The Raven Collection

Ahead of her, Ephy had stopped at a set of doors and was speaking to a Guild elf, Cleress couldn’t make out who. She saw him nod, bow slightly and hurry back up the passage towards her.

‘Ephy!’ called Cleress. Ephemere turned, her face grey and anxious.

‘Let Aronaar help you,’ she replied. She opened a door but the wind snapped it shut, the dull bang reverberating along the corridor. Ephemere frowned.

Aronaar trotted up to her, deep green eyes tight with recent sleep, shirt and trousers hurriedly put on. He was barefoot.

‘Thank you,’ said Cleress, leaning gratefully into him, taking the weight from her stiff and painful right knee.

‘You set the pace, my Lady,’ said Aronaar, inclining his head slightly.

‘Then we’d better make it quick.’ They started towards Ephemere. ‘We’re following you, Ephy. Is she in bed still?’

Ephemere had dragged the door back open and braced it with a foot. She nodded.

‘Sitting up but still asleep, Ana says. This could be trouble. She’s in danger of becoming uncontained.’

Cleress felt fear shift through her, tensing tired muscles and catching her breath.

‘Faster, Aronaar. Much faster.’

It was the flow of the mana they had to assess. The depth of any flaring and the vortices it produced. Without that knowledge, they could do Lya

Outside, the orchard was largely still, but every window overlooking it had smashed outwards, leaving jagged spears of glass and warped frames swinging on the wind that gusted strong into their faces.

Above it, Lya

For days now, the four elderly Al-Drechar had kept unflinching vigil over Lya

Only now would the Al-Drechar find out whether their terribly short time of teaching had given Lya

The Al-Drechar did everything they could, though in truth it wasn’t much. They kept her exercised and fed during the moments she was awake and shielded her from the excesses of mana strength while she lay semi-conscious. But so much of the battle was within her undeveloped psyche and they were helpless to aid her there.

The lucid periods were shortening dramatically and, more and more, Lya

A keening cry split the whistling of the wind and with it, a jolt in Cleress’ brain as Aviana’s tenuous grip on Lya

‘Hurry, please,’ came the exhausted thought. ‘She’s breaking me.’

‘Almost with you,’ pulsed Ephemere. ‘Be calm, Ana.’

Aronaar reached out with his free hand and pushed open Lya

Lya

In a chair near the bed slumped Aviana, her face white in the gloom and drooping to her chest. Her arms were gripping the sides of the chair and her legs were tucked hard under it. She was shivering, her eyes restless as they searched the mana spectrum.

Immediately, Cleress and Ephemere attuned their eyes to the spectrum, revealing the full enormity of what they had sensed on walking in.

Rippling and shimmering, unstable but holding, Aviana’s mindmana shield played like a hood around Lya

And what the Dordovans had done was there for them all to see. Dominating the gentle brown that gave them cause for hope, indicating as it did her Drechar capabilities, was the poisonous orange of the Dordovan College. Here was where the fight would take place.

Looking deeper, Cleress could see striations of deep green, pale yellow and dark, dark blue assimilated in the streams. Much of it appeared calm but at the centre of the helical structure was the pulsing orange that signified Dordovan Awakening.

Like a lunging animal, no, a snake preparing to strike, the rogue Dordovan mana bunched and coiled before expanding explosively, ripping the gently modulating brown as it did so; and punching outwards as flares or, intriguingly and worryingly, part-constructs.

Aviana, with minute adjustments to her shield, accommodated her instant decisions, letting the flares and stronger constructs escape or, if she could, containing them, allowing them to disperse harmlessly away from Lya

Cleress’ pulse quickened. It was an onslaught, unintentional and quite without malice, but one under which Aviana, even Aviana, was begi

‘Cleress, apply yourself to the shield,’ said Ephemere. ‘I need to calm the i

‘Be careful,’ urged Cleress, already plucking at Aviana’s mana strands to knit together the shield and provide a fresh and safer outlet for the flare. ‘She’s attempting to cast.’

‘She’s trying to contact Erie

Through the jolt she felt and the concentration she partitioned to help Ana, Cleress had enough about her to be irritated she hadn’t spotted it straight away.

‘Of course,’ she muttered. Though Lya

It was lucky she had no hope of success. The base power of her casting occasionally reached dangerous peaks which would have slammed into Erie

‘Aviana, let go if you need to,’ said Cleress. Despite her tiredness, she felt able to sustain the shield while Ephemere cut off the source of the flares.

‘I’m all right. I’ll just pull back a little,’ she said. ‘Ephy, you’ll have to talk her down quickly. The Gods only know what this is doing outside.’