Book 2, Chapter 9.27: He’d survived two near-death experiences, but then he met his ex
Fabrisse jabbed at the rune; jabbed at it; jabbed at it once more. The rune refused to budge. “Come on! Come on!” He clenched his teeth, grabbed, twisted, pushed, but the rune just kept spinning gently in the current. Another surge of wind slammed against his back, shoving him sideways. Fabrisse nearly lost his footing, and when he stabilized himself, there were only five seconds left.
“Next surge incoming!” Tommaso shouted as he fired a column of fire at the creature, only to be blown apart, shredded and dissipated by the sheer force of the gale.
The mantis humanoid ceased the tar release and swung back. The updraft beneath it began to gather, and the creature was clearly readying its next attack.
One last chance. There were no do-overs. If he failed now, the next Wind Surge would smash through Severa’s ward, and the mantis would be free to tear the corridor apart.
Maybe . . . I can only interact with it at the exact moment of release.
If that was correct, his timing must be precise.
His fingers hovered just shy of the rune’s center of rotation, and he waited. And waited. And waited.
Now.
Fabrisse slid his fingers along the rune’s invisible arc and closed around it at the exact apex of its pulse. A vibration ran through his hand, and the updraft stretched in a way Fabrisse hadn’t expected. It no longer surged straight down the corridor. Instead, it began spiraling along the walls, curling in a circular current that wrapped around the mantis humanoid. Its wings beat frantically, trying to resist, but the spiral pulled at every limb, forcing it to follow the path of the gale.
Fabrisse’s fingers trembled over the Feather rune. The updraft spiraled tightly around the mantis, pulling it along, but there was something else. A thought, a twitch of instinct: what if he guided it, not just let it follow?
Tentatively, he traced a small circle with his fingertip across the rune’s surface. The mantis’s orbit tightened, adjusting to the curve of the gale exactly as he moved. His eyes widened.
I can control it, but if I stop, the rune might stop reacting.
He shouted, “Montreal! I—I can make it follow a path! But I can’t hold it perfectly in place!”
Severa’s voice came immediately, “Then keep it in the smallest orbit possible! Now—work my spell!” She’d already cancelled her ward, and was now nurturing a ball of fire in her hands.
Tommaso surged beside her, flames coiling in his palms, ready to meet her incantation. “I’m with you. Let’s push!”
In unison, they chanted:
“Flame arise, wrath unbound,
Crush the dark and burn the ground!”
| [Spell Cast: Infernal Cataclysm] |