NOVEL NEXT Chapter Twenty-One: Faerie Fire Finale
Sandara met my eyes, and for a moment, I was absolutely certain that she was going to launch a massive attack on me. We were still tense, and while we'd reconciled enough for the play, sure, but that didn't mean she'd forgiven Salem for launching an attack on her nightmares or me for my reaction.
Instead, she turned and whipped a small marble at one of the soon-to-graduate students. I didn't know what spell she'd stored within it, or indeed if it was a spell at all, given her artifice affinity meant she could work up some rather wild combinations, but whatever it was, the older student paid attention. His eyes widened, and he shot a ray of green-blue-gray magic from one finger: a familiar spell, erode matter.
The marble started to flake, and was halfway dissolved into sand before it was stopped by one of the man's shields. It burst into a wave of faerie fire, oddly shaped and small due to the partial disintegration, and the pair were going at one another with flame and spell.
That was probably a good reminder for me to keep a check on my arrogance. I'd done a lot, sure, but I wasn't the center of the world. Sandara was a smart woman, and she was going to go for the biggest threat first.
Jackson launched himself into battle against the other remaining third year, and I decided to take a tactical retreat. As the war raged between the other four, I tapped the rod against my side, working to restore my ether pool as fast as I could, while I stayed far clear of them. I spared a moment to glance at the hourglass filled with obsidian sand. It looked like there were probably about five minutes left.
Well, that was annoying. There was no way the other battles wouldn't be wrapped up before the timer ran down, which dashed any hopes of a tie for first.
So what actions could I take?
I studied the pair of battles, then flicked my hand out and began directing the Gadhar. Even from this position, I could easily take some minor actions to influence the battles. They might skirt the line over the 'no alliances' rule, but I genuinely had self interest, so I didn't think it would be too much trouble.
My gadhar began to bark, releasing their waves of blue light at the shields of the person battling Jackson. The opposing mage was far stronger than a lone gadhar, stronger even than three of them working in concert, but the gadhar didn't need to outright overpower her. Every second she spent using ether manipulation to nudge her shield spells back into place was a second she wasn't able to counterattack Jackson.
He continued to press in on her, using massive slashes of faerie fire that would have been utterly impossible with the wand, and every attack he drew a bit closer to winning. When her shield cracked, I was confident he'd won.
But the third year proved the advantages of two additional years of training in the art of wizardry.
Right before the magic touched her, she and Jackson changed places. His own fire crashed over him, the bright purple clinging to his muscled physique like a second skin. He let out a cheerful laugh that I could hear from across the field, and said something I thought might be congratulations, then started to walk off the field. The woman nodded and glanced around.
I wished that I had invisibility magic. I'd never really looked at it because anyone in my family would be able to smell someone's location even under invisibility, but I bet that this woman wouldn't have. I did my best to hold still and do nothing at all.
For a moment, her eyes skipped over me, and I let out a breath. Right as she started to turn toward the battle, she froze and her head whipped around. Then she was in front of me, having crossed the distance with a teleport spell. I drew on my bloodline, bursting aside from the gout of purple flame that came rushing toward me, then spun to release some of my own.
She caught it on a shield, and I spun my own to block another blow from hers, even as I twisted aside from a second, and used another shield to block a third. She raised her hand and a bolt of green light shot from it, something very similar to the force-disrupting spell that Wesley had used to dissolve my shields. It missed, just barely, but as I threw out some sand to cast glimmersands, she cut it off with disrupt casting. I counterattacked with faerie fire, but her own shields just took the brunt of the fire.
"You're an abjuration student, right?" she asked, casually peppering me with enough small balls of faerie fire that I was forced to begin summoning more shields, even as my curse sent them ever so slightly off course.
"I am," I said, thrusting the rod forward and sending a powerful jet of purple flame at her.
"Then how about a preview of something you'll learn this year? I'm good on ether to cast this four more times, so I'm locked in to win."
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She spoke a single word, flexing her wand. She had to be casting an aegis, the fourth circle omnidirectional shield spell!
Except… that wasn't right. The fire didn't spread out as if it hit the shield. I assumed that was what happened, because that's what I'd done, but it clearly wasn't.
It was more like power being wiped out by an energy barrier spell, but the faerie flame should be too low powered and inoffensive for an energy barrier to work. More than that, energy barrier slowly ate through the energy, weakening it. This simply wiped it out.
"Sphere of spell protection," the woman said, her voice smug. "One of the fourth circle spells you'll be learning. No spell below fourth circle can touch me so long as I maintain it."
She sent out a barrage of bolts, and I could feel my curse locking onto her. That was good – affinity magic wasn't stopped by the sphere, or else I'd packed enough ether into the spell to allow it to count as fourth circle, I wasn't sure which.
I conjured three more shields even as my curse and gadhar knocked things off course, but it was clear she was right – she was barely even moving, and she still would break through my defenses, while I couldn't touch her.
She was barely moving?
An idea popped into my head. It would cost a lot of ether, but the competition was very nearly over. I raised my wand, slashed it down, and muttered a quick chant even as my shields started to pop out of existence.
An instant before the flames touched me, I was swallowed by blue light. I held the spell construct as firmly as I could as I traversed through Etherius, then stepped out on the other side of the field. I grinned and waved at her, then turned and started blasting at Sandara and the man she was fighting with faerie fire.
My sudden arrival and barrage of flames was enough to catch Sandara off guard. For all her strength, she wasn't a conjuration mage, and wasn't used to teleportation. I wasn't sure if both the older students were – neither of them were using summons, after all – or if the higher level courses simply taught some form of teleportation, letting the older students adapt better.
Either way, while Sandara was caught off guard, she was still an artificer, and she'd clearly prepared for the situation. A rune on her belt flashed, and a shield sprang to life, interposing itself between us before vanishing an instant later. Sandara tossed one of her marbles at me, and I cast a pair of spells. A ray of light pulsed from my wand and struck the marble, and I saw Sandara's grin widen. There wasn't anything malicious in it – she was simply enjoying the thrill of what she thought was her victory. After all, my shields were broken, and I'd chosen to do what she saw as a failing strategy.
But last year I'd learned that layering erode matter with a suffering curse focused on causing degradation was a multiplicative effect, letting the pair of spells do far more than either one could alone.
The marble dissolved into sand in a flash, and I pulsed in with a burst of my bloodline, cracking her shield, shattering her arcane armor, and releasing some faerie fire at point blank range. She stared at me, eyes wide, but I had to keep moving.
Just as I'd suspected, the older student was already bringing bolts of faerie fire down at my position. I spun and dodged, even as my curse writhed, my gadhar barked, and I conjured more shields. I tried to run back, but the older student floated forward, the rod aloft. He was pouring pressure down on me, and my shields started to crack.
I cast new ones, but my ether was running dry. I'd grown it an immense amount with Summer's inversion, as well as Jackson's bottled explosion technique, but the student bearing down on me had two additional years of instruction. Even if he'd never learned a better technique, he had two more years of working with this one. And he wasn't some unskilled pleb.
My shield fell, and I was forced to rely only on my bloodline to dodge, but I'd been burning it throughout the competition. I'd broken through shields, used it to move, and used it to dodge.
I didn't burn through my entire bloodline, but I was tired, and I pivoted just a second too slow. The man's fire clipped my calf. In a fight to the death, I would have been able to shake it off. But in a fight to the death, I'd have launched myself at him to try and punch him, so maybe it evened out.
I walked off the field, but was grabbed by the attendant and pulled onto the stage to watch for the remaining minute as the two older students battled it out. The older man tried to overpower the woman, but she kept breaking and disrupting his spells. In the end, they didn't even finish their fight, as the timer ran down, leaving them tied for first, me in second, and Sandara in third.
"Please give a big round of applause to our winners!" the announcer said, her voice booming throughout the field, as she passed out the small medals and the box containing our reward. I took them, letting a smile spread over my face as I cracked open the box. I hadn't paid too much attention to the rewards initially, so I was actually surprised to see the ether crystal dust sitting within. I was guessing there was about five hundred silver worth of it, which would make for great ritual materials, given how many rituals used it.
I sent it into my locker and went to meet with Salem, Yushin, and Jackson, as well as Salem's parents, who had mingled well with the friend group, though there would always be some awkwardness stemming from the fact that they were Salem's parents.
We wandered around the festival for a while after, sampling some of the street foods. Yushin was particularly taken with a dumpling dish, while Salem found himself enjoying a beverage of water, blended berries, and a touch of sugar.
We watched the spell control exhibition, which was actually rather boring, despite the name. Each person participating was forced to cast a simple force disk spell, and then guide it through a series of obstacles and mental disruption spells. They increasingly grew in power and difficulty, until at last a winner was crowned. Wesley won handily, while Sandara came in second, and a third year took third, much to his chagrin.
Throughout the night, Yushin grew increasingly dour, as if she had something weighing on her, and when Salem's parents headed off to their rooms, Yushin pulled us all to the side and spoke quietly.
"My uncle has spoken to Elder Tywyll and paid her for her assistance. Tomorrow, if you all are willing, may we begin putting her plan into place?"