Breath of Divinity

They didn’t stop riding or slow down until the highway came into view. The ventus hurtled through the sky like an emerald meteor, and Jon, Tim and Oscar watched as down below cars of every shape and colour streaked by, narrowly avoiding intense collisions. From this angle, it really was incredible how many people came so close to having their lives utterly destroyed without even knowing it.

“So that was a Harbinger?” Jonathan asked over the roaring wind. “To be completely honest, I kind of expected something different.”

“You mean sadistic lady who shoots lightning and rides a chariot pulled by demon dogs wasn’t threatening enough for you?” Tim said.

“No no, it was sufficiently threatening. I just mean I was expecting something more… monstrous?”

“Then I guess we should be grateful, considering how much worse it could have been,” said Oscar. “Just imagine what the others are like.”

“I don’t want to imagine; looking back at it, I think I’ve reached my quota of magical abominations for the day. Titanoboa alone was more than enough nightmare fuel.”

“Titanoboa?” Tim asked.

“Oh yeah, we never told you. There was a snake the size of a train in that river back there. Almost tore us apart.”

“Almost tore me apart,” Oscar corrected, in a tone that suggested he was making polite small talk. “Just wanted to clarify that.”

“How did you get away?”

“I used my powers,” said Jonathan. “I finally figured out how to trigger it. Still gonna take some getting used to, but I think I got the gist of how it works.”

“Me too,” said Tim. “Not that there’s much to it anyway. You just… run.”

“If that was all, I don’t think you’d be face-planting so much into those poor, unsuspecting trees.” Jon clapped him on the back, his grin as wide as a cheshire cat’s. Tim’s smile flickered and died.

“Hey… what’s going on down there?” Oscar said. Both Tim and Jonathan looked down. There seemed to be some kind of commotion happening on the ground, somewhere to their right. From what they could see, a large number of cars was clustered in the area, unmoving. Their passengers all seemed to have climbed out of the vehicles and gathered up ahead, close to the edge of what looked like a huge crater.

“Accident?” Tim said.

“Or an earthquake,” Jon said. He squinted closer at the area, his brow furrowed. “Take us down.”

“What if they see us?”

“I don’t think they’re focusing on anything other than what’s in the hole. Just do it.”

Tim looked around at Oscar for reassurance, and the older boy simply smiled and gave him a thumbs up. Accepting that he was outvoted, Tim jerked the reins and steered the ventus in the direction of the source of the disturbance. As the gap between them and the cars closed, they could see that most of the people there were holding up their cellphones, taking pictures and videos.

“Are they serious?” Jonathan asked in a disgusted tone.

Tim said nothing, but he knew that they were. He had seen it many times before: people opting to record and post scenes of tragedy instead of offering any assistance, or at the very least respecting the privacy of the victims. It made him angry.

Skylar touched down in the grassy slopes just beside the highway They dismounted, instructed her to wait for them there, and began to covertly climb up onto the main road. But for all the notice anyone took of them, they could have ridden Skylar into the dead center of the action and no one would have realized.

Jon tapped a random bystander on the shoulder, who was craning his neck so hard to see over the crowd ahead he resembled an ostrich.

“What’s going on?”

“Not sure, but it looks like there was an accident. From what they’re saying, part of the bridge just collapsed.”

“Earthquake?”

The man shook his head. “Still waiting for the official confirmation, but nobody down here felt any tremors.”

Bridges collapsing due to lack of proper maintenance wasn’t exactly unheard of, Tim thought, but for it to happen on the same day they encountered a second magical creature and a Harbinger did not seem coincidental.

“Come on.” Oscar tapped both of them and gestured them forward. They began to weave their way through the throng, though it certainly wasn’t easy with all the bystanders and clustered vehicles. Twice they nearly got into an altercation by bumping into civilians, but at last, after nearly ten minutes, they managed to reach the edge of the chasm. Police officers and paramedics were already on the scene, trying to clear the civilians away from the wreckage. They moved ahead as far as they could go, then looked down.

Tim felt his heart sink into his stomach. Several cars were trapped, wrecked, in the gorge. Paramedics were suspended on wires trying to extricate the victims. Some were unmistakably dead, others covered in blood and screaming in agony. The rest were being assessed, then placed onto gurneys and airlifted out.

“Oh my God,” Jonathan said.

“Awful, isn’t it,” said Oscar, his expression somber.

“No — look!” He pointed to the very center of the pit, where they could see two paramedics struggling to lift a man from the front seat of a mildly familiar vehicle. Tim squinted, peering into the depths. A spasm of shock ran through him. He recognized that man!

“It’s Mr. Gibson! And — look, there’s Mrs. Gibson too!”

“And Haley,” Jon said quietly. They could see her struggling against the paramedic trying to examine her, desperately reaching for her parents.

“We have to get her out of there,” Jon said urgently.

“But they’re probably about to start treating her.”

He shook his head. “Haley probably hasn’t started healing yet because she’s wearing the bangle. But it’s bound to kick in eventually. What do you think the doctors are going to say when she turns up in the room completely unscathed? Besides, if dog lady back there was able to track you while you were running, what if she finds Haley the same way she finds us? She wouldn’t stand a chance, not like this.”

“So what do we do?”

“We have to cause a diversion somehow.”

“I can create an illusion,” Oscar suggested. “Then when everyone is distracted, you speed her out of there,” he added, looking at Tim.

“I already said I don’t think I can actually run with another person. It’s hard enough when it’s just me.”

“Well you definitely won’t be able to with that attitude,” Oscar said, giving him a disapproving look. “It’s not for long, just until you get back to Skylar, and then we’ll catch up with you.”

Tim took a deep breath. He didn’t believe this plan was going to work, but at the same time realized there was no point in arguing. All he could do was wait, then either the plan would work or it would fail catastrophically. No in-between.

Several minutes passed and finally, they watched as Haley and her parents were airlifted out. Almost immediately after being withdrawn from the pit Haley spotted them. Her eyes went wide and she made a beeline straight for them, but the paramedics held her back. Jon nodded to his brothers, then Oscar snapped his fingers. At once, an image of a limping girl drenched in blood materialized in the midst of the scene, clutching at a wound at her side. She careened towards the paramedics, but each time they tried to take hold of her she pulled away and flapped her arms violently. With the attention of the onlookers on the illusion, Tim charged off.

He felt the energy from earlier flooding through his body once more: the speed was like an actual physical force, pumping through his veins with every beat of his heart, energizing him. The ground actually cracked beneath his feet as he leapt off, and he grabbed Haley by the arm and rushed off, across the pit and down the other side of the road.

Tim could hear her yelling in alarm beside him, clinging desperately to him as her legs scrambled over the ground at a speed that did not belong to her.

He raced along the grassy plains beside the highway, leaving a trail of blackened, burned grass behind them. Then finally spotting the snoozing ventus, he came to a halt. Haley let out a shriek, followed by a succession of short, sharp gasps as Tim’s hands clamped her shoulders, trying to steady her.

“Are you okay?”

She took a minute to get settled. Eventually her breathing eased and her eyes focused on him, large and terrified.

“Is it like that every time you run?”

“Pretty much. It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“So weird. Do you ever get used to it.”

“Not really,” Tim said honestly.

She stood upright, looking around. “Why did you bring me out here? My parents —”

“We had to get you out. Eventually you would have started healing and it could have exposed you. I’m sorry about your parents though. What happened back there? Was it another monster attack?”

She hesitated. Her eyes filled with tears and she whispered, “It was me. I did it.”

“What do you mean? How?”

“My parents. I — I thought they wanted to help, but they only agreed to come with us so they could use it as a distraction to run off. I got angry at them, and then this horrible earthquake hit. It destroyed the road, and all those people who were on the road with us, my parents — I hurt them, all of them. Some of them… some of them died.”

Tim opened his mouth to speak but found no words would come out. In a moment like this he knew he should have tried to comfort her, to assure her that it wasn’t her fault, but somehow that felt disingenuous to say.

“You didn’t mean to,” he said. “It was an accident.”

“Accidents happen when you break some china, or bump into someone when you’re walking. I ruined their lives. How can you say that was an accident?”

Tears were now pouring down her face in earnest.

“I’m sorry, Haley. I’m really —”

He broke off as she flung herself forward and hugged him, like a child clinging to their parents He tried to return the hug, awkwardly patting her on the head as she broke down completely. They stayed like that for a few minutes as she cried, then split apart at the sound of approaching footsteps. It was Jon and Oscar.

Haley quickly tried to wipe her tears away, but remnants of the evidence remained. Luckily, demonstrating a level of tact he didn’t know they possessed, neither of them made any reference to it.

“Your parents were taken in the ambulance,” said Jonathan. “I asked the paramedic, they’re stable for now and they’re heading to a place called White Willow Medical Center. It’s not too far from here.”

Haley nodded.

“Do you want to —”

“No. No. I just want to go home,” she said, her voice cracking. “To the mansion I mean.”

“Yeah. Of course. Let’s go,” Tim said.

“I texted my dad too,” Jon added. “They’re going to catch a bus and meet us there.”

“Saddle up then,” said Oscar, gesturing at Skylar.

No one spoke on the way to the mansion. Haley had stopped crying, but in place of her tears she now wore a blank, expressionless look that worried Tim far more. They found the Medinas and the Combses at the mansion, but the others didn’t arrive until almost two hours after Skylar touched down in the front yard. It was an extremely agitating wait, but they passed the time by filling in the other families about what had transpired. There was a slight hesitation when it came to mentioning that they encountered one of the Harbingers, but they finally went over the topic of Erymithia. The Combses looked horrified at the news, but the Medinas looked as dreamy and unconcerned as ever.

At last they heard footsteps in the front yard, then the door opened and in filed Lauren, Sytris, Mr. Whitmore and Tim’s parents. Ignoring the stares of everyone else in the room, Tim ran to greet his parents and embraced them in a firm hug.

“You did great, Tim,” said his father, gripping his shoulder. “I knew you could do it. I — we’re proud of you.”

“As am I, Lord Lenos,” Sytris said. “I knew you could do it.”

Tim tried to look modest, but could not suppress the grin that curved its way across his face. Lauren stepped forward. For a moment he thought maybe she was going to congratulate him too, but then she said, “Where are Mr. and Mrs. Gibson?”

The warm glow that had briefly flared inside Tim died instantly. Everyone looked around at Haley, who looked away. Silence spiraled horribly. Eventually Jonathan spoke instead.

“There was an accident. Non-monster related,” he added quickly, seeing the worried looks on their faces. “They were taken to a hospital nearby.”

“Oh Haley, I’m sorry,” said Mr. Combs. “Are you doing —”

“I’m doing fine. Can we talk about something else please?”

Perhaps she had meant it to sound snappish, but her voice only issued weak and hoarse.

“Of — of course.”

There was another, very brief pause, which Sytris broke. He looked around at Jon and Oscar and said, “So, I sincerely hope that for all this trouble, your excursion was worth it. Are you going to tell us whatever it was for?”

“It was my fault,” Jon said, as Oscar opened his mouth to speak. “I asked Oscar for help earlier, when I saw that I wasn’t making much progress in training. He told me about a different method and we left to try it.”

“And were you successful?”

“Yeah, actually. We were attacked by another magical creature but I managed to handle it. Well, we both did.” He gestured at Oscar too. “I think I’ve got the basics of my abilities down now.”

Mr. Whitmore, who looked furious, seemed to be fighting the urge to smile. “Well, I’m still not happy that you left without telling anybody, but at the very least you boys came out fine.”

“Not entirely,” Tim said. He knew that the conversation would steer towards this topic eventually, but he still cast a nervous look at his brothers before he spoke. “We met one of them today: a Harbinger.”

The atmosphere of the room changed so suddenly and so dramatically it was almost astonishing.

“You did?” said Mr. Bryant, in a tone Tim had never heard him use before.

“Her name was Erymthia,” Jon said. “Weird silver hair, even weirder dogs that looked like they were ripped straight from a horror movie. Tried to kill us, we got away, no biggie.”

“No biggie?” said Mr. Whitmore loudly. “Jonny, you realize that this was the whole reason you were brought here right? The whole reason you were separated in the first place? To protect you from these people? To give you time to get ready to fight them, in case you needed to? Your whole jaunt into town completely rendered the last twelve years of sacrifice and preparation useless!”

Judging by Jonathan’s reaction, Mr. Whitmore wasn’t usually the type of parent to get this angry.

“I know, I’m sorry Dad.”

It was the first time Tim had ever seen Jonathan so meek. Usually he would have rebutted with some kind of sarcasm, or witty snark. Even Mr. Whitmore seemed taken aback by the response. His angry demeanour faded away.

“I don’t need you to be sorry, I need you to be safe. You can’t go doing things like this again. The fact is for the last twelve years we’ve been operating under the belief that maybe they didn’t know you were out there. That by concealing your magical sides you could effectively be invisible to them. That advantage — if we ever had it — is gone now. We’re going to have to be a lot more careful now.”

“But that only solves part of the problem,” Sytris said. “The other part, as we all know, is that even if you remain here and keep a low profile, there is still a strong risk posed to you: yourselves. Until you are in total control of your abilities, you can very much be a danger to yourselves and each other. Lady Iduna, for example.” All eyes turned to Haley, who looked up in surprise. “Non-monster related incident, was it? What really happened?”

She glared at him through red eyes, her expression furious. But then, just as it had with Mr. Whitmore, her anger evaporated.

“I did it. Are you happy now? It was me.”

Sytris certainly didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked as detached as he usually did, but Haley continued speaking anyway.

“I didn’t mean to, but… I caused the accident. It was my fault.” Her words broke off into a small gasp, and tears started working their way down her face once more.

“I’m sorry, Lady Iduna. I truly am. But this is something that can happen to all of you, and only a select few of us in this household can actually heal.”

“What are you saying?” Mr. Whitmore asked, eyebrows knitted.

“I’m saying that for the time being, until they are more versed in exercising control over what they can do, the rest of you would be safer elsewhere.”

“You want us to leave?” Mr. Combs asked, while several of the other parents let out noises of incredulity.

“Absolutely not,” said Mr. Whitmore at once. “How could you even think to ask —”

“I was simply advising you of the danger,” Sytris said calmly. “If you choose to stay, that is entirely up to you. But remember that whatever happens, is also on you. For the meantime, you can all get some rest. It’s been a very challenging day.” With that he turned and strode out of the room, leaving a tense silence behind.