What came next was mayhem. Charlotte immediately flung herself sideways as seven different mages launched spells at her. One especially clever mage–one of the two she had decided were actually potential threats–even tried to trip her up with earth-attribute magic. It was a solid idea, but it didn’t account for Charlotte’s supernatural speed that came from a lifetime of magic enhancing her body. 

The first wave of soldiers rushed her before she even landed. They swung swords and jabbed spears at her with practiced coordination, forcing her to throw a burst of flame to that flank to push them back. 

Off to a rough start, she thought. Better take control.

Breathing deeply and sending pulses of blue fire in every direction, Charlotte focused and dipped her vision into the spirit realm. Glancing about, she quickly located the two more powerful mages. They were identifiable by the more solid form and more vibrant hues of the spirits within their bodies. One had a deep, earthy brown while the other was a sort of yellow tinged with red. The brown was the woman who had tried to disrupt her footing while the yellow and red was a man on the opposite side of the room. The man was closer, and Charlotte could feel distinct fear in him, so she targeted him first.

Reaching forward, she sent a stream of fire into the soldiers separating her from the man and supplemented it with the five spikes she had tethered to that hand. Sending the spikes was more difficult than just having them trace the movement of her fingertips, so she focused more on that task while trusting the flame to clear a path. 

She leapt forward, the sounds of her spikes striking home again and again ringing out around her as she magically tugged on herself to move faster than the soldiers could track. Lightning, wind, and red-orange flames streaked past her as the mages targeting her failed to keep up with her movement. One spike of rock came close to hitting her, but she jumped to evade and landed within striking distance of her prey. 

Not wanting to be interrupted, she sent another shockwave of fire out to clear the soldiers in the area. She felt lightning forming next to her and attempted to evade, but the crackling electricity formed and released faster than she had anticipated. It struck a glancing blow on her right shoulder and momentarily rattled her.

He’s better than I thought, she realized. It’s a good thing I got rid of the mask.

Lunging forward and pulling herself with unattributed magic, she closed the distance between herself and the man and dug the remaining five metal claws into his neck. She sent fire into the wounds to make doubly sure he was dead and was leaping back to the center of the room before his body even hit the floor.

The five claws she had launched returned to her and settled at the tips of her fingers as she landed. She would retrieve his gemstones after the fight, she decided. She couldn’t afford a distraction right now, however tempting it may be. 

Forcing open the space surrounding herself, Charlotte summoned a whirling ring of fire and fed it energy until it was large enough to obstruct her opponents’ view and clear a twenty-foot circle around herself. Magic streaked past her, earth and wind and water but notably no lightning. Without line of sight, these mages were now shooting in the dark. She still had to dodge a few strikes as she felt them approach, but none of them were real problems. 

Looking for mage spirits, she sent off spike after spike. She managed to take out six of the lesser mages before she felt energy gather beneath her. She failed to jump in time, but used unattributed magic to tug herself upwards at the last moment before the stone beneath her split. The floor opened up into a crater as large as her ring of fire, then folded in on itself in an attempt to bury her.

Charlotte was genuinely impressed by the precision of the earth mage. She could very well have been entombed with that attack if she hadn’t pulled herself into the air.

Now above the visual buffer of her flames, Charlotte had to quickly pull herself in several directions to dodge the more accurate strikes of the remaining mages who could now see her. Deciding to take a risk, Charlotte held herself in place and raised the ring below her. She grew the walls until they stretched from floor to ceiling, all the while feeding energy into it up to her newly raised limit.

Holding herself in place took a great deal of energy, but not nearly as much as raising herself up to the roof of the palace had. The remaining energy served to stoke the inferno around her until the blue flames tinged white and the air around the raised walls became a blistering haze. She was careful not to start burning away her newly-enlarged spirit, but she did push it to the brink.

Satisfied, she watched as stone spike after stone spike missed their mark. This wasn’t enough to melt the projectiles, but it was more than enough to throw them off course. Between the heat creating a pressure differential and the hazy mirage-like distortion around the pillar, aiming with only eyesight and guesswork was impossible.

Charlotte lowered herself down slowly, careful not to get too close to the shattered stone floor but enough to make the attacks aimed at her last visible location invalid, then searched for the prince. She spotted his mildly brown-tinged spirit and made careful note of it.

It wouldn’t do if I accidentally took out the prince. That would turn me from a folk hero to a terrorist in no time.

Her launched spikes returned to her a moment later and she latched all ten back on her bracers. She could probably take out a few more mages with them, but she didn’t want to be splitting her focus in so many directions for the rest of this fight. That woman earth mage had proven herself at least worthy of that.

As if to punctuate that thought, earthen spikes shot up from beneath her. It was a scattershot approach, but the result was a barrage of stone that covered the entire ring around her. Charlotte managed to dodge most of the strikes, but she sustained two wounds in the process. One spike grazed her left calf, which healed immediately, while another pierced her left bicep fully while she was focused on circulating energy to the first wound. 

Having these new abilities was one thing, but it seemed that using them properly would take some more time.

Enraged, Charlotte left the spike in her arm and pushed the swirling tower of fire outwards. She heard soldiers scream in pain and watched charred corpses fall into the expanding border of her sanctuary. She continued pushing until the blaze reached the edges of the chamber, then released her grip on the flame and let it fizzle out. Her attack had stopped short of where the prince–who had now been ushered out of the chamber–had been standing, but everything else had been consumed. 

Frustratingly, three mages had survived. All three were apparently adept with the earth attribute and had quickly buried themselves underground to avoid her attack. Included in their number was that frustrating woman, much to Charlotte’s chagrin. 

Forcing herself to remain calm and not give in to her rage, Charlotte used this brief lull while her opponents were underground to seek out all of the stones dropped by the dead mages and pull them to herself. Twenty stones from nineteen blackened bodies rocketed towards her before tucking themselves beneath her armor wherever they would fit. She would examine them later; she had bigger problems now.

Soldiers began streaming in from all sides. Somewhere in the chaos of the brawl she had apparently dropped the curtain of flame over the main entrance. As the three mages popped back up to the surface, Charlotte found herself surrounded yet again. A brief look into the spirit realm showed that there was a seemingly endless amount of soldiers waiting in the wings as well.

Cursing, Charlotte pulled the earthen spike from her bicep and circulated energy into the wound. The gathered soldiers, already on edge looking at the piles of their burnt comrades, gawked as the grievous wound closed before their eyes. Not bothering to hide her irritation, Charlotte swiped her left hand and shot a searing blue blade into a cluster of soldiers who promptly immolated.

I’ve already got most of what I came here for, she considered, still hovering just above the ground. But I really don’t want to leave mages behind. That’s just wasted potential.

Gathering her wits and pushing down her mounting frustration, she made a decision and began pulling in energy while locking onto her target. She needed to take care of that woman first, then the others would be child’s play.

With one violent, wasteful pull on her own body, Charlotte was breathing down the neck of the newly emerged mage. She didn’t bother making any motions. Instead, Charlotte simply infused her breath with blue flame and fed it an inordinate amount of power. The mage was ashes before she could even react and a rich brown gemstone tucked itself into Charlotte’s armor. 

Sending out waves of flame haphazardly to serve as makeshift crowd control, Charlotte leapt back to the center of the room and shot two of her spikes directly from her forearm at the remaining mages. One struck home, but the last mage standing managed to dodge. It seemed they had grown wise to her fighting style after watching all of their fellow mages fall. 

Wanting to finish this quickly, Charlotte reached out with her spirit to locate the gemstone of the last foe she had killed then shot the stone itself at the final mage. The attack came from an unexpected angle, and by the time her spikes had returned the stone had pierced the final mage’s temple and emerged from the other side. She quickly collected the two stones, all the while sending waves of fire from her body.

With her mission complete, Charlotte once again surrounded herself in flames. There were no pesky earth mages left to get in her way, so she began walking toward the main entrance and burning everything in her path.

She would be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t feeling the strain of using all this magic in quick succession, but she had carefully regulated her expenditure even through her rage and still had enough stamina to get herself to safety. She expanded the flames to engulf everything in her path, then sprinted through the doors and out into open air.

Surrounded by the charred corpses she had created upon arrival, she breathed a sigh of relief and quickly checked herself by pressing her spirit outward. Forty-three gemstones glowed in her spiritual vision, each their own shade and brightness. Satisfied, she began sprinting in the direction of her planned escape route.

Alarm bells tolled all throughout the capital as she made her way out of the city. Through the careful application of magic and the merits of her prior preparation, she managed to scale the three concentric walls in turn and escape unnoticed by any patrols.

Only when night finally fell and she found herself under the cover of the forest did she allow herself to rest.

Forty-three, she mused. That’ll take me quite some time to get through. I should probably get back to the temple before I hole up and start burning through these.

Forcing herself to keep moving with renewed purpose, she pointed herself North and began the long trek back to where she had started this journey.