She aimed the mare toward the spot where she had seen Duvan fall. She needed to get to him. She needed to make sure he was all right. And more than that, she needed his help.
She just hoped there was still time to stop the ritual. If Vraith had completed her magic, perhaps it was already too late. And even if the blonde elf wizard had not finished the ritual, Slanya’s plan might not work.
She needed so many things to work exactly right. Lacking any one of them would result in failure.
Duvan might be dead. She might not be strong enough. It might be too late in any case.
As she galloped ahead in the direction where she’d seen Duvan land, Slanya put doubt out of her mind. She’d know soon enough. Everyone would know soon if she succeeded …
Or if she failed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Partially encased in ice, Duvan slammed into the ground. He felt the jolt in his skull and ribs. He heard the snap and crunch of bones breaking and frozen flesh shattering. The pain, however, seemed to be muted and far away, numbed by the cold.
The ice shattered around him, breaking away as he impacted the ground. Once, he bounced high into the air. Twice, spinning and sliding, and the bounce was lower this time. Thrice, until he finally skittered to a stop near one of the abandoned bonfires. Frozen and rigid, he skipped like a chip of crystal across the trampled grass.
As they broke free, the shards of ice peeled away the outer layer of the skin on his face and scalp. It felt like a scab being ripped away across his entire head, and he imagined huge chunks of his hair torn away in the ice.
Darkness closed in. His chest frozen, Duvan couldn’t pull in any air. He desperately needed to breathe. He was drowning in ice. Flares and sparkles flickered in the closing blackness at the edges of his vision.
“Duvan! Duvan!” Slanya’s voice came faintly to his ears.
He couldn’t answer, couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“Duvan!” Horse hooves thudded next to him, growing louder by the moment. And then Slanya was on the ground, cradling his head. Her hot touch burned his raw skin.
“You’re so cold,” she said. “Can you breathe?”
He struggled to pull in a breath. He failed.
She pressed her mouth to his. She breathed warm air into him, and it seemed like she was filling his lungs with broken glass.
But the chill in his chest melted ever so slightly and he could move again. He gasped and sucked in a breath of crystalline air on his own power.
“Good,” she said, pulling back and looking into his eyes. “Now I need you to watch over me. So don’t die; I need your protection.”
Duvan grimaced. “I can’t even protect myself,” he said.
In the field beyond the line of pilgrims burned with blue-white fire. It was a beautiful and frightening sight. The circuit was complete, Duvan saw. So bright was the fire that Duvan could hardly see the individual bodies of the pilgrims. They had become one entity. Vraith’s ritual had transformed them into a wall, a new barrier of souls.
“I think you and I can fix this whole thing together,” she said.
Duvan didn’t know what she was talking about. Feeling was trickling into his flesh, most of it burning and painful. He looked up into her face, tried to ask her what she meant, but no words would form.
Slanya’s eyes were filled with wild urgency. The thin line of her mouth was set with determination. She seemed ready to jump into the fires of chaos. In a way, she already had, he knew. By coming inside the arc, she’d risked death.
How can we stop this? he thought. We are so small.
Above him, the border veil flickered. Dark perforations formed on the oily surface, and at each hole, the fabric of the curtain weakened. The perforations spread rapidly, each one like an eruption of thousands of black ants eating away at the veil.
Soon the border would lose cohesion, and the Plague-wrought Land would claim this area. Many souls were going to be trapped inside. Stay close by me, he tried to say to Slanya, but his mouth wasn’t working.
Off to his right, Duvan caught sight of Tyrangal’s massive form, stirring as she lifted herself out of the deep furrow created by her impact. Melting ice sluiced off the sides of the huge dragon as she got to her feet and stretched her wings.
She was still alive, thank the gods.
But as Duvan watched, the veil behind and above Tyrangal went completely dark. The eldritch light from the massive curtain flickered one last time and was extinguished. The border shifted, snapping to its new location along the line of burning pilgrims.
Tyrangal, too, was trapped inside.
Duvan watched as the plagueland rushed out to fill the void, like water released from a broken levee. And then Tyrangal was lost behind the flood of blue fire.
Slanya stroked his hair as she concentrated. “I have the power to affect the spellscar abilities of others,” she said. “When we rescued you, I discovered that I can dampen them. That’s how I defeated Beaugrat. But I also learned that I can amplify others’ abilities. I’m hoping I can do that to yours.”
Duvan felt his stomach liquefy as the tide washed over them. The sounds of screaming pilgrims faded as the blue fire rushed to the next barrier. But Duvan and Slanya had their own isolated and protected bubble.
Resting in Slanya’s lap, Duvan felt his power grow. It swelled and expanded, the shell of protection increased in size, doubling at first, then tripling. Sweat beaded on Slanya’s brow as needles of pain shot through Duvan’s thawing and broken body.
By ourselves we are small. But together …
Together …
Duvan could feel Slanya tapping into his ability. She fed his power, multiplied it. Duvan felt his shell of spellplague protection expand. And he used that power, directing his protection out toward Tyrangal, toward the line of pilgrims. He fed off Slanya’s ability and extended his protection as far as it would reach.
A network of fine filaments of the palest blue glowed in Slanya’s flesh as the flood of spellplague retreated in a wide, darkening sphere around them. This sphere of protection was the size of four city blocks now, and still growing.
Duvan focused his attention on the line of pilgrims ablaze from Vraith’s ritual. The brilliant line of pilgrims dimmed then went dark as his sphere of protection grew to engulf them. Duvan watched in satisfaction as the blue fire burning through them retreated and guttered out. The wild magic extinguished.
Many of the pilgrims fell out of the line instantly, releasing hold of their neighbors’ hands and collapsing to the ground like a sack of burned bones. Others seemed to crystallize in place, standing like alabaster statues. Their skin ablated, all that remained of their flesh was the translucent blue of spellscar. From Duvan’s perspective, it seemed like the solid wall of blue fire gave way to a haphazard line of white shapes-jagged quartz teeth along the ground.
Abruptly, with the perimeter circuit broken, there came the sound of a snapping whip, only a hundred times louder. Duvan’s ears broke as the border veil crashed back to its previous location. He flinched from the thunderous impact of the sound.
In the wake of the veil shift, a multitude of spellplague pockets remained outside the curtain. Loosed from the change-lands, the blazes of blue fire burned through the charred grass. Duvan watched as these pockets of wild magic, now free of the Plaguewrought Land, created chaos as they scattered into the night.
Silence descended on Duvan and Slanya. Around them people lay scattered like crystallized corpses, some of them still partially alive. Some others seemed mostly whole physically, but wandered aimlessly, traumatized. Duvan could not see Tyrangal, and he hoped she had survived.
Above him, the lines of Slanya’s spellscar glowed blue white through her translucent flesh. Her wide, innocent eyes bulged with the growing activation of her spellscar. Blue lines traced her face, pulsing like magic along a web embedded into her flesh.