She stared at him in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“You need all the raw power you can get, and the pilot panel is like a filter. It’s thinning all this blue juice out,” he replied.
“Health and safety concerns were key to this!” Ibrahim hissed, scowling at him. “Do you realize what it’ll do to her if she touches the wires directly?!”
“It’ll burn through my skin, my flesh…” Kafei mumbled.
“It’s the only way you’ll get the energy burst you need to push us farther out of the Hermessi’s reach in a matter of seconds,” Kiev insisted. “Drawing from witches and warlocks and jinn is too slow, because you’re not a full swamp witch and don’t have Lumi’s ability to pull much power at once. Trust me, I’ve seen that swamp witch in action. I know what you’ll be capable of once you ascend. Until then, however, you’re limited, and I don’t see the Word stepping in to help us. If the Hermessi keep piling up on us, we will not make it out of here alive.”
Kafei thought about it for a moment, as the hard truth sank in. Kiev had a point, as much as any of us hated to admit it. Kafei was still young and inexperienced, compared to her deceased sister, Nethissis, Kailani… not to mention Lumi. The Bajang was an apprentice, and thus restrained by the rules of her position. Her magic was good, but not strong enough to pull us through with so many Hermessi focused on us.
We’d taken her on assuming we wouldn’t have to deal with all of them like this. But the worst-case scenario had already caught up with us, and drastic measures were required.
“Um… What are they doing?” Corrine asked, staring somewhere outside.
I leaned out to get a better look and found myself stunned by what we were all suddenly witnessing. The guardian Hermessi were relentless in their pursuit, but the ones we’d seen standing back at the sight of us had now turned against their colleagues, joining Ramin and the other rebels in a group attack.
The two dozen hostiles that had surrounded our spell bubble were… virtually outnumbered.
My earlier assessments had come true, I realized, as Hermessi who’d been forced into servitude to Brendel for the sole purpose of protecting their children no longer had a reason to support her. We had their kids, and we were taking them away.
“They finally realized what’s really going on,” I said. “The Hermessi whose children Brendel stole… they all opposed her before. We are saving their children, so—”
“They’re helping us,” Kiev said, equally astonished.
Fire, Earth, Water, and Air crashed into the remaining ritual supporters. Fireballs mingled and tore at one another, causing streaks of bright orange, green, blue, and white to stretch across our field of vision. The elements turned on their own, if only to give us a better chance at escaping.
My heart swelled as I recognized Ramin and his earlier rebels joining in, viciously attacking the very Fire Hermessi that had tried to keep us grounded in the first place. It was truly an extraordinary spectacle—while it was chilling and of cosmic proportions, I couldn’t stop myself from admiring its inadvertent beauty.
The Hermessi’s war was a feast for our eyes, like fireworks exploding in the black void of outer space. This was our last shot to return to The Shade in one piece.
Kafei knew it. Bracing herself for the surge of serium energy going directly through her, she gripped the cables in Kiev’s hand and resumed her spell chants. Her hands burned blue, and she cried out from the searing pain, but she didn’t give up.
She held on and completed the chants, as the ranks of rebel Hermessi grew outside against the ritual supporters. I saw the serium batteries die out as all the energy was transferred into Kafei’s body. She glowed as she pulled her hand back, dropping the dead cables. All the power had nestled inside her.
“Hold on!” she croaked, and slapped both hands against the pilot panels in front of her.
The energy surge flowed through the shuttle, sending sparks flying from different parts of the ship. It spread outward, causing everything to turn white for a split second. Every piece of the shuttle, every cog and grate, every wire and metallic plate, every single damn atom burst brightly as the power exploded farther out and supercharged the interplanetary spell bubble.
For a brief moment, we were all surrounded by a sea of luminescent white, before it vanished, and the spell bubble gained a speed well beyond supersonic. Time and space warped around us, the Hermessi’s skirmish turning and twisting like color drops stirred into a glass of black water.
Seconds passed. I felt my entire being disintegrate, as if pieces of me were falling apart, somehow. It was just the effect of a solid object going through hyperspace with unprecedented velocity. Stars shot past us—thin white lines that vanished before we could even acknowledge their existence.
Slowing down seemed to take forever, as not a single member of our crew dared to say anything. We were all paralyzed. I wondered if we were even breathing at this point.
Hours passed, as far as I could tell, before the universe around us regained its better-known form. We flew past planets and unfamiliar solar systems. We saw galaxies expanding in spirals of sparkling blue, pink, and yellow, with giant stars in the middle—like directors of this extraordinary space ballet. Silence reigned supreme as the spell bubble hummed softly.
“Is… Is it over?” Basti asked, her voice raspy. She’d been gripping the armrests with such strength that her knuckles had turned white.
“I think so,” Kafei replied, wobbling. Corrine, Ibrahim, Mona, and the other witches around her kept her up, flanking her on all sides and holding her close as she regained her strength with a dozen tonic vials.
“You did it,” Kiev said from the floor.
I hadn’t even seen him fall, but, given the sudden speed of our interplanetary spell bubble, I was surprised to see him in one piece. He could’ve easily gotten himself thrown around like a rag doll. My seat straps had been digging into my flesh through the leather suit, but I was thankful I’d had them on.
“How are you still alive?” Mona asked him, both eyebrows raised.
“I’m not sure. I blacked out,” Kiev replied. “I’m not even sure what happened…”
“Kafei practically wormholed us out of there,” Mona said. “I was so focused on her, I didn’t even see you fly backward.”
Kiev chuckled. “Don’t feel guilty. It all happened too fast.”
“But we made it,” Basti interjected, staring at me.
This time, I was more confident in my smile. “We made it. You’ll be kept safe until we stop the ritual, I promise.”
She almost melted in her chair, her lips stretching into a satisfied grin. She tilted her head back, enjoying the soft hold of the headrest, and stretched her legs. “Thank you,” she mumbled before succumbing to a deep sleep.
The other Hermessi children were also exhausted, barely holding on to consciousness, but they could rest easy now. The hardest part was over, and we were headed back to The Shade. While Derek sent word back to GASP about the success of our mission, I gazed out through the shuttle’s windshield, hoping that Ramin had already taken his increased rebel ranks out of that planet system altogether.
We had much work to do, and we needed every rebel we could get on our side. In the meantime, our universal fate continued to rest in the hands of Taeral and his crew. It was time to speak to Nuriya and find out if she’d heard from them.
Our contribution, while minimal in the grand scheme of things, was worthless if Taeral didn’t emerge with a completed Thieron for Death. Looking at Basti again, now fast asleep and safe, I basked in a sweet sense of relief. Minimal or not, it was worth it.
Taeral
Time did not forgive. Whether slowed down or sped up, it continued its linear flow, sooner or later. It did not wait. It did not stop. And it certainly did not care about what went on in the outside world as we struggled to make sense of the Soul Crusher’s puzzle. The urgency was ours and ours alone to feel. The agony, the frustration, and the simmering anger bubbling beneath the surface… it all belonged to us. We had to deal with it. We had to overcome it.
