When I did, two things happened at once. Izzy’s grandmother — hidden as the nymph Tala — blasted Hana again. And she would have knocked the sylph out of the game… if the other thing hadn’t happened. Golana and Saldrea teamed up on the nymph. Two massive waves of earth converged on the woman, pushing and crushing her at the same time. She was shoved behind the line, but not off the pitch, and when the earth subsided, the woman was a crumpled, mangled mess.
Blazes!
And the worst part was, no healer would come to her aid. The healers could only tend to those who’d been pushed off the field entirely.
“No!” Izzy cried.
And with Hana no longer under assault, and Vyns still recovering from that sand — which, now that I could see better, seemed to have been focused on him — Hana finally got in the game, blasting air at us. And she was one of the most powerful sylphim on campus.
Her raging tempest howled around us. My wings caught the gale and nearly blew me away entirely. I flashed my wings away to minimize my exposure to the attack. But nowI was falling. Though Hana’s wind meant I travelled more horizontally than vertically.
Vyns, however, had been completely unprepared for the assault, wings fully extended. He was blown back, tumbling over the rough ground, to the back of the pitch, behind the line. A wall of earth rose and stopped him before he was taken completely off the field.
Izzy.
I would have been taken out by the attack as well… if Izzy hadn’t caught me. I don’t know how she did it, how she knew where I was, or how she managed to grab my arm as I flew by, but she did.
Izzy had blocked the wind attack with a wall of stone, and she pulled me down into that stillness with her.
“Thanks,” I muttered as we huddled close behind that wall.
Blazing Fires! She was too close. I caught her scent of cinnamon and apples and my body responded viscerally, instantly on high alert… for sex, not danger. I didn’t know how she could affect me so damned easily. One sniff, and I was gone.
I gritted my teeth. Nowreallywasn’t the time for thoughts of ravishing Izzy. Yet, with her so close it was hard not to think about it.
“You good?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. I needed to be anywhere but here, so near to her I couldn’t think straight.
“Then get ready. There’s still three of them out there and we’re down to two. We can’t stay here or Saldrea and Golana will crush us.”
“Now!” Izzy hissed, and we both darted in different directions.
Vyns had recovered and, since he wasn’t off the fieldentirely, he could still fight. Blinding light covered the other side of the field once more.
Hana gasped, her winds dying down.
Izzy summoned water as I summoned fire.
We’d worked out last night that water was the only element which would be effective against Hana. Fire she could blow away and snuff out with her wind, big earth attacks wouldn’t reach her if she was flying and she would blow away any small stones thrown at her. That meant blasting her with water was the only option. Izzy took up where her grandmother had left off and blasted Hana with a massive gout of water. Meanwhile, I threw fire at Saldrea and Golana.
Izzy’s water attack, though not as forceful as her grandmother’s, hit true, pushing Hana behind the line and knocking her out of the sky, gasping for air and sputtering out water.
My fire did little to Golana and Saldrea, who blocked with quickly erected shields of earth. Then they both attacked with earth as I took to the air again, safe in the skies now that Hana was taking a second to recover. Or at least, I thought I was safe…
A column of earth rose up and seized my foot.
Fuck.
The grasping earth flung me back to the ground, hard, stunning me.
Then two crushing waves of earth converged on me. They pushed me behind the line while crushing my body. Bones snapped, blood burst forth. I remained conscious only due to my power with spirit.
And as the earth receded and I lay broken on the ground, Izzy cried out, reaching for me, even as she dodged more earth attacks.
She was the only member of our team still counting on the field. Vyns and I could fight — if I could manage to even get up and do anything more than bleed — but if Izzy was knocked behind the line we’d lose. And she was facing two very strong earth wielders, one of whom wanted her dead.
And technically Hana was still in this fight and could blast wind again once she’d recovered. Luckily, she was blinded by Vyns’ light… but the other two, Saldrea and Golana, could feel through the earth, so Vyns’ distraction would have little effect on them, now that they were expecting it.
