Chapter 66: Chapter 62: Area Of Effect

In pure reflex, I threw up a small shield, the first magic I’d ever used in this world. It wasn’t the wide and powerful wall of magic that I’d learned to use later and the impact of the wave of magic hit me like someone had just flung a forklift at me. A concentrated stream of pure energy burrowed into the purple disc and ricocheted off. I tried to aim it away from the others in the room. The air around me was starting to vibrate as the air itself heated up. This much power would vaporize anyone it touched, and I wasn’t here to turn the Regents into hard-to-wash-out carpet stains. The directed explosion blew out the wall to my left and I felt the shield push into my hands as I was forced back.

I sagged to one knee, and my shield was angled up. Just like that, the roof was gone now, too. The blasts of energy lessened and I didn’t immediately question why. I was too concerned with keeping the beam away from people and angled my body. The stream of destructive energy rotated around and blew out the right wall and a chunk of the floor on that side of the room. And then, the barrage stopped. I looked at the mages, wondering what had happened to stop them from attacking and I realized they’d thrown up their own shields over the regents as the entire roof started to come down. 

 

I looked over to Kazumi, who had hidden behind me, and then up, just in time to see a large chunk of marble dislodge itself. I threw myself between her and it, spreading my wings wide. The slab of debris knocked the wind out of me and I gritted my teeth. That had felt like it was going to make breathing unpleasant for the foreseeable future, but I managed to smile at Kazumi, who gazed up at me with adoration, and not for a second did I feel like catching half a ton of rock with my upper back was anything less than worth it just for that look. 

 

Then she looked past me with concern and pointed. The mages were lowering their shields and throwing large chunks of building to the side, their hands glowing as they turned their attention to me again. This time I was ready, however, and I wasn’t going to rely on a small shield for kinetic impacts. Besides, I doubted I could withstand another onslaught like that, nor did I want to risk the blowback killing everyone in the room. 

 

I raised my hands in front of me and felt my left shoulder protest. Clearly it had been hit harder by the marble than I’d first realized, grinding unpleasantly as I moved it. I pushed the pain aside for the moment as I felt the energy in my chest snarl with anticipation and I conjured up the large barrier. Not a second later, beams of energy and bolts of death pummeled into it. Immediately I felt again the cost of using this kind of magic to defend myself. I’d been wondering how this had worked the first time, and realized then that the physical impact had been dissipated by routing it through my soul directly. 

 

It was a high price to pay, and could feel like almost too much, but as long as I could pay it, there wasn’t a thing in this world that would get through this wall. I could feel that, the energy in my limbs practically crackling at my fingertips. 

 

And then the impact made itself felt. Instead of the pain to the mind or the body, pain to the soul felt like, well, the kind of pain that doesn’t always heal with time. It was the kind of pain I’d long ago become intimately familiar with, curled up in a ball in bed as I grew up. The first time I’d used this shield, every attack had felt like a painful memory, and I’d had trouble keeping it all contained. This was worse, so much worse. These mages were so much more powerful than the ones we’d encountered previously. Their attacks did not hit like painful memories. 

 

Their continued assault burrowed into my soul and began tearing at it directly, rending me at my very core. A wave of pure pain and despair washed over me and I felt the tears run down my face and it took my breath away. I saw my shield flicker for a moment and a sob lodged itself in my throat. I couldn’t do this. There was no way I was strong enough. I had underestimated them, and now they’d kill me, and then my love. Everything would have been in vain, I thought, as another ball of fire slammed into the barrier and I cried out in anguish and sagged to my knees. 

 

And suddenly I was home. Well, not home. The place that other people had insisted that I call home. It wasn’t a place, not really. More the idea of one. The memory of one. A grey simulacrum. Everything was frozen in place. I recognized it, of course. The place I’d grown up. I was right there, half a decade younger and hard to look at. Frozen in time, I looked at myself. Tears running down her face in frustration, fear, pain. I looked down at her. She was so small. I wished I could reach across that gap and help her. It was almost too much to bear to look at her face with all of the features she’d resented for reasons she didn’t understand, frozen in a scream of rage, flinging a piece of furniture across the room. 

 

The two people opposite her were grotesque caricatures of themselves. Their faces had never been this monstrous, of course, but it was how I remembered them. They were even harder to look at. I hadn’t spent a lot of time remembering them. They didn’t deserve it. Their mocking glances and superior grins were embedded on their faces. I wanted to take the younger me away from them. But she’d do that herself, and she’d lose everything in the process. I looked my parents in the face and felt keen, powerful pain. I detested them, what they’d done to me and put me through. And yet I couldn’t make myself truly hate them, I couldn’t make myself not want their approval. I wanted them to love me. Those two feelings came together in acceptance of who and what they were and what they’d done. They’d lost their ability to hurt me.

 

I was back on my knees in the palace and realized that the pain of these magical impacts was something I’d long felt before, that I knew how to deal with this. That I wasn’t too weak for this. I’d made it this far. I’d made it this far long before I’d ever come to this world. I breathed in slowly and saw the shield gain more colour again. Held the breath for a few seconds. Exhaled. Held it. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. Count to four. Felt the pain and let it flow through me. It hadn’t broken me before and it wouldn’t break me now. Another hammer of force and lightning slammed into the magical barrier and almost knocked the wind out of my sails. 

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And suddenly I was somewhere I deeply didn’t want to be. I stood on the bank of a river. Next to me, I was kneeling, my face a frozen mask of pain and despair, reaching out in vain to Sabine, who was reeling from the impact of a magical arrow. Parsing her loss was difficult, harder than anything else I’d ever done in my life. Pain bubbled up from my chest and came out in heaving sobs as I sat next to them both, frozen in their moment of pure pain. Finally, I breathed again. Loss wasn’t something you got over. That wasn’t the point. There was no good reason for loss, no. But that didn’t mean I was going to ignore it. I reached inside, to the why. Why it hurt so much to lose her. And I realized it was because of all the times we wouldn’t have, all the hugs and kisses we would never share. The future we no longer had. 

 

I felt a deep gratitude for all the times we did have. I focused on the kisses we had been lucky enough to share and the love we’d felt. And again felt the pain of the loss, over and over again, until it became a part of me. Sabine was with me. The pain of her loss wasn’t something to overcome, not really. It was, in a sense, a beautiful testament to how much she’d meant to me. As long as I drew breath, I would carry our future with me as a memory of things that had never been.

 

My shield strengthened again. The impacts hit like a pain I was familiar with and tears streamed down my face, and I couldn’t help but smile. I was strong enough. I could do this. I had loved and lost before. I had been hurt. There was nothing these strangers could throw at me that I hadn’t been hurt with before. This was just pain without context. I’d been through worse. I slowly got one foot underneath me. It was just pain, I told myself again, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Kazumi’s hand on my shoulder granted me more strength than I thought it would. 

I raised myself up to my full height. I felt taller, stood taller than I ever had, proud and powerful, not because of my ability to do magic or inflict hurt, but because of the fact that I was still here. My strength could wane and my powers taken away, but nobody would ever be able to take away all the hardship I’d survived and come out stronger on the other side. 

 

Through the brightening shield, I saw the triumphant faces of the mages slowly turn to fear. It would have been a lie to claim that didn’t give me a great deal of satisfaction. They’d figured that they would’ve overwhelmed through sheer force. Well, I’d judged that force and had found it wanting. I took a step forward and saw one of them stumble backwards in terror. Clearly, he hadn’t expected me to start advancing towards them. In fairness, I hadn’t either, a second ago. They’d had me on the defensive, but even a shield can be threatening if it advances towards you. 

 

Another step, and another one of them faltered and then resumed his attack. But they’d lost their momentum and I wasn’t going to let them get their bearings. I thought of what to do next and felt the beast in my soul snarl. I could do this, I felt. I knew. I could do this without deep-frying every single one of them. It would require a moment of concentration. I looked at Kazumi. She looked at me in awe. I couldn’t help but look at her the same way. She had taken off her own magic illusion, and the Lamia warrior woman in front of me was awe-inspiring and breathtaking. She was half of the focus I needed. 

 

I took a deep breath and stepped forward again, one hand outstretched, the other on Sabine’s soul stone around my neck, as I focused all of my attention inside, on the shape I wanted the world to take, and felt all of my energy and power focus on a word of magic to be spoken, bouncing around my soul, until it found itself in my throat and there would have been no force on earth that could have stopped me from bellowing the syllables at them and the world, willing it to do as I commanded. Willing it to be as it had to be.

 

I felt the magic push against my teeth and finally released it, a burst of pure magic burst forth from my lips and channeled through my hands in a wave of blue energy as I called out.

 

“SILENCE!”