They’ll just move me again. They’re stringing you along until they can injure you badly enough to kill you. I can’t figure out what the gurgling or coughing sounds are being caused by, but I hate hearing it. Don’t come.
I’ll always come for you.
You’re an idiot, Liz says. I’m fine.
They have Liz? Phileas asks from above. He’s one of the earth-blessed that likes Liz quite a lot. He’s also bonded to her fluffy friend Norm. We’re all coming with you.
As are we. Euphrasia has reached the shore beside me. We will all help keep you safe while you recover the Elizabeth Chadwick.
Liz, I say. She goes by Liz.
Euphrasia smiles. But calling her ‘the Elizabeth Chadwick’ makes her laugh.
She’s right. I’ll fly to her location, and the water blessed will follow below. The earth blessed will take out any groups of vanir I draw out. When I release my red bubble, the ice vanir start again with their volleys of ice arrows, but I’m ready for them. Thanks to the small break, I was able to heal the damage from the ice spear, and I’m prepared to zig and zag.
The half dozen ice arrows that find their marks clatter off my hide uselessly, and that makes me much happier. . .until I think about the water blessed that died protecting me for no reason. So many of our own, dead, because these creatures are attacking the humans.
It’s the reason they were locked in the volcano to begin with.
It’s the reason I never knew my own mother.
It’s the reason my father was broken before I was born.
The fury builds and builds inside of me until I burst upward into the air, and I begin flaming to the right and the left, exposing and injuring small groups of vanir that the earth blessed following me proceed to attack immediately. Those that fall, the water blessed eliminate.
And then, I feel her.
So close, but far, far below.
And I finally understand.
They’re holding her deep, deep down underwater, where a flame blessed can’t possibly go. They’re doing it on purpose, because they knew it would bring me to exactly this spot, and there wouldn’t be a thing I could do to help her once I arrived.
But they’re wrong.
Water blessed, I need your aid. I know you’ve suffered heavy casualties, and I know you’ve been fighting bravely, but now you want to return to Australia. I understand the sentiment, believe me. But the brave, big-hearted Elizabeth Chadwick is being held deep below this point, at the lowest depths of the water. My guess is that they have her down there with a particularly strong storm blessed.
Euphrasia roars, calling her companions.
They surge toward us, leaving the lakes to come here. I dig deep and open a portal just south of Stave Lake. Then I open another one on the southern end of Harrison Lake. Water blessed surge through the portal, answering my call, but the vanir are expecting it. They attack hard and fast, slaughtering the water blessed as they pour through to come to my aid.
Each strike, each attack, pains me, and I lash out as hard and as fast as I can with controlled bursts of flame, killing moon and storm vanir, but not nearly in the same numbers that they’re killing our water blessed. Even with heavy casualties, my blessed move toward her. I haven’t heard from Liz lately, and now all I feel is a great and terrible pressure.
Then Euphrasia cries out. Found her. Come to me!
All the water blessed who made it through alive dive straight down, and I feel Liz again—the pressure’s relenting as she climbs. Suddenly, as if she can no longer block it, her feelings flood the bond.
Pain—so dark and deep that it rocks me backward. Agonizing pressure, keeping her from breathing. She’s been pulling on magic from my bond just to stay alive. Her body’s been flayed open along her hands, her feet, and her legs. Small, opportunistic water creatures have been attacking her, drawn by the blood and organic, fleshy bits floating around after her torture.
But there’s also a storm vanir who has taken great pleasure in scraping his claws down her skin over and over, as soon as parts of her heal. He’s holding her swords until. . .
Euphrasia finds him, and she attacks viciously, backed by dozens of other water blessed. The only thing better than feeling Liz’s relief would be eviscerating the storm vanir myself. And then she’s finally rising again, rising, rising, rising. As she hits the surface, Euphrasia hauling her out of the water and into the light and air, the two ice vanir screech and attack, pillars of ice blasting straight for Liz and Euphrasia.
Liz’s wings are scraggly, broken, and bleeding. Her body’s battered, her right leg bent the wrong way, but she still has her swords clutched in each hand, and she manages to raise both upward. She shouts something, a word I’ve never heard before.
It sounds like Ama! It’s an almost piteous cry, but someone hears it.
The earth seems to shake, and a bright light bursts all around us, and just as the ice spears strike Euphrasia, the world disappears for a moment in time.
