Arc 5: Chapter 27: Moth
For a moment, fear gripped me. Would we be swarmed by an endless legion of crawling, biting insects?
But I soon realized the swarm emerging from underground wasn’t hostile. They were fleeing, escaping in every direction. Not just them, either. Trees rustled in the near distance as bats and birds took wing into the night in flocks. Even the shades scattered like startled fish. For once, the absence of their cacophony did not comfort me.
Catrin had drawn Yith’s attention, and he was near. Quelling my nerves best I could, I walked back to the grave and positioned myself at its edge. Closing my eyes, I focused on the already stirring flame within me.
Whatever threat might emerge outside, the help I’d brought would need to deal with it. Penric, Beatriz, and Mallet might be ordinary, but supported by a trained knight and two adepts they shouldn’t be dead weight.
As I called on my aura, it started to appear in the world as visible gilt phantasm. Dim tongues of flame wreathed my shoulders, then flickered along my fingers. I did not burn it hot enough to shape into any weapons, not yet. Like tossing a small log onto a campfire cooled down to mere embers, I stoked it to easy readiness with murmured words.
When it surged hotter than I’d intended, enough to let out an audible fiery growl and scald me along my left forearm, I grit my teeth and clenched that hand into a fist.
I had not used my powers since the fight against Laertes. Was this because of the High Art I’d forced out then? There had been a shift in that moment.
“That looks painful.”
I turned to the crypt’s door. In it stood the slender, amber robed figure of Emil.
“You should be with the others.” My voice was hoarse from concentration and pain.
Emil’s large, sad eyes drifted down to the pit in the floor. He clicked his tongue once, a disapproving noise. “You told all of them that you don’t truck with the occult, yet here you are helping an undead witch employ her powers. No wonder your own magic bites you.”