To Fly the Soaring Tides

“Do… do you think they’re comin’ back?” I asked my fellow captain, Shores, as we shared a drink under the seventh moon since Tawny and Cira disappeared into the lake.

“O-of course they will,” He replied with a sniffle, tears in his eyes, “The Great Saint could never fall here… Not a chance… Not… not after everyone worked so hard to fix her aura!” He could no longer hold them back.

Dutchy walked up from behind and pat the man on his shoulder then looked at me, “It’s not like you to be so worried, Jimbo. I mean, it’s Paradise, right? At worst, maybe they left us all behind for a better life.”

___

We were already in a so-called pocket realm, but now we’re in a memory? If that’s true, why is Cira worried we’ll get hurt? Paradise wasn’t supposed to be like this.

The two ragged beings moved on from their first feasts and each jumped completely across the room. It seemed they only wanted the heart and aura, but flesh was fair game, so it only took them a few more seconds to bound across the rotunda to their next victims. They acted independently, of course, so both sides of the room were in a constant shifting panic.

This room was apparently built specifically for meetings like these, and everyone had a door behind them. Of course, not a single one opened, no matter how hard they pulled or how much mana they put in. Only one person in the room was relaxed.

That Queen Heritos woman looked downright overjoyed, in fact. Her smile dripped with such aimless malice it made my skin crawl. With refined motions, she stood up and put on her coat while the restrained creator one seat over watched in horror.

“K-Kreya, why are you making that face?” The man spoke through gritted teeth and his voice was garbled, “What is happening?!”

Less than a minute had passed since Cira told me to prepare to fight, and neither of us had moved a muscle. She was on guard, but honestly my aura felt greater than hers in this memory. She, for one, looked incredibly nervous. I watched her wave her hands a few times and neither staff nor water appeared.

There was a frustrated glint in her eye and she contorted both palms while mana slowly manifested into a sharp crystal. She took it in her hand, and little symbols formed on it.

“Erect a barrier,” Cira demanded, “You’re lucky to share affinities with your body, so construct a domain—"

One of the abominations leapt from across the way at Cira, and she threw her palm out in a panic. The light from her needle faded as a burst of mana pushed the abomination back. Another joined in with a frail lance of flame and seemed to draw the beast’s attention.

Sadly, that man only lasted a few seconds before his heart left his chest.

This is bad… Eating hearts is terrifying enough, but they get stronger with each aura they consume…

A deranged cackle startled me out of focus and I watched that woman only grow more amused to see the pain in his eyes. Whether the creator was her husband or some kind of king, he looked sorely betrayed and completely blindsided.

“It’s been fun, my dear, but I better get going.” She sneered, lips curled like the punchline of a joke lingered on the tip of her tongue. “Consider this a parting gift for all the time we spent together.”

With a bewitching smirk, the woman turned around and walked through the door behind her—the only one in the building that wasn’t sealed.

“Wait--” The man coughed, blood dripping from his mouth, “Come back, please!”

“Tawny!” Cira snapped me out of my stupor as a gale of wind blew past me, throwing one of the monsters a few balconies down. “Pay attention to what’s in front of you or stop eavesdropping.”

Shit. That one was much more powerful than last I looked at it, after a couple meals. These things were quickly snowballing into a far greater threat, and there’s no way Cira didn’t realize it.

“Dammit.” She cursed under her breath, trying to imbue the crystal again, beads of sweat dripping down her face. Each rune she carved seemed to reduce her aura by a noticeable margin. I couldn’t believe my master was really this weak, but in just a few seconds, she managed to manifest a domain or something. Suddenly the world around us felt quieter and somewhat slower.

“What… did you do?” I watched clawed fingers gently pierce through a gray-bearded man’s chest at a half-pace and remove a heart stained with patches of dark colors. His condition was beyond me, but my body froze again upon watching the beast swallow the heart whole at a leisurely pace—like a crisp apple.

“So, it seems space is greatly influenced by time, or vice versa. Time is hard and I don’t really get it though. Either way, halting space seems to hinder time within proximity. I can’t stop it at my level, but at the very least, I can buy us a moment to think…”

She was truly troubled, which was uncharacteristic for the dauntless sorcerer. If I had to guess, the exchanged aura was disorienting after having just regained her monumental bullshit nonsense aura.

“Think about what?!” I cried, “We’re in a memory, aren’t we? Why—how are we in danger?!”

Cira shook her head, “We are technically in a pocket realm of aethereal composition. This means only our souls have entered, and our bodies are elsewhere. While nothing here is real when looking from the outside, we currently exist within it.”

It was a ruthless slaughter of those who failed to run away or those who failed to fight back. I had never seen anything so gruesome. Meanwhile, the leader up above had gone pale. His waves of mana that made my chest tighten with a single breath were noticeably weaker and though he shouted, no more sound came out.

He was red-faced with veins bulging up his arms but for some reason, it was as if his hands could not lift from his desk.

“Do you see that? It’s like he’s being restrained somehow.” I turned to Cira, and she was waving her needle around in the air, conjuring something.

“He is being restrained. The more he struggles, the weaker he becomes. It also appears casting has been heavily restricted in this room.” I didn’t know what she saw that I didn’t, especially because she wasn’t even looking. Beneath her needle, it seemed a crystal orb had formed. She plucked it from the air and handed it to me, “That lady sure got him, but there’s no way the binding array was her own doing. More importantly, we need a barrier, but I also need you to form a spear of aether flame. Quickly.”

I could sense the concern in her voice as she hurriedly worked on another crystal ball. The doors which never opened had almost all been painted red by this point. Still, erecting a barrier and a spear? I had barely learned to conjure an uncontrolled aether flame at this point.

I have to try, though… Let’s just start with the barrier. Then… I’ll try to carve out an arrow. The orb worked just like a staff, it appeared. She may as well have handed me the scepter again. Flames flowed through it as naturally as ever—I just had to shape them.

Cira finished her own crystal ball and it glowed with mana. When she held it up, it seemed like the surrounding aether was falling into the center of the room. A light draft pulled me in, and I noticed the two creatures had their attention drawn as well. There were only a few people still alive aside from us, and they were in shock or screaming aimlessly. A pile of bodies had grown on the absconded queen’s balcony from those who thought they could escape the same way. One man was spared with claws within an inch of his neck when Cira’s formation flashed.

“We are meant to bear witness here,” Cira spoke, “But I say we go find out as much as we can.”

“Wh-what are you suggesting?”

Cira knocked on my barrier and gave a satisfied shrug, “I’m working on it, but now it’s time for you to test your mettle.” There was an unsettling sound of hoarse sniffing like a wild hog, and I noticed it was the two creatures staring at Cira. They inched their way along the balconies from either side, cautious for some reason.

Then I looked at my arrow which hadn’t gotten any bigger. Does it need to be a spear? What if I just make a brilliant arrow? That much… I think I can do.

It didn’t have a head or feathers as an arrow should, so it was more like a stake, but I still funneled mana in. For something Cira crafted in less than thirty seconds, I had to admit the crystal ball was an incredible stand in for a staff. That said, my aura still drained considerably with just this much. If I was going to have enough left over to attempt fighting anything aside from these two, I had to shoot.

Do I aim for the head? Or the heart? What the hell are these things? I started panicking and knew I’d spend too much mana if I waited any longer. Biting my lip, I let the arrow loose and missed both. It flew over the rotunda like a crimson beam and tore straight through the first monster’s sternum. Unexpectedly, the flames exploded in gluttony upon contact and the resulting blaze split its whole chest open.

Each arm up to the shoulder and down to the chest hung off to the side like a split banana and its head barely dangled by a thread. The wounds were charred black, and it was completely mangled. So why didn’t it fall…?

My blood ran cold when the monster took a single shambling step forward, now just a few balconies down from me.

The larger threat still was his friend, who was emboldened by the display, or perhaps upset. In fact, his eyes which looked larger than earlier were trained right on mine.

“Tough luck,” Cira said, “But if you break the hip, it’ll just claw its way forward. Hard to tell where its vitals are without trial and error.”

“’Will you shut up for a second?!” I was panicking, but she didn’t take offense. My second arrow was almost ready and I went for the head this time. The deformed beast paused for a second before lurching down to the ground.

Yes! I did it!

Then its arms touched the balcony’s edge and it began crawling on all fours like a blind rat.

“What?! That didn’t do it?! I-I’m almost out of mana!”

Cira shook her head. “You used way too much and just let the arrows fly away and disperse. They’re reusable, you know. That’s half the point of using aether flame—you didn’t even have to throw it. Just make a sword or something if that’s easier, but I wouldn’t want to get that close personally.”

Strange runes had appeared dancing over the rotunda, but I couldn’t look for long. I had to trust she was doing something important. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have to fight these by myself.

Won’t these flames burn me, though? I don’t have the scepter.

She seemed confident enough that it was an option, so I started conjuring the crimson fire in my palm. It was hot, sure, but once I realized it wasn’t melting my skin off, it seemed to cool down a little, as did my nerves.

I succeeded in crippling the fleshy abominations, but it only slowed them down. I had precious little time to turn this wobbling stick of flame into something resembling a blade. I stepped up onto the balcony myself to face the one I’d previously split in half. He could still see, so I took it as the biggest threat.

Unlike a swordfight on a ship’s railings, there was no wind to sway my footing from side to side. I deftly stepped toward him and lunged. Despite the fact that I had only formed a small branch at best, I sliced through the air as if it were my trusty saber. I could almost feel the wind shaping it as it passed through, then cleanly severed the monster’s head from its neck.

It fell over the bloodied seat beside us like flayed meat, but I wasn’t so foolish to think that was enough. I waited until it raised a claw to grab something and right itself, then jumped down and thrust forward. My blade’s point sharpened as it approached flesh and pierced the monster’s heart—assuming there was one.

Still, its arm didn’t drop. I felt a rustle in the wind and just narrowly dodged a clawed foot to the chest.

“What the hell kills these things?!” In a frustrated rage, I severed its legs, and the hip then took a few more slices along its body until most of it was charred flesh, or like a hastily sliced roasted carrot.

“I don’t know, but I could use a hand.” Her tone was casual, but the headless one had an outstretched claw inches from her face. I jumped back over and saw it was pinned down at the ankle by what looked like a hairpin made of light, conjured from the needle in her offhand.

“What are you even doing?” I kicked it in the base of its remaining neck just to push it back and that was the most unsettling feeling of my life. It was soft and stringy, and bounced back like rubber on the upswing. After physically recoiling, I managed to slice half its torso off, then flipped the blade back and did the same for his waist before kicking it all off the balcony. I am so glad to be done with that… “It better be important.”

“This room has been locked under similar restrictions as our good friend up there,” Cira twiddled her fingers in a sardonic wave and smiled at the ancient ruler, who had just witnessed this whole fight with a blank expression of shock. Is he the one we spoke to before or is he just a part of this memory? “I aim to break out prematurely and set eyes on the culprits. His wife seems to have been the only one to find a way out so far. If her words weren’t enough, I think she’s highly suspicious. So, we’ll go see what she’s up to or at least find out why this is all happening.”

“Is… that even possible? If that guy is still stuck to his desk, won’t he have no memory of it?” I sat back down in my chair and took a deep breath, though I dared not disperse my sword—else I would be out of mana.

“Certain memories, given they are strong enough, or backed by a powerful enough will, can resonate with the aether. So long as he at least experienced a place before or after this moment, we should be able to see what happened there now, even if he has not yet arrived. You could say locations conjured to manifest memories hold more information than mere perspective. Otherwise, the world around us now would be hazy and ill-defined like a dream.”

“Got it—sorcerous nonsense of the highest order—just kidding!” She gave me a half-hearted glare then got back to her work. I’d be lying if I said I fully understood it, but I could soak up little bits at a time. It wasn’t a total loss. “Where do you plan to go, though?”

“To the site of that distant explosion, of course, or something more interesting if it catches my eye.” Of course…

“Madam Grendola! Just what are you doing?” The ruler’s pained voice came from above, spitting up blood. Still unable to lift his hands from his desk and visibly paled from the slaughter he had to watch. “Do you know something?”

“Interesting…” She muttered, ignoring the man, “These figments can adapt quite well. I wonder if that’s the creator’s intricate spellcraft or merely the nature of manifested memories.” Only then did she look up at he who was beginning to grow irritated, “Sorry, Pal. You’ll have to sit tight for a little while.”