As Martin’s armoured form thudded into the ground, Elizabeth, standing shocked-still, screamed, her helmet making her voice garbled. She didn’t see the goblins charge at her. A spear buried itself into the girl’s right thigh, bringing her crashing to the ground. More goblins leapt onto her, dagger-blades glinting in the sun. Elizabeth knocked one away with the edge of her shield, but another goblin plunged his dagger into her stomach.

Frances cried out a note, any note, focusing on what she wanted, even as horrifying despair shook the hand holding onto her wand. Martin was dead. Elizabeth was dying. The only two friends she had in this world, and she hadn’t been able to protect them.

Frances flung the goblins off of Elizabeth, dashing them into their onrushing fellows and sending them all flying back five feet. Tumbling over each other, the goblins groaned and whined as they tried to pick themselves up. All the while, Frances continued to sing, chaining a myriad of notes into the start of a song. Grief-stricken rage coursing through her veins, her mind drew the picture of the anguish she was going to enact as she chanted to the sky.

The sky was a perfect blue, with only a few grey puffs of cloud in the sky.

Boom.

Lighting came shattering down from the sky, striking the road with a blinding roar. It hit a trio of goblins, turning them into blackened husks, and tossing those nearby like rag dolls. The remaining goblins, blinking madly, attacked Frances.

Only for another bolt to crash down on top of them. And another, and another. A rain of lightning bolts smashed down on the goblins, onto the road, onto the forest, each blinding burst followed by a thunderous boom. Each thundercrack punctuated Frances’s raw, gale-like howl. Every smashing bolt of lighting was blackening stones, cutting thick trees down, or blasting the goblins. As more and more of their fellows were turned into smoking, blackened husks, those that remained dropped their weapons and ran away in fear, forks of lightning striking at them as they did so.

The thunder awoke Martin, who gasped with pain. His chest was ablaze with pain. He scrabbled at his armour, finding a deep dent where his breastplate had caught the goblin bullet. It had done nothing to deaden the impact and the pain had knocked him out.

“Frances! Snap out of it!” he heard Elizabeth yell. She was dragging herself to Frances, one hand clutching her stomach. Thankfully, Martin saw no blood gushing from her stomach, but she did have a nasty wound in her thigh. The goblins had long disappeared, but lightning continued to pour down from the sky.

Frances continued to scream the incantation to her spell. Her eyes were shut, and she seemed to be standing normally, if not for how her clothes were blowing as if gale-force winds were battering her. Her wand was raised, sparks of electricity dancing up the dark wood to her arm.

“She’s in a mage-trance!” Martin exclaimed.

“What the hell’s a mage-trance and how do we break it?” Elizabeth demanded.

Hands grabbing his helmet, Martin tried to take a step closer to Frances and yelped as a small arc of lightning zapped the ground in front of him.

“Well?” Elizabeth demanded.

“Frances has focused so deeply on the spell that nothing else exists for her! She’ll continue to be in it until every ounce of magic she has is drained out of her! We need to break it, but I don’t know anything about how to break one! I just heard about it in old folk tales!” Martin explained.

Elizabeth narrowed eyes against the flashes of the lightning that left spots in her vision. That was when she noticed Frances’s trembling right hand, holding her wand, which sparked and bucked with every lightning bolt that cracked through the ozone-tasting air.

Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth gritted her teeth and forced herself to stand. Her leg screamed, sharp lines of pain shooting up down her thigh.

“I hope this works,” Elizabeth muttered.

Martin hadn’t been sure what his friend was trying to do. When it dawned on him, and he lunged forward to stop her, it was too late. Leaping off of her good leg, Elizabeth lunged at Frances, her hands closing around her wand.

Elizabeth recalled a second after she clasped the wand that it was called Ivy’s Sting. The first thing she felt was the warm wood. Immediately after she felt a thrumming sensation running up her arms. Suddenly, a tingling feeling ran through her whole body and her muscles spasmed, her legs gave out under her and Elizabeth gurgled uncontrollably as she collapsed, but she just managed to keep hold of the wand and drag it down with her.

A sudden force threw her back, punching her across the entire body. It was like a wall that ran into her. Crying, she skidded against the road, shivering, hands empty, eyes screwed shut in agony. Elizabeth at that last second lost her grip on Ivy’s Sting. Dazed, her vision blurring, she closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.

Frances blinked and nearly lost her balance. She felt so hungry and drained. The pain in her leg had subsided to a numb feeling, which was bad because that meant she was losing blood. To her surprise, she realized she barely had a drop of magic left. Holding her arms out to steady herself, she realized that Ivy’s Sting was no longer in her hands. It was instead lying on the ground in front of her.

Frances grabbed her precious wand and as she looked up, she froze.

“Martin? You’re alive!” she exclaimed.

The knight sighed in relief. “Bullet only knocked me down. Frances, we have to—”

“Wait, the goblins!” Frances spun around. There wasn’t a goblin in sight, instead, there were scorch marks on the ground and the air was thick with the scent of ozone and burnt flesh.

That was when she saw in the distance, Elizabeth, lying on the ground, leg still bleeding.

“Oh no! Elizabeth!” Frances took a step and gasped as the pain reminded her of a badly injured shin. She nearly fell, but Martin grabbed her arm and together they hobbled to Elizabeth’s still figure.

Frances dropped and sat heavily next to Elizabeth’s still form. She pulled off her helmet. Her friend’s hair was frizzy as if she’d been shocked.

“What happened? I blacked out and… the goblins where are they?” Frances asked, reaching into her medical pouch.

“You went into a mage trance, Frances. Elizabeth…” Martin winced. “She tried to grab the wand from your hands.”

As those words connected themselves with their meanings in her head, Frances went still. “She… I did this to her.” Frances turned to Martin, and he winced at the stricken look in her eyes. “I lost control.” The bandage dropped from her shaking hands as she held her face in her palms.

Grimacing, Martin knelt beside Elizabeth and grabbed Frances’s shoulders. “Frances, Elizabeth will be sent back to your world unless you save her. You need to focus!”

Frances swallowed and sniffled, but after taking a deep breath, she nodded and immediately started to treat Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Martin stood guard over them, sword at the ready, as they waited for their reinforcements to arrive. The pair said nothing else, all they could look was at the still, barely breathing form of their friend.

Earl Darius braced himself against the paper-strewn table in his tent, brow furrowed. Martin stood at attention in front of him, whilst Frances sat on a chair, on account of her injury.

Frances was trying to bury herself into her wooden chair and vanish. Martin was trying to mimic a statue and was looking at a point somewhat above the duke. Neither could meet the duke’s eyes.

“Fuck, that was a mess,” Darius groaned. He ran a gloved hand through his hair. “You, Frances, stop looking like a kicked dog and look up already.”

Frances, wincing, reluctantly met the earl’s sharp eyes.

“You got nothing to blame yourself for. Goblins must have thought you three were easy prey and tried to take you out before taking the caravan out. Sides, your spells drove them off. Now, get out of my tent and get some rest. We’re going to need you for the siege,” Darius snapped.

Frances blinked and opened her mouth, but thought better of it and curtsied instead. As she turned to leave, she couldn’t help but look at Martin for a second. He smiled, to reassure himself and her, and she nodded, before leaving.

“Right, Conthwaite. You did nothing wrong either. It was a crap situation,” said Darius.

Martin didn’t react. After all, if he didn't do anything wrong, why was the earl keeping him? He decided to wait until Darius said his piece.

“I have been hearing that you’ve gotten close to the Otherworlders, well, I wanted to give you some advice—” Darius’s eyes hardened “ —don’t get too close.”

“Can you explain why my lord?” Martin inquired, frowning slightly.

“The Summoner System pulled them here to do a job, Martin. They’re not here because they wanted or volunteered for it. They’re here because the summoner system will reward them with gold once they return back to their world along with a luck geas. They don’t care about our Kingdom or Durannon. Remember that,” said Darius. The earl sat down on his chair and grabbed a quill. “That all being said, you’re doing a good job protecting those two. Keep up the good work.”