you make one wrong move, you'll
wind up in the ground."
"No way am I gonna let that go unchecked. That's my fiancée up there,"
Oscar muttered. With his off hand, he gestured to Tinasha to come toward
him. "Tinasha, I need to talk to you! Come down here."
"No. Go away."
"…"
Oscar smiled grimly at her immediate refusal. Her loathing for him was
written all over her face; the dead demon queen's feelings truly were
influencing Tinasha.
After a moment's thought, Oscar looked back up at her. "Come down
here if you hate me so much. I'll fight you."
Tinasha's eyes grew wide upon being provoked so openly. She looked
shocked and hurt, but only for a second. Then there was only anger. She
leveled a finger at him. "Die then."
Five orbs of light shot from her digit, snaking through the air toward
Oscar. He broke into a run and slashed with Akashia, cutting the first two
magic spheres apart. Without spells to hold them together, the luminous
globes dispersed.
The third and fourth orbs, racing at him from behind, exploded as soon
as they touched Akashia.
Behind Oscar, Travis crossed his arms and smirked. "I'm getting tired of
this. Just come down."
As Akashia cleaved through the final orb, an enormous pressure bore
down on Tinasha from above.
"Hey!"
She crumpled in the face of the sudden attack, plummeting to the earth.
However, before she collided with the surface, a colossal explosion
boomed. A tremendous blast of air swept over the area.
Travis threw up a barrier to ward off the kicked-up dirt, and he sighed.
"Come on, now. I just want to go home."
Tinasha glowered at him crossly while floating a little off the ground.
That surprise attack had garnered her wrath. Oscar had never seen her dark
eyes so filled with pure hatred. "So there's two of you… I see."
The woman was seething with fury, her emotions on the verge of
burning anyone who so much as touched her. Still, Oscar stepped in closer
to her. He touched the ring finger on his left hand, just to make sure.
"Strictly speaking, I'm the one responsible for all this. Come here, and I'll
get that poison out of you."
"I hate you," she replied, lifting a hand. A gigantic wall of compressed
magic appeared in front of her. The white edifice was as thick as a real
stone one and as tall as a castle rampart.
The other side of it was just transparent enough to reveal that it was
knotted together with a roiling mass of dense, concentrated magical power.
"Go."
The wall moved toward Oscar, plowing through the ground and sending
dirt flying in all directions. He set off at a run, sword in hand.
As the colossal, intricate mass of magic pressed in on him, Oscar swung
Akashia down at it. The mighty wall capable of toppling everything it
touched developed a giant crack.
Oscar slipped through that crevice and hurried closer. Tinasha frowned
and snapped her fingers. A scalding flash of light formed behind Oscar. It
pressed into his back, giving off sparks.
But without even looking behind him, Oscar sliced it to shreds. Embers
flew off and landed on his arms, but the barrier Tinasha herself had placed
on Oscar kept him safe.
The fluctuation in magic reverberated through her body, making her jolt.
"AHH!"
"Come back to yourself, Tinasha."
"Y-you shut up!" she snapped resentfully. She cast a teleportation spell
to escape up into the sky. However, Oscar had anticipated that and touched
the ring on his left hand. The warp-blocking spell activated. Travis, who
had finished eliminating the rest of the wall, whistled from behind.
Tinasha's eyes grew wide with astonishment before her face darkened
with animosity. A huge amount of magic formed between her hands—a
radiant golden orb. Tinasha carried it up into the air and hurled it down at
Oscar. Realizing it was big enough to blow a crater in the earth, he stopped
where he was and readjusted his grip on Akashia.
"GO AWAY FOREVER!"
The air crackled and sizzled. Oscar held the flat of his blade up against
the radiant sphere. Akashia only held it in place for a second before splitting
it in two.
By that point, however, Tinasha had conjured a black sword. The
blinding orb had been a decoy, and she plunged at Oscar from above.
Akashia easily repelled the incoming blade and dispelled it, though. Oscar
caught hold of Tinasha's wrist and pulled her in; her face turned to a look of
startled dismay.
Despite being presented with such a clear opening, Oscar hesitated for a
fraction too long. Seizing her chance, Tinasha focused her gaze as she
kicked him in the shoulder. She moved far back, riding the wave of a small
burst of power.
Sighing as he looked down at the hand she had knocked away, Oscar
heard Travis say, "You could've stabbed her in the stomach."
"If I did that, her guts would burst open," Oscar pointed out.
"So? Just do it. I'll heal them up later."
"But it'll still hurt like hell."
When Travis had blown a hole in Tinasha's abdomen, she'd writhed in
agony even after restoring herself. Oscar didn't want to put Tinasha through
that, nor did he want to jeopardize her ability to have children by forcing
her to reconstitute her body tissue repeatedly.
A scream rent the air as the two men bickered.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
The queen was caught in a fit of rage, tearing madly at her hair. A wild
cry erupted from her tiny, battered frame. "I hate you! I hate you! I hate
you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"
She was like a child throwing a temper tantrum, though her screams
were more heartbroken.
"I hate you! I'm sick of looking at you! Die! Die already, you liar! I hate
you! I hate you! I hate you!" she cried, cradling her head in her hands as she
burned with enmity.
Coldly eyeing the queen going insane from an over-infusion of pure
magic, Travis said, "Phaedra's emotions are really doing her in. All we can
do is beat her into submission and wait for it to subside."
"No," Oscar said.
What Travis suggested wasn't impossible. While Tinasha had all the
power of a full-scale calamity, she wasn't in her right mind at present.
Oscar and the demon could subdue her.
That didn't feel like the right way to go about it, however.
Oscar gazed at her tearstained face. When his eyes met her dark ones, he
made up his mind. "It will be all right."
Akashia in hand, he stepped forward.
Tinasha shivered when she saw the weapon. She held her hands out in
front of her to stop him from taking another step and started to pour magic
into the space between them.
"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"
"Why do you hate me? Because I'm a mortal?" he asked.
"I hate you. You're a liar. I despise you."
"Well, I can't deny that I've lied to you," he admitted.
The muddled state of her emotions made it hard to tell where the demon
ended and Tinasha began.
Bitterly, she shook her head. White light emerged from her hands,
glowing brighter and brighter.
Pure, raw magic—enough power to wipe out thousands in an instant.
From behind, Travis piped up, "Watch out. You take that hit, and this
whole region gets decimated."
Oscar didn't answer and instead kept his eyes trained on the woman
before him as he moved nearer.
As destructive radiance spilled from Tinasha's hands, she turned a
nervous gaze on him and snapped, "You didn't even want me. You're going
to leave me."
"I'm not. I'm yours."
"I hate you," she said after a pause. A simple spell appeared between her
palms. It possessed more than enough strength to annihilate a lowly mortal.
All it would take was a thought. Scowling hatefully, Tinasha completed the
spell.
A feverish, crazed look crossed Tinasha's face.
"Love me."
Seven rings flared into being. The pressure emanating from them was
similar to Druza's forbidden curse, but more intense.
The massive spell flew from her hands, hurtling toward Oscar. He only
felt a minor flash of worry as he leaped directly into the path of the attack,
however. With a sharp exhale, he dug Akashia's blade into the interlocking
spells.
Light exploded with such intensity that Oscar momentarily lost his sight.
Still, he cut away the spells on the outer edges as pressure seared into
him. The hand gripping Akashia went numb. He was robbed of all sense of
gravity. However, he continued undaunted, instinctually hacking away the
sheer force pressing down on his body.
As he breathed out all the air in his lungs, he found himself standing
before her. Gazing down at Tinasha, her face streaked with tears, Oscar
smiled. "Is that what you've been worried about?"
Was that an emotion belonging to the dead demon woman? Or was it a
wish Tinasha herself had kept hidden?
Either way, she was here with him now.
He cupped her face in both hands. "Tinasha, I adore you. You don't need
to worry about that."
Her teary eyes widened a fraction. Gently, he lay the flat of Akashia
against her ivory cheek. From that point of contact outward, magic diffused
away.
As her breathing slowly calmed, Oscar pressed a kiss to the bridge of
her nose and murmured, "Do you want me to feed it to you? Can you drink
it yourself?"
Tinasha's long eyelashes fluttered. Her deathly pale cheeks turned a
faint pink. "I'll drink it myself."
She held out a hand, and Oscar smiled tightly as he pulled a vial from
his pocket and passed it to her. It contained water from the underground
Lake of Silence located beneath Farsas Castle. Drawn from the pool that
had created the royal sword, the water could neutralize magic.
Tinasha drained it in one gulp. When she fainted, Oscar took her in his
arms. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Travis waving at them in the
distance.