“Zephyr!” Kindle screamed. She launched off the ground, closing the gap and punching the Demon in the face, throwing him back. Zephyr crumpled to the ground next to her. She tried to catch him but they both dropped to their knees.
Terbius didn’t hesitate to strike at the Demon while he was down. Both tried to cleave at him, but his resilience and flexibility allowed him to recover and slip away with only scratches.
“Zephyr hang on! You can’t become a Fomorian!” Kindle was trying to force back tears.
“I won’t have him become a Fomorian just yet,” the Demon snickered. “I don’t sense Master’s mana anymore so perhaps he found her. I’ll settle for just a little poison, Seeing you toil over the fact Black Briar failed to do him in is much more amusing anyways!”
“C-can he really not be killed?” Gwen started to tremble, holding her injured arm.
“He is immortal,” the Demon sneered at her. “I’ve been hunting you solely for the fun of it but it isn’t fun anymore. Not with this many around,” the Demon shrugged. The Darkness began wafting off of him in mist and Terbius backed off. “I like a challenge but even this is too much. Perhaps I’ll hunt you all again some other time!”
He jumped and vanished into the trees. Before Terbius could charge after him, a pack of Shadow Wolves emerged from the trees and started swarming them.
Breyze fired her wind arrows, protecting Zephyr and Kindle from any that got past Terbius. She was glad she was able to use the wind again now that the strange mana in the air dissipated.
Kindle was desperately trying to pour as much healing mana directly into Zephyr’s wound as she applied pressure on it, but with Darkness acting as a barrier preventing it. She knew she needed to do a proper casting with a spell and a glyph to try and work around it since she couldn’t get rid of the Darkness herself.
“Can you walk? Just a bit? We need to get you inside!” Kindle hoisted Zephyr up on her shoulder as she got to her feet. It was a difficult task to not jostle him and make his wounds worse given how small she was.
“I think I can manage that much,” Zephyr strained, she could feel him shaking as he used her for support.
“Let me help!” Gwen snapped out of it and slipped under his other arm.
The three made their way inside the old leaky house Gwen was camping in with Breyze still watching their backs. They carefully set him down in the sand that nearly filled the hovel half way up to the windows.
“Will he be okay?” Breyze asked from the doorway, looking worried but trying to stay vigilant.
“I can’t die from this scratch, lil’ bit, I’ve been through worse,” Zephyr tried to laugh it off but coughed instead. “Though Darkness Poisoning is a first.”
“Please don’t strain yourself!” Kindle placed her hands over his wound again as she desperately tried to rack her brain for what the best healing arte that would help him. Kindle took a deep breath and focused. If she couldn’t think of one she already knew that would help him the best, then she would make a new one. “This might take a bit. So please, don’t move.”
She started weaving her healing fire mana and the wind mana from the air into a glyph. The greater amount of his own element in the arte the better it would help him. “Heavenly winds carry a sweet scent, a warm air weaves between the flowers,” Kindle started reciting words to keep her focused and avoid imagining the worst. “A steady guiding light fills the heart. Basking in the glow of the sun, be at ease and raise your spirits.” Once she had her glyph arranged in the air above him, she forced it down to pass through his body ready to trigger it. All it needed was a name. “Soul Mend…”
Kindle’s fingers moved as though there were strings attached to them while she tried to stitch his wounds closed with the mana she wove into the magic arte that was now coursing through his body. Her pinpoint focus and mana manipulation allowed her to work around the Darkness that had infected him. She was trying to shift the mana to force it to the surface as she closed the wounds but some Darkness persisted and shifted deeper into his body.
“Please, don’t be this reckless again!” Kindle released her control of the mana after closing his wounds. She leaned back and sighed. “Spirits can’t get rid of Darkness, but I tried to keep as much of it on the surface as I could, so maybe it will leave your body faster. It’s so unpredictable though, some made its way deeper in your body. I really hope it doesn’t get any worse because of that.”
“Thank you, I already feel much better,” Zephyr had a pained smile on his face. Kindle could tell the Darkness was still hurting him even though she closed his wounds. She looked away in a pout wishing she could do more for him.
“I’m sorry, he was after me and you ended up getting caught up in my mess,” Gwen’s shoulders slumped.
“Don’t blame yourself, kid,” Zephyr carefully sat up. “I don’t.”
“I didn’t say you should get up!” Kindle fretted. “You need to take it easy still!”
“Don’t worry,” Zephyr groaned as he tried to wave her concern away. “I know, don't use my mana and definitely do not transform even a little bit. It’s a good thing he didn’t go for my medallion. I would have been done for, had he forced it on my tether.”
“A little too close for comfort either way you shake it,” Ter stated from the doorway.
“Please don’t scare us like that again!” Bius looked relieved to see Zephyr sitting up.
“Gwen, who exactly was your target that night?” Kindle looked worried as she turned her attention back to Gwen.
“I know exactly who he is,” Zephyr looked at Gwen with an almost somber expression. “You encountered a man with half black hair and half white, correct?”
“Yeah,” Gwen nodded and held her arm and she started to tremble thinking about him.
“Where did you encounter him?” Zephyr was in no condition to go after him, but he wanted to at least know what he was doing and where.
“In Lurline, at the research facility,” Gwen glanced over at Kindle who looked shocked to hear that they were near such a dangerous man. “He was posing as the Head Researcher. I was hired to take him out. Fool’s errand it turns out.”
“Zephyr, who is this man?” Breyze opened to a specific page in her notebook and showed it to him. There was a drawing of the weapon they had destroyed and a sketch of a man with half filled in hair and jagged teeth.
“That’s him!” Gwen looked as though she’d seen a ghost when she saw the page.
“You saw him too?” Zephyr narrowed his eyes at the page. It was incredibly well drawn. Her talent was impressive but the subject made his blood boil.
“Briefly,” Breyze nodded as she looked at the drawing again. “When we were escaping he said something to Aliya I couldn’t hear, and she started crying. When we landed she seemed to forget why she was crying at all, so I didn’t bring it up.”
“That was strange, I thought it was just all her pent up frustration,” Kindle thought back to how strange Aliya was acting all through their time in the capital. “You should have mentioned it to us sooner.”
“Sorry,” Breyze smiled nervously, not wanting to be on Kindle’s bad side. “Other things happened, I forgot.”
“Aliya can’t remember him unless she’s near him,” Zephyr closed his eyes. “Sometimes she can retain those memories for a short time in a certain proximity. He placed a curse on her that sealed away certain memories, but it was altered by accident. Now she forgets him entirely. Honestly for the better, if you ask me.”
“You still haven’t told us who he is,” Kindle huffed.
“I don’t know what that bastard goes by now but history will know him best as The First Arch-Druid of The Order,” Zephyr paused and gritted his teeth. Saying his name was more painful to him than the Darkness in his body, “Jack Mystic.”
“That’s impossible!” Kindle yelled. “He was a human who died over two hundred years ago! That monster is still alive?!” Kindle was stuck in a state of disbelief.
“That Demon said he can’t be killed,” Gwen looked down at the palm of her injured arm. “I stabbed him through the throat and he just laughed as he nearly took my arm off. If I didn’t have my Giant’s Strength activated, then I would have lost it too. As is, I can barely move it.”
“I might be able to still patch you up,” Kindle stated. “I don’t know how much movement I can restore but it doesn’t hurt to try.”
“It’s not like we are going anywhere,” Zephyr placed his hand over where his wounds were. It was hard for him to ignore the pain from the Darkness. “We still need to wait for Aliya.” He was worried the Demon would try and go after her, but given how loyal he seemed to his master, he wouldn’t risk tainting Aliya with Darkness. “Listen, if that man is active again, he’s going to do whatever it takes to get Aliya in his possession. Her voice ability is incredibly important to him and he already knows her name in the Ancient Language. I need your help keeping her away from him. He’s dangerous without her, but with her, there could be a repeat of The First Order or worse.”
“What’s worse than enslaving nearly all the Spirits in the world?” Kindle grit her teeth.
“Him with ultimate control over the whole world,” Zephyr was dead serious. “He chose Spirits at the time only to get the Four Elemental Celestials to awaken early and to modify his body with Spirit anatomy.”
“Your wings!” Breyze wasn’t thinking when she exclaimed her realization and quickly covered her mouth. He had told her he couldn’t fly anymore because he didn’t have his wings anymore, and the Demon mentioned his wings. “But I thought you said you didn’t remember!”
“I didn’t lie, don’t remember it happening. I found out after. He's the one who took my wings,” Zephyr looked so defeated.
“Is it really possible for humans to graft Spirit body parts to themselves?” Gwen sounded appalled that someone would even consider that.
“Normally it’s impossible, but whatever makes him immortal also makes it a possibility for him,” Zephyr’s eyes were fixed on the sand in front of him. “He appears as a normal human but he’s a monster worse than any Demon or Fomorian.”
“That Demon made it sound like he would lose those wings if you turned into a Fomorian,” Breyze didn’t have her curious smile she always did when she learned something new. This information was heavy and bitter. While she wanted the whole story she didn’t like seeing how it was affecting Zephyr.
“If we die he’ll lose what he took from us,” Zephyr sighed. “Becoming a Fomorian means all our mana is poisoned and corrupted by Darkness leaving us as a twisted version of our true forms. I would imagine it would also mean it affects what he has of ours.”
“You keep saying ‘we,’” Kindle stood up, she was getting furious the more she heard about this man. “What did he take from Aliya?”
“I’ve said enough,” Zephyr couldn’t look anyone in the eye. He hated that he slipped up. He didn’t want to tell them without Aliya’s permission.
“What did he take?!” Kindle clenched her fist.
“Drop it!” Zephyr snapped and stood up as well. He winced at the pain hunching over slightly, grabbing his stomach. “I won’t tell you without Aliya here. I’d rather not at all if I’m being honest.” Zephyr pushed past Kindle and moved towards the doorway.
“Where are you going?! You need to rest!” Kindle’s rage was pushed down by worry seeing him hobbling towards the doorway.
“I need some time to myself to think about what to do next,” Zephyr waved her off. Terbius stood in his way, also not wanting him to strain himself. Zephyr sighed, “I’m not going far. If anything comes up, you’ll find me by the ocean.”
Terbius exchanged a look between them before looking at Kindle for a final verdict. Kindle thought about it for a moment and thought it best everyone cool off a bit and ease up on the tension. She nodded at the twins and they let Zephyr leave.
“You sure he’ll be okay?” Gwen saw how worried Kindle looked as she sat down next to her.
“That’s really up to him,” Kindle took a deep breath. She was worried about him, but she wanted to respect his wishes. She shook her head to try and get rid of the gloomy feeling. “Give me your arm!” Kindle held out her hands toward Gwen with a determined look. She couldn’t fully help Zephyr, but she was hoping she could help Gwen. “I’m no expert but I’m the best healer currently present so I’ll do what I can.”
“I…” Breyze was looking in the direction Zephyr disappeared beyond the broken structures of the city they were in. “I’m going to keep look out! Now that the weird mana is gone I can float again! That way I can let everyone know if something is up!”
“R-really, Breyze?” Pree was stunned she would take the initiative. Normally she would only do something if he suggested it or if someone asked her specifically. He realized she wasn’t writing in her notebook the whole conversation with Zephyr, even though she had it in hand.
“Of course, I want to help and this is all I can do right now,” Breyze put her notebook away and drifted out the door and floated above town.
“Is that really why you wanted to come out here?” Pree noticed the direction they were floating.
“Is it that obvious?” Breyze looked around what little semblance of streets remained.
“A bit,” Pree tilted his head. “You are changing quite a bit with these people.”
“Is that bad?” Breyze paused looking worriedly at Pree on her shoulder.
“Not at all,” Pree smiled at her. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks, M-!” Breyze stopped herself from calling him her usual nickname. The way the Demon used it made her not want to use Master anymore. “I need to think of a new name to call you. Using Master seems weird now.”
“Oh, how about Teacher?” Pree tilted his head thinking of what else she could call him, feeling the same way she did.
“But that’s Zephyr,” Breyze pouted still scanning the area for him. “He’s been teaching me all the Wind Spirit stuff. You’ve taught me a lot but not the same way he has. You’re more than that.”
“More like a friend?” Pree asked cheerfully.
“Friend?” Breyze thought about that word. “I never really got the idea of friends, but I want to help them the way I help you, and more.”
“Sounds like a friend to me,” Pree flicked his tail. “Why don’t you just call me by my name then?”
“My friend, Pree!” Breyze grinned and Pree’s heart jumped for joy. “Thank you, Pree!”