Page 113 of Bright Soul

A shifter in full grizzly bear form charged into our midst with an ursine roar. Its tiny, round eyes blazed with Myuna’s white power and spittle ran in rivulets from its open jaws. Each stride was punctuated with its pants and grunts.

It noticed Cress mid-stride and changed course to head straight at her. A guardian witch jumped in the way and raised a portion of asphalt to serve as a shield. With agility that belied its bulk, the bear edged around the chunk of road to slam its paw into the witch and sent him crashing to the ground with the crack of his stone armor hitting concrete.

Shadows wrapped around Cress, making her a purple and black version of Phaeron’s shadowborn form, complete with tendrils trailing after her resembling a pair of wings and a tail. She stepped forward to meet the bear shifter at the same time I fired my primed spike. It cut into its thick hide, emerging through its shoulder.

Left arm failing to take its weight, it skidded to the ground. An ordinary shifter would’ve bellowed in pain, but it was eerily silent as it struggled to its paws and accidentally shoved the spike further through its body. Several spells ripped into it as it lurched forward, gaze still focused on Cress with murderous intent.

She hesitated when it fell again, nearly at her feet. “You have to do this,” she said in a two-toned voice, but I had the feeling it was Braza speaking.

“He’s crippled. We could still save him when Phaeron arrives,” she said in response to herself.

The bear used its back paws to launch at her, stretching out in one last-ditch effort to tear out her throat. I moved to shove her aside and my hand met shadows when she reflexively turned to vapor and reappeared a couple feet away. It clipped my side with its bulk and I caught its head, ending its life with a flex of my stone fingers to save her from the task.

The bear dropped with a thud. In death, it shifted back into the limp form of a naked man, body covered in the same wounds he’d sustained as a bear.

“Let’s get moving,” I rumbled, to get attention off the dead body. Eyes averted slowly from him and the blood dripping from my hands. I flicked them and picked up my shield, while consolidating my quartz into a club for the fight ahead. The survivors found urgency and moved into a cluster, with fighters forming a protective ring around them. I walked at the front of the group and Cress and Ben moved into place a step behind me.

We took a back road, circling around the bulk of an abandoned strip mall. The ground sloped downward and we ran into a fence that bordered this side of the lake.

It was a mer-made thing, crystal green water rimmed by imported sand. There was no visual sign that there was an active ocean gate from here. It would be in the middle of the lake, where the water was deepest, connected to a network of similar gates for aquatic folk to move through freely.

I looked for any hint of movement on the lake past the placid ripples that flowed over it from the breeze. The myrmidons had to be scouting the area, awaiting us. There would be no reaching the ocean gate without the help of an oceanic witch or one of the merfolk.

Another team emerged from the tree line several yards away and headed toward us. Now that our allies were arriving, hands tensed on weapons and traps were set with pointed stones and sand stirred into a mire.

Civilians were placed behind a wall of defenders, backs to the lake. We wanted to look helpless to draw out the torchbearers in force, but Cress and Ben shared a feeling of unease that infiltrated our circle as more and more people joined us. All was quiet, save the murmurs behind us as we waited for some sign of movement from the lake.

“The hospital’s team hasn’t gotten here yet,” Ben commented.

“Do you think they’re taunting torchbearers?” Cress asked in a two-toned voice.

He exaggerated a shrug. “Hurry up and wait to find out.”

Wind stirred the crystals that formed my hair in gargoyle form. It would’ve been a beautiful spring day, the sky clear and blue, if this calm lakeside wasn’t about to become a battlefield. Even the trained Crystal fae and guardian witches started to shift and rub at their armor as time passed.

There was a splash of water and many of us turned to look. A dark-skinned mermaid emerged from the lake, dripping salt water from armor and a battle trident clutched in one crimson-finned hand. “Is the princess here?” She demanded. The coppery fish scales on her cheeks caught the light when she turned to Zander and Willow emerging from the crowd. “Good, let’s go. King Coral is expecting her.”

The real Willow, still concealed in heavy armor, turned to stare meaningfully at the changeling that was taking up the center of attention as her. “Um,” Ambrose said, scuffing his foot. “Everyone else first. I won’t go through the gate unless you help all these people.”

Willow nodded in agreement behind him.

The mermaid bared her teeth in a bloodthirsty grin. She snapped the butt of her weapon underwater, a swirl of bright blue magic emerging as a ribbon that sped away deep into the lake.

I wanted to say the surge of relief within me was from the mating circle. Cress breathed out with it as we watched figures breach the water’s surface. Merfolk of all kinds were here. I recognized the finned and sharp-toothed horses as kelpies, along with the long, sinuous form of a single sea dragon.

The combined power of the mer began to part the lake, creating a narrow path that led deeper and deeper through the silt at the bottom of the lakebed. It revealed the ocean gate, a pair of columns carved from cerulean stone with a sheet of magic stretched between them that looked as thin as a soap bubble.

The dry path expanded wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side and that was when the red-scaled mermaid nodded toward the fake Willow. “It is safe. Send your people to safety and I will remain at your side to protect you, Your Highness.” Her warmth faded as her maroon eyes landed on Zander. “Good job finally doing something useful for our kingdom,” she added to him tightly.

His tight response was drowned out by Madigan and others shouting, “Form a line!” With her arrival, heading up the group that’d traveled here from the hospital, the trap was fully set. The first survivors rushed to the safety promised by the ocean gate, disappearing the moment they touched the gate's bubble of magic.

A handful of guardian witches helped maintain calm and stopped the shoving that resulted when most of the survivors saw the truth: salvation was real and in sight. That didn’t stop several screams, most shrill with the panic of children, when another shifter announced itself with a roar, followed by the howls of several wolves.

The shifters were sighted first, each with flaming white eyes that prowled the line of the fence, growling. “There are so many,” Cress muttered.

They came from sidewalks and back streets, forming a crowd in minutes. While our guardian witches fired volleys of sharpened stones toward them, Myuna’s turned guardian witches nullified the rocks into dust and crumpled lengths of metal fence like balling up paper.

I had to acknowledge that she and her chosen ascendant had practiced well. These torchbearers moved like they were in charge of their own bodies and actions, though many faced us in torn and stained clothes, wielding makeshift weapons. They may have the numbers, but we were more prepared to fight.

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