Behind him, he felt Valla hesitate as they drew close to the flat area surrounding the cave, and the respite gave him none of the comfort it should have as they landed. Oskar’s Momentum Transfer was awkward with Erik in his arms, but the brothers landed safely outside the cavemouth. Valla’s yelling became completely unhinged, and as Oskar turned to face her, there was a great rush of oily feeling Rakiyu coming their direction.

  Instead of a claw, a massive chunk of rotted looking meat covered in a sheen of that same, ghostly white magic flew at them, twisting in the air. The ethereal glow was terrifying in the pitch blackness of night. Worse, a hole opened up in the mass of putrid flesh, and to Oskar’s horror, he realized it was a mouth when a terrible wail came out of it. Oskar froze for a moment and Erik blocked the attack with a flat shield.

  The attack hit hard, splattering into chunks against it, and dripped onto the sand below with loud thumps far heavier than should have been possible. Erik grunted and fell to Oskar’s right, but a burst of Sora slowed his decent, almost costing Oskar his hold on the Resonant Ward.

  Erik’s fall was more than enough to spur Oskar back into action, even giving him a burst of anger-filled energy. Anger at himself, mostly… but he used the moment to pull a layer of Talau infused sand up in front of Erik to protect him. Instead of using Willful Infusion, he allowed Rakiyu to work into Talau on its own to strengthen the spell.

  Valla’s back arched almost completely backwards on itself with a crack, and the world went into sudden silence as all sounds disappeared.

  If not for the exhaustion, pain, and fear he felt, Oskar would have been sure he was experiencing something out of body like when he was in the satellite with Lavern, but this was clearly nothing quite so pleasant. Something primal inside Oskar panicked at the wrongness and the tingle of fear at the base of his skull ratcheted into a white noise of pain.

  Time meant nothing, and he could feel the Wayspring Magic inside him fighting for its very existence. Oskar knew if that battle was lost, everything was, so he fought back. The Seed Forge, full of power inside him, ached as his spear fell from numbed fingers, and he reached for the spear that had fallen beside him. There was a very brief stalemate and sound rushed back in as he collapsed onto the sand and his hand closed around the familiar wood of the weapon.

  Pain and some awareness came with it. Hot sand burned beneath him, and he realized both suns were now directly overhead. For reasons unknown, his True Resonance was active. The cave opening was off to his left, and dark, but the Seed Forge resonated with something inside it. Oskar couldn’t clear his thoughts enough to figure out more, though, and turned to look upward again. The Goggles adjusted after a second and he stared at the darkness of space, full of distant stars.

  The large red sun had lost a bit more of its power to the violence of the smaller sun, and now, just over half of the red sun was flaring ropes of blue fire. Oskar blinked, or meant to, at least, but when his eyes opened again, time had clearly passed—the suns had moved closer to the top of the dune and the sky was bright now that True Resonance was no longer active.

  The sun had blistered his skin, which was still raw and throbbing, yet he couldn’t sense Erik’s presence and had no idea where his spear was. In a rising panic, he rolled over, his heart pounding, to check on where he’d left Erik and stared, his eyes wide through his Goggles as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

  A tight shimmering latticework of wood encased Erik’s depressingly small form as if his brother were an acorn. Oskar lay a reddened hand on the wood and it felt cool to the touch. He also knew he could turn it back into a spear or a maul if he wished.

  But I won’t. This will protect him from the sun and, hopefully, Valla. I can’t last another day of this, and Erik is as safe as I can make him. If I can’t feel his presence inside that protective shell, maybe she can’t either… and that means that tonight might be my only chance to kill her.

  // We’ll find a way. //

  Or you’ll get some good data.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  // The only data I want is to see her dead. //

  Well, when those suns set, at least one of those is gonna happen.

  She’d seemed completely off her rocker the last time Oskar saw her, and hoped that would keep her from sending Shadow creatures after them. Oskar decided to hide his brother and pray Valla would come for him and not Erik. He’d stay near enough to react, but he felt confident she wouldn’t be able to easily hurt him while he was inside the divine weapon.

  Well, more like divine shield now.

  // A shield can absolutely be a weapon. //

  Shouldn’t you be resting?

  // Pedantry comes very naturally to me and requires little energy. I was created to share knowledge after all. //

  He was glad for the momentary distraction, but it was time to get to work if he wanted to be done before the suns fell below the dunes. The exposed left arm and side still burned from the backlash of landing the spear attack on Valla. It was noticeably worse than the sun damage, and not for the first time the past few days, wondered the hell

  ***

  An hour later, Oskar stumbled as he made his way back to the top of the dunes looking down at the mouth of the cavern, laughing a little before pushing himself back to standing. He left a waterskin with Erik in case he woke, and drank the other one dry, wishing he’d had time to get more as the burning blisters on his skin slowly healed.

  It was going to be a long night.

  The sky was darkening, and so Oskar pulled out the Light crux he’d gotten from that traitor, Benedictus to study it. He could see that following Benedictus’ instructions would have disintegrated the stone into nothingness, or at the very most, blinded him.

  Carefully, he pushed tiny threads of Sora and Talau into the crux. That seemed to have an effect, and pulling back on the weaves just short of fully activating the stone caused a soft glow to bleed out of it.

  There was a shuffling movement as something large came into view, climbing over the tall dune that surrounded the cave mouth to the north. It was an abomination of bodies, too disfigured for Oskar to even begin to figure out what it had been, but interestingly, it seemed aimless… lost. It was screaming, but after Valla’s constant noise, the sound barely registered. Oskar thought about watching it to see what it did, but nightfall was quickly approaching, and he did not want any distraction whatsoever when Valla arrived.

  Oskar wondered briefly why the creature was having so much trouble finding him but pushed the thought away unanswered. He needed to be ready to fight or defend Erik, not distracted by this hulking Shadow creature that was now slinging handfuls of sand with all three of its misshaped arms as it bellowed and walked circles in its frustrated, fruitless search.

  Approaching carefully, Oskar surrounded himself with his War aura. Eventually, the general havok the ability caused drew the creature’s attention, and it hungrily spun on him and launched itself forward. Pulling the sand up with Talau around knee high didn’t quite cause the huge thing to stumble, but it was enough for War to do some damage.

  to pull Oskar backward a few paces, and he launched a razor thin line of Sand at his enemy. With War as fully extended as it was, the ability resonated with the aura as it went through the ability, and he knew he could do more with it. Another thin line of sand flew toward the creature, and this time, Willfull Infusion and Rakiyu transformed the ability as it passed through the aura.

  The infused line of sand solidified into an edge of purple glass, and split the creature’s torso in half.

  Holy crap… I could have also added one of the Isother Concepts, Cryon or Pyron, into it too, but I’m glad I didn’t waste the energy.

  Its howling went guttural as the Shadow creature was unmade, purple motes floating off into the sky. Oskar thought about pulling them toward him on impulse to inspect them further, but thought better of it.

  The lightest tough of Sora was enough to bring him high enough into the air to see the top of the red sun just barely above the far dunes, and he knew Valla would soon appear. A quick scan told him the closest Wayspring was too far away from Erik to even attempt, and so he stood there with hands not used to being empty, trying to ignore away the thousand-headed Curiosity Hydra of questions he knew he would never get the answers to that was roaring in his head.

  The roar of questions went deathly quiet when he felt the sand all around him vibrating. A second later, he felt it himself, and he sensed more than heard the words coming from its source.

  Valla crashed into the sand to his east, but she looked even less humanoid than before. Her arms and legs were far too long, and her tail seemed to be split into uneven slices that moved independently, bleeding dark liquid into the air. Her long snout was snapping over and over in a steady beat that matched the vibration, and he realized as the sound sped up that it matched his heartbeat perfectly. But the words were the worst part. He could feel them, hear them… he knew them, and they refused to stop, looping in his brain like a siren’s call of desperation until the words themselves became meaningless and only the hunger they represented remained.

  Where is he. Where is he. Whereis he. Whereis he. Whereis he. Whereishewhereishe. Wherese. Wherezee.

  There was so much pressure. Too much pressure.

  Wharzee. Wharzee. Uhrzee. Uhrzee.