Page 77 of Faerie Trials

Coral wasn’t moving.

“Come on, you need to run.” I managed to cover her prone body with my own, using every bit of fortitude left in me to stab up at the shifter with the makeshift dagger. No matter where I tried to hit, the blade never found its mark. “Run, Coral!”

She didn’t move for the longest time. When she finally stirred, staring at me with unfocused eyes, oddly the one thing that stood out to me was her hair. It had come loose of the fancy braids she’d kept in perfect place all day. Strands hung in her face, stained with a combination of sweat and mud from her fall.

“Get up and run for help!” I told her again.

She shook her head and a little bit of the fog cleared from her eyes. I clenched my teeth when she bolted around the other side of the fire. The shifter tried to run after her but I herded him closer to the heat, watching the flames lick at his fur.

He screamed. That was when I jumped him, hanging on with everything I had. Every ounce of anger I had at the situation, at the circumstances of my life, every bit of guilt at watching Bronwen lying in the hospital bed because I’d backed out on her, I dropped on him. I sank all of it into my hold on him and sent my magic straight down.

The air stank of burning fur and the shifter flailed against me trying to shake me loose.

“Does it hurt? I hope it does!”

Heat and pain were my world too. I squeezed my eyes shut against it. Tears swelled and the flames burned at me. Still I clung.

Trying to give Coral time to get away.

She didn’t make it far, I realized. She’d doubled back around and now magic in ribbons of blue swirled around her.

“Duck!” she called out to me.

I had a moment to register what she was doing before she let the spell explode out from her. I dropped to the ground, kneecaps slamming hard into the dirt, and felt the wind around me as the spell knocked the shifter off of his feet. He sailed past, slicing against me.

What happened next turned me inside out.

With his fur still smoldering, the shifter used the momentum of the spell to his advantage. He landed against the nearest tree and then catapulted himself forward, straight into Coral. She howled when he hit her, slamming her into the ground with the remnants of her spell redirected toward herself. Light exploded in the clearing and ripped through the three of us.

Pain crushed me, clamping around my skull until my thoughts fragmented. I finally managed to open my eyes. Then lost the rest of the air in my lungs.

The halfling stood over Coral, his chest heaving, dark crimson rivulets winding through his fur. Coral’s eyes were open but glazed, her arms and legs at unnatural angles, and she was bleeding from multiple wounds.

For a moment, the world went still. It felt like someone had punched me right in the solar plexus. I stared at Coral, feeling my failure keenly.

She was dead.

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The shifter’s blood dripped down on her, smearing together with the blood from her own wounds, her magic leaking everywhere. I felt it in the air, like someone had burst a balloon and let the pure power fall down, evaporating into nothing.

He didn’t give me much of a chance to feel guilty because he immediately turned to me and snarled, his lip curling up over those ferocious white teeth in a definite challenge. A challenge to deny his superiority.

“What have you done?” Screaming with rage, I launched myself at the shifter, my breath cut off when he easily dodged my attack and his claws ripped at my midsection, right above my fresh wound.

Sloppy. I couldn’t afford to be sloppy. Not now.

Shaking my head and pushing the pain into a smaller and smaller corner of my mind, I threw a spell at him designed to trip him where he stood and take away his balance. Not surprisingly it had no effect against the rampaging halfling form. Nothing I’d attempted had had any real effect.

But that didn’t stop me.

“You will not take me down,” I managed to get out.

My arm holding the dagger hung limp at my side and I raised it now, slashing at whatever part of him I could reach. Although the dagger seemed to glance off of him, I kept trying, kept pushing to gain whatever ground I could.

He twisted and dodged my blows, trying to find an opening but I slashed on furiously. It was draining me physically and I couldn’t help but worry that I wouldn’t be able to keep it up long enough to finish the fight.

Desperation broke inside of me. I clawed at the well of strength I’d recently tapped into. Pulling every drop I could reach to me just to keep myself upright. Still the shifter kept coming.

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