It was like a geyser of air, sending Emily flying and twisting upwards through the dirt and vegetation painting the sky. Dust stung her eyes, forcing them closed as she flew higher and higher, crashing through branches and twigs. Too high. Her arm smacked into something, and from the pain and the grunt she knew it was armor. For a moment, she hung suspended, then gravity called.
Below her, bodies thudded against the ground like rain, and then she was one of them.
For the third time in two weeks, Emily found herself on the ground, coughing out the dust as it settled. That wasn’t the controlled magic Leo had done with the other knights, no, this time he’d lost control completely. Many of the bodies around her were still unconscious or shifting and groaning in pain. This was her chance. She stood, wincing, and tried her best to make out the forms through the dust. Come on Leo—Prince Leothal. She shook her head. That was a conversation for when they got out of this alive. If they could just run…
It was too late, already, knights were rising to their feet. Dazed, yes, but still way more armed than she was. Great. Every instinct was screaming at her to step over those still on the ground, to flee while she still could. But she chided them, told them to get lost, because there was no way she was abandoning Leo now. Their chances, weaponless and Leo likely completely drained after that blast, weren’t looking good and maybe she was being colossally stupid by choosing to stay. But she’d made her decision. A decision that she wasn’t going to waver on, not this time.
The dust had mostly cleared and Emily could make Leo out, curled on his side in the dirt beyond the group of knights already encircling her. She had to get to him somehow.
The knight facing her between them smirked beneath his visor, “Such company the prince keeps.”
Her face burned. She ignored it, sinking into a stance. “One foot forward, one back. Tuck your elbows in. Protect your face,” Sylvia’s lilting voice was back and while Emily was grateful, things weren’t looking great. Jeers pelted her from every direction. Beyond the knights, Leo was still motionless. Druett was standing over him, waiting. Emily swallowed. She had to get to him, and if she could just knock down this one knight, she could. In theory.
Okay. This was it.
“What kind of pose is that, little girl?”
She tried her best to tune them out, focusing on the hum that was in the non-existent silence. The hum beyond the jeers and taunts. She focused it all into her open palm (a fist to metal sounded like a recipe for a very unhappy hand). Then, in the span of a breath, she stepped inside of his sword, bringing the butt of her charged palm towards his helmet. Thank you, Sylvia.
Except her palm connected with air.
The knight had ducked, and now, his sword was heading right for her side. Move. She stumbled backward, hitting the ground. The knights were openly laughing now, and Emily just felt empty.
So much for her epic fantasy adventure. Beyond, Leo was still motionless, and Druett seemingly growing impatient, had raised his sword. From above, the dragon launched itself into the air. It opened its mouth. Emily closed her eyes.
“I-Ignis!” Its voice was small and tinny.
The hum of the silence was suddenly deafening. Emily felt warmth erupt around her. She opened her eyes in shock, only to be blinded by the tongues of fire that surrounded her. Dimly, under it all, she heard knights crying out in pain and fear. What...? She stumbled to her feet, and the world seemed to tilt. Swaying with exhaustion, she barely registered beginning to fall before being grabbed by the scruff of her shirt and watching the barren trees pass under her toes.
That language, the inflection, she’d heard it somewhere before.
It was a half faded memory. She sat on warm stones, a hand at her back.
Sylvia’s voice went up and down the hills of the words, Emily wanted to trace them: “Magicum ignem excitare suppliciter peto, ut videant potentiam tuam, filiam meam.”
The fire rose.
“Magic is real, Emily. I’m going to teach you to speak to it, but you can never tell a soul.”
Oh.
Awareness came back slowly. The feeling of dirt under her lax fingers, the pressure of it under her back. The sound of water trickling over rocks and the hum, back to a quiet undercurrent. Emily moved her fuzzy head and something tickled her cheek. She opened her eyes to afternoon sunlight filtering through dead trees and a pair of dark eyes boring into her own. She startled up, nearly smacking into them. The dragon squawked, backing up and flapping its wings indignantly. There had been fire, trees under Emily’s feet…
“Wait, did you save me? With magic?” The dragon didn’t say anything, content to slink over to her side.
Emily was sure of it. She pet the dragon absently, its purple scales vivid in the sun.
Her hand stilled.
She’d been dreaming, hadn’t she? An old memory, dredged up by language and fire and unsteady feet. Though hers had been unsteady from magic exhaustion because apparently one unsuccessful punch was all she could manage. No, don’t think like that. The old unsteadiness had been of a toddler, leaning back on someone’s—Sylvia’s—hand. Sylvia had known the language of magic. Which meant she had to be part of the family that had refused to share the knowledge. The family that had stood by and watched the war unfold. Which meant Emily was part of that family. She didn’t know how to process that information, so she simply didn’t. She sat there, robotically petting the dragon and trying not to scream. Because now she knew now. All of it.
The dragon cooed as if sensing her distress. It was so strange how that voice could create the words she’d heard, the words that’d made fire appear out of nowhere. Speaking of nowhere… oh god, where was Leo?
“Leo?!”
Emily scooped up the dragon and scrambled to her feet. She stood on a riverbank, clear water showing a myriad of stones below, the one sign of life in an otherwise dead forest. Across the stream, a pair of feet peeked out from behind a tree. Emily crossed the river as quickly as she could without slipping, soaking her boots in ankle high water. In an odd sense of deja vu, she found Leo propped against a tree, looking devastated.
She walked over carefully, but instead of staying back, she knelt at his side. Blood from a thin cut—no doubt from Druett’s sword, was slowly soaking into his shirtsleeve. Emily wordlessly tore some material from the cuffs of her pants, tying it tightly around his bicep. Leo’s swollen eyes took a moment to glance at her handiwork, before returning to his lap.
“Hey… are you—” no, he clearly wasn’t ok, “.... how’d you get here?”
“The dragon.” His voice was rusty.
“Oh,” she sat back on her heels. There was a beat, then, “why didn’t you tell me? … I’m not mad or anything, I just wish you didn’t feel like you had to deal with this on your own.”
Leo looked up above them, at the light sprinkling through the branches. He blinked furiously for a moment, then sighed.
“I’m sorry. I thought at first if I told you you would turn me in, and then when I realized I could trust you I just—I didn’t know who to be anymore.” He drew his knees into his chest, hugging them tightly.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re really trying to get me to spill my guts, huh.”
“Only if you want to.”
He forced a laugh and just kept staring upwards, refusing to let any tears fall. She waited.
When his eyes had dried and Emily was about to break the silence herself, he began. “My parents were never anything but loving. They were busy but they always made time for me. They never kept me in the dark about the world or Beauvais, they brought in the best tutors, made sure I was educated. Maybe coddled me a bit too much,” he gestured at the faded gold embroidery of his now very battered tunic, “So I didn’t see anything wrong with the world, or with what Beauvais was doing to people who have magic.”
“But a few months ago I-” he heaved in a breath, “I lit my room on fire. It was completely by accident, but I realized what it was. My parents came rushing in, and they realized it too. And then they—they just locked me up. Just like that. I only got out because of my magic and I just hated myself for it. I still do,” he finally met her eyes.
“They told me, before they locked me up, that they couldn’t have children. That they took me from a magic family by accident. There was a convoy to Mercié, it went badly, but I guess they found me there and took me,” he rested his forehead on his knees, “and you know what the saddest thing is? I miss them, because if I hadn’t had magic, then none of this would’ve happened. It was all the magic… it just, they completely changed.”
He gave up, wiping his eyes on his shirtsleeve. I can’t even imagine. Emily could feel his hurt, see how his chest was heaving, how her own eyes were stinging, but she’d be damned if she let them overflow now.
Tentatively, she asked, “Can I give you a hug?” Hugs weren’t everybody’s cup of tea after all.
He nodded against his knees and she did, wrapping her arms awkwardly around his shoulders, “I can’t even imagine how you’re feeling,” she voiced it, “that’s just so wrong and unfair. You can’t blame yourself though, they’re the ones who took you and that’s on them. And you shouldn’t be expected to just ignore a vital part of yourself,” Claire and Sylvia were always her comforters, she tried her best to follow them. “If it’s any consolation,” she smiled then, “I’m sticking with you.” and she meant it.
She pulled away and he finally looked up, “plus, I still have no idea what I’m doing.”
He chuckled.
“Thanks for telling me all of that, I know it wasn’t easy.”
She saw him smile, a real one, for the first time. “Well, I do feel better so… thanks.”
Emily stood, offering him a hand. He took it and she pulled him to his feet, “Guess what?”
Emily told him what she’d realized, and, as Emily had suspected, Leo didn’t hear the hum in the silence. It was—it must be—the magic speaking to her. It had brought her here for something. As they walked towards the border, Leo with a new spring in his step and penchant for talking, Emily with the dragon on her shoulder, she realized what.
They stood at the edge of a cliff; nestled below them, in a gulley between where the base of the cliff ended and the start of another began, a mile from the border, was an army. Emily couldn’t count the thousands, and there were thousands, but this was definitely in violation of the cease fire.
Something terrible was about to begin.
“We have to get to Mercié and Ivalis before they do.”
Emily stared at her palm. Concentrating and muttering the same word the dragon had, she watched a small explosion of fire dance across it, “Mercié, Ivalis, anyone who lives across the border: this is their only chance.”
Emily was going to do what her family had not, and Leo, well, Leo was going to find his.
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