Sariel

Honestly, what was President Kraej thinking? All right, so that little girl was an excellent healer, and her three companions were our clones or something like that, but that didn’t mean that she was some sort of Angel of Death, here to bring ruin upon the Eatuheans and lead us to victory.

Besides, I distinctly remember her saying that the war was none of her business.

Yet here I was in the Monster’s Graveyard, with Uriel, Seraph, Elsa and President Kraej, waiting for Asteria to conjure up the mythical Ship of Bones. This place was littered with the enormous skeletons of extinct giant monsters.

“If I wasn’t seeing this for myself, I would’ve thought this was a hoax. How could monsters this big have lived? What did they even eat?” asked Uriel.

“Who knows?” said Elsa. She was looking at the bones with a mysterious smile on her face.

The three of us were in our uniforms while President Kraej was in a suit. Elsa was in jeans and a T-shirt, while Asteria and her bodyguards were wearing ridiculously extravagant fantasy costumes. They looked like circus performers, for goodness’ sake!

It wasn’t exactly a confidence booster.

“Please, a moment of silence. I need to concentrate,” said Asteria. Heedless of her lavish attire, she sat down cross-legged on the ground and closed her eyes.

We all fell silent, waiting for the impossible. I’d more or less accepted that Asteria and her friends were from another world, but that didn’t mean that she could do what that she was going to do.

A few minutes later, Uriel, Seraph, and I made almost identical sounds of disbelief. The bones, some of them as big as 26 metres long, started vibrating as they slowly rose from the ground that they were half buried in.

“I should’ve brought a camera crew,” said Kraej.

The bones slowly rose a few meters above the ground and fused together in the form of a ship one hundred meters long. There were, of course, no sails.

“Earth magic,” whispered Uriel.

When the Vinleaf shamans sacrificed themselves to kill the Iah monster, real magic was lost. Though we called ourselves “magicians,” we were nothing more than artifact users.

But Asteria wasn’t using an artifact.

“I don’t know what to think,” said Seraph.

Our three doppelgängers were pretending to be blasé, but I could tell that they were all very impressed. A bone gangplank extended down to us and we silently walked onto the flying ship, except for Seraph’s double, who took Asteria into his arms and flew up to the bow.

If someone had told me a year ago that I would one day be sailing to Eatuhea on the legendary ship that heralded the final sinking of the continent, I would’ve laughed in his face. Yet here I was, doing exactly that.

“I hope everything is in place,” said Asteria.

“We’re as ready as we can be,” said President Kraej.

In the past three months, everyone had worked hard to prepare for the next three days, and the military was on high alert.

“Here goes nothing!” said Asteria.

I expected the ship to just breeze along nicely, but it hurtled forward at supersonic speed. It’s a good thing that Asteria had put a shield over us. Otherwise, it would have been extremely uncomfortable.

In just a few minutes, we arrived at the Field of Metherell, the ancient site of a great battle. These days, it was used as the gathering place for the Winter Festival.

“I see that they took my warnings seriously, at least,” said Asteria.

It looked as though the entire Eatuhean army was here. I’m told that breaking the sound barrier results in a sonic boom, and our ship had circled the field several times, so they must have been alarmed, but they were disciplined enough not to panic.

“They seem to be expecting us,” said Seraph. His expression was cool as always, but being inside the fabled shield with all the Eatuhean magicians pointing their wands at us had to be a little concerning even for him.

“Leave everything to me and my guys! Just watch,” said Asteria.

The ship came to a halt in front of the assembled army, and Seraph, Uriel, and I stayed on the ship with President Kraej while Elsa, Asteria, and her three companions descended.

“You realize we’re stuck here if she fails, right?” said Uriel.

“She won’t fail,” said Elsa. “And neither will I.”