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8
CERRI
Nothing about today was going as planned. Before me stood both Rhoan and his beast on opposite sides of a battlefield. I had no idea what would happen if he drank the potion while his beast was outside of his body, but we couldn’t waste any more time.
He needed to drink it now.
But the man rushed towards Faust, instead. I nearly stomped my foot in anger. With the Sluagh warrior that’d stolen the flask right next to me, I stormed up to him and ripped the flask out of his hand. He moved to retaliate, but one of the revived beasts leapt onto him. It was the moment in the forest all over again.
He never stood a chance.
Potion in hand, I turned to the fight. Faust dodged Rhoan’s onslaught, but he couldn’t dodge both Rhoan and the beast. It seemed that summoning the beast outside of Rhoan had turned into a detriment. The beast swiped at Faust’s legs while Rhoan went high and aimed for the chest.
I stood on the outside of it all. I couldn’t find a way in to give Rhoan the potion. He needed to drink it before Faust changed the game again. If I could fully free Rhoan from Faust’s contract, then Faust wouldn’t be able to change the rules of this fight on us. We would be able to take him head on like we did last time.
A blow hit me between my shoulder blades. I fell forward, and the flask tumbled out of my hands. It skittered across the ground, out of reach. A beast stepped into my vision and growled at the Sluagh warrior that’d struck me. Only, the beast didn’t realize that it was blocking my view of the potion.
It was our only surefire way to win today. We needed it. If I lost the potion, then the price for the nightsmane would be meaningless. I would have a debt to pay without the reward that’d come attached to it.
Anger fueled my arcana. The darkness in the garden turned ice-cold and erupted out of me in all directions. Acana ran rampant through the ground and burst upward in the form of red-leaf trees that rained their blood-colored foliage down upon our heads. The trees, as they broke through the earth, dashed through the Sluagh soldiers and scattered them to the winds.
I had a moment before the soldiers collected themselves. Shoving the beast in front of me felt absolutely awful, but I needed to find the flask. It was nowhere to be found, at first. Panic tried to take ahold of my mind, but I forced logic to the forefront.
The potion had to be somewhere. I narrowed down all the things that could have happened. Faust could have grabbed it, but he was still caught in a battle between Rhoan and his beast. One of the Sluagh could have taken it, but they were still just motes of light on the air. I considered what the beasts would do, but I counted them all beside me.
Then I raised my gaze to my own trees filling the inner grounds. There, embedded in the trunk of a new tree, I caught a glimpse of a metallic glint. I jumped to my feet and ran forward. Sluagh clawed at the air around me. They brought their spectral blades down towards me. The beasts jumped and pinned the warriors to the ground.
I shoved my arcana up into the trunk of the tree and tore the trunk open wide. Right as I wrapped my fingers around the flask again, a guttural animal cry split the air. I spun and clutched the flask close to my chest.
Rhoan’s beast had collapsed to the ground. It writhed in pain as its wings molted and turned…to ooze. Rhoan stopped in his tracks. The color drained from his face. The corners of his mouth tightened in pain. He could feel everything the beast felt, even though he didn’t want to show it.
The beast yowled again. This time, its tail sloughed from its body and slapped the ground with a sickening wet sound.
“There’s no way you can win,” Faust said with a smug smile.
Faust’s gaze slid in my direction. Without thinking, I threw myself forward. I hit the ground right as a blade whispered through the air where I’d been.
Distantly, I heard Faust swear under his breath. I rolled through the dusty grass and back to my feet near Rhoan. He pulled me close so we could put our backs together.
How many times had I been stabbed in the back? I was starting to develop an instinct for it, and that just plain seemed wrong.
“Are you okay?” Rhoan asked me as if he wasn’t the one in pain.
I reached back and squeezed his hand. The sigh that left him was audible. I listened as he inhaled again and pressed his back to mine.
Still, the beast fell apart. It was as if Faust had decided to dismantle the creature and turn it back into the primordial nightmares that he’d made it from. I couldn’t let him finish. If he did, there was no way of knowing if Rhoan could get this part of himself back.
“Faust, I refuse to leave here without everything I came here for,” I said.
I spun and pushed against Rhoan’s shoulder blade to turn him towards me. His eyes went wide. Before he could ask anything, I shoved the mouth of the flask against his lips. I asked him to trust me with my eyes. Of course, Rhoan trusted me with his life.
He gulped down the potion. My throat tightened. If this didn’t work, then I didn’t know what we would do. Our options were running out. The nightsmane potion that should help us achieve our dreams had to work.
Past Rhoan, I looked to the beast. The creature didn’t look any better. Faust’s laugh warned me that I’d failed. There was nothing I could do here. Everything I did failed in the end. I squeezed Rhoan’s hand so tight that my nails dug into his skin.
The beast collapsed.
I inhaled sharply. A growl rumbled in Rhoan’s throat. I didn’t know how to tell him. The beast was gone once and for all. Faust’s triumphant laugh was enough to tell Rhoan what’d happened, but I saw no recognition in Rhoan’s face.
