10 10

With the town still blazing around them and the smoke only growing thicker, the four of them quickly came to an unspoken agreement that any further discussion could wait until they were far enough away to escape the heat of the flames.

The dark-haired girl wasn't in a good way. Though Shari licked the gash in the girl's leg a few times to stop the bleeding, it'd take far more than that to heal it completely. Adrenaline was one thing, but expecting her to run was another entirely.

Lira glanced a question at Shari, who rumbled her approval. Lira walked over to the dark-haired girl, who squeaked in surprise as Lira lifted her onto the cloak that covered Shari's back.

"Hold there," said Lira, pointing at part of Shari's back where she knew the strap of the cloak would be.

The girl didn't argue. She just followed the instruction, one hand on Shari's back grabbing the strap through the fabric, the other clutching the small bird spirit right over her heart as she stared down at Shari's head with wide, slightly terrified eyes.

Lira pressed a hand to her head, trying to stop the pounding from shaking the world for a second as she looked to Thea. "Any idea which way is out?"

Thea gave the streets a quick glance around with squinted eyes before she clucked her tongue, leaned her staff in the crook of her elbow, and covered her spirit eye with the eyepatch. "Which way is the most direct path out of town?"

The dark haired girl pointed down a street. "Mostly a straight line, widest street, but it looks blocked."

"I don't think it matters," said Thea, clutching both hands on the length of her staff. "I should be able to clear a path."

"Lead the way," said Lira.

Thea licked her lips, took a deep breath, and with a little hop, started running.

Lira, Shari, and her two passengers stayed close behind her.

As they approached the first blockage, Thea slowed down, thrusting her staff out in front of her. The jewel at the head of her staff flashed--an amplifier that all spirit mages used. In the span of a few seconds, a pale blue shield of solid spirit energy expanded from the centre of the blockage. Shaped like an archway, the result was a tunnel, just tall enough for Lira and wide enough for Shari.

Thea went through first, Lira after her. The large, smouldering beams loomed above her as the radiant heat from the flames either side blasted her, but the spirit shield-turned-tunnel held.

Once the five of them were through, Thea dismissed the shield and kept running, her steps glimmering with spirit energy as she retook her place at the head of the group.

As one blockage turned into two, then three, Lira kept a close eye on Thea, watching for any sign of burnout. Other than holding her breath every time they ran through a tunnel, the spirit mage seemed fine. There was no sign of the tell-tale cyan veins, no threads of silvery-blue hair. She was flushed and coughing every so often, but the fire was taking its toll on all of them.

Lira stayed beside Shari, keeping a hand on her partner's head to steady herself. Her head was throbbing, her bicep aching where she'd cut it. The world was spinning more than she liked, but she'd make it. She'd just need to find a quiet place to rest for a few hours afterwards. Somewhere to lie down, to close her eyes, to--

Lira swore and shook her head, forcing herself to focus. She knew what fatigue felt like, but this heat was making her thoughts blur together.

"How close are we?" Lira breathlessly asked the dark-haired girl.

"I think… think that's the blacksmith's store," replied the girl, nodding towards a building to their right. "Means we're close."

The girl was right. After Thea shoved aside one last pile of burning debris, far smaller than the ruined buildings she'd tunneled through earlier, they began to see other buildings, houses yet to catch fire. The flames chased them, but for the first time, they were outrunning the heat. They could see the forest, see the dusky sky beyond the plume of firelit smoke.

Only once they were clear of the buildings and standing on the road outside the town did they finally stop. Barely a head turned towards them as the town stood, watching their homes go up in flames.

Thea planted the end of her staff against the ground and leaned against it, pressing her forehead against it. "Oh, Sovereign, that was terrifying." She drew in a breath and gave a worried glance to the rest of the group as Lira pulled out her healing water and took a mouthful, grateful for the taste of smoke to be out of her mouth. "Is everyone--"

"Spirit hunter! Spirit mage!" It started as one voice and quickly turned into many before Lira even had the chance to look. They'd been noticed. People were turning, gathering up their skirts and what few belongings they'd rescued from their homes and rushing over to be the first in line. "Spirit hunter! Spirit mage!"

They'd survived the flames, only to be crushed by the crowd.

"My daughter, she's somewhere here, but I can't find her! I had her with me only a second ago--"

"Please, please--we've lost everything! We need your help!"

Lira drew in a long breath through her nose and shoved the healing water back in her pack. She jerked her head towards Shari before she started walking towards the forest, desperate to be away from people as soon as possible.

"My house--it hasn't caught fire yet! You can still save it! I can still--"

"Do you have gold? Coins? My entire livelihood is in that house! I have nothing!"

The requests kept coming, but they were getting further away with every step. Surprised that the crowd wasn't trying to follow her, Lira glanced back, half expecting the Sovereign itself to be standing between them and her.

But it wasn't the Sovereign. The crowd wasn't following Lira, because they'd surrounded Thea instead.

They grabbed at her arms, her staff, her body. They tore her clothes and pulled her hair, desperate for any piece of her. No matter where she turned, there was another plea, another impossible demand, none of which she could hope to meet.

"You're a spirit mage! Do something, put the fire out!"

"I--there's nothing I can do," stammered Thea, trying to step back and stumbling into a large man who shoved a finger in her face and screamed profanities at her. "The fire's too big, it's not natural, I can't--"

"Not natural? What do you mean not natural?"

"What kind of spirit mage are you supposed to be anyway? Finally leave your precious capital city only to laugh at us while our homes burn?"

"I--I'd never laugh," Thea tried, but they weren't listening. They were screaming, yelling, drowning her out. "I tried to stop it, but I--I can't--"

Exhausted but fuming, Lira stormed back towards the crowd. She shoved people aside, knocking over more than one person and punching a few others who dared to shove her back. One man grabbed her braid and swore at her, so she did the only reasonable thing: she kicked him in the back of the knees to bring him down and followed it with another swift kick between his legs.

Even that wasn't enough to make the majority of the mob back off, and by the time she reached Thea, she was curled on the ground, desperately trying to protect her head with her staff nowhere to be seen.

Lira grabbed Thea by the arm and pulled her up. She wrapped her spirit arm across Thea's chest and held the trembling spirit mage tightly against her as with her right hand, she drew her hunting knife and pointed it at the crowd.

"The next one of you that touches her loses their hand," snarled Lira. One ignored her, still grabbing for Thea. Lira swung the knife in his direction, drawing a thin line of blood from his fingers. "If you think I'm bluffing, just try me. I'll kill each and every one of you. I am not in the mood."

"What kind of spirit hunter threatens civilians?" called some moron at the back, likely thinking he was out of range. If Lira hadn't had Thea under one arm, she'd have shown him just how wrong he was. "You're supposed to protect us!"

"I did--we both did when we closed the Rupture in the Wilds and took care of the primal spirit who came through it!" said Lira. Another person got too brave behind her and stepped in range of her knife. Lira didn't hesitate, slashing it in their direction and catching them across the forearm as she bared her teeth. "Back off!"

It was more than one of them now. They were getting closer, less wary of her knife, and her rage was only going to keep her on her feet for so long.

"You can't kill all of us before we kill you!"

"No," said Lira, giving them all an unfriendly smile. "But my spirit beast will tear you apart afterwards, and she's a far more ruthless hunter than I am."

The crowd paused. There weren't many people in the kingdom who didn't know the stories of what an enraged spirit could do to a human, and when Shari��s low, dangerous growl rumbled through the air, it was finally enough to break the mob's confidence.

They stepped away, the closest few raising their hands in surrender.

Lira didn't let her relief show, didn't do anything but scowl at anyone that dared to make eye contact with her. "Where's her staff?" When no one answered, she added, "Spirits can sniff out spirit jewels, so I suggest you hand it over in one piece before Shari starts looking."

A few seconds later, Thea's staff was passed through the crowd. Lira reached out only long enough to grab it in her spirit hand before she wrapped it back around Thea.

The crowd parted around Lira as she made her way out, Thea still pressed tight against her chest. It wasn't until they were several metres away and standing beside Shari that Lira gently released her, keeping her hand on Thea's shoulder. Lira held out her staff, patiently waiting for the spirit mage to take it.

It took a few moments, but eventually, Thea sucked in a quick breath and wrapped her fingers around the staff. She pulled it close to her chest, giving Lira a shaky nod that shook some of the ash from her golden hair.

"We'll make camp for the night just inside the forest," said Lira, keeping her voice low as she sheathed her knife. She glanced at Thea. "Unless you had plans to meet up with the rest of your group somewhere else?"

"I--no, we didn't," said Thea quietly. Her hand gravitated out towards Shari's head as the spirit cat fell into step beside her with a concerned rumble. "The other spirit mage and I linked our staffs before I left. He'll find us."

Lira nodded and began walking into the forest.

"You wouldn't have really killed them, would you?" murmured Thea. "You--you were just scaring them, right?"

Lira stopped and turned around to look at her.

"She would have, to protect you," said the dark-haired girl quietly, still sitting on Shari's back. "The same way she came back for me."

Lira clenched her jaw. "Shari is the only reason I came back for you, I just followed her. I didn't know what she was coming back for."

The dark haired girl looked down at the small spirit in her hand, gently running a finger over the back of its head. "You knew--but no one in this whole damned kingdom is worth anything, right?"

Some scathing reply rose up in Lira's throat, but with Shari and Thea and the dark-haired girl's eyes on her, she suddenly just felt tired.

Tired from the heat, from the fire, from the anger at the fighter and the spiritsteel traps and the crowd and so many other things she couldn't stop that when anything else echoed through her, it just felt hollow, bouncing around inside a burned out shell of what remained.

"I know what it's like to get left behind," muttered Lira as she turned around and started walking, hugging her spirit arm close to her stomach. "It'll be dark soon. Let's move."

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