Apocalypse Dawn: First Light - Part 33

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Author's Note:Here's part 33 of my reluctant princess story. A few minutes late, but hey it's still Tuesday somewhere. I hope you all enjoy. ~Amethyst.

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Chapter 33: Red Dawn

It was several minutes before the Redcaps rushed out of the woods, onto the road, and through the southern gate of the defensive wall into the village. A full contingent of Fae warriors awaited them beneath the ghost lights cast by the Kitsunes and the floating Wisps. I had hoped that they would show some hesitation at facing the entire host of the Autumn Court, but it seemed that such was not the case. They were lusting for blood and charged right into, and then through the leading line of warriors.

Lissany, Ghost, and I kept to the shadows watching it all play out from a distance. I smiled tiredly as I allowed my illusion to dissipate. That was a hard spell to cast and hold in place but it had done its job. While the Redcaps were looking around in confusion I focused my attention on gathering mana for my next spell and traced the sigils in the air with my right hand as I spoke them and looked above me to where I wished to have the spell take effect. “Kiara aeluine!”

It was a much simpler spell than my first and as the small but bright golden light flashed high in the night sky, close to three dozen Sprites and three Wisps saw that signal and swooped down from above, each snatching up a hat from our opponents and flying off into the direction of the village square. The Redcaps angrily pursued them, but while the hat-snatchers could fly straight our opponents had to navigate through the village’s streets and around the burned and collapsed remains of former homes and other buildings.

Once I was sure to give them enough of a lead I rode Ghost out of the shadows of the building remains we were hidden in with Lissany by my side and gave a low whistle. Burned remains were shifted and illusions were dropped as my people emerged from every basement, cellar, and hiding spot we had been able to find or make on the south side of the village. Then we followed in pursuit of our quarry.

We had barely moved forward when an orange glow lit up the darkened sky ahead of us. That would be my Mahair, my apprentices, and every Magus or Druid among the Human or Witch players casting their most powerful fire spells on the recently delivered pile of hats. I could hear the Redcaps begin to scream as a brief green flash in the night sky signaled them entering the square and our snipers’ Dragons began to roar, each shot echoing across the remains of the village.

“That’s music to my ears, and our cue,” I said, turning to nod to Sahnae and the Fae archers that I had put under her command, including Níala and Lourke. “Archers! To the front and let ‘em have it!”

“Yes, Your Highness!” they called out as they moved ahead to get a good view of the square. The rest of us followed behind and Robyn began singing to cast an accuracy buff so they could aim for spots already hit by the snipers. The minute that her troops were in position with some cover and a view of the square they fired off a volley of crystal-headed arrows dipped in Lindwyrm venom. We didn’t have much of the venom or the arrowheads so those first shots needed to count. They would take other opportunities to fire as they presented themselves.

I began to issue the orders as I turned to our gathered warriors with a grim nod. “Rob and Maekin you’ll stay here with a small contingent to cover our archers and Robyn. Robyn, we’re going to need those buffs. Narek, Lissany, and Pete, you’re with me and the main force. For the Glade and our allies! Warriors to arms!”

At my war cry, we charged past the now-concealed archers and down the darkened street into the village square. Amoiraishe had already erected a stone barrier at the east side of the square between the Redcaps and the retreating magic users. Those spell-slingers had run off to safer casting positions immediately after setting the pile of hats ablaze so that we were free to engage. The Sprites would begin casting from above as soon as it looked like the targets were suitably weakened and other Magi as soon as they found good positions. I would have gone to join the other Magi, but I was needed to lead my people and come up with alternate strategies in case our battle plan went to hell.

From the sounds of the gunshots the snipers were really peppering the enemy forces and changing magazines fairly quickly. Nishalle had planned to have them alternate shooting two at a time. Not only would this make it harder for the Redcaps to get their position, but also allow them proper time to reload. The pair not shooting would count off ten shots and then start firing while the spent pair reloaded or changed magazines and counted off ten shots from the new firing pair. If they could target the eyes they would, but they would try for other weak points as well. The Dragons had a lot of stopping power and might just be able to pierce both the armor and flesh on the Redcaps.

Our job would be to harry them and keep them from looking for the snipers, spell casters, and archers and take down any that looked sufficiently weakened with whatever weapons we had at hand. Narek and Pete led the charge into the confused and furious group of Redcaps as I looked for a position to cast from where I could still issue orders. I could feel the surge of energy rush through me as Robyn’s voice rang out in song and I moved into position. Lissany wasn’t letting me out of her sight, sticking closer to me and Ghost than our own shadows.

To my pleasant surprise, there were already a few redcaps down from the sniper fire and several were already starting to look weakened. Narek focused the attack on those to thin their numbers while I searched for any hats that hadn’t been snatched that I could set ablaze. It was as I was doing that that I noticed movement at the north side of the square. “What the hell? They’re supposed to wait for the signal. We haven’t completely engaged the enemy yet.”

It was Hawkin. Of course, it was. He had emerged from his concealment early and I was half tempted to use my first spell on him if he gave away the plan. Damn it, he was going to charge them. “Is he an idiot or is he just that crazy?” Lissany muttered from beside me, informing me that she too had seen him.

“He’s doing it just to spite us, because he wants in on the killing, and probably to be a glory hog. Does he even know the meaning of the word teamwork?” I whispered back as I made my decision. I couldn’t afford to let him screw up our strategy. I quickly drew the sigils and sent the mana into the spell as I spoke them and concentrated on Hawkin. “Kaida siashe!”

Hawkin was thrown violently back into the pit from whence he came and I was going to hold him there until the damn signal was given. It pissed me off though since I could have actually been using spells to help my forces if I wasn’t having to hold him in place to keep him from giving away the plan. I was so focused on keeping him from doing something stupid that I barely noticed the Redcap approaching until Lissany had placed herself between the two of us and delivered a blow to his head with her war hammer that made a thunderous cracking sound but only managed to stun him. He had a dark red, almost black cap and a few really big but shallow bullet wounds, and the slash of his scythe that had been aiming for Lissany’s throat skittered harmlessly off her shield from the force of her blow.

He shook his head as if to clear it and grinned at me and my Guardian. “So much life an’ power inna two o’ ya. An’ a Fae princess tae, Mòrag will be right pleased.”

He lunged at me, trying to get past Lissany, but two things happened at that moment. First, Narek let out a shrill whistle signaling that the Redcaps had their attention focused on us. That allowed me to let go of my spell on Hawkin while the other Human fighters emerged from their hiding places in covered holes at the north side of the square to attack the Redcap forces from behind. The second thing was that a bullet whizzed past me and Lissany to catch the Redcap in the left eye, causing him to scream out in pain.

The shot came from the southwest so I reminded myself to thank Nishalle later for watching our backs. Now wasn’t the time though since the battle had become a free-for-all with the Redcaps trapped between our combined forces. Spells and bullets were still raining down on them, but now I had something else on my mind. “Mòrag?” I muttered in confusion. This couldn’t possibly be good. Not only did the mere name, and the reverence with which he spoke it, send a cold shiver slithering down my spine but named creatures were always bad news and usually some sort of boss. It also sounded like a female name to me and when Redcaps were involved that could be a very bad thing.

I guided Ghost with my knees, backing her off a bit and moving her in position to take advantage of our adversary’s new blind spot. While doing that I drew in as much mana as I could and started feeding it into the palm of my right hand as I drew the sigils with my left and spoke them aloud. “Tierre-aeluine thren’dhal utaera!” The fireball was my most powerful single-target fire spell and I poured as much mana as I could into it as it formed in my hand. “Lissany, roll!”

At my shouted command my Guardian rolled to her right and toward me, giving me a clear shot to toss the fireball over her, hitting our opponent’s near-black cap and causing it to burst into flames. As he screamed Lissany got back to her feet with all the grace of her feline heritage, turned on her heel, and rounded on our now cap-less opponent. He wasn’t finished yet, and I had a feeling that we needed to take care of him quickly. If I was right then there was something far worse that we needed to worry about.

Our opponent turned on us in fury, rushing toward us, only to have his scythe ring off Lissany’s massive shield again as her war hammer went for his blindside. The impact sent him reeling and I wasn’t going to let him regain his senses as I rode Ghost in close and had her deliver a solid kick with her front hooves to his face. While he was staggering from that I drew one of my colts from my right thigh and filled his empty eye socket with hollow points. For a moment I wasn’t sure if that would be enough to finish him, but after what seemed an eternity he collapsed and I was able to replace the clip and return the gun to its holster.

With our opponent down I risked a look around. I needed to know if this Mòrag was what I feared it was. Our forces were managing the Redcaps well. We were taking some losses but while that was sad it was no less than we had been expecting and I couldn’t afford to focus on the lost lives at the moment. Rei and the other Priests, Priestesses, and Medics would focus on them when the battle was done. “Keep your eyes open for a woman with red hair, Liss, and I don’t mean me or my Mahair.”

We scanned the area and Lissany asked, “A woman with the Redcaps? I’ve only seen dudes so far.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way, but keep your eyes on the shadows. I have a bad feeling about this,” I grumbled as I scanned the area cautiously. “Dammit! I should have considered this possibility, but I only considered the Redcaps, not their creator.”

Redcaps don’t just come into being on their own, they’re created by a creature that the Fae called a Shíle’rhük, also known as a Red Hag or a Blood Queen. Shíle’rhük usually only stay with a clan long enough to build up their numbers before moving on to create a new clan. When they figure they have enough clans serving them they travel between them to collect blood tributes. With the size of this clan being so large the odds of this clan’s ‘mother’ being with the specific clan that we were currently fighting for a blood tribute were probably less than ten percent. Between that and neither Níala nor any of her party members reporting the presence of a woman, I hadn’t even considered the possibility. Damn, I felt stupid.

I explained to Lissany about the Shíle’rhük as we monitored the fighting and I threw spells as needed. The fighting was going well. Even if they were damn durable we had the Redcaps outnumbered from the beginning and between our snipers, destroying most of their caps, and keeping them off balance we were doing pretty well for ourselves. There were less than ten Redcaps left alive and it looked like our combined forces had them well in hand. Lissany was still watching our surroundings carefully though as she asked, “You said that this Blood Queen creates the Redcaps, could she be creating reinforcements somewhere? How does she make them?”

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about, Liss. Redcaps used to be Human men.” I let that sink in for a moment as I scanned the battle scene. “She curses them and binds them to her by making them swallow her blood. She chooses bloodthirsty and selfish men with darkness in their hearts. Sometimes they use the same method to change dark-hearted Human women into another Shíle’rhük, but that’s unlikely. Still, we need to find her quickly and we can’t risk letting her near any Humans.”

“Shit,” Lissany cursed as her eyes scanned the battle and the dimly lit shadowed remains of the village around us.

My Guardian and I may have both had fairly damn good vision at night and in low light but this was getting us nowhere. “Liss, I’m going to see if I can find her another way. Cover me and Ghost please.”

“I’m on it, Your Highness,” I heard her reply as I closed my eyes and reached out with Nature’s Call. I could sense the stomach-churning presence of the Redcaps. They were being overwhelmed and I could feel them becoming weaker with every moment, even as the sickening light of another of their lives was extinguished. The remainder were surrounded and wouldn’t last much longer under the sustained assault of our combined forces.

I pushed my senses outward and away from the diminishing group of Redcaps. It was possible if she was here that she would flee with her clan being decimated the way that it was. This was a battlefield though and bloodlust was plentiful and so were the Humans, so it was just as likely that she would look to recoup some of her losses. I reached out to the edges of the square and intended to go further when I felt her.

And I had thought that the Redcaps felt stomach-churning. Compared to her they were a small case of slight nausea. She was sneaking along the western edge of the square northward and right toward the Human forces that had attacked the Redcaps’ rear. How in the hell had I not seen her? When I switched my settings to label usernames and enemies I saw the title over her head, Blood Queen Mòrag. It was as I switched my settings back to avoid the headache from too much extraneous input that I realized why she was making me feel so sick. The flow of mana around her was disrupted and it was like looking at a bloody festering wound. She was damned magic-user.

I figured that she was using some form of invisibility spell but she didn’t draw on mana from various sources a little at a time or take what the natural currents of mana offered as they flowed around and through her. She greedily gobbled up as much mana as she could from the area immediately around her. We were damn fortunate that she was on the move, drawing mana from everything around her equally, and that her capacity to hold mana was finite or we could be in big trouble. It immediately brought to my mind Sahnae’s lesson on what could happen if something were to be completely drained of its mana.

I couldn’t let Mòrag get to the Humans I needed to stop her here and now. At least she wasn’t as big as that damn Kraken so I wouldn’t have to pull in near as much mana to make this work. “Kaida kuorüis miska!” I quickly spoke and drew the sigils and poured the mana into the spell as I used the currents of mana to track her position.

Eight crystal spikes, each of them five feet in length, erupted from the ground around her and she became visible as she screamed in pain. One of the spikes had pierced her shoulder, though not as deeply as I would have liked. She angrily snapped the end of the spike off and pulled it from her shoulder then stepped from between the spikes to look around for her attacker. Well, at least I’d gotten her attention. Now I just needed to keep it. I could sense her casting so I cast a spell of my own as quickly as I could speak the words and draw the sigils. “Tierre kiara tala-aeluine utaera!”

The blue balls of fire from my Scattershot spell screamed as they flew from my hand to pepper the Red Hag, or at least that was my intention. Instead, they harmlessly hit a barrier before they could strike her. From how far each of them had detonated away from her body I figured that it had to be some sort of magical defensive sphere. It was then that she turned around to regard me and I got my first good look at her.

Mòrag was roughly five foot four and clad in the tattered remains of what was once most likely some form of dress. Her skin was an unhealthy-looking white, even paler than my own and her blood-red hair was so long that it dragged a few feet behind her on the ground. Her eyes were nearly all black and when she opened her mouth to grin at me I could see rows of viciously sharp teeth like a shark’s.

“Umm, I don’t see a hat on her, Your Highness,” Lissany offered uncertainly.

“That’s because she doesn’t dye a hat, she dyes her hair,” I replied trying not to toss my cookies as I thought about it. She was casting another spell though so thankfully I didn’t have too much time to think about it as I readied another of my own. “Kaida liantuir ophaíne!” I had never really been in an all-out magic battle so I figured that I should start by increasing my defense. That spell was my own sphere of magical protection, but just in case I followed it up with the same spell that I had used to infuse Lissany’s armor and shield with magical defense, “Kaida ikandiir ysoldir aentuire!”

Just as I finished the second spell stone spikes flew from the ground to launch themselves through the air toward me. Lissany quickly leaped in front of me and Ghost, her shield taking the beating for us. I was readying a more offensive spell when some sort of dark energy blast flew over Lissany’s head and damn near knocked me from Ghost’s back. That was a powerful spell, and I didn’t think my defense could take another hit like that. I really didn’t want to get hit by another like that one.

I righted myself on Ghost’s back, guiding her with my knees again as I prepared another spell. At least it had hit me and not Lissany. I had embedded protective spells into her armor but I wasn’t really sure how much of a pounding she would be able to take. I was worried that I might have to find out when I saw her readying another spell and Lissany shifted position, ready to jump if need be.

Several explosions hit the northeast side of Mòrag’s defensive shield. I guess it was Daenyss’s turn to cover me, and she had switched to high explosive rounds for the occasion. I smiled as I glanced past Lissany’s protective form in front of me and Ghost and sent a barrage of icicles pounding into the Blood Queen’s shield spell. “Aes’Suvas tanuus tala-soldis utaera!”

I wasn’t the only one whipping spells at her either. Our battle had gotten some attention and Venika and several Sprites had broken off to contribute as had some of the mages. Between all of the spells raining down on her and the high explosive rounds Mòrag’s shielding spell was weakening, I could feel it. A high-level fire spell that I was pretty sure came from my Mahair finished it off, consuming the area around the Red Hag. I could feel the heat from where I was standing a good forty feet away and for a moment it lit the night so brightly that it was painful to look at.

Then the flames were gone and Mòrag remained standing. Her shielding spell was gone, as were her clothes, but otherwise, she appeared entirely unharmed. “Holy shit,” Lissany sputtered beside me. “How did she live through that?”

Her goddamn hair wasn’t even singed and that had been a really powerful spell. What the hell were we going to do? She was as durable as the Redcaps, if not more so, and it wasn’t like we could have the Sprites snatch away her hair and burn it. It was so freaking long too, I didn’t even want to think about how much stolen life energy was stored in there. She really needed a damn haircut. Maybe if I could come up with a spell to weaken the hair enough to cut some of it off then it would weaken her.

It was as I was considering that option that I saw Hawkin coming at Mòrag from behind. She was sniffing the air and grinning again and I could tell from the look in her eyes that she knew he was there. As she began to turn around to greet him I called out to warn him. “You idiot! Don’t get too close to her, it’s too dangerous!”

“Fuck you bitch! This is a boss and you’re just trying to hog all of the XP for yourself!” he shouted as he slashed at the Red Hag with his sword. I don’t think that he even managed to break her skin before she finished spinning around and reached out to grab him by the throat.

“Just fucking great, she’s durable, fast, agile, and has magick that’s going to make this sooo much easier,” I thought bitterly.

If she managed to get any of her blood down Hawkin’s throat then he would become one of her Redcaps, bound to her will and we’d have to kill him. I couldn’t be sure if when he respawned from that if he would do so as a Human or a Redcap, but curses were like oaths and they could transcend death. The only way to make sure he’d revive as a Human and not some bloodthirsty monster would to kill him before he could be changed or get her to let go of him before she had a chance to do her thing.

I didn’t have an angle on him from my position, but apparently, I also wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines. As Mòrag bit her finger to draw the blood she required she and Hawkin both were engulfed in another powerful firestorm. Both of them screamed, Hawkin in his death throes and Mòrag in rage. While her focus was elsewhere I took my chance and started casting a new spell that I hoped would do what I wanted, focusing the mana into my right hand as I cast the sigils with my left. “Kaida kuorüis poshe thren’dhal!”

I was really glad that I was wearing gloves and gladder still that I had imbued them with protective magicks earlier as a sword appeared in my hand. It was made from the energy-sapping sea-green crystal and its edge was razor sharp and brimming with destructive magick. For such a small effect that spell had been a doozy to cast power-wise. I was only going to have one chance at this.”Liss, let’s go!” I kicked Ghost into motion and galloped forward with Lissany loping alongside us, now in her hybrid jaguar form for its speed and strength boosts.

We had crossed half the distance by the time that Mòrag dropped Hawkin’s smoking corpse to the ground. She was still being peppered with spells, but they were smaller spells now and mostly from the opposite direction of my approach. A Wind Whisper spell carried Kinara’s voice to my ears. “We’ll keep her attention away from you, Your Highness. The Redcaps are almost finished and Her Majesty thought it was better to kill Hawkin and have him respawn later than to let him become one of those things. I’ve instructed the snipers and more powerful Magi to hold off attacking again until you are back out of the line of fire.”

I didn’t have time for a response, but she probably wasn’t expecting one. Morag was shielding her eyes from a barrage of spells that were mostly just bright light and loud concussive blasts meant to keep her attention on the threat in front of her and away from me. As soon as I was within range I grabbed the Blood Queen’s crimson hair as close as I could manage to the back of her head and hacked it off with my crystal blade.

Mòrag swung around to face us, screaming as if she had been set on fire. I tried not to laugh at the irony since she hadn’t seemed to feel anything but anger when she was set on fire only a moment before. Instead, I tossed the crystal sword to Lissany as I rode off with my prize. Looking over my shoulder I could see the look of surprise in her eyes as my Guardian caught the sword in her free hand and in one fluid motion buried it to the hilt in the Red Hag’s stomach before she snapped it off. Lissany tossed the broken-off hilt aside and spat, “Pull that one out,” before snatching up her dropped war hammer and dashing off in pursuit of me.

I couldn’t help but grin at my loyal defender as I put my focus on holding onto the long hair that seemed to be fighting to wrench its way out of my grasp and back toward the Blood Queen. I just gripped it tighter sending mana into the hand that I was gripping it with as my right hand drew the sigils for my fireball spell. “ Tierre-aeluine thren’dhal utaera! ” As soon as I finished chanting and drawing the sigils and focused on the mana gathered in my hand the pilfered blood-red locks burst into flame. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of scorched hair and quickly tossed the burning mess to the ground to keep from getting burned.

The Red Hag was in a fury now, her already creepy face twisted in hate as she largely ignored the spells raining down on her to give chase to me and Lissany with murder in her eyes. She was casting a spell and another of those black energy bolts rammed into my shielding spell. Surprisingly my spell held, her spell had lacked a lot of the punch that it had before. We just needed to pour on the pressure, but with her coming after me and Lissany that would be difficult for our Magi and snipers to do without the risk of hitting us as well.

Mòrag was a fast caster and even if she didn’t have as much power as she did before she still had an edge. She cast quickly and without hand motions or incantations so I had no idea what she might be throwing at us or when, just the sense of the mana she was gobbling up to do it. She was still pretty fast and agile too. She closed the distance between us quickly and cast some sort of concussive spell that was still powerful enough to send Lissany flying. Lissany’s armor seemed to take the brunt of the blow, but I did hear her let out a yelp in concert with the cracking of bones. I was in the middle of another defensive spell when she let another spell fly at me.

Ghost either sensed the danger or saw the spell’s effect before I did. She reared up, throwing me from her back and placing her body between me and the blood-red projectiles that flew from Mòrag’s outstretched hands. For what seemed like forever I just laid there on the ground in shock as Ghost’s bloodied white form fell to the ground, shuddered, and then finally went still and the light left her golden eyes. Tears filled my eyes and I couldn’t breathe as I scrambled toward the fallen Vsilja. She wasn’t breathing. I shook with anguish and fury as I turned toward the monster that had killed my faithful steed.

She was standing over me readying another spell. I needed to even the odds. I wouldn’t have time for a counter-spell, I knew that so I reached out again and gave nature my command. I wasn’t even sure that I’d have time for that, but I hoped for the best as I threw out a quick prayer to Danu. She may have been listening because it seemed that Lissany was faster than both of us. She hurled that monster war hammer of hers like a baseball and it struck the Blood Queen in the side of the head, distracting her long enough for me to thrust a stone pillar from the concrete beside me. It hit her like a battering ram and sent her flying back a good twenty feet.

That would be enough space. Lissany rushed to my side, placing herself between me and Mòrag as she retrieved her hammer and I reached out for the mana to cast another spell. “Tiihal suvas ysoldir!” The ground beneath the Red Hag and for a ten-foot radius around her turned to quicksand, and as it dragged her down ever deeper a combination of Magi and three snipers using incendiary rounds brought fire down upon her. Once only her now-bald bead was showing I canceled the spell effect and Mòrag glared up at me with hatred.

Even almost entirely buried, with her power mostly gone and weakened by the crystal blade in her stomach she still refused to go down. I didn’t care, someone else could finish her off. It wouldn’t bring Ghost back and my night had been long enough and I’d seen enough death already. The battle was essentially over and I had to send the signal to the Priests, Priestesses, and Medics that they could come in and get to work. As I cast the signal and I walked Lissany toward the area where we’d set up the infirmary to get her checked out I heard a shot ring out from the southeast. “Thanks, Nishalle,” I said with a sigh as the explosive round went off behind me in the vicinity of the Blood Queen’s head.

With that, a pop-up message appeared announcing the end of the Red Dawn event. Venika flew down to join us with Silverheels and Willow right behind her, the latter alighting upon my shoulder to nuzzle me affectionately, probably feeling how tired I was and the weight in my heart from the loss of Ghost. “Are you both okay?” the Sprite asked in concern.

“I’m fine, Mom. She may have broken a few ribs, but they’ll be healed up in no time. I probably won’t even need to see a healer,” Lissany said, waving off her concern.

“You’re seeing a healer,” Venika and I both stated adamantly in unison. Then I turned to give the Beastkin girl a weak smile. “Thanks for covering me Liss, you’re the best Guardian a princess could ask for.”

“I was just doing my job, Your Highness. I wouldn’t want to guard anyone else. You’re like a friend, a princess, and a big sister all rolled up into one and I’d never let anything happen to you on my watch,” she replied with a shrug, wincing some at the pain it caused in her ribs.

An hour later Rei, Salem, and the others in the infirmary were busy with medical aid, healing prayers, resurrections, and everything else that was needed post-battle. Lissany had been right about her ribs. With her naturally accelerated healing rate her three broken ribs were already mostly mended, so after Rei confirmed that with a quick scan my Guardian told her that she would just take it easy and wait. She would rather deal with that small pain than take attention away from those with worse injuries and normal healing rates.

Robyn and I had helped where we could in the infirmary, me using my spell for accelerating healing and her doing something similar by singing and buffing the healing rate of those in the worst danger while the Priests and Priestesses chanted their prayers. There wasn’t much more we could do now though so we just sat together out of the way with Rob, Venika, Lissany, Nishalle, Pete, Daenyss, and Kinara. It would probably be a while before Rei and the others were finished their jobs. Later everyone planned to return to the Estate, though Grell was already there and asleep after a long day pumping out ammunition with Ashura, Denise, and the other crafters working on the project. Pete and Nishalle had plans they wanted to continue from the night before, as did Daenyss with Salem and Venika with Phinik.

I would have liked to spend some quality time with Rei too, but after excusing myself from the others I sent her a message via Wind Whisper spell to put off those plans. I had something that I needed to do. Absently petting Willow as I walked the ruined streets of Haven, I used Nature’s call to track down Amoiraishe. I found her and Narek together looking over Ghost’s body. Mahair didn’t even look back at me as she said, “She’s a fine and loyal Vsilja. She saved your life by taking that spell for you, little rose. I will not allow her to be lost to you so easily. I have sent an order to have her respawn, just as a player would, should Rei or Khyrin be unable to resurrect and heal her.”

I nodded, and then since neither she nor Narek was looking at me to see my silent assent I simply replied, “Thank you.” I didn’t want to start crying again and I didn’t want it to distract me from what I needed to do but it seems that I don’t get everything I want. So I just let the tears run down my cheeks and said a silent thank you to Ghost before I confronted my Fae parents. “You promised me answers, Mahair. It’s time that you give me them, both of you.”