Bound Evil

The slick blade clattered to the stone floor, ringing out as Emily fell backward on her ass, struggling to draw in breath with only one lung. Her chest was in agony and now that the adrenal was wearing off. Her right stub protested as she collapsed onto her back breathing slowly so as not to antagonize the demon playing the banjo with her heart.

The ground was cool and she’d only just managed to get clear of the specter’s icy body before it fell.

She hadn’t heard a peep from Alex since the magic EMP, or whatever he’d done to the surrounding wards.

Craning her neck up from the ground she tried to leverage her horse voice.

“Yo, Alex you alive?”

There was a long pause and Emily had just started to worry when Alex groaned.

“Yeah but I’m still breathing, but I’m going to be sore tomorrow.”

Emily snorted, her sarcasm bouncing off the large halls.

“What the hell do you mean! I just about killed that guy on my own, what do you have to be sour over?”

“Oh yeah? Try causing a cascade failure in a control ward designed to outlast an empire.” Alex shot back.

Emily wasn’t doubting him, she was fairly certain he’d pulled off something most people would deem impossible. Especially given the time constraint he’d been under, but she wasn’t about to let him off the hook for it.

It was just another thing to add to her list of questions. Actually, this might be the perfect opportunity to get some answers from him.

Emily was still healing her wounds. The worst one was the one in her heart, but she had already mostly fixed the internal damage by the time the weapon had been so lovingly removed. The problem now came from her bridge. Emily already had an unsettling feeling spreading throughout her body and it was continuing to grow. Even now she felt feverish, and she was starting to feel less…stable.

Frowning Emily reached back to her bridge and realized it’d never closed once she canceled the spells. She frowned and tried now, but couldn’t seem to cut off the supply of source.

Emily painfully sat up and tried once more but her bridge was unable to close, something was stopping her. She then realized what she’d been feeling was her limit approaching, and the longer it went on the more faint Emily felt.

“Um, Alex. Somethings wrong…”

“What?” He sounded dazed but something in her voice must have caught his attention.

“Aaa, I can’t close my bridge”

Alex was crawling to his feet, a distressed light in his eye.

“Dammit, did you cast a spell in here? Do you have any idea how much source is in this room!? You have to close it, we can’t let you pressure equalize or you will suffer from exposure.”

Emily grunted as everything around became bathed in scales of grey, she could barely see her nose in front of her face. It had been a mistake to try and take a look at the room like is.

Emily heard Alex moving over to her quickly.

“Okay, listen to me Emily, because you don’t have much time. When you open your bridge in a place like this the high pressure will cause you to take on source at a rapid rate. This also stops your bridge from closing naturally.”

Emily got that, kind of like a submarine with one of its outer doors open. Closing the entrance became difficult because of the water rushing in.

“Alright, then what do I do?” Emily's head was spinning at this stage but she focused on him.

“You have to use your internal source to plug the gap. Move it to your bridge, and hold it there.”

Emily ground her teeth but called to the source in her bones, demanding that it go to her bridge.

Nothing, it wasn’t responding to her.

She shouted, kicked, screamed, and even asked politely, but it refused to move for anything.

Opening her eyes Emily tried to stand.

“I can’t get it to move, I need to get out of her.”

Alex’s eyes widened.

“You what, You can’t even get a small amount to move? You’ve managed to figure out everything else so far.”

Emily was already on her feet and making her way towards the door.

“I have a feeling it's any inherent property of colorless source. It won’t move for me.”

Alex's eyes widened as he looked thoughtful, but then he shook his head.

“Stop, you won’t make it, we’re too deep, even the first level would have been too much.”

Emily laughed hysterically at his words.

“I’m not staying here to die, I at least have to keep moving.”

Alex reached for her arm and grabbed onto her reminder wrist.

“Emily stop, I can help you.”

She turned and just about snarled at Alex.

“Then what the hell are you doing having me believe I’m going to die? Do it. Now!”

Alex’s face was marred with hesitation but he replaced it with determination.

“Alright. Sit down and let me see your bridge.”

Emily vaguely remembered how flustered Alex had gotten when she had even suggested showing him, but she didn’t have the luxury to care about that right now.

She sat down, crosslegged her legs, and pulled the back of her cloak aside.

Alex averted his gaze but placed his hand gingerly against her bridge.

Emily wasn't sure what he was doing but after a few seconds, she heard a curse from Alex and then shortly after she started to feel the gray source entering her body slow.

“How is there so much?” Alex asked in an astonished tone. He was talking to himself, but Emily couldn’t be bothered. The world was spinning, even the ground didn’t feel solid right now. Like she would slip through the earth and disappear at any moment.

The only thing that felt even mildly real was Alex’s hand, and the warm flow of energy coming from his hand. It felt incredible and her brain fuzzily reminded her that this was what her Companion, Jesse had offered her.

Emily's eyes widened as she felt the strength coming from Alex’s hand, anchoring her. It was then that she realized the flow of grey source had all but disappeared. There was still a trickle but it was almost non-existent.

“Okay… now just seal your bridge and whatever you do, don’t cast another spell down here.”

Emily furrowed her brow as she focused on her bridge. As it closed she felt the outside energy all but dissipate.

Sighing slowly, Emily glanced up at Alex.

“...Thanks…”

Alex’s face was flushed from exertion as he pulled his hand away and turned to the control ward.

“You’re welcome…”

If there weren't already in a tomb, Emily would have described the silence that followed as such.

Alex refused to look at her, Emily could still feel his energy moving lazily through her bones, and then dissipating into the rest of her body. When she had closed her bridge the blockage Alex had made scattered and joined with her energy, creating a warm glow as though she were bathing in the morning sun. It was welcome because of the cold that had mixed in from the specter. Though for some reason pulling directly from the Prince hadn’t carried as much cold.

While they sat in this state, neither ready to move just yet, a strange thought occurred to Emily.

“Hey, why’d you let him live?”

Alex hesitated but finally turned to look at Emily, his face mask of confusion.

“What do you mean? Who?”

Emily's mouth twitched.

“You know. Oscar? If we wanted to we could have killed him back there. Gotten rid of loose ends and all…”

Alex's face darkened when he thought of the man.

“It worked out in the end. We probably wouldn’t have made it here without his help.”

Emily snorted dryly.

“Please! We would have managed. You couldn't have known.”

Alex nodded.

“True… I needed him alive for something I couldn’t do myself.”

Emily laughed.

“You ‘needed’ him? As in past tenses? What, did he already fulfill his role?” she said jokingly.

Emily’s smile froze as she frowned. Her mind went back to the Viscount of Plague. A disease that probably only Oscar could cleanse from the group. Emily was the exception, but everyone else would need someone to expunge a powerful affliction like that.

The longer she thought over it the more it made sense, but he would have to be able to predict the future if that were the case. Emily was not a stranger to clairvoyance abilities, but they were never this accurate. Always filled with double meanings that even the bearer of the powers didn’t understand.

Alex had also denied the fact that he had a title related to future sight. Was he lying?

Emily was staring at Alex but didn’t say a word as she squinted at him.

Really inspecting him for the first time in a while.

His face was still the same as ever, if a little bit thinner than when they had first met. In the last couple of weeks, he’d lost a bit of body fat, and muscles were slowly starting to shine through. But that was not what caught her eye now, it was the stark difference she saw in his face. Emily’s mind kept jumping back to the nightmare world where she had seen his older self. He’d twice the years under his belt than he did now, but his eyes were the same. It was that more mature face that really stuck in her mind.

“Can you time travel or something?”

Alex had been watching her this whole time and when she asked him this, his eyes widened by just the smallest fraction, before he shot her a baffled look.

It was only for a second but Emily caught it.

“What are you even asking me right now?” he deflected, but Emily wasn't fooled.

“You can, can’t you?" Emily exclaimed excitement rising in her chest "How does it work, can you like go back whenever you want?”

Time travel was a gift she’d never seen, even in her old world, though if it did exist she doubted anyone would advertise the fact.

Alex lifted his arms in submission.

“Emily… I think..you.”

Alex's mask was crumbling. All the adrenaline and exhaustion of the tomb seemed to catch up to him at once and he couldn’t find the right words, but Emily wasn't listening anyway.

“Okay so maybe you can’t control it? Maybe it just happeneds” Emily scratched he chin as she tried to piece this together.

The thing was there were times when it would have been preferable to go back. Like when those assassins had arrived, or when they ran into Bruins.

Alex glanced around warily, even though they were probably the only ones on this level of the tomb, and not a soul could reach this sealed chamber at the moment.

“Emily, stop! I am not going back in time… at least not after the first jump...”

Emily stopped and locked eyes with Alex, a victorious grin spreading over her face.

“So you’re from the future?”

Alex’s face struggled for the longest time as though he were wrestling with himself, but eventually, his shoulders drooped.

His voice carried a note of defeat as he spoke.

“What do you want me to say, Emily? That I don’t know what happened? That I’ve done all this before, seen all this before, and the only difference is you? Things are changing, and I’m struggling to figure it out. The war wasn’t supposed to start for another two months. This area was meant to be a battleground, but since we arrived early, the carrion beetles hadn’t moved out of the tunnels yet to feast. Because of my mistake, they chased us down here and those people died. The traps were easy because I’ve seen them before and learned how to break them, but…”

Once Alex started talking was almost unable to stop but his voice petered out at the end. A deep sorrow overcame his features as he reminisced.

Emily found herself squinting as she stared at Alex, for the first time in a while she felt…bad. Lost? Whatever the emotion, it was unwelcome, there was just one thing she had to know.

Her face hardened and she looked at the man.

“Did you know we would encounter that Fearmonger? That thing showed me things I didn’t want to have to see again, and I’ll personally hold you responsible if you knew and never told me.”

Alex pulled himself from his thoughts and shook his head.

“No, I never encountered that title last time, but the plague bearer title was impossible to bypass. Hell, I only got back on track when we found it. When you led us down that secondary path, you changed things again. We were meant to have more people down here. But then again, I suppose fewer lives were lost this time.”

Alex spoke with a monotone voice but Emily could see he wasn’t attempting to lie at this stage.

Keeping her mouth closed, Emily ran her tongue over the front of her teeth.

“One last question. If I wasn’t here last time, and neither was Eva, what happened to you back then?

The moment Emily brought up the Blood Mages a cold light resurfaced and that same deadly expression she’d seen back in the hut returned.

"I’d have found a way out of there eventually... They kept me alive for certain reasons. In the end, I even got a title out of it. But you—you saved me from over a month of torture."

Emily wasn't so sure about that. He looked like he'd have been just fine without her assistance, but she found herself feeling... relieved?

Blood points: 158