Ceyda? CEYDA!

Her senses were still expanded. Across the hallway, the strange man was removing his shades. Something was wrong with his eyes. Something Ceyda couldn’t quite place while she was in pain.

The mage started walking towards the bathroom, and Ceyda struggled to stand up. Suddenly--the gashes vanished all at once.

It was like they hadn’t even happened in the first place.

What in the holy avatars was that?! Doc was furiously scribbling across Ceyda’s line of sight. Doc was just as confused as Ceyda. That was less than ideal.

Maybe… maybe that was the guy? It could have been Haidolah. Haidolah’s sphere can control blood. I’ve just never seen it like this…

Ceyda went to climb out the window, but within seconds of her coming to terms with her lack of pain was enough time for the door to fly open.

The blurry human shaped mage stared her down.

“Dorskina!” Ceyda yelled, without even thinking through her actions. She stuck her hand out, not knowing what would happen.

A beam of light shot out of her hand, straight into the mage. It pushed him back, straight across the hallway. The gashes appeared again on her arm, breaking her concentration.

Ceyda cursed and jumped out of the window, landing on her feet. The vibrations and force of the ground shook through her entire body, and Ceyda collapsed from the misjudged height. She had forgotten to invoke Dorskina. She had just jumped out of a building.

She didn’t dare look down at her legs, already feeling the shock emanating from the injury.

No sooner had the wave of pain hit her from her mistake did it immediately vanish. Gashes--gone, legs--fine. Not one to question a blessing, Ceyda shot up, and took off in any direction that got her away from the mansion.

She slammed face first into something that wasn’t there a second ago.

The man stood over her, his forehead bleeding from a fine cut. He had teleported.

That just wasn’t fair.

Ceyda could see him up close now, past his shades. His eyes had been strange far away, and now she knew why. It had two irises in each eye.

Thelloya and Zebidiah. All right. That’s fine. This is fine. Body alteration and space magic. Those are only the third and fourth best combative magical spheres! We can do this! I’m not panicking!

The man put his fingers to his lips, and Ceyda turned around to run in the opposite direction before he had time to finish whatever weirdass thing he was going to do.

He appeared in front of her again, and from his mouth erupted dark, musty smoke.

The smoke engulfed her and Ceyda blindly backed away. She dropped to the ground, coughing violently, trying to get as low as possible, the only thing she could think of in such a situation.

The man slowly walked towards her, the vaguest of smiles on his lips.

“Dorskina!” Ceyda rasped, sticking her hand out again for that beam she had done before, but this time he reached his hand out and the beam dispersed the moment it touched him.

The man grabbed Ceyda by the shirt, and ripped her mask off. Ceyda struggled against the grip, but it was strong.

Magically strong.

Just like Doc had warned.

The man’s white glove glowed, and sharp blue claws grew out of them. He lifted his arm up, and stabbed Ceyda through the chest.

“If you could kindly die,” the man said. He removed his hand. He was holding something. Ceyda squinted. She couldn’t tell what it was.

Liquid was getting everywhere. Liquid that looked an awful lot like blood.

Wait.

She stared at the red, fist sized object in the man’s hand.

Ceyda pawed at her chest. There was a gaping cavity where her heart was supposed to be.

Oh.

She blinked a few more times, waiting for death to take her.

But it didn’t happen.

The man frowned. He went to push her backwards, but Ceyda staggered away.

She was still alive. Sure. All right. Alive with no heart.

Doc was vibrating with an intensity that could only be described as a completely and utter meltdown. Ceyda wasn’t even holding onto the book anymore, just letting it catch up to her in whichever direction she tried to move.

Ceyda stumbled backwards. Another step. Another.

Still not dead.

“Surprise!” Ceyda squeaked. “I’m a Thelloyan too!”

It was a lie, but she hoped it would come off as a threat.

Instead the man stared at her in further confusion. A face of utter blankness, like Ceyda had just spouted some real nonsense just there.

Maybe she had said something stupid. Or maybe he didn’t know who Thelloya was. Or maybe she hadn’t actually spoken and had let out a gargling stream of blood and pain.

Still not dead, however.

She continued to walk away, unable to muster more than a slow pace. It was like her blood was trying to pump, but it couldn’t.

After another step, her head started to pound, and her body overflowed with adrenaline. Her heart had grown back. Just like those gashes disappearing.

She didn’t know how, and she didn’t know why, but she would take it. She had almost died! Holy shit! And she could easily die again!

The mage was startled, but generated the smoke a second time. This time Ceyda screamed Dorskina’s name wildly, trying to emit as much magical power as possible. Waves of energy emitted from her, but they didn’t seem to faze the mage as much as it did her surroundings.

She ran. Her heart was beating and all she could do was run. Ceyda scooped up Doc, and threw it as far as she could muster.

The man appeared in front of her again, and Ceyda froze in the spot. He pressed his fingers to his lips again, and Ceyda started to back away, but didn’t take her eyes off him.

Slam!

Her grimoire hit him in the back of the head.

“Dorskina!” Ceyda yelled, and another beam of magic erupted from her fingers, this time on an unsuspecting and startled mage. The grimoire, slowed down slightly, fluttered awkwardly and hit her in the chest with an ungraceful flop.

The enemy mage went flying. Easily twenty feet away from the force of her magic alone. If it was a normal person, Ceyda would have freaked out that she had killed someone, but she suspected that was way less likely in this situation.

Fresh wounds randomly erupted on her again. Ceyda winced. It hurt, a lot, but she knew it would end soon, just like it did last time.

She invoked Dorskina’s name, and ran, faster than she ever had before. This time she didn’t look behind her. She disappeared into the thicket behind the mansion. In this direction, there’d be a river about a mile away. Past that, fields, farm, and unused land.

Beyond that? She didn’t know. There was a mountain range that bordered the horizon, so she supposed that was next. Chances of reaching that was slim, even with magic boosted running.

The mage was out of sight. She didn’t know for how long. Worse, if that guy was following her, she couldn’t go back to Whiskey Street.

Ceyda made it past the river and thensome before she finally let herself stop running. She hid in a small cluster of trees and bushes, and lay down, exhausted.

The sky was bright blue, not a cloud visible.

“Doc?” Ceyda rasped as the book pathetically dragged across the ground, before flopping on her stomach.

Ceyda?

“Are we safe?” she whispered.

I have no idea.

Ceyda nodded. So be it then. Lacerations appeared on her skin, and Ceyda gritted her teeth in frustration and curled into a ball, waiting for the pain to fade. It took a bit longer this time, before finally fading.

“So is there any sort of spell I can learn to numb pain?” Ceyda asked.

Not… easily.

Ceyda groaned, and pushed the book away in annoyance.

“Fuck!” Ceyda exclaimed. “Fuck this! Fuck that mage! That was really fucking hard! Fuck!”

Feeling better?

“Immensely!”

The lacerations appeared again, and Ceyda spasmed again. These now appeared directly over her eyes, blinding her.

When her vision appeared, she sat up. “What! Is happening! Doc!”

I don’t know. If I had to guess it would be

Ceyda blinked a few times. “Yes?”

I said

She frowned and shook the book forcefully. As she did, she heard rustling, and promptly slammed herself back into the branches and leaves.

Can you read my words I’m saying that

Ceyda wanted to yell at Doc, but she could hear voices in the distance. She skewed her eyes shut. Hadn’t she hid enough? Shouldn’t she get some Gretian infused stealth spell? Come on Gretian!

“Gretiannnn,” Ceyda whispered.

To her surprise, something did happen. She didn’t turn invisible, as she had desperately hoped, but her clothes and skin became dull in color, taking on a similar texture to the leaves.

Camouflage.

Well, it wasn’t invisibility, but she’d take it.

“Thank you Gretian,” Ceyda said quietly.

It took awhile for the voices to reach her. They were unfamiliar, but definitely male.

“What are we even looking for?”

“Rembrandt says he saw him run this way.”

“If he’s got that damn spellbook with him, he could have teleported away by now!”

“Rembrandt says he appeared to only be using initiate spells.”

Ceyda could feel Doc vibrate in confusion, but no words were spelled out. She didn’t know if Doc was still being silenced, or if the book was afraid of alerting the strangers to their presence. The mage from before-- Rembrandt, was it?-- had mentioned sensing her presence, but they had no idea what that meant yet.

Was it conversing? Casting spells? It couldn’t just be existing, otherwise they would have found her already, right? Assuming it was an easy spell to learn, if it was a spell at all.

Regardless of the reason, Doc was clearly confused.

The face of the mage called Rembrandt staring at her in bafflement when she tried to bluff Thelloya’s name floated back to her.

She was a very bad liar, admittedly, but was it possible that all these names, these supposed avatars, weren’t even common knowledge amongst the mages?

Had Reiner known of them? He had--he certainly knew who Haidolah was. But that didn’t mean he’d necessarily know who every other Avatar was. Maybe Thelloya was dead, replaced, like Doc had mentioned about the Avatar of War.

Or maybe, the mages hunting her just. Didn’t know. Possibly Rembrandt didn’t pay attention in mage school, whatever that looked like.

She hated this! Nothing was clear and everything was confusing and her heart kept beating and her head hurt and nothing felt good and it just all needed to stop.

“ Expand!” One of the men yelled. Ceyda’s skin prickled. Was that magic? Had she just sensed a spell? Or was she just scared absolutely shitless?

“Damn, nothing,” the same man said.

Holy shit she was like five feet away and they couldn’t see her? This was wild! Doc had not been exaggerating when it came to all of Dorskina’s spells being way weaker when not with her book.

Or maybe this camouflage was working way better than intended.

As she started to panic less, the lacerations appeared yet again. Ceyda immediately clapped her hand over her mouth, to stop her from screaming. She didn’t know if this counted as casting, and she was terrified to try and cast a spell to ease her pain (in case she somehow had accrued such a spell).

“Rembrandt said the boy couldn’t have been older than twelve, can you believe that? Some tiny bratty kid taking an ancient heirloom on some cockamanie joyride.”

Rude.

“Well, this area’s cleared out, let’s move to the next one…”

The steps got louder, and then quieter. They had walked straight past her.

“We’ll double back later, when Fontaine catches up. I think I saw a few dirt imprints a mile back or so that looked like a foot print. We can probably track him hat way.”

Ceyda took a sharp intake of breath.

The smart thing would be to run more.

Or perhaps to hide better.

Or maybe to go back.

Or maybe talk to Doc.

Instead she did none of those things. She remained in spot, frozen with indecision. Doc didn’t say anything, so neither did she.

The wounds appeared several more times, in rapid succession, before disappearing and not returning for hours.

And during those hours, the sun began to set.

Ceyda still hadn’t moved. She was exhausted. She had never before felt so many emotions in a short period of time. It was like she was being tortured by the world itself.

She blinked, and it went from the outdoors being golden and pink, to pitch black. Ceyda didn’t know if she had fallen asleep, or if she had just truly disassociated, but it meant she had been lying in this bush for hours. And she had to pee.

“Doc?”

Ceyda.

Ceyda took a deep breath, and expanded her senses. No one was around, not as far as she could tell.

“I think we’re safe,” she said, mostly to herself.

I think we are too.

“Tracking--sensing. They said they could track and sense me? How could that work?” Ceyda asked, her voice scratchy.

I think by tracking they just meant. Literal actual tracking. As for sensing magic, that’s a Dorskina spell. A more advanced one. Although to be honest, you might not need it here. This land is barren. Any magic cast probably will be noticed by a sufficiently skilled caster.

Ceyda nodded. “Does that count when you talk to me?”

I… do not know. We’d need a second caster to test it out. I don’t know how I exist. I’m assuming I exist like your bracelet, and have magical origins, but otherwise am “organic” so to speak. But I didn’t want to take the chance.

“And do you know what’s making you unable to write certain things?”

...sort of. I would tell you what it is but, I don’t think I can. So once we’re in a safe place, I’m going to cut out cruft words, and see if I can send anything to you related to it.

Ceyda could feel tears welling in her eyes. She didn’t know why. She should be ecstatic--she had won a fight!

But she hadn’t, not really. She had barely survived.

“Doc. Why did my heart grow back?” Ceyda whispered.

I don’t know.

Ceyda’s dirt encrusted nails dug into the grimoire.

“I don’t know--I don’t know-- that’s all you say, isn’t it! Forget ultimate power, I would trade you in a moment for answers,” Ceyda spat.

You don’t mean that.

“I don’t,” Ceyda replied. “But-- you have to know something. Surely.”

I’m sorry Ceyda. If I did--or if I could tell you, I would.

Her adrenaline was fading, fast. She wanted to curl into a ball and cry. She had seen her own heart! Her own fucking heart! Pain could show up at any time and there was nothing she could do to stop it and fuck how was that fair?

“Then can you something tell me? Anything?”

Ceyda slowly sat up, her stomach twisting in on itself as the blood started to pound into her head. During this time she had been laying on a branch, and hadn’t even noticed until the pain crawled down her spine.

She tossed the grimoire on the ground in frustration, and badly dodged as it careened back at her.

Ceyda, stop. You can have these emotions when we’re not in the woods Where they can find you.

Ceyda collapsed back onto the ground in annoyance.

“I don’t suppose I could talk to someone else,” Ceyda muttered. “You’re an all powerful spell book, surely there’s something in there that tells you something about this?”

There isn’t. Not as far as I

The sentence broke off.

“Nothing that can help you but plenty to stop you, apparently,” Ceyda mumbled. Maybe it was a curse. Stupid cursed book.

Doc did not respond. Ceyda shifted in discomfort.

Ceyda stood up, completely night blind. She was hungry again, cold, wet, and in a far worse place than she had been this morning.

Afraid to cast a spell, she started stumbling blindly in the dark. After a few minutes of slipping and falling and slamming her knee into a rock, she decided that dying was not worth stealth, and cast a magical light, courtesy of Dorskina.

Her bruised knee healed quickly, just as her stabbed heart had.

Ceyda sighed. At least whatever was going on was consistent.

She flicked the light forward, and squinted. Maybe expanding her senses would work better than--

Thwip!

There was a sudden piercing across her shoulder.

Ceyda limply fell forward, this time from the utter shock. On the ground, glowing a brilliant purple, was a crossbow bolt.

Oh.

All right.

So she was just a huge dumbass.

Neat.

Like all other wounds, it started to heal. Ceyda whipped around, and expanded her senses.

In startling detail, five mages emerged from the shadows. Rembrandt was one, but he was not the one nursing a glowing crossbow.

“Dorskina!” Ceyda yelled, slamming a magical beam into the nearest mage. A shield was erected, but it shattered just as quickly and the mage went flying. Rembrandt and another mage teleported in front of her.

“Shield!” Ceyda yelled, as she instinctively brought her grimoire up in defense. The shield erected too slowly, and the blade of the other mage plunged into the grimoire.

Rembrandt and the other were forcibly pushed back by the shield. The shield faded, and her senses snapped back to her a moment later.

“Dorskina!” Ceyda yelled. Nothing.

Had they--had they broken it? Had those fuckers broken an all powerful grimoire?

She flipped over the grimoire, her jaw dropping. The green gem had shattered. Ceyda dropped it onto the ground, and watched in horror as it did absolutely nothing--not even vibrate.

She had broken it. She had magical powers for all of a few days and she had broken it!

Her eyes darted over to Rembrandt and the mage that had stabbed Doc. They were reacting very slowly. They had barely stood up--in fact, none of the mages had even started to approach her.

Ceyda frowned. Her panicked horror drained and was replaced with honest perplexment. Everyone was frozen in place, trapped mid-movement. Each mage individually extending a hand or withdrawing a wand or a weapon, but none at the ready.

Just frozen.

“This better not be permanent,” Ceyda whispered, glaring at the grimoire.

She bent down to pick up the corpse of her friend and power source, only to withdraw her hand in pain as it touched the molten hot leather. Ceyda stepped back, hissing and cursing, and hit an invisible wall behind her.

No--not a wall. A wall was solid. This was--

Ceyda extended her hand towards Rembrandt. The muscles at the tip of her fingers slowed, frozen in time like Rembrandt and the others were.

Oh.

She quickly brought her hand back, it was like tearing it out of thick, mushy snow.

Had she created some kind of time based spell around her? Was this a Quasinonce spell? Some sort of time bubble that kept her safe and froze everyone around her?

The grimoire was glowing a brilliant white now. Ceyda didn’t know if it was going to disperse, come back fully healed, or perhaps leave her here forever, trapped in time, but she didn’t like it one bit. It was immensely hot too, and the grass underneath it caught fire and burnt to tiny individual blackened crisps.

A slow, guttural yell erupted from Rembrandt. The syllable hung on his tongue, and the hands of the mages behind him started to glow bright as well.

They weren’t frozen, just moving incredibly slowly.

And considering how Ceyda couldn’t leave the small area around the grimoire without being slowed herself, she was just going to have to watch as it slowly came towards her.

Ceyda started to pace, trying to figure out the best angle to somehow dodge every beam of magic when it inevitably hit her in two hours. They were all aiming in different directions, almost like they were trained or something to make sure she couldn’t dodge. Rude.

Waves of heat emanated from the grimoire. Ceyda flinched and covered her face, trying to protect it from the hot air.

The grimoire exploded in a brilliant light. It travelled across the grassy field, encompassing the entire hill. For a split second, they were surrounded by a single white ring, while Ceyda was encompassed in a shadowy orb.

Was this what the inside of an explosion looked like? Bright lights on the outside, darkness on the inside? It looked a little like a planet that Mehdi had on his baby mobile.

Ceyda was in the planet, Rembrandt and the armed mage were bordering it, and the rest of the mages were far outside.

The ring snapped back, cleaving the mages in two. The shadowy orb collapsed inwards, dragging Ceyda in, leaving a slew of corpses behind her.