"Rahh!" A retched grunt roared from me.
Tar-like blood hissed and sprayed as I ripped my sword free from the lupine monster's back.
It collapsed without a sound, and I didn't wait to watch it dissolve into whatever ash these things left behind. I stepped over the smouldering carcass and continued down the blood-stained corridor.
I looked back over my shoulder at the mess I had carved as I made my way towards where I hoped Kat would be, where she would be safe.
My head snapped forward, dragged towards the grating sound of rubber against wood.
A mage had rounded the corner as he attempted to get the drop on me; his robes billowed as his hand curled around a thin stick of wood. I didn't give him the chance to cast whatever spell he had hoped to.
With my index and middle finger extended, I flicked my wrist downwards. A line of gold erupted from his left shoulder to his hip opposite, lighting his cloak in my radiance.
With a guttural cry, he fell to his knees as the warmth spread, coating his form. He fell forward and rolled on the floor before me.
I paid him no further attention as I stepped over his pyre and marched towards the thin metal door at the far end of the room.
With a heavy breath, I gathered mana towards my hands and dug into the door. After grunting and groaning, I forced it open, unveiling a chasm of pitch-black.
"Kat…" I exhaled. Before I could let the thought stop me, I jumped into the abyss.
Metal bent beneath my feet as I landed with a resolute thud. With a grunt, I stamped the roof of the small chamber out and clawed my way out of the eloquent room. I stepped into the ever-so-familiar dark hallway.
Not having to worry about the surprise of a monster or mage attacking me, I broke into a sprint as I charged towards the looming double doors at the end of the hallway.
Without a word or warning, I threw the doors to the dark room open.
I summoned a thread of gold to my palm, letting it flare just bright enough to carve shapes from the dark.
"Kat?" My voice cracked as I called her name. "Kat, are you in here?"
A small shuffle sounded from somewhere near the back, behind one of the boulders.
My eyes narrowed as I held my flame-covered hand at arm's length.
Hair the shade of night shimmered against the distant light, and my head relaxed.
"It's me, Kat," I said, softer now, taking a slow step forward with my free hand loose at my side. "It's Lias. You're safe, I promise."
I continued forward slowly as the now-emerged figure became more visible.
Shiny black hair fell and flowed over either shoulder. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wide; a sad smile grew on her face as she finally saw me properly.
Before I could get a word out, she had closed the remainder of the short distance and had grabbed hold of my shirt with both hands.
"I heard yelling," she choked against my chest, "and then the walls started shaking, and it went dark, and I didn't know where anyone was, and I-"
"I know." I settled a hand against the back of her head, letting the light in my palm dim to something gentler. "I know. I'm here now."
I lowered myself the rest of the way to the floor and let her cry into my shoulder for as long as she needed.
The room shook as, somewhere above us, thunder roared, and lightning crackled.
After catching her breath, she looked up at me with a sadness that didn't suit her. She asked, "What's happening? Where's Curtis? Is he okay?"
"He's fine," I smiled, though I wasn't half as certain of it as I sounded. "He's out there with Claire and Theo, holding the line so I could come get you."
The corners of her mouth twitched upwards at hearing about her brother, but they fell just as fast as she understood the rest of what I had just told her. "Holding the line from what?" she asked, her eyes wide, her love and concern for her brother evident if it wasn't so already.
My mouth pursed on instinct as I debated whether to tell her. With a shallow breath, I forced myself to smile at her.
"Everything's fine, Kat; everyone will be fine-"
"Lias." Her voice hardened in a way that didn't seem right for someone her age.
Her age… I snickered to myself.
How ironic, thinking like that when we're the same age…
"Don't lie to me." She added, her eyes never leaving my own.
I let the mask and false smile drop. There wasn't much point keeping it up in front of her anyway; she'd always been able to see straight through me.
"There's a lot going on out there," I admitted, choosing my words carefully. "There are Monsters and cloaked people, mages, I don't recognise, causing carnage. It's bad up there, Kat. I won't pretend it isn't."
Her fingers tightened around my shirt, but she nodded, accepting it because she needed to. She opened her mouth to speak, but I stopped her, cutting her off before she had the chance.
I reached for her hands and tensed my own as I took hold of them.
"Don't worry, okay?" I smiled with a tilt of my head. "I promise you, you'll be safe."
She nodded her head slowly as she accepted my words as fact.
Taking that as a sign, I slowly climbed to my feet, helping her do the same. I let her hands go as my left hand reached towards my right thumb. Feeling for the cold band that had long since become at home on the finger, I unwound it and freed it from me.
Taking it in hand, I reached back out to Kat's still lingering hands that hovered confusedly before her.
"Lias? What are you-"
I took her right hand and unfurled her fingers. Taking her open hand in my own, I placed the small band of silver in her palm and curled her fingers around the small shiny piece of magical metal.
Her eyes widened as I took her balled hand in both of my own. I lifted it and kissed her knuckles.
Her cheeks darkened.
"Lias... what are you doing?" She asked, her panicked voice rising unevenly.
I heaved a heavy breath as I looked at her over her hand. "I have always been by your side, and I will always continue to be," I couldn't help but smile as a heat rose over me.
Her hand fell from my own.
"I've not been around as much as I should have been these past few months." An awkward smile tilted on my face as my eyes found my feet. "I've been busy getting stronger, strong enough to stand by my brother's… Curtis's…" I looked up at her. "By your side."
I again pressed my lips to her knuckles, lingering there before finally lowering her hand.
She stared at me, mouth not working, her cheeks a shade of red I hadn't seen on her before.
"That ring will hold a promise from me to you," I said, nodding towards her closed fist. "This is my promise to stay by your side. Keep it safe until this is over, and I'll come collect it."
"Lias, this is…" Her hands tightened.
Before she could continue, I straightened my back and held my left hand out to her.
"Now shall we?" I asked, my eyes never leaving her own.
Without any protest, she placed her hand atop mine.
---
We should have stayed in the training hall.
The overwhelming stench of blood and rot wafted through the air like miasma.
Gagging, I held my weight against the doorway that led to the side courtyard that the training hall opened up to.
"Lias, may we go back…" Kat said, standing resolutely at my side as she covered her nose with a handkerchief she had likely withdrawn from her own dimension ring.
As I lamented the fact that I hadn't packed my own, the tolling of a distant bell drew me away from the thought and the battlefield as a whole.
My head snapped up, and I was standing amongst flowers, beautiful and blue, and grass as tall as my knees.
"What?" I mouthed. "This is-"
"Lias?" a voice called. A hand settled on my back.
I looked back over my shoulder at Kat's concerned expression.
"Are you ok-"
"I'm fine," I shot her a smile as I forced myself to straighten. "We should hurry and join up with your brother and the rest of the DC. It'll be saf-"
"Ahhh!"
A cry tore from me as I fell to the soft grass below me.
My vision swam, the blue flowers blurring into streaks of colour before the field vanished as fast as it had appeared. The courtyard slammed back into focus around me, Kat's grip tightening on my arm as I sagged against her.
Ding-Ding Dong
A distant bell tolled its ringing continuous.
"Do you hear that?" I groaned, pressing a hand to my ear.
"Hear what?" Kat's face pinched with worry, glancing around at the chaos as though she might spot the source of it herself.
"Lias."
A deep voice called, slicing through the tolling without emotion. My head snapped up to where I thought the voice originated from, but there was no one there. Before me, the only thing alive was distant bloodstained flames that burned their eternal crimson.
"Lias, you're scaring me!" Kat called at my side as she held me.
I didn't answer her.
"You can end all of this, all of this death, all of this chaos." The voice continued in its same monotone.
"Who are you?" I asked, my head snapping around me, trying to catch any glance at its origin.
Ding-Ding Ding-Ding Dong
The bell tolled again, this time significantly louder, significantly closer. I held my head tight as I balled myself up.
"Get up." The voice commanded.
"Will it stop that racket?" I breathed, looking out onto the death through my fingers.
It didn't answer me, or maybe it did with its voice washed out by the growing monotony of crashing metal.
With a shaky breath, I climbed to my feet. My legs found their footing, straightening on unsteady knees whilst Kat's hands scrambled to keep hold of my arm.
"Lias, please, talk to me!" she called, her voice ever so frantic.
"Speak," the voice pressed, patient in a way that made me ache in frustration.
"What-"
"You already know." It answered before I could ask. "Let your soul speak for you."
Kat's hand slipped from my sleeve as I stepped past her into the open.
"Lias, where are you going?" Kat's voice cracked behind me.
I ignored her; I ignored the burning around me as the bells coaxed me forward.
Ding-Ding Dong Ding-Ding Dong Ding-Ding Dong Ding-Ding Dong
It tolled, growing louder as I came to a stop in a wide opening surrounded by rubble and blood.
"Is this what you want of me?" I asked, raising my hands towards the reddened sky.
It nodded.
Despite not being able to see the figure that guided me, I could unmistakably feel its approval.
My body tensed, and my arms grew heavy as, with a shaky breath, I began.
"I am the light borne of the Darkness."
The words slipped from me as if they were my own.
Mana leaked from me, like a leaky faucet, as though the words I sung were to open the valve.
"The flame of the eternal end, created through the sins of man."
Kat called out to me. I could feel her, but not hear her, as if she grew increasingly further away from me despite being so close.
"I have endured countless cycles in flames' fury; I stand here and hope that one day I might be embraced by its warmth."
The air grew increasingly heavy around me. The mana, my mana, grew thick in the air as though it were liquid.
The ground beneath my feet grew hotter with each passing line, turning a molten orange as my feet began to sink into stone.
Golden light pulsed from me in time with the increasingly frequent ringing that I was now sure was audible.
"I ask of you as your son, ring forth the bells of Salvation, and set this world aflame."
A tremor ran beneath me as the ground around me burned a brilliant gold.
"Scorched Meadow, Avalon."
Heat bloomed outward faster than I could track it, gold rolling across the courtyard like water finding every low point at once. It wasn't fire, not really, not the same kind Avalon had offered me to use as I saw fit.
This warmth it was…
The flames didn't touch Kat. They rolled past her like she wasn't there at all, curling instead towards the wounded beast dragging itself along the far wall, towards the cloaked figures still cutting down anything that moved. Wherever the gold met them, it didn't burn so much as unmake, peeling them apart from the edges with a hiss that sounded almost merciful.
A boy near the fountain, a stranger to me, curled protectively over a smaller student, and the flame swept over them, coating them in the fire's warmth almost protectively.
My legs had already started to give, my whole body shaking with a cold that had nothing to do with the fire, my fire, my warmth that was consuming the academy.
"Lias, what are you doing? What are you-" Kat asked as she held me from behind.
"I don't-" my words slurred unevenly as my eyes cut them off.
A man with orange hair danced away from a tidal wave of gold as he carried a boy with black hair.
"Elijah…" I breathed, my eyes following his unconscious body. "I need to…"
I dragged my left foot free from the molten stone that had encased it. I stumbled forward towards them, being caught by Kat, who watched me with narrowed eyes, Lias.
"Lias, what are you doing?" She echoed, repeating herself.
"I need to help Elijah… that man, he has him…" I pointed a lazed arm in the direction he was carried.
"You can't even stand," Kat said, her arms straining to keep me upright as I wrenched my right foot loose.
"Go find your brother-" I breathed, straightening up, "I promised him I'd keep you safe, so I need you to do that for me, okay?"
She didn't answer me right away, instead looking away at the dimming gold that faded from rubble and bodies.
"Fine," she answered, "But you need to come back immediately!"
"Of course." I laughed with a smile.
Her hand slowly fell from me as both of us went our separate ways.
I scrambled forwards, clawing against grass and stones as I followed where the red-head carried my friend. He ran them back into the main building that hosted most of the classrooms and the faculty's offices.
"Stop!" I forced one final burst of speed out of legs that had no business still carrying me as I crashed down the hallway. I was now close enough to catch the sneer twisting across his face as he glanced back over his shoulder towards me.
With a click of his tongue, he pivoted into a large auditorium, where I was sure I had endured a lecture from Cynthia. The door slammed closed behind him as a whirling sound grew louder from behind the wood.
Without any time to think of an alternative, I used my momentum whilst I coated myself in what little mana I could muster and crashed through the unbarred door.
Wood splintered outwards as I clambered to the ground.
The man's eyes widened. "Persistent little one, aren't you?" he said, his voice bouncing as, with a smirk, he stepped backwards through a translucent tear in the world.
Without a thought, I pounced forwards, shoving myself up from the ground and towards the flickering haze.
It was cold but welcomed me as it consumed me in its dark.