Elinora

Not long after and everyone else was on deck too.

“Eli, Arine are you alright?” I heard my mom call from behind, closely followed by Mr. Sirus.

“Yeah, we’re alright. I just have a small headache.” Arine said, still covering up her eyes with one hand. I had a feeling that mom and Mr Sirus suspected something but if they did, they didn’t push any further.

“Mara, do you have any Idea what this could be?”

“No, but we should hurry now. I’ll try to contact Olaf, you stay here with them until I’m back.” 

Mom headed off and our attention was focused on the red light flickering in the distance, illuminating the silhouette of the mountain range perfectly. And while it was absolutely terrifying, its dangerous and mysterious glow put me in mesmerizing trance.

Only when I heard Mr Sirus talk to himself behind me, I snapped back into reality, “This isn’t good.”

I tried to ask him a few times if he knew what was going on but he pretty much dismissed me most of the time. Only saying so much as we must call a meeting with Olaf and the other as soon as possible. No mention of who those others were but he surely was good at making my already uncertain self even more nervous. And on top of that Arine’s condition seemed to get worse by the second.

Luckily, mom was able to put her into some kind of sleeping state. She said it would help reduce the pain but if I looked at her, it did not seem to work all that well.

“When will we arrive in Alos?” The last time something like this happened Olaf was able to help Arine, maybe he could do it this time too? Although, to be honest I had little hopes, as this seemed to be a whole lot more extreme than last time.

“If we hurry we should be there in an hour or so.”

The others started to help around the ship and I stayed with Arine, feeling pretty useless. A feeling I’ve become quite used to the last couple of weeks. I hoped me staying with her at least somewhat eased her torment. I doubted it but as soon as I put her hand into mine, her face relaxed somewhat. 

So many things were going through my head in that moment it was impossible to sort them all. Before I so much as had a chance to start a coherent thought, the door to our room sprung open, “Eli, we're there. I’ll take Arine and you’re going with Sirus.”

She sounded  pretty rushed, just like everyone else at the moment so I followed Sirus back on to the deck and into the city of Alos.

Mom followed close behind, carrying still sleeping Arine on her back, and despite it being early morning, the streets were already filled with people. We sure weren’t the only ones to notice the unusual sky color, as there were hushed whispers from people all over. And then, shortly before we arrived at the Academy gate, I felt something. We all felt something. Followed by complete silence as everyone stopped what they were doing, wondering what just happened. Even Arine, who was still fast asleep, started to shiver uncontrollably. 

And just like that, it was gone again. The whispering started again and everyone wondered what they had just experienced. Everyone but Arine, she wouldn’t stop shaking and nothing my mom or Mr. Sirus did would help.

“Mom? What… what was that?”

She didn’t answer me as she was too occupied studying Arine, tring to calm her down somehow but Mr. Sirus did instead. He gave me a quick look and turned his attention back to Arine. “That was world magic. And it looks like it is connected to her in a way.”

Yeah I could tell. We all felt it but Arine was definitely the one it affected the most. Oh dear Zallas, please let Arine be okay. 

As nothing seemed to work, we decided it’ll be best to bring her to her room, where I’d stayed with her until she woke up. Mom and Mr. Sirus meanwhile left to meet with Olaf and discuss our next course of action.

It had to be about ten minutes later when I heard some commotion in the common room and someone slowly opening the door. I saw some red hair strands and a few curious eyes, before the door sprang wide open.

“Eli, you’re back!”

“Where in heaven's name were you?”

“Oh my god, we were so worried about you!”

“What’s wrong with Arine? Is she alright?”

I was overwhelmed by an assortment of noises. I couldn’t even make out who said what as none of them so much as thought about letting the other finish first before speaking.

“I’m too, glad to see you again.” I said after they all had finally calmed down a bit and shifted their focus over to Arine. “Don’t worry about her, she’s just tired from the long trip.” Should I have told them the truth about mom putting a sleep spell above her to prevent whatever is going on currently to mess with Arine? Maybe. But in the end I decided against it as I wouldn't want to drag them into this. And there was already enough I had to tell, so letting out a little detail wouldn’t hurt, right? 

Of course, after I assured them that Arine would be fine, they wanted to know where we were, what happened and most importantly how I got my body back. For some reason it felt strange telling them about all this. Not in a  bad way but more like, I couldn’t believe it myself as I was retelling the whole story. And yes, I let out some parts here and there. Mostly the ones that had to do with the memories Zalla’s gave us and how we promised her to bring her sister back.

Once I had finished telling the tale, the questioning began.

“So you're the descendant of an ancient goddess that has turned her back to mankind hundreds of years ago and somehow convinced her to restore your body?” Lyn concluded.

“Sounds impossible right?”

“Yeah but I believe you.” She was eyeing Arine closer. My best guess was that she already had a suspicion that I wasn’t telling the whole truth but even if, that wasn’t important now. I was just so happy to not only see them again but also as myself and not a drained, lifeless version of me.

There were more questions and some rather explicit ones from Kate, just like usual, and over the short time we spoke I could forget about all my recent worries for a while. We talked until I heard someone stir right next to me.

“Uhh… What time is it?... Huh why are you all staring at me?”

“Oh Arine, you’re awake! Eli just finished telling us everything about your adventure.” 

“She did?” Arine said and I shook my head when she looked at me with a raised eyebrow, “I see.”

I was happy to see that Arine had calmed down again. More even that her eyes stopped glowing. And by the way she acted I also suspected the pain from earlier was gone too. We got Arine up to date with all that happened while she was out. It was just when we finished retelling, that we heard a woman yell.

No one could make out what she was saying but that wasn’t necessary anyway, as some student I’d never seen before came running down the hallway, “Hey, everyone get out. We have an emergency here. Everyone is required to meet in front of the dorms.”

None of us had an idea as to what this was all about now. 

“Maybe some kind of announcement by the council?” Lyn suggested as we were running down the stairs together with many other students.

“The council?” 

“Yeah you know, the magic council, the one your mom's part of?”

“Oh yeah, right.” Totally forgot, “but what could they want?”

Lyn was still thinking once we left the building but Emily chimed in from behind, “Maybe they'll tell us what’s going on?”

In front of us stood three eldery woman, one I knew form one of my classes but the other two I didn’t. However, from the way they looked, it wasn't hard to tell that they too were teachers. Riley then shortly after confirmed what I had already thought: “That’s Miss Wallyard from my magic ritual class?” 

“And that’s Miss Juren.” Kat said with an eye roll. I didn’t have to ask to know that she was one of Kat’s lesser liked teachers.

“Quiet down please.” The one in the middle commanded. After a good few seconds the noises calmed down and we all listened curious as to what she was about to tell us, “First and foremost I want you all to remain calm, as I assure you we, and the administration, have this situation under full control.” She made a dramatic pause waiting for each of us to acknowledge it.

“Good. I want you to form groups of three, then we will start assigning each group a letter. Depending on the letter you are to immediately, head to the location it describes.”

The atmosphere around us was getting denser and the nervousness was written all over many of the students' faces. Lyn, Arine and I formed one group, while Kat, Emily and Riley formed another. 

The three women started going around, giving every group their letters, when I noticed someone familiar searching around the crowd, “Hey,” I said tucking at Lyn’s sleeve, “isn’t that Mr. Sirus?”

“Now that you mention it, what do you think he’s looking for?”

“Maybe us?” Arine said stretching her arm in the air for him to notice.

He found us soon after and without warning, teleported us right into a massiv room, where many people awaited us already.

Olaf was one of them, he pointed to a few empty chairs and gestured for us to take a seat, “Now that we all are gathered, let me quickly explain the situation to all of you.”

“Earlier today I was informed by an unusuals magic anomaly coming from the west side of the country. Edwin here,” he looked towards a tall man with red hair and a full beard, clothed in light leather armor, “has used his knowledge to analyse the matter more closely and came to a devastating conclusion. If you’d please.”

“Of course, ” the man, Edwin continued, “as Olaf said, I tried to analyse this anomaly more closely and found that it stemmed from something that could not possibly be caused by any natural phenomena. I have never seen, nor read of anything like this before in all my life.”

Kat, Riley, Emily, Lyn, Arine and I all looked at each other, what had we to do with all of this? Why wait explicitly for us?

“So I took it upon myself to gather as many council members and other skillful mages that I hope will help us prolong those future events until we’ve found a feasible solution.”

Future events? What future events?!

He then started the introduction, Olaf, mom and himself were council members, while two other women and three men were grand mages that shined in past conflicts. And then Mr, Sirus alongside a few other teachers, “the other council members couldn’t make it in such short notice but they have been informed about the situation already and we will meet them later at the bridge to sanctuary.”

I had to be honest here and say that I couldn't follow most of what he said, and the others didn't look like they fared much better either. To our relive mom signalled she’d explain later. Something I was glad for as I could now feel stupid quietly without interrupting Edwin every other second. Not only was the situation pretty serious in itself but just the way he spoke in general, it carried weight. I couldn’t imagine anyone interrupting this guy, least this scrawny looking, now magicless girl.

After he finished his explanation of what this anomaly was, with much to abstruse term that no magic highschooler could ever hope to understand, he gave the word back to Olaf, “now as for you, you are probably already wondering why we called you here.”

No answers but a bunch of nods later he continued, “First of all, we need your help evacuating the city. I’m sure you recently have felt something strange? Maybe like a gust of wind hitting you all at once? ”

 Another wave of nods followed, “Yes, that was world magic. Magic that is so strong it affects, as its name suggests, the whole world. It’s effects can even be felt without a magic sense.” The whole time he was stroking his beard, he hid it pretty well but at the end of the day I could tell that even he was tense, “Now the magic performed has damaged our infinity crystal pretty badly. It’s magic output started to decrease ever since and in about four hours, we won’t have enough magic to let the city stay a float.”

Kat sprung up from her chair, not believing what she just heard “You’re saying-”

“Yes, calm down child,” he waited for Kat to seat herself again and spoke what was on all our minds now, “This will be the last day of the greatest city and much to my dismay, my loved academy.“

No one wanted to believe it, and the sadness in Olaf’s voice was devastating but Lyn started to protest, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, can’t we just slowly lower the city? Or something like that? Surely that’s possible right?”

“No, Lyn please,” Mr Sirus tried to calm her down, “it would be possible if we had at least a day or more but with the current situation...”

Lyn didn’t say anything afterwards, we just sat there, stunned. Of all the things that could have happened, Alos falling from the sky never crossed my mind but now was not the time for that. The administration already came up with a plan in order to safely evacuate the city. 

A bunch of extra airships were called in, that started to line up on all four ports. Now it was only a matter of getting each and everyone to those and this was where we came in.

We would create small groups of students we trust with Lyn’s help. Which would in turn warn every household and person personally, without causing a mass panic. Emily would use her connection in the meantime, to keep the routes to the ports safe, should something unexpected happen.

We were just on our way, when mom called out to us, “Eli, Arine you two stay here a bit longer.”

I knew it was because she was worried about us but it didn’t help easing my feeling of uselessness at all. I wanted to help too.

Arine, noticing my displeasure, put her hand on my back. Now, at least I got to spend a bit more time with her.

Once the other member left to help evacuate it was only mom, Ari and I, “I didn’t want to tell you while the others were here but Olaf believes that the anomaly earlier was caused by seal breaking magic.”

“Seal breaking… you mean?” Arine shot up.

“We can't be too sure yet as we don’t know any details but Arine, I want you to stay with Eli, is that clear?.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Good”

After her little explanation, mom escorted us to the northern port where we would later take the last ship. Making us the last to stay in the city. It was kind of fascinating, watching how smoothly it went for the most part. There were many unsure faces but with the exception of one or two rather smaller fights, the people here keep unusually calm. The one thing that did upset me, was that I wasn’t allowed to help.

I could understand where mom was coming from, I really did. Without magic it was far too dangerous to traverse the city alone now, even more so as I couldn’t use the teleportation crystals around the city. Arine on the other hand was technically allowed to help around the port if she wanted to but choose to stay by my side. She said she only did it because she didn’t want me to feel left out, waiting here for hours mostly alone but I had a feeling she was also unreasonably worried that someone might abduct me. Okay, maybe not so unreasonably as you never know what figures are using an opportunity like this, still this overprotectiveness from everyone started slowly getting to me.

For most of the time that we waited, we didn’t talk. Arine and I stared into the distance, my mind occasionally rushing back towards us, when our hands briefly met but most of my thoughts were dedicated to the same troubles Arine had. Probably.

Again, I couldn't know for sure, as I wasn’t able to look inside her head. But the way she spaced out, watching over the long line of people that prepared to leave their old life behind, I could imagine all too well what was going on inside her. 

Choosing not to say anything, I continued watching her in silence. Nothing I could have said would have helped anyway now, but after all this was over, I would do anything for her to see them again.

The last wave of people included all the students that helped with the evacuation, being ordered by Lyn and our friend until we finally boarded the last ship with about half an hour to spare. On Olaf's behalf, the ship didn’t immediately start to fly towards our next destination. We waited until the last minute before lifting the anchor.

Everyone was on deck once again, it was a surreal feeling really. Seeing this city, this majestic flying city that I had come to call home in such a short time. Where I made so many new friends, got to know a whole new world and maybe, most importantly, had forged countless unforgettable memories, now slowly starting its descent. 

Maybe it was stupid, maybe I was being to emotional. It was only a city after all but when Alos was swallowed up by the ocean, I wasn’t the only one who shed a tear.