We left the ocean behind and headed north, farther away from the rocky coast. The spell was remarkably fast, and it put some distance between us and the Hermessi. They were bound to catch up, eventually, and we knew it. There was little time left for us to reach Thieron’s blade.
“Notice how the glow begins to steady now,” the Widow Maker said, his galaxy eyes fixed on the sculpted handle in Taeral’s hands. “The closer we get, the more accurate it becomes.”
Lumi nodded. “I can tell from the decreasing amount of arm movements that we need to make. The trajectory is straightening, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” Taeral agreed.
The world beneath was extraordinary. The sight left me breathless. We darted over dark woods with rippling canopies and red lava rivers that trickled down from stony mountains. Hot springs and volcanic lakes, surrounded by lush greenery and a plethora of bright colors. Foamy seas. Reddish stone clusters sprinkled across the golden desert. Thousands of miles passed in a few blinks of an eye. Hours compressed into minutes as the flight spell gained more speed, its trajectory firm and straight as an arrow.
It broke my heart to think of all the fae that would be destroyed in the ritual. They would never see all this beauty, ever again. They’d never smell the spring flowers or dip their toes in the hot springs. They would never harvest the summer grains or taste the sweet fruits of the rainy season. It would all end for them. For us.
“This is amazing,” Eira murmured, eyeing Eirexis. The symbols were almost incandescent, their light white and bright enough to make us squint. My heart was pounding with excitement, as the thought of retrieving Zetos became central to my existence.
This is it. We’re almost there.
Something invisible rammed into us with such force that the spell bubble simply broke. Thousands of sparks erupted, like slivers of a glass bauble thrown against the wall. We plummeted toward the ground. There was enough of a distance to at least break some crucial bones in my body.
My pulse raced as I tried not to scream. Eira drew water from a nearby stream and used it as a jet—the water smacked us to the side, then shifted into a frosty slide as she dropped its temperature. I hadn’t even known she could do the latter, and it all happened extremely fast. The only thought I could form before hitting the hard ground was a thank-you to Eira for being a Hermessi child and for having such exquisite control over water and its properties.
We rolled through the tall grass, gathering scrapes and scratches along the way, as the water she’d drawn for us splashed outward and seeped into the dirt. I heard Varga moaning several yards away from me.
The Hermessi were here…
Taeral
For a moment, all I could hear was the distant thunderclap and the rustling grass as the winds grew stronger. They’d found us, and they’d taken us down.
“May the stars bless you, you wonderful woman, you…” Raphael grunted as he pulled himself back up and gave Eira a bright smile and a thumbs-up. She blushed, almost instantly, but couldn’t bring herself to smile back. She knew who was responsible for our crash-landing, and so did I.
My upper body was sore, and my palms were bloody and covered in newly formed mud, but I was able to stand up and look around. Eirexis was on the ground just a few feet away from me. My heart stopped for a moment when I realized I wasn’t touching it anymore. I quickly grabbed it and settled it back into its straps. The glow of its symbols was so bright now that I didn’t need to hold it up in order to see it.
Black clouds swirled above, the eye of a dark storm fixed on us. Soon enough, we were all back together, panting and grimacing from various bruises.
“I think they found us,” Herakles said, rubbing the back of his neck. He gave Riza a swift glance. “Are you okay?”
She shrugged. “It happened so fast, I didn’t even react. I could’ve teleported at least one or two of us to the ground before impact.”
“That’s fine,” I groaned, moving my head around to relieve some of the tension that had gathered in my upper back. It was too early to start guzzling the healing water, though. We’d learned to withstand minor injuries and to ration our curative potions. “I hit the dirt like a dropped tomato, too.”
“Okay, so! Crippling gust of wind is for the Air Hermessi. Check. Oh, look, the ground is… shaking,” Herakles said, worriedly looking around as a tremor set in and shook us all to our core. “That’s the Earth Hermessi, so… check.”
Rain poured down as the dark clouds ruptured above. “And there’s the Water Hermessi,” Raphael muttered, running a hand through his wet, dark blond hair. “Fantastic. Who’s missing?”
“I am.” A voice shot through the rapping of water drops.
We all turned around to find a fiery figure standing approximately twenty yards north of us. The Fire Hermessi of the Fire Star. The very source of my elemental power.
“Pyrr,” I breathed. “Took you a while.”
We’d prepared for this. The Hermessi converging on us was no longer a shock, but rather a nuisance. A deadly nuisance for most of my crew, but a nuisance nonetheless.
“You should abandon this quest, Taeral,” the Fire Hermessi said.
Around us, the weather worsened. The rain got so heavy and thick, it pelted us with snowball-sized droplets of cold water. The winds changed direction, making sure the showers hit us from all sides. The earthquake subsided, but the long blades of grass curled around our ankles, tightening in an attempt to keep us from running. All of these efforts were futile. They could also do a lot worse, but they weren’t. It was the first sign that this particular encounter was different from all the others we’d had with ritual Hermessi in the past.
“We should get out of here,” Eira said, reaching out to me.
I raised a hand to stop her. “Hold on. I want to hear what Pyrr has to say. I’m dying to know why my patron Hermessi is okay with the destruction of this world and all the fae it basically helped create.”
“Seriously? You think now’s the time for a Hermessi ethics discussion?” Raphael asked, watching me nervously.
Amelia squeezed his arm. “Notice how they’re grandstanding. Not attacking, but grandstanding.”
“They knocked us out of the flight spell. Pretty sure that qualifies as an attack,” Raphael replied, lowering his voice, as if that would keep Pyrr from overhearing.
“I would like to not have to resort to violence again,” the Fire Hermessi said. “It was a warning.”
“You know we can’t stop,” Lumi replied. “We’ve come too far.”
“What does Brendel have on you? Is she holding your child hostage?” I asked. “Because I don’t see any other reason for you to support her, if I’m honest. I know this planet well enough to understand that it was made with much love and care over billions of years. Why would you be so keen to destroy it?”
“I’m asking you nicely, Taeral,” Pyrr replied. “Unlike my brethren, I am attempting civility. There is no need for motivation as to why I’m doing this. It’s for everyone’s sake that the ritual happens. Period.”
“That’s a load of crap and you know it,” I shot back. “The ritual is for Brendel’s sake. She’s insane, and she’s got you all playing along like it’s your only option. You folks have dug yourselves into such a deep hole with this Hermessi folklore that you can’t possibly fathom an existence without having to try this level of destruction, over and over again!”
Pyrr stepped forward, his flaming figure towering over us. It seemed to get bigger with every move he made, as if the fire itself was growing, swelling and making him all the more threatening.
“The ritual is older than most life in the universe. It was made for a reason,” he said.
