She was walking slowly toward us clutching a long thin bow, her large conical hat sitting comfortably on her head. She exuded an air of confidence that I was not used to seeing in her. She had always been a dutiful student, but never one to take initiative and was quite devastated when Seika left the village. Seeing them together would have lifted my spirits if I wasn’t watching Kai try to reach for the arrow stuck in his back.

“Stand back,” I said, and started casting a spell which would raise an obelisk between us and her.

But before I was able to finish it, a dagger swished by my ear, barely missing me but coming close enough to make me lose my momentum and botch my casting. I saw the dagger stick into a tree behind me just before it vanished.

There were more of them.

“Hi, Myriam.” I heard a familiar voice coming from the same direction we’d initially heard the branch cracking. “By the way, I didn’t miss. Please don’t think I wanted to hurt you. I was just trying to interrupt your spellcasting.”

Name : Kard Mandrake

Race : Human

Class : Shadow Walker

Level : 31

It was Kard, another one of the people I left when I exiled myself from Nara. I remembered how his questions made me smile during our courses because I could tell he was always trying to bring the subject back to dragons.

My memory was of a boy with big dreams, yet before me stood a man who was apparently very adept at throwing knives. Both of them had changed so much since I left them.

That was when it dawned on me. Kai thought all of them dead. I told him the angels had killed them. I never expected to see any of them again. Apart from the danger of being surrounded by seemingly experienced fighters, talking to them would force Kai to confront a truth he wasn’t ready for, at least not before we went on with the ritual and freed him of The Divine Essence.

“Myriam,” I heard Seika say, “please ease your spells and let us talk.”

But talking was exactly what I wanted to avoid. I was happy to see them again and I wanted to know all about their stories, but not now. Not before we reached the Mana Tree.

I had to find a way to flee. I touched Kai’s head and started casting a short-distance teleportation spell. Then I noticed that Seika was already finishing a spell I could not recognize.

A terrible silence fell around me. I could feel my mouth moving, my vocal cords vibrating but I couldn’t hear anything. Did she make me deaf? No, she wouldn’t do such a thing. I saw Kai turn back to me and realized he was experiencing the effects of the same magical silence.

She had placed a silence bubble around us. This was a quickened version spell of the spell I had used when blasting the gate to the crypts. On I hadn’t learned as it was mostly used in battles against spellcasters, which was exactly the case right now.

Our predicament was dire. Seika had trained in battle magic while Krysha and Kard looked like they knew exactly what they were doing by disabling Kai with a magic-nullifying arrow and interrupting me. I mentally searched through my spell repertoire and thought of all the spells that didn’t need any verbal incantations.

The list was extremely limited, but I thought of a spell which would at least give us some time to escape. As soon as I started moving my hands in order to fulfill the somatic components of the spell, I felt the wrists of my hands attract each other as did my knees.

Seika had cast a binding spell on both me and Kai. It was time to accept our defeat. I wouldn’t let Kai find out the truth just yet though. Seika would surely let me have a private word with her before explaining why they captured us.

I could see both Seika and the man called Manal Im slowly approach us, Seika talking to us with a calm expression on her face.

“—not going to hurt you,” I heard Seika finish her sentence, although I was pretty sure she had only temporarily deactivated her silencing spell and not dropped it completely.

I could hear the careful footsteps of Kard and Krysha behind us as well as a low gurgling sound on my left. I turned around to see golden steam rising from Kai’s back. The arrow on his shoulder-blade burst into flames as he managed to release the binds around him.

This is not good. Not good at all.

I heard Krysha’s bowstring stretch at the same time as Seika started chanting another spell. Neither of them managed to finish what they set out to do as golden glowing tentacles spread out of Kai’s back and toward all four of them.

The long energy tails traveled toward their targets almost instantly and even though they did not seem to hurt their skin on touch, they had a very strong grip on them. Manal Im tried to slice through them with his swords but the tentacles, which now held everyone high above the ground did not look like they were affected at all.

“That’s enough, Kai,” I said and touched his shoulder, yet I saw the binds becoming even tighter as Seika attempted casting a spell. “Do not hurt them!”

Kai turned around to look at me and the binds loosened up a little bit now that Seika’s incantation was interrupted.

“I beg of you,” I started saying, hoping they would find logic in my words and let us continue without anyone getting harmed. “I know how to restore The Divine and all I need you to do now is to turn back. Nobody needs to be hurt.”

“You are already hurting us, Myriam,” Seika managed to say as she squirmed in the air, her long black hair glistening as it was enveloped by the bright golden tentacles.

“I only need to reach the Mana Tree and perform a ritual,” I said, not knowing what else I could tell them in order to convince them. “Everything will soon be over and The Divine will be restored. You have to believe me.”

“I believe you, Myriam,” I heard a new voice say from behind us.

A male figure stepped in front of where the tentacles were holding Kard and Krysha, and struck both of them with a sword in each hand, cutting them down. The golden binds disappeared before the duo touched the ground and the man seemingly teleported in front of us, freeing Seika and Manal Im in the same fashion. As soon as the bright tentacles disappeared, I noticed the little purple lights had now abandoned us, forming a very wide circle around us, but keeping their distance.

The male figure, wielding swords in both of his hands, walked forward toward me and Kai, his face obscured in darkness. Kai produced more tentacles from his back, instantly binding the four individuals who had just been freed, an additional two spreading out to attack our newest foe. The man crossed his swords in front of him and the blades completely devoured the magic. But the light that shone on the swords was enough for me to recognize the face behind them.

“Adel?” I whispered in surprise.

“Cut it out, Kai,” he said, his voice trembling in anger. “I said, I believe her.”