AO 4 Ch 42 (Patreon)

Chapter 42

My heart was still hammering in my ears from nearly falling to my death as the fortress had collapsed.

I was lucky to have four incredible anchors all looking out for me. Despite my bravado, I was still foggy like when someone woke you from a deep sleep. My brain was like a loose wheel slipping on the axle every few seconds.

Aurelia put me down gently, like she was handling a glass vase.

“Where’s Maribelle?” I asked, reaching out to the connection between us as I spoke. But the little ping didn’t go anywhere.

My gaze landed on the collapsed fortress that she’d been inside. I sobered up in an instant and my mind focused on her, or rather the lack of.

In a split second, reality hit me. She was gone.

The world spun, the corners of my vision darkened and I had to grab onto Aurelia to steady myself.

Everything was silent, or rather, I couldn’t hear anything but the deafening thud of my heart in my ears.

My body clenched and a real physical pain tore through the fiber of my being. Not again. I couldn’t lose someone.

Quickly, I felt my panic start to turn to anger. A mad rage, one that would have me upturning an entire country and scorching the earth to the point that nothing would live there for a thousand years, boiled inside of me. “I will kill everyone.” I muttered. For taking Maribelle from me I’d turn all of Garrish and anyone associated into ash.

“Ard.” Emlyn’s voice pierced the anxiety and anger that had overtaken me. “Ard.” She shook me lightly.

I turned to her but I couldn’t really see her.

“Idiot. Remember that she’s still with you. It’s going to take more than a fortress falling on her to get rid of her.”

I blinked at Emlyn.

“She’s in your soul, right? Dummy, check that.” Emlyn’s tone was a lot nicer than her words. “Breathe, focus.” She calmed me down.

Only now did I realize that she had a bloody bandage around her head. “Emlyn! Do you not even take care of yourself? Look at you.” I clicked my tongue, seeing the wound on her chest and a few others along with numerous tears in her outfit. Something I could do right now was put her back together.

I kissed her and opened up my serpent sphere flooding her with life magic.

“Kind of cute how he forgot.” Eva said from the side, only for Emlyn to break the kiss and give her the kind of glare that could kill. “I mean. It’s totally normal to get caught up in the moment.” Eva held her hands up in the universal sign of surrender.

“Yeah.” Emlyn nodded more to me than Eva. “You just got caught up in the moment.”

“She died once already.” Aurelia pointed out.

“That time he had her body next to him, and she died out of sight in another body. This time likely feels more real. That and I think he’s a little disoriented from the fight or coming out of the epiphany.” Zuri added. “I’ve seen things like this with soldiers before when after a battle someone can’t find their family member. Even if they turn up, there’s a panic that grips them that’s far stronger than any logic.” Zuri offered me a bright smile. “It’s fine Ard. Let’s dig her out. Interrogating this mage can wait for later. Aurelia, can you put a tourniquet on the mage’s leg so he doesn’t bleed out on us?”

It seemed that healing him wasn’t as important as getting Maribelle. On that I had to agree.

“Ard has better things to do than heal this mage.” Emlyn nodded sharply, “Let’s get you to Maribelle. Is she in your soul?” Emlyn was handling me like a wounded animal.

I took a deep breath and steadied myself to look for her. My pulse quickened and that panic threatened to grip me at the mere idea of her not being there.

But as soon as I paid any attention to my soul, there was radiating affection and love from Maribelle, like she was trying to smother out the negative emotions.

“She’s fine. Well, not fine. She’s very worried.” I said.

“Worried? Maribelle?” Emlyn gave a comical gasp. “The only reason that would happen was if something happened to you. Let me give you a good look over.” She made a point of picking up my arms and lifting my clothes to check to make sure I was fine as she poked purposefully at my ticklish spots.

“Cut that out. I’m fine.” I huffed and pulled my coat back on. “Let’s dig her body back out. I’m sure she’s just worried about her weapons; they are pretty custom.”

“That must be it.” Zuri nodded, overdoing the agreeableness a little too much.

I stared at the massive mound of stones from the collapse and waved my hand over them, turning a large swath into sand and then pulling it all into the air.

The process was loud. All the grains of sand brushing against each other created a small roar.

So when the woman I uncovered opened her mouth, I couldn’t make out what she said. All I could feel was the resentment from Maribelle squarely placed on the mage before me.

She pulled the stone up to protect herself, but I wasn’t even bothered by it.

The sand I was controlling shot forward, swirling enough to roar as it smashed right through her wall like it was paper and dragged the mage out so roughly that her limbs, including her head, whipped back and forth like she was a rag doll.

“I think she’s dead.” Emlyn rubbed my back trying to calm me down.

Dropping the mage, I agreed. It was clear that my handing of her was so rough that she had expired. My magic was a little wild right now.

“Earth mage, and she was in there where Maribelle died. I’d bet she killed Maribelle.” I said seeing one of Maribelle’s with the mage.

“Looked like she was holed up, waiting for reinforcements or something.” Aurelia said.

“Doesn’t matter now.” Emlyn huffed. “Let’s get Maribelle out.” She rubbed her arms. “I’m getting a bad feeling.”

I moved the sand to the side and turned another chunk into sand only to move it out and see a large number of crushed corpses. Wincing, I pulled them apart with sand. Maribelle’s blue skirt and bright blonde hair stood out easily, even with the blood.

“Em, can you get her for me and bring her here?” I closed my eyes, really not wanting to see her body in its current state

“Sure no problem. Aurelia, make sure he doesn’t fall over.” Emlyn said as a gust of wind brushed past me and a crackle of lightning zipped further away from me.

“Alright.” Aurelia put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s fine. Her soul is the most important part and that’s fine.”

I nodded, but kept my eyes closed until someone came to my side.

“Hand here.” Emlyn took my hand and pressed it to some still warm and very wet flesh.

I did my best not to think about what I was touching and pumped life magic into the injured Maribelle.

She was in my soul and wrapping me in so much love it was stifling.

I peeked my eyes open to see a blood covered Maribelle almost healed in front of me. When her body was healed enough, I took her soul and stuffed it full of so much life magic that it threatened to burst before stuffing it in the body.

Maribelle took a steady breath and her eyes shot open as the healing redoubled and she stood smoothly to her feet, her clothes so torn that lingerie would have covered more. The blood stopped the look from being very sexy. “Sir, I am well, as you can see.” She knelt and took my hand, pressing her lips to it.

“I Maribelle will always serve Sir. Not even death can take me from you.” She gave my hand several quick kisses before rubbing her face on it and cupping my hand around her cheeks.

“Of course.” I adopted the firm tone I used with her often. “You’ll never escape me.” I gripped her chin and made her look into my eyes. “Say it.”

“I’ll never escape no matter how hard I try.” She stared back with a heart melting amount of affection.

I cleared my throat. “Good. Let me make sure all of you are healed up.” Pretending I didn’t just have some struggles, I moved on. Having Maribelle back made things much better.

Zuri stepped up first and kissed me, sucking some life magic from me. “Thank you. I am fine, just a little worn. Aurelia?”

“Fine too. The axe healed me mostly. Can you recharge it?” She held the axe out to me.

I put a hand on it, adding some life magic to the gem before turning to Emlyn. “Let me see the necklace. It must have run out if you were still wounded when you returned to me.”

She grunted and lifted it up. Some of the luster of the gem was gone and I touched it, adding life magic back to it before kissing her and making sure she was topped off.

“Alright. Next, let's see what this mage knows.” I saw the unconscious man. There wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about him besides being on the younger end for a mage.

“The woman called him Karl and Emlyn killed the Marshal. Though, the leader of this unit isn’t here.” Maribelle said practically glued to my side as I knelt down next to him. She was a continual reminder of her very much alive presence.

“Let’s see a little then.” I touched his head and focused, my eyelids fluttering as I scanned into his soul. He actually put up a decent amount of resistance. There was a time for delicacy, this wasn’t it.

Instead, I tore through any barriers, trying to get what I could and talking at the same time.

“They’ve been on this side of Avente lines for weeks. Oh shit. There’s some corrupted experiment with them. He’s brutal. Zuri… your father…” I trailed off.

“It’s okay.” Zuri’s tone was flat. “Tell me.”

“They went through your father’s camp. This… Colin? That’s a really bland name for the horrors that he has committed. You’d think it would be something more sinister. Anyway.” I got back on topic. “This Colin likes to kill mages and anchors. Slipped into your father’s fortress south of the desert and killed all of the anchors and mages. The rest of these mages came in with the army afterwards and rounded up the soldiers to turn them into mage-forged… the plan was to hit Chillwind Pass and open it up for an army massing on the other side.”

“How long do we have?” Zuri asked, clearly avoiding the fact that her father had passed.

“Uhh… not long? Messengers already went out… I can’t quite pick out the day, but it’s in the recent past. Things are a little jumbled and getting worse.” I frowned. “Melida… she escaped. That’s where this Colin is. He went against orders and hunted her down. He’s getting harder to control.”

“I thought he was in charge.” Emlyn said.

Picking through the mess of this man’s soul was difficult. With each passing moment, it was getting more and more jumbled, like I was quickly stirring a pot. Suddenly I was seeing flashes of an innocent childhood or a lover or some other firm memory and having more trouble bringing his mind back to recent events.

“He is? But they were on a mission from the king.” I saw the King briefly. The man looked hollow inside. It gave me shivers.

The images then flashed to images of Colin burying his fangs into mages and killing them in seconds. The dull look of the mages’ eyes flashed in the man’s memories as images with strong emotional attachment.

I’d seen a similar look before.

“That makes sense.” Emlyn muttered. “What about Colin? Anything we can do about him?”

“I saw it bite mages and anchors, killing them with the bite. It… it reminded me of my mother when Carmilla hit her with the soul attack.” I didn’t know what that meant and tried to push for answers.

The man’s soul tried to jump back to a cute girl and fought me to deviate from those memories. It was like he was hiding in his pleasant memories.

When I twisted, it shattered.

“Whoops.” I stepped back and pulled Hecate’s charm from underneath my shirt. “Well, might as well see if this still works.” I dipped it in and felt a faint cooling sensation. “Good good. Let’s go around and make sure we give the souls of our enemies to Missy. Damned shame that no one would have let me go down and try and dip this in what remained of Carmilla.”

“The king had an earth mage take all the soil that held her blood and turn it into a solid casket from what I heard.” Zuri was the best informed of us.

“Solid stone casket?” I asked, thinking about how heavy that would have been. Then again, people like the king weren’t one for caring how much effort it would take to move around.

“Well, if all that earth had her blood and… bits. I guess it was the best he could do to still bury her.” Aurelia tapped her chin. “Think we could find it and dip your pendant in it later?”

“Probably not. Her soul is long gone. Shame, we could have put it in a fly or something and then put it in a jar for the rest of its short life.” I said.

“Feed it shit.” Emlyn grinned.

Eva rolled her eyes. “Torturing the woman doesn’t make you better.”

“No, but it would be incredibly cathartic. At least to imagine it. I think I’d just rather the world be rid of her. Not to mention if she kept her magic, it would be pretty hard to contain her no matter what I put her into.” I gave a sad shake of my head.

“You thought about it.” Eva pointed an accusing finger at me.

Truth be told, before Uncle Silver’s not so subtle threats I had considered it. Yet, I didn’t want to become a monster, even if the idea of Carmilla living a period of misery seemed quite enticing. It wouldn’t have been good for me.

“Sounds like we have a decision to make.” Zuri spoke, but her eyes were distant. For now she was handling the news of her father well, but I knew she’d need some comfort when we weren’t in a crisis and the intel came crashing down on her.

Even if he raised two dicks and was probably one himself, losing a parent was tough. I was the expert in that.

“What decision? We need to go stop this Colin monster and save Melida.” I said.

“There’s an army preparing to march across the pass.” Emlyn pointed out the obvious. “Perhaps our goal should be to prepare to stop that.”

I shook my head. “We got lucky ambushing these guys while the strongest of them is out hunting Melida. Fighting an army head on? That seems suicidal, even for me.” I pointed to Maribelle. “It’d be more than just her that I’d have to revive. The guy’s memories seemed to think that Melida left with a decent sized force and the other mage. Maybe if we get all of them, we can get all of them back here and stand a better chance.”

“My letters should get to someone.” Zuri added in. “They are bound to send a few mages as soon as they can.”

“That could be tomorrow or the day after.” I didn’t want to bank on that.

“Not if they have an elder mage bringing them.” Zuri shook her head. “For Chillwind? They very well might.”

“That’s nice. So the elder mage can hold the pass and we can get Melida.” I grinned. “Alright. Let’s have some water and then head north.” I pointed towards the mountains that separated the northern parts of Avente and Garrish. If we headed over them towards the Northeast, we’d end up in the Barbaric Norths.

My guess was that Melida had tried to move that way. Brusset might have some friends and if this Colin was really that terrible it was clearly a creature of magic, the Northmen would help kill it. They detested magic.

Cyam trotted up next to me and gave me a soft nuzzle.

“Yes boy, we’ll need your fastest speed.” I rubbed his neck and glanced at Uncle Valken. “It might be easier if you joined us in the carriage for this one.”

The old man had seemed like a wild monster during the fighting, but now he had retained his dignified poise. He sighed. “That is unfortunately correct. Let’s hope this Melida has enough of her forces left to defend the pass.”

“Why?” I asked.

His ears twitched. “I hear a shift in the winds.”

I strained my ears but heard nothing, instead focusing on what I could control and made a carriage of darkness behind Cyam. “Hop in, everybody! We are heading out.” I slid in first, followed by the ladies and Uncle Valken last.

“Were you having epiphanies while fighting there?” Eva asked as Cyam’s little wing-ears flapped and we took off into the sky.

“Yeah. I haven’t used too much dark magic. Too evil.” I shrugged.

Eva rolled her eyes. “It’s not evil.”

“Looks a little evil.” Emlyn pinched her fingers together.

“It’s not evil.” Eva demanded. “Just dark colored. Well if you are going to practice dark magic, then there’s another common spell of seeing through shadows that might help right now.”

As we flew up and towards the mountains, the dark night was a veil that prevented me from really seeing anything.

How we would find Melida in the darkness was not clear, but nobody had questioned or argued as we moved.

And I knew finding them was the right next step. The Colin monster had terrified the young mage. This wasn’t just about getting Melida, but getting rid of that… thing.

“So, how do you look through the shadows?” I asked.

“Cover your eyes with dark magic and peer through it to another patch of darkness. Or rather, use the darkness to paint an image.” Eva’s eyes turned black.

“Huh?” I made a face. “How do you see anything with darkness?”

“I’ve once heard it explained differently.” Uncle Valken offered. “Rather think of darkness as something that absorbs light. Thus, you are using shadows elsewhere to absorb the light and transmit it to your eyes.”

Shrugging, I thought about his lesson and tried to perform that with dark magic.

The idea of blanketing an area and making it dark was easy enough, but then to imagine the light from said area going to my eyes was a new concept.

Everything went dark for a moment in my vision before I was seeing a sweeping view of the mountain below.

“Wow.” I breathed.

Maribelle pressed herself against me to keep me aware of her presence.

“He already did it?” Eva asked, though I couldn’t see it, I was sure she was pouting.

“Think so.” Emlyn sounded unsurprised. “That’s just how it works with Ard and magic. Once you explain half of it to him, he runs the other half of the race before you can blink.”

“It’s part of what we love.” Zuri added on and I felt her hand on my thigh. “Ard, see what you can find.”

Eva spoke up. “Your vision can move fairly freely with how dark it is out. So, just sweep the mountain.”

I let my vision quickly scan through the mountain, my view expanding to the point that I hurt my head at times, before I retracted it to a smaller scope and kept working with the darkness to take in all the light I could to see the surroundings.

Using dark magic like this wasn’t as clear as looking at something during the day, but it was far better than the dead of night.

“Bodies.” I said suddenly, coming across a few corpses half in the snow. “A few days old at most.”

“Bring us down there.” Uncle Valken insisted. “Perhaps we can pick up a trail.”

I gave everyone a lopsided smile. “I have no idea where ‘this’ is.”

Emlyn laughed while Eva groaned.

“Just make a beam of light there.” Eva said. “That’s the quickest way.”