Chương 12: Chapter 9 - Flare Up

Karina hadn't properly taken in the Karash when it attacked the cathedral. Perhaps the fog in her mind had kept her from understanding what she was looking at. Now two demons stood before her, and she had more time than she wanted. Both creatures were humanoid, but their elongated torsos swayed above the grass as they crouched. Bony arms bent at strange angles, holding hooked spears clear of the ground. Their tails stretched behind them, tipped with clusters of barbs. They didn't have a face.

There was simply a black hole in their bone-like skin where a face should have been.

"Volatu," Volrick said as he got closer to Karina. The demons turned their heads alongside his movements, but didn't close yet.

"How bad is it?" Karina asked.

"Two Volatu?" Volrick asked. He didn't answer, but his hands were shaking. Alyssia stood several paces to their right, near the unfinished edge of the camp. Karina glanced at the open ground between them. Volrick shifted closer, placing himself between her and the spears. Karina looked back to the two Volatu. Their spears ended in long, cruel hooks. Those must have been meant to tear through the skin... or drag someone along. A stiff breeze ran across the field.

As it faded away, one of the Volatu adjusted its grip on its spear. Karina called the heat to her hand. Her basic pyrokinesis wasn't going to do anything in this fight. At least not how she'd used it thus far, but fire was better than no fire. Volrick opened his hand and the knife he'd been using on the trees vanished. Another gust of wind ran through the long grass and rustled the tree branches. The larger Volatu reared up and threw back its head. Sound vanished.

The wind still bent the grass, but Karina couldn't hear it. Darkness spread overhead. The second Volatu leapt, spear raised. Sound returned with Volrick's sharp intake of breath. He shoved Karina down. The spear drove into his chest. His outline broke apart around it, spilling acrid smoke as the demon wrenched its weapon free. The Volatu slashed through the collapsing figure, thrashing wildly, but Volrick had completely disappeared.

Karina struggled to find her footing in the tall grass as the roaring Volatu lunged toward the right, stabbing into the darkness where Volrick must have disappeared to. As it landed, a flash of brilliant white light erupted from that side of the campsite. For a brief moment, Alyssia's silhouette was carved against the horizon of the setting sun. The Volatu that Volrick tricked turned its attention to Karina as she got back to her feet.

It almost seemed to laugh as its tail swung in wide arcs behind it, nearly cracking like a whip with each pull. As it trained its weapon on her, Karina drew all the heat from her hand into her palm and tried to throw it forward. It flashed in the air between them and vanished, but the Volatu screamed at the light, pulling its spear away from her to cover the void where its face should have been while shadow poured out of the hole. Karina sprinted towards the other Volatu—towards Alyssia and Volrick.

She was supposed to be the hero here, but she wasn't ready for this. She could barely summon fire. For everything she'd felt in the Cathedral, she wished she was an Exemplar of the Sky. She was less than halfway when the sky darkened again as the Volatu behind her screamed silence. Another flash of light fought the dark for a second as Alyssia cast another spell, and the Volatu engaged with her stumbled back, but didn't fall. Noise behind her was the only warning she had, and it was too late.

Karina spun to see the Volatu in midair again, this time stabbing its spear down directly at her without a Volrick to help. She dove back toward the Volatu, ducking under the spear, which sprayed up sand as it plunged into the ground behind her. Karina kissed the dirt under the demon and grabbed grass in either of her hands.

"Hero! I—Dammit." The fire in Karina's palm ignited the grass she'd been holding onto, and she could feel it expanding outward, hungry to find something further to burn. Blade by blade, the fire swelled away from her palm, but it never left her mind. Even as Karina scrambled out from under the Volatu and separated herself from the fire. That was it. Instead of trying to throw more fire at the Volatu, Karina encouraged the fire under it, coaxing it to feed its hunger and spread out.

With each breath, she fanned the flames as the demon whipped around to face her, its barbed tail almost slamming into her in the process. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. It got low; Karina called the fire up. The Volatu didn't flinch out of its lunge, but the fire splashed out around it, with tongues of flame catching more grass and one of the trees around Karina as she fell backward to dodge the spear. The fire grew. It was overwhelming.

It was empowering. It was intoxicating. The Volatu took one hand off the spear and snatched Karina by the leg as she lost herself in the revelry of the fire. Her mind was a thousand flames and her soul was every call. Below the wraps of her chest, her skin blackened and charred, the horrid burn climbing up her collar and up toward her neck. It was too many connections. It was too much. She didn't have the mana to— The Volatu held her in the air and turned its spear toward her. Karina called all of the fire home.

Flames tore free of the grass and trees, streaming toward her. They struck in converging ribbons, wrapping around Karina and the arm that held her. She pulled them tighter. Orange brightened to white, blooming outward with impossible flashes as the fires fed on each other in an eternal war over which could burn the hottest as they tore across Karina's skin. The Volatu threw its head back. Darkness pressed around them, but the fire remained. It let go of her. Karina caught its wrist before she could fall.

She clung to the arm, holding the blaze against it. Black scars tore across Karina's face, and her skin broke apart in a thousand places to reveal searing, burning light within. That same breaking ran down her body as the Volatu flailed, wreathed entirely in fire, its skin blackening and smoking alongside hers.

Light bled out of the cracks below Karina's eyes, and the flame vanished all at once, an inferno crashing down into a single point of nothingness, leaving the charred corpse of the Volatu before her, reaching out to the sky, only for its skin to break off in large, ashy chunks. Karina fell to the ground, ash pouring off her skin as she landed. A piece of the Volatu's arm landed beside her and broke apart into black dust before sizzling away into a trail of black smoke.

She was about to try and find her feet, try and struggle back into the fight, when a cool hand pressed against her shoulder only to pull away as Alyssia yelped and knocked Karina off her knees and into the charred remains of the ash.

"Holy. Is she alive?" Volrick asked. A trail of blood stained his jacket where the illusion had been stabbed.

"I think so," Karina coughed. Ash followed each of her words, her throat as cooked as the rest of her.

"Ow."

"Shit," Alyssia said as she knelt down in the burned grass beside Karina. A warm glow emanated off her hands, which swelled for a moment before she hovered her palms an inch from Karina's smoking skin.

"I'm sorry, there shouldn't be anything like that here—""Yeah, what the hell is a Volatu doing out hunting like that?" Volrick asked.

"They're not scouts."

"How does this feel?" Alyssia asked.

"Better?" Karina shook her head. Her shoulder ached where she'd landed, and the demon's grip had left her ankle sore. The burns felt like nothing. She reached for the familiar heat beneath her skin. Nothing answered.

"Wait," Alyssia said.

"My mana," Karina managed.

"The burns heal when it comes back. I think I've used it all."

"Shit," Alyssia repeated.

"Can you help with—""Restore mana?" Volrick asked.

"If she could do that, we'd have brought a much bigger party." Alyssia almost offered Karina a hand but stopped short when she remembered that Karina was burning hot at the moment.

"Mana comes back over time. Slowly." Her eyes darted across Karina's burned form, as if she didn't believe what she was about to say.

"You should be fine. If it works how it seems to. You just need rest."

"She's fine?" Volrick asked.

"Can you move?" Alyssia asked Karina. The answer was yes, to a degree that made the original question feel silly. She sat up comfortably, even when she should have felt her charred skin cracking and breaking with the stretches of her movement. Was she really just fine? Was that possible? Karina touched her cheek, where the light had been pouring down her face. A droplet of magma-like liquid lingered on her black fingertips but faded away as it was exposed to the cool night air.

"So yeah, just a normal class," Volrick said.

"Just some fire." He clicked his tongue before walking over to where the other Volatu had faded away. [VOLATU VANQUISHED] [EXPERIENCE TITHE PAID] [REMAINING EXPERIENCE ADDED] [YOU HAVE LEVELLED UP YOUR CLASS] Karina stared at the last line. She'd done it. Survived another demon. Gained a level. She searched beneath her skin for the heat. Apparently, the congratulations didn't come with a refill.

"Can I ascend my Fate now?" she asked.

"Later," Volrick said. He wasn't looking at her. He stood beside the other Volatu's remains, studying the grass beyond them. Alyssia had already retrieved Karina's pack.

"We need to move." Karina looked around the camp. Blackened grass stretched between the trees. The branch she'd cut lay somewhere beneath the ash, along with any chance of pretending nobody had been here. He was right; there was no way to blend in with their surroundings when the entire campsite was covered in smoke and ash. Plus, she'd just almost died here and wasn't that keen on hanging around. She held out her hand for the pack. Alyssia hesitated before giving it to her.

"You sure you're okay to move?"

"Yes."

"You'll tell me if you need to stop?"

"Yes."

"Promise."

"Yes?" Even after all the reassurance, Alyssia didn't let go of the bag until Karina tugged on it and settled one strap over her shoulder. It hurt where she'd landed, but the burned skin beneath it remained painless.

"The Volatu," Karina said.

"You said they weren't scouts." Volrick glanced back.

"What are they?"

"Something I'd rather meet with more than three people," he said.

"That wasn't what I asked."

"No," he said. He crouched near the edge of the burned grass, brushing ash from a patch of sand.

"Volatu are soldiers. Warrior demons. Not the strongest but—they've definitely skewered a Hero or two."

"Nothing to worry about with us here," Alyssia said a little too quickly to be honest.

"Let's go." Volrick still didn't move. Alyssia stepped closer.

"What did you find?" Volrick pointed. Karina could make out the deep marks where the demons had crouched. Farther back, the grass was bent in the direction of their approach—toward the camp.

"They came from the road," he said. For a moment, nobody moved.

"They were following us?" Karina asked.

"Or they were stalking the road in the first place," Alyssia said.

"Which shouldn't be able to—" She shook her head and turned toward the trees, away from the road itself.

"This way." Karina followed her off the path. Behind them, the last ember in the ruined camp faded. She tried to call it back. It stayed dark.