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Jasmine
I WAS TOO SLOW WITHthe blade. When I jerked back to avoid the monster as it jumped at me, I could not point the sharp side toward where it would hurt the beast the most. Instead, my arm felt wet, and the tingling ache came quickly as blood drizzled from the wound. I fell, and the monster was on top of me.
The monster pushed its hind leg on my hand, making it impossible for me to hold onto the blade, let alone use it. It pinned me to the ground roughly enough for breath to escape my lungs at once. My ribs crushed underneath its weight, and my blade dropped to the grass as I struggled to free myself.
“Jasmine,” Kieran repeated, and before I could respond, I heard him call on Qai. He and the others moved in unison as though they were one thing made up of many parts; all around me, I heard the sounds of them moving and getting ready to fight.
The conjurer’s gate to Qai’s hell dimension opened on my left, the heat seeping through my bones as the monster growled angrily. It stepped on me harder, almost breaking my fingers. I moaned as the pain shot through me.
Qai came at once. The air became warmer for a second, and a smoky scent filled my nostrils. Kieran shouted at him to do something, using the unique tongue of the conjured beast to communicate with him. At once, Qai jumped on the monster that was getting ready to dig its sharp teeth into my neck, and within seconds, it was off me. Qai and the beast rolled on the grass as I quickly got up and moved my finger to fend off the pain.
The monster that had attacked me was taken care of by Qai, but that was not the whole story.
We were surrounded by monsters. Lots of them...
“I counted six,” Kieran said to the others as he took a step to stand beside me. “Are you hurt?”
My arm hurt and I felt my shirt getting wet, but I could still move it. I shook my head.
“I hear one in the forest,” I said.
“That makes seven,” Fiona replied.
The monsters stood at the edge of the forest down below, watching the altercation between Qai and the monster that had attacked me. They seemed to be waiting to see who would win, and that gave us an edge we would not have otherwise.
“Why are they not attacking?” Dearen asked as he wrapped his fingers tightly around the handle of his sword.
Kieran shot a look my way. The question in him was clear.
Was it me? Was I keeping the monsters at bay?
“I don’t know,” I replied to them both.
Cari? I asked. There was no answer.
“Do we fight?” Brigid asked carefully watching the forest around us. The sky was still pitch black, which meant she was the only one who could see clearly. “I don’t see us winning this fight.”
“Can we run?” Fiona asked.
“No,” Dearen replied. “Monsters chase the ones who flee.”
“What then?” Kieran asked frustratedly. “We can conjure...”
But he couldn’t finish his sentence. A few paces away from us, Qai whimpered. We all turned toward them, darting our gazes off the row of monsters waiting to kill us by the forest's edge.
Qai was on the ground. The monster, bigger than most other monsters I had seen before, growled and opened its red wings wide enough to cover the moonlight reaching us from behind it. A horrible stench spread out from its cracked skin as it unleashed its wings wider, the bones sticking out from it awkwardly as though the creature had outgrown its body.
Qai’s eyes were closed shut. His chest moved up and down rapidly, and his crimson fur looked darker as the blood drizzled out of his opened wound.
The monster was about to kill Qai. I could not let that happen. Qai had been with us since the arena, keeping us safe wherever needed. He was warm and kind and innocent, the perfect companion. He had put his life at risk again and again to protect us.
No. This was not how Qai would die.
You’re not here,I said to Cari as a last-ditch effort. There was no response.
I didn’t have any other choice.
I had done it a few times before, reaching into the mind of a monster. There was darkness in it; the actual owner of the monster’s mind was long gone. I could not find Cari there either. She was gone entirely from the part of the realm we were in.
