The Ten Guardians: Sacrifice©

Chapter Seventeen: Back to the Shadow

Izreea landed within the shadow, her glowing scythes falling next to her. She saw black spots after landing on her head and struggled to catch her breath. After a moment, her vision cleared, and she sat up to look around. Myrum was pounding on a tangible wall of shadow where she had last seen her grandmother cutting down a revenant before the portal closed. The wall of shadow was sectioned like a grid of interlocking hexagons that flared each time Myrum’s closed fist slammed into it, her axe in her other hand. There were dozens of flares along the wall to their left and right, some stronger than others.

“That pounding is revenants trying to get into the shadow to follow us. Jaya must have blocked them from reaching us somehow. We need to move now,” Jonathan said hastily from the shoulder of his stooped brother.

Myrum roared angrily and turned, swinging her massive axe in one hand in a wide overhand stroke, bringing it crashing down in Jonathan’s direction.

Colson stepped in between Jareth and Myrum’s axe. He made no move to defend himself, and the axe stopped an inch from Colson’s forehead, the strain to stop its swing evident on Myrum’s face. Myrum stood there with the axe in the air, anger plastering her kanidian face as she foamed from a wide snarling mouth. She straightened her back, dropped her axe to the ground, covered her eyes with her hands, and collapsed. Colson met her halfway to the ground, cradling his much larger surrogate daughter in his arms as she cried.

Jonathan squawked and took to the air as Izreea slammed into her husband, her arms wrapping around his stooped shoulders in a massive embrace. Jareth was so exhausted that her embrace almost knocked him on his back, but he quietly wrapped his arms around his wife and breathed her in, smelling her hair. They were both very aware of Myrum’s mourning taking place a pace away from them and considerately kept their reunion brief before turning hand in hand to assess their situation.

The pounding on the wall of shadow was lessening now. The group knew that if Jaya was still alive, she was either cutting their pursuers down, or they were focusing on her now instead of chasing them.

Myrum and Colson were returning to their feet, neither having said a word. Colson smiled at her as he affectionately squeezed her arm before inspecting Drock for injuries. Jonathan landed on his shoulder to help inspect the vestment and to distance himself from Myrum.

Myrum started salvaging what she wanted from Jaya’s pack, including the heavy water she would now carry and left the bag for Jareth to wear. Then she started counting her remaining arrows before she bundled her weapons for travel. She was moving quickly as if she could not escape the pounding wall of shaped shadow fast enough.

As the others took care of these tasks, Izreea took the time to explain to Jareth how the shadow realm worked; how they needed to focus their thoughts on their destination as a group. When she was finished, she did her best to clear his pain and fatigue with her healing arts, although the crooked ribs would have to wait.

Izreea could see her glowing scythes on the ground and went to retrieve them as Jareth approached Colson, Jonathan, and Drock. The fact that the runes on the side of the weapons maintained their glow without her touching them was an oddity, and she could still feel the immense power emanating from them, even though she was no longer channeling energy into them.

As she stared at the weapons, she heard a voice speak to her in a whisper.

“My gift to you, daughter, may they serve you well.” The voice was feminine and sounded pure and clean, as fresh as the morning sun shining through the salty sea.

Izreea looked around at the others in her party to see if they had heard the voice, but it was obvious that the message had been for her and her alone. She looked at the weapons one last time, astonished at the magnitude of such a gift and completely at a loss as to whom the gift was from.

The pounding on the barrier to her side broke through her thoughts, so she holstered her newly enhanced weapons and turned to find the group waiting for her. Jareth rubbed his crooked ribs with a grimace on his face, and his brother perched on his shoulder. Myrum was holding the coin bag with the ethereal rope attached to a once again transparent Drock, and Colson stood supportively at her side.

There was another moment of silence as they continued to stare at her, and it eventually dawned on Izreea that they were looking to her for what to do next. As an ambassador to a powerful city, Izreea had become accustomed to reading people, especially involving leadership and authority.

Colson preferred to lead from behind, stepping in to correct and guide when needed, leaving him with some freedom to focus on other things. His submission was not surprising. Myrum was in an emotionally vulnerable position, and she knew it, especially after what had recently happened with Jonathan. She was intentionally stepping aside. Jonathan was too selfish and secretive to have anyone trust him enough to lead a group of people. Jareth, however, was an intelligent, moral, natural leader, and people trusted him. He typically would have been the one to take charge of a group such as this, but he was exhausted, injured, and completely out of his element.

Izreea picked up her bag that was still next to the glowing red stone on the ground and placed it on her shoulders. She then stooped down to grab the red stone, intending to give it to Myrum, since it belonged to her grandmother.

“Leave it,” Myrum said softly.

Izreea straightened and looked at Myrum in surprise.

“It is fitting that it should remain in this place,” the kanidian said softly.

Izreea gave her a sympathetic smile and a short nod. She then walked to her husband’s side, took his hand in hers, reminded the group to focus on reaching Sparrow, and led the group into the darkness away from the pounding wall.

As they left the tangible wall behind them, Izreea noticed that the narrow corridor feeling had vanished, again replaced by the perception of endless nothingness. The only difference this time was the glow of the scythes at her hips. The darkness seemed to part for her as if the runes on the weapons were cutting into the darkness as they walked, creating a path for them. Izreea knew it did not matter which direction they traveled in to reach the boy, but she did have a feeling that once established, points did have a distance to them within this realm and this realm alone.

She knew that the portal to their attic, if it was still open, was to their east, that Jaya’s wall was to their south, and that she could walk in those directions and eventually reach those points, even if she was not seeking them.

Therein lay the conundrum. If she wanted to walk east to test her theory, then could she truly say she desired to reach Sparrow … or was it to reach the gateway? Is it possible to have two destinations in mind and hope they line up in this realm, even if they are in opposite directions in the world of sunlight? Izreea suddenly wished that Jaya was still with them so she could ask these questions, but she bit her tongue and kept her thoughts to herself. Then Izreea remembered something, and with a gasp, she grabbed Jareth’s arm in alarm.

“Jareth, where are the horses!?” she asked earnestly.

Jareth was so surprised that he was momentarily speechless but recovered quickly.

“Myrum advised me that the warlocks would catch up to me no matter how fast I traveled, so I decided to pick my battleground instead of running. I kept the important supplies and enough food until you all arrived and turned the horses loose, hoping they would remember the way home,” Jareth replied.

“Did the packhorse go with them?” Izreea asked a little too calmly.

“Actually, that was the strange part. The other horses left much faster than I thought they would leave, not stopping to graze or anything, and the packhorse followed me at a distance for a few hours. Then when my barrier wards were triggered by the warlock and her minions, the pack horse seemed to disappear. I assumed it ran off because of the revenants,” he explained.

Izreea’s brow furrowed as she thought deeply about what to do, whether or not they should use the shadow to find the druid before they sought the boy, but in the end, she decided they should stay their course.

“Why do you keep asking about the pack horse?” Jareth asked with an unintentional bite that he immediately regretted. “I’m sorry Izzy, I’m just tired,” he said, rubbing his side as they walked.

Izreea took one of his hands in one of hers and gave it a firm squeeze as they walked to let him know she understood.

“Well, to be upfront about it, I believe that our real pack horse is still in the stables and was replaced by a druid, which Jonathan and I met the day you and Sparrow left Dule Van,” she said calmly.

Jareth was indeed tired and seemed to take the news without surprise. He replied monotonously while pausing to catch his breath every few words.

“Well, that explains … a few things. I’m fairly certain that horse, or druid, or whatever, saved mine … and Sparrow’s lives by spotting that spectral drake before it could pounce … on one of us. The revenants … also took much longer to find me than … I thought they would. I bet … he had something … to do with that as well.”

Izreea knew he was in pain and tired, but his labored breathing seemed worse than it should be.

“It is good to hear that he was helpful, at least. His first impression of us was not the most conducive to a trusting relationship, and I had yet to decide if he was an ally. However, he could still be helpful while maintaining his own agenda. I suppose we will have to wait and see,” Izreea said.

Izreea noticed that Jareth was only half paying attention to her and was walking with his left hand over the crooked ribs on the right side of his body, and he was starting to make a wheezing sound when he breathed.

She stopped walking, grabbed his arm to stop him, and turned him to face her. The rest of the group halted behind them as Izreea entered the wick. She was about to ask for the power to scan his body for injury, but she remembered what had happened with the portal, and instead, she asked permission to help her husband.

The familiar warmth she felt before spread throughout her body, and she felt impressed to use the scythes. These weapons had always been used to destroy, so that was a surprise to her, but she had faith in whatever force was helping them through this dark world. Izreea lifted the scythes from her hips, and her husband barely reacted. He seemed so preoccupied with standing and breathing that he did not react to Izreea pulling weapons from her belt.

Izreea felt herself connect to the weapons, and she turned them around so the harmless outer curve of the scythes faced Jareth and placed them on his shoulders. She connected herself to her husband’s body so she could feel what he felt, but in a much deeper sense, almost as if she could see a picture of his body in her mind.

She could feel his badly bent and broken ribs that had been crudely healed with a mix of scar tissue and cartilage while they were still out of place. She realized that was probably the best Jonathan could do, but it made her cringe with how crude the healing had been. She could feel the ribs pressing into Jareth’s right lung, restricting his air supply. She could feel one rib in particular that had punctured his lung from the impact. Jonathan’s healing had sealed the hole around the rib so it did not leak into his chest cavity, but its sharp point was digging into him with every breath, and it was very painful.

“Hold him,” she firmly commanded the others while concentrating on what she needed to do.

Colson took the coin purse with the ethereal rope from Myrum so the stronger kanidian could do what was needed. Myrum wrapped her long muscular arms around Jareth’s entire upper body, including Jaya’s pack, which he was still wearing. While being careful not to squeeze him or get in the way of the scythes on his shoulders, she nodded that she was ready.

The exertion of the last two days, combined with the lack of oxygen, had caught up to Jareth, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he collapsed into Myrum’s arms. Izreea had been preparing to put him to sleep anyways.

She wasted no time in starting. Even with her eyes closed, she could see his bones, organs, and muscle tissue in her mind. She first needed to carve away the scar tissue and cartilage from the broken ribs, then set the bones correctly, and heal the bones and the hole in his lungs correctly.  She was going to carve the tissue away with a fine thread of magic hot enough to vaporize flesh, but when she thought about doing this, she had an impulse to try something else.

She opened her eyes and stared at the glowing runes of the scythes before her, and understanding dawned on her. She channeled energy through the scythes into Jareth’s body before closing her eyes to see the inside of his body again. She was connected to his body now, and she used the scythes to command his body to heal itself with the energy she was channeling into it.

Immediately the scar tissue and cartilage began to soften and relax, dissipating as the body absorbed the tissue. Then tendons of magical energy shot from the scythes into Jareth’s body, setting the bones in their proper place as the body quickly healed them as if they had never been broken. The hole in his lung was gone by the time the bones were set, and he was healed in just a few moments.

Izreea opened her eyes and pulled the scythes away from Jareth’s body to signify that she was finished. Jareth had not moved the entire time and did not indicate that the process hurt in any way. Myrum placed Jareth gently on the ground, then returned to Colson’s side without a word, taking the coin bag back.

Izreea stood over her husband’s sleeping form while staring at the weapons in her hands … realizing they were no longer just weapons. They were tools now, instruments in channeling energy, healing, as well as vanquishing the darkness. They were stronger than any enchantment she had ever seen, and she was humbled that they had been entrusted to her.

Jareth let out an ear-splitting, clenched-jaw scream of a yawn as he woke up, causing more than one of the other adventurers to jump in alarm. Izreea hated when he did that. He stood up with a completely refreshed countenance and fiercely hugged his wife, lifting her into the air.

“Thank you, Izzy! I feel like I slept for two days straight,” he said loudly before putting her down with a broad smile. She smiled back, holstered her scythes, and with Izreea and Jonathan walking hand in hand, the group began walking into the darkness again.

“Izreea … do you have any explanation to offer about your scythes?” Jonathan asked cautiously from Colson’s shoulder behind them.

“I have none, only that it is not of my doing. We should focus on reaching Sparrow,” Izreea said with a firm voice.

Izreea knew that Jonathan was a researcher, and before the accident that transformed him into a bird, the existence of these scythes would have simply warranted his curiosity. She would have welcomed his learned perspective as she had many questions herself. However, she knew that now he was only looking for new sources of magic or artifacts that could help him find his human body or turn himself into a human, no matter the cost. She was certainly willing to help him, but she would not allow him to misuse this precious gift.

Jonathan did not respond to Izreea, and the group resumed walking in silence for some time, with the darkness parting before the glow of the runes on Izreea’s scythes. Their silent march was uneventful as they continued into the darkness. The normally quizzical Jareth seemed to sense the foreboding mood of his companions and subdued his desire to ask questions about their surroundings, so instead, he focused on reaching Sparrow.

Eventually, Myrum spoke.

“I see a light in the distance. It could be a doorway.”

Her eyes were sharper than the other group members so no one else could see the light yet.

“Jaya did say that a doorway was possible, and she showed us what to do if a doorway is not there, so in either situation, we are covered,” Jonathan said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Everyone knew that Jonathan was correct, so a response did not seem necessary, and the group continued. Eventually, everyone could see the light, which blazed brightly as if it was an inviting beacon urging them forward.

The group drew close enough to see into the doorway that created the light, close enough to start to make out some details of where the opening led. They could see a meadow of flowers and tall grass with a mountain far in the distance, and a river running through the center of the meadow, providing water for the flowers around it. The sun was setting in the distance, casting warm red shadows over the meadow while providing enough light to shine brightly into the doorway. An enticing scent came from the doorway, most likely from a flower of some kind, which seemed to create a longing for them to smell the flower up close.

One by one, the group came to a halt a mere ten paces from the doorway, all desiring to enter the doorway, but all of them except Jareth were held back by something that was bothering them. Izreea caught Jareth’s arm as he walked towards the doorway, holding him back without a word as she studied the scene before her.

 Several moments went by before someone spoke.

“I know time moves differently here, but shouldn’t the sun be rising, not setting?” Colson asked.

“Yes, and I cannot smell any other flowers from the meadow, just the one clouding my head,” Myrum said.

“Well, come to think of it, I know there is no river in the meadow Sparrow is at,” Jareth said with some confusion.

“There is also no shadow from this angle to create a doorway since the sun is shining directly at us,” Izreea said.

Then the rope holding Drock went taught in Myrum’s hand, which brought all of their thoughts to looking at Drock. Thinking of him brought him into focus, and the group found him a pace from the doorway to the meadow, obviously being attracted to a strong source of magic.

A massive spike holding all of the colors of the scenery before them shot out of the doorway and thudded into Drock’s chest. The group froze in astonishment, and the colors of the meadow and sky sticking like a pole out of Drock’s chest faded away until it revealed the brown spiked stinger of a mimic protruding from his chest. The rest of the glowing scenery faded to nothing, revealing the mimic’s body which had created the alluring illusion as it pulled its spike out of Drock’s chest, letting him fall to the ground.

“What is that?!” Jareth shouted alarmingly, the only person in the party who had not been told about mimics.

The mimic was about half the size of a man and covered in thick brown animal fur. Its tail was twice as long as its body, with a stinger on the end, hovering in the air, ready to strike again. Jaya had never mentioned if the tail was poisonous, but they could see that it was more than long enough to kill. It had a hairy, humanoid face, massive red eyes, and sharp predatory teeth.

The group only had a moment to take in the beast’s body before it hunched down on all fours in the hovering darkness around them and disappeared. It did not glow as the travelers did, and it hid perfectly in the fog around its brightly lit prey.

Colson held his sword as if it had never been sheathed from the last time he used it.

Myrum knew her bow and axe would be useless in the hovering darkness, so she crouched in the shadow, ready to use her strength and teeth to defend herself.

Jareth cast a spell over himself to hopefully protect him from the creature’s spike and then prepared a fireball for when he could see the creature next.

Izreea lifted her scythes out of their holsters and cast a spell above them, creating a massive ball of light illuminating the area. The light from the floating ball seemed to cut off the moment it touched the haze of darkness that hovered eternally at their waist, but above that haze, the air seemed to be lighter.

Jonathan had taken to the air just below the floating ball of light to provide surveillance and had created a fractured image of himself centered on his body. As he flew around in the air scanning the darkness, a half dozen mirror images of him also circled the sky. They each mimicked his every move but in different random directions. It was impossible to tell which one was the real Jonathan.

There were several long moments where everyone in the group held their breath, scanning the shadow around them for the mimic, but nothing happened. A few moments later, Myrum spoke.

“It is waiting for us to leave Drock’s body and move on so it does not have to fight all of us for its meal,” she said calmly, as if this was an everyday occurrence for her.

In the darkness, all around them, they heard echoing laughter. The beast was intelligent enough to understand what Myrum had said.

“Drock was not technically alive, to begin with, so I doubt he is dead, but cover me while I check,” Izreea said in a barely audible whisper, hoping the mimic was not close enough to hear her.

Izreea moved to Drock’s body as the group rotated around her in a wide arch, keeping a perimeter around her. The glow from her scythes pushed the darkness away so she could easily see Drock on the ground, even in his ethereal state. She entered the wick and asked for the ability to help Drock before placing the scythes on his chest on either side of his wound. The image of Drock’s insides and the injury was fuzzy and went in and out of focus, but she could still see the damage the spike had done.

“I do not know if he would have been considered alive or not before, but this body is starting to die. It looks like the only thing keeping it alive right now is that he is half ethereal, so the damage from the spike only exists half of the time,” Izreea whispered quickly to herself, processing out loud as she thought of what to do to heal him.

“You must keep him alive!” Jonathan shouted in desperation from above them.

“Of course, but not for the reasons you want!” Izreea shouted back with more anger than she had intended.

His ulterior motives and side projects had caused her enough grief, and she was tired of dancing to the guilt-tripping fiddle of the difficult life he had created for himself.

“Mimic!” He shouted back just as angrily, letting her know he was upset but reminding her that they had more pressing matters to consider.

Izreea turned back to Drock and began willing his body to heal as she had with Jareth’s ribs, but it did not seem to be working. His wounds would not heal no matter how hard she tried, willed, or pleaded, his wounds would not heal.

Jonathan and all of his mirrors cast a spell by flapping their wings simultaneously, sending a massive gust of wind toward the ground, laced with some form of white energy similar to the runes on Izreea’s scythes. The wind seemed to push the darkness back, revealing the dirt ground with the crouching mimic. The moment the darkness retreated from its body, the mimic screamed and fell to the ground, convulsing. The others in the group rushed to kill the helpless monster, but Jonathan’s spell only held the darkness at bay for a moment, and the darkness rushed back in to conceal the mimic. It disappeared into the darkness before the others could reach it.

Moments later, the mimic jumped into the air from another location, its tail flashing and claws grabbing at the birds above. Its tail impaled one bird while its hands grabbed two others in crushing grips. The mimic seemed to gasp and convulse in the air as it fell back down with the birds it had killed. The birds were thankfully all mirror images that disappeared halfway to the ground, and the moment the mimic touched the darkness, it was back to full strength and hiding again.

Jonathan was so startled that he created one of his familiar portals and disappeared. He couldn’t leave the void in this way, but the remaining three mirror images still flew above them as a distraction, so he must have been close by.

Izreea decided that the ethereal vestment around Drock was the most likely culprit for her difficulties and reached for the clasps to undo the vestment. The mimic’s spike shot out of the darkness at her neck, but Jareth was prepared and dove in front of the spike, which hit the shield around his body instead. The shield shattered from the impact but successfully deflected the spike, causing the mimic to run into the darkness again.

Izreea ignored the fight and focused on her patient, regardless of his living status. She undid the clasps on his neck, and immediately Drock was physical again, and the wound in his chest became complete, pouring blood out of the wound in his chest. Izreea knew she had seconds to save his life. She willed the scythes to heal him, and this time they listened, stitching the wound together, starting with the heart, but it was taking longer than it had to heal Jareth, and she had no idea why.

Izreea was still puzzled over why the wound took so long to heal when the mimic’s spike shot out of the darkness from her left. She sensed it coming and knew she did not have time to dodge it, so she twisted her body so it would land on her shoulder, trusting her companions to rush to her aid before the mimic could cause permanent damage.

Jonathan reappeared between her and the spike, his wings glowing blue as he flapped a lightning bolt straight at the mimic. The bolt crackled through the creature’s body, burning flesh as it raced through the mimic, stopping the creature’s heart. It was dead before it hit the ground in a smoking heap.

Colson, Myrum, and Jareth gathered around the mimic to inspect their mythical foe.

Izreea was starting to make headway with the wound in Drock’s chest and was beginning to feel like she would save him. Jonathan was standing next to Izreea on the ground in the darkness, his chest heaving from the exertion of firing such a strong bolt of lightning.

“Is he going to be alright?” he asked between breaths.

“Yes,” Izreea answered curtly. She almost had the heart whole again, but a tiny nick was refusing to heal. The bleeding was low enough now that she had time to figure it out, but she wanted to focus and not have a conversation about it.

A second mimic jumped out of the darkness, piercing Jareth in the back with its tail. Instead of running into the darkness like the last one had, it sunk its teeth into his shoulder and brought the spike out to stab him a second time, staying to finish the job the first mimic had started.

With a battle roar, Myrum sprinted to help Jareth on all fours. The added material to her clothing allowed her to run like her ancestors, covering ground as fast as a galloping horse. She slammed into the mimic, her massive body weight easily carrying the small creature to the ground. She had one hand wrapped around the creature’s throat and the other holding onto the tail so it could not sting her, and she was beating its head against the ground as she struggled to hold its tail at bay.

Jonathan took to the sky to observe the battle, and from the light of the orb in the air next to him, he could see the tail of two other mimics running towards them in the darkness.

“Two more are coming, and they are not being secretive about it!” Jonathan shouted down at the group.

Myrum had either killed or incapacitated her foe, so she left it lying on the ground and rushed headlong with Colson to intercept the new threat. Colson met one of the mimics with his sword, their sword and stinger flashing faster than the eye could follow as they circled each other, each looking for a moment of weakness.

The other mimic had disappeared before Myrum had reached it. She crouched down with her eyes closed while she spun slowly in a circle, sniffing the air and listening for footsteps.

Jonathan was still hovering in the air when the missing mimic jumped from directly beneath him, its stinger racing towards him. He managed to twist to the side, but the stinger still landed. He was severely wounded but could stay in flight, or the mimic would have finished him off.

Myrum intercepted the gasping mimic on its way down while the first mimic she thought she had killed joined the fight against Colson.

Izreea completed the last healing on Drock, lifting a dense barb from his chest that had been pushed out of the wound with her healing. This barb was what had been preventing her healing from working. She decided it must have been attached to the mimic’s stinger and was inserted when it struck. She had no idea its purpose, but she put it in her pocket as she stood up to look around.

The glowing bodies of her companions made the scene crystal clear for her. Her husband was lying still on the ground a few paces from her. His body was hazy from the fog, but she could see blurry, dark spots staining his back in two locations. Jonathan’s small bird body was dripping blood from the air as he struggled to stay aloft. Myrum was beating a mimic on the ground in a berserk rage. Colson was holding two mimics back with his sword, but one of them was slowly circling behind him for the kill.

She could feel panic and anger well up inside her as she took in her husband’s body but somehow was able to distance the feeling from herself. She knew others would die if she didn’t help them fight the mimics to save her husband, making saving him pointless.

Izreea asked the wick to help her friends and family, and she was immediately reminded of the gasping mimics who left the dark haze that hovered around them, and she knew what to do. Izreea took her glowing scythes in her hands and willed energy into them, as much as she could. The runes pulsed and glowed a brilliant white, increasing until she was blinding to look at, then she slammed the scythes onto the ground, pushing against the darkness around her with all of her might.

The darkness that had hung like a fog over the group shot away from her in all directions, expanding outward and upward, creating a bubble of light around them the size of a large house. The moist and fertile dirt around them was visible again, and the moment the darkness retreated from the mimics, they dropped to the ground writhing in pain, gasping for breath as if the darkness itself had been what was keeping them alive.

Myrum and Colson quickly dispatched the three remaining thrashing mimics as Izreea rushed to her husband. As she fell to his side, already touching his body with the scythes to check his injuries, a large light began to glow behind her, but she ignored it as she worked.

Colson and Myrum, however, turned to see the source of the light, and they saw a wounded and bleeding Jonathan lying on Drock’s chest, panting for breath. A glow around his entire body extended down onto Drock, who appeared oblivious to his surroundings as usual, even while on his back in the dirt. It was obvious that Jonathan’s fragile bird body with his hollow bones had not done well against the sting of the mimic, and he was dying from his wound. He tried to project himself into Drock in his last moments, but it wasn’t working.

Izreea was unaware of her brother-in-law dying behind her as she fought to save her husband’s life, realizing she may be too late. She could not have saved both, even if she wanted to.

Jonathan was on his last breath, and in desperation, he did something stupid that he would eventually regret. The glow extending from his body transferred like a ray of light to Jareth’s body. The flow of light found the hole in his brother’s back and funneled itself into the hole. As Jonathan’s essence left the familiar body he had been possessing, the bird began to shimmer and fade, eventually disappearing altogether.

Izreea had been so focused on Jareth’s wounds that she had not noticed this until there was suddenly another presence within her husband, directly in the way of her healing. She was taken completely aback but knew Jareth would bleed to death if she stopped now.

Suddenly her connection to Jareth’s body changed, and she felt like a wall had slammed between her and Jareth. She could still see into his body, but she could not channel magic into his body to heal him. She started to panic at first, not understanding what was happening, but then she saw the body begin healing. She watched as the wound was stitched together as if it had never happened, except for a small barb from the stinger directly beside his beating heart. This barb seemed to glow and pulse, nothing like the barb Izreea had pulled out of Drock’s wound.

Izreea stood and looked down at her husband’s sleeping form. Knowing he was out of danger made her feel more at ease, although she was still puzzled by how he was healed in the first place. She remembered that Jonathan was hurt and turned around to look for him.

Her eyes searched the sky where his mimics had been and searched the ground around her, which was possible now because the darkness was still being held at bay in a large circle around them. Then her eyes met Colson’s, and his bewildered look gave her pause.

“Where is Jonathan?” Izreea asked.