Part 12 (2/2)

”Get up, Han. You lazy ol' dog.” I gasped, my head tipping about. I had to grab at the floor a few times to steady my balance. I hadn't ever experienced a sylph doing this to me. And I was trying to avoid the creepy feeling of the fact that it had gone through my head to do it.

I guess sylphs did have other tricks.

Han whimpered a few more times while I watched my vision of him spin around in circles. I had to swallow at least twice to keep down whatever wanted to come up from my stomach.

”Get up, Han!! Seriously, I need your help too.” He gurgled and stirred while I yelled at him and attempted steadying myself. I didn't see any blood on him, but considering what the smell of brimstone would often mean blood was hardly the most pressing issue. I didn't understand where it could have come from though.

Brimstone meant serious magic, specifically dragon magic; the kind of magic that could make life and take it away. Neither of which were very good for the world.

I couldn't deal with trying to stir a two-hundred something pound dog from unconsciousness. There were more serious things, and at least this way he would be out-of-the-way. So I popped open the cabin door and rolled Han just inside Bonny's room, before trying to close it again. The wind was making it difficult.

Once the door had closed with a slam though, I glanced around again to notice the clouds had sunk in deeper to where I couldn't see much more than an arm length in front of me. I grabbed the rail of the stairs leading to the upper deck, wis.h.i.+ng I had grabbed my belt of hatchets in the cabin room before I had closed the door.

I had to settle with just gripping both sides of the rail while still holding my long-handled hatchet with one hand and hunkering down low. I stepped up the stairs to the upper platform, hoping I wouldn't be getting another sylph style wet w.i.l.l.y. I was still trying to shake off the dizziness of the last one.

I managed up the steps without a thrusting breeze striking me. Though I discovered on the way that I couldn't hear anything around me other than the whistling of the wind through my ears, which was starting to incur a migraine and add to the swirling dizziness. The clouds around me almost seemed to take shapes sometimes, and provide the illusion of spinning through the clouds to my death.

Come to think of it, maybe I was pus.h.i.+ng through the clouds to my death?

I could make out a humanoid shadow appearing in the thicket of fog around me though. Smelling the intense sweet burn of brimstone once more, it was the kind of scent that was so absolutely sweetening that it just made your stomach turn until you wanted to puke. Like unicorns, glitter and rainbows, only hundreds of times worse.

”h.e.l.lo?” I called, my hand slipping along the head of the axe I held, to grip the actual handle, in preparation.

I braced myself, curling my hand tighter on the hilt as the figure managed to burst from the thicket of clouds to where I could make out more than a silhouette.

A double-edged sword sliced through the fog, just as I yanked my axe up to block it from cutting me in half.

”Roberts?” I exclaimed, seeing the same adorned scarlet bandanna interwoven to his hair, with the dark tunic and pants. He held the long double-edged sword in his right hand, and had just the same look of shock on his face as me.

His blue eyes beaded and he blinked a few times, before lowering his sword to his side. ”Miss Gnidori? Do you know what is happening? I can't seem to find anyone.”

I didn't get the chance to say much of anything, as my free hand flung forward to cover over Roberts' mouth. I twirled around him and used him as an anchor to thrust my foot at the person I barely managed to catch approaching over the whistling in my ears.

My foot slammed into them just above the crotch, marking just how tall they were, while I heard a grunt and a stumble away. The silhouette matched all the sounds, and my hand slid from covering Roberts' mouth, keeping one eye trained to him, while watching the grunting figure stumble back into the visible area, gripping their stomach with one hand.

”Faerie Fudge, Riri, did you have to kick so hard?” I heard Ettie's voice plead and groan as her looming shape came into view, one arm at her stomach while bother her hands held her pistols.

”Don't lurk next time.” I said casually, now needing to keep track of two different people. For all I knew, with the way magic was being flung around, either of them could have been illusions or shapechangers or any number of magical creations.

”I do not lurk!” Ettie screeched, her voice rising to pitches I wasn't used to hearing from her. Either I struck a serious vein or she was a shapes.h.i.+fting harpy. And why not? Everyone else seemed to be a shapes.h.i.+fter these days. Her voice died lower after a second and she added, ”It's a spell isn't it?”

”Yes.” I nodded, quickly turning in place. My eyes flitted to Ettie, and I figured it would probably be a good idea to tell her that her brother was safely locked away with a week old kitsune. But Roberts b.u.t.ted in.

”A-a spell? We are under a spell?” Roberts sounded like he was about to jump off the s.h.i.+p, his fear was so thickly obvious.

”An expanse spell. It's very effective for breaking up large groups and picking them off. It creates the illusion that there is more room around us then there really is.” I explained, my eyes darting between the two people I had now somehow collected and trying to catch any signs of something else. Like more of those blasted sylphs.

”So what do you do?” Roberts asked; his breath heavy and his sword strung up close against his body.

”Nothing. At least for you or me. Ettie on the other hand, I think it's time you worked your magic.” I s.h.i.+fted my weight, slapping the spine of my axe up on my shoulder, while staring directly at the tall blonde hardly a foot in front of me. She took two careful steps back, her hands flying up in front of her, barely gripping her pistols.

”Me? I can't do anything, Gnidori. Charms, sure. A little bang-bang magic, sure. I don't even know where to start with breaking this... expanse spell. I can't do it.” Ettie nearly backed out completely from my line of sight, continually one step after the other. I could see the fear ringing around her dark brown eyes.

If I hadn't stepped forward twice, leaving Roberts behind me a couple of steps, she would have been lost as a foggy silhouette.

”What did I teach you about magic, Ettie? Come on.” My voice rose, probably a little more annoyed and hasty than it should have been, considering this was still something Ettie had never done. Which meant it would be difficult for her without me getting on her case.

She lowered her head, I could see the worry flas.h.i.+ng across her eyes and face but then she looked back up at me with at least a mild determination.

”If you don't believe in the spell, there is no spell.” She fervently spoke, her voice shaky but her dark eyes were solid and strong. I nodded to her, and smiled weakly.

”So then why are you telling me you can't do it? You are better than this.” My tone was hasty, but honestly we were in a bit of a rush. Not only did Ettie have to knock away this spell, but then she personally had to eliminate each of the sylphs causing trouble. It was a lot of work for one solemn witch, but I had to trust she would do it. I knew she would. I had been the one to first teach her magic after all.

She nodded sharply, but her mouth fell open and the fear returned in her eyes. She still managed to ask though, ”What do I do?”

”Spell breaking is harder than Spelling. Elves being the best at it, because it has to do with returning nature back to what it was. This fog isn't supposed to be here. You have to make nature realize something is not in the right place so it can put it back.” I explained carefully, dropping a hand firmly to Ettie's fingers, wrapped around her guns. She still looked scared and I couldn't blame her.

”How?” She crisply asked with a weaker voice.

”I can teach you the basic incantation, but you have to be in the right state of mind. Think Ettie, why do elves have an easier time with spell breaking?”

”Love.” She spoke even softer, to the point that it was hard to hear her over the wind smacking around. The way she spoke the word though, with such focus and radial energy in her eyes, staring at me so intensely, made my cheeks burn with heat.

She must have noticed when she snapped out of it, because she drew her hand back from mine and glanced down as she finished. ”They love nature as it is, not the way someone else is making it.”

I nodded, trying to find my voice.

”Then to break the spell I need to love the air as it was before the attack.” Her eyes darted back up to me, the fear lingering away as she seemed to sparkle more somehow. She gripped her fists tightly around her guns, and closed her eyes.

I was kind of glad I didn't need to say anything. At least for a good minute, while I felt Roberts saunter behind me.

”What is she doing? Is she okay?” Roberts asked, right up against my ear.

”Magic. One of the purest and oldest kinds of magic in the world.” The smile on my lips had grown as I watched her. Her breath shallow and controlled, her lids flickering lightly like she was dreaming but she was really focusing, the only way she knew how. People all focused differently, and hers was always so peaceful.

”Pure magic? Magic is evil. How can it be pure?” Roberts squeaked, his voice actually rising high for once like he was still going through p.u.b.erty. Maybe he was for all I knew; he looked old enough to be a man though.

”Magic is what you want it to be.” I groaned. The magic is evil and dangerous propaganda was something the fairies instilled in the majority of people across the worlds. It was just another way of controlling the magic for them. They'd say only faeries had good magic. It's hard to conceive that at one point I actually believed all the non-sense the faeries promoted.

”It's the very will we possess imposed on the world. It's not evil. It's life. It's love. It's what made you join Charming's militia, and get caught up in all of this. What you felt for Ashley; that was the beginning of magic. Don't call that evil. Dangerous, sure. But magic is only evil if you make it that way.”

My brows furrowed, the rage seething in me at the way the fairies had been manipulating the world, controlling it. So that people like Ettie, would be convicted and s.h.i.+pped off to their academy or eliminated to keep that control. It was disgusting.

I didn't look at Roberts though, even if I wanted to, to tell him not to be an idiot with following everyone's opinion, and instead make his own. My attention s.h.i.+fted back to the peaceful blonde instead. The wind blowing against us helped me catch that lily scent she had. I breathed it in and let it relax me. My body unclenched, and my eyelids fluttering, as she finally opened her eyes.

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