Elinora

I’m sorry.

I was ready for whatever came next. I was ready to leave everything behind. And I was sorry. For also leaving everyone else behind. All the people that cared about me. All the new friends I had made. And the family I knew I could have had. I was ready to give this all up if it meant I wouldn't have to leave Ari alone. If it meant I wouldn't have to live with the blame. With knowing I was responsible for her to suffer. Eternally. Alone. 

I was ready for the final hit… but it never came.

Instead a massive eruption shook the ground, dissolving Edwin’s concentration and completely destroying his spell in the process. 

Edwin wasn’t the only one through. Sound seemed to vanish as all our eyes were fixated at the one person behind us. The tall woman with long, black hair, nearly reaching the ground. Her eyes glowing with an intensity unlike any other and her face twisted in insanity.

I had seen pictures of her before, seen the similarities drawn but this was something else. Only the floating aura of violent lighting set them apart. They looked so much alike, so much like Arine.  

I shudder to think of what would happen next. Having already seen what she was capable of after just being corrupted, I did not want to think about the rage and hatred that must have fueled her for the last centuries.

None of us could avert our eyes. We were all glued onto her, waiting for whatever would come now. Raising her arm and channeling that same energy that tried to take over Arine in the past, the spell was broken and everything started happening so fast.

I could barely keep up following everyone's actions. How Olaf tried to cast a barrier around the goddess, how she walked right past it without so much as a second glance. How Jenna was already celebrating her victory and how my friends started to sprint towards us. 

How one spell after another, rained down from the sky and how none of them could put a single scratch on Zeres. It was then when thought from earlier finally came back.

The portals, the orb, Zere’s unsealing and even Jenna’s manic arrogance in front of all of us. It all made sense now. How could I haven been so blind? I had to kick myself for it. I could have realised it when Zallas showed me her vision, maybe I would have been able to prevent all this… no. If I hadn’t been so selfish, so… reckless before we wouldn’t be here to begin with. It was all my goddamn fault. But I was not about to just let it stay like that. I knew exactly what to do next.

“Ari, Mom,” I screamed at the top of my lungs, all I needed to do now was to trust in them, “You need to destroy Jenna’s orb, now!”

And, just as I thought, the penny dropped for them too. They did not waste any second as mom shot one of her, from light shaped spears, directly at Jenna, distracting her while Arine casted a cascade of small purple birds hitting her and shattering the orb in the process. Just as I had thought would happen.

Now was the moment of truth. Was my prediction correct? Was what Zallas said true after all? 

My worries, however, were unfunded. Not a second passed and something changed. It was like I had woken from a bad dream. As if my vision had been grey and thirst before, it was more vivid than ever. I had never felt better in my life. 

Not only could I feel the magic that was lingering in the air now. There was more. I could also sense Zere’s aura now more than ever before. It was strong enough for me to feel before, but now. Now it was something else. It was overly horrifying. Yet there was something more. One more important thing. Something I hadn’t accounted for in the least , something that gave me the strength to carry one.

Everywhere around us, the whole forest was watching us. No matter in which direction I looked, I saw one spirit after another. Before I could fully realize what happened, a booming voice rang out from above. 

“Eli, I will lend you my strength.” 

It caught me completely off guard but it did not take me long to realize what was happening. It was exactly as it did the first time back in Runegard with Arine. The only difference being, that now we could connect again.

“Now go, carry out my will.”

She did not need to explain further. I already knew what I needed to do. The only thing I left was to figure how.

As her powers entered my body, it felt like a rush of adrenaline. I felt invincible. But not only that. As the initial rush faded, I could hear the forest breath, feel it’s life and how it warped around everyone like a protective cocoon. Lovingly embracing them with life. And it did not end there.

When I took a look at all the spirits surrounding us, I could feel their pain, their hope, their fear and most importantly, I could feel their determination. 

“E-Eli?” Someone nudged me from behind, it was Lyn, “wha-what happened? You're glowing!”

In my own excitement, I had totally forgotten that I was the only one who could hear Zallas. Now thinking back about it… wait. I took a quick glance down at myself just to confirm I wasn’t losing it. She was right, I was glowing! My whole body was emitting light! It wasn’t too intense, but enough to illuminate the gloomy night, like the light at the end of the tunnel. I had to smile at that thought. I could do it. I could finally protect Arine!

Speaking of her, she was as baffled as the rest of them. Choosing to stare at me with an open mouth. I guess none of us had seen this coming.

We had all been so occupied with this sudden turn of events, the dooming voice of a certain someone brought us back down to earth. “Oh sister, how funny of you to think this puny little human could stop me.” Although she did not pay us any mind directly, being too engrossed in conversation with herself, a storm like orb, raging with her energy popped into existence, aimed directly at us. 

Having seen this same kind of magic before, exclusively used by Arine, I was well aware of the effect just a fraction of Zere’s power had. And this ball was way bigger than what Arine had created in the past. It must have had the potential to not only blow the whole mountain range apart but also vaporize the Ocean behind us. I had to think of something, fast.

Sadly I had to realize that, while having the power of a goddess truly felt like something else, it did not come with a user manual. So even tho, I was sure there was something much more efficient to be done here, all I could think of was to get that thing the hell away from us. I had read about teleportation magic sometimes in the past and, while it wasn’t too applicable to my normal magic, I had faith, or rather prayed, for it to work with the infused power of a divine being at my disposal. At this point I was quite glad for Mir Sirus's lessons in magic forming as I don’t think I could have done it without.

First, I got rid of all my worries, this is going to work.

Next, I evened out my breath, bringing it in sync with the flow of my energy. 

And lastly, I remember the formula for the spell, letting it’s instructions play before my mind's eyes.

Concentrating a raw amount of shaped magic right in front of the death’s balls path and another far, far above, I put as much magic in as I could. Now it was only a matter of keeping those two connections together. Zere’s let go of the sphere and I readied myself for the impact, it’s strength already so intense enough to melted the ground beneath it.

The sphere hit my portal and a violent amount of magic surged through my body, travelling through me, therening to shred me apart, before it left again and I felt it existing on the other side. The following explosion was large enough to wipe out the raging storm above, revealing it’s brightest day and the following shockwave bending even the strongest of trees.

“That was close.” I heard Emily say from behind as we recovered from that nearly fatal event. All seemed to be mostly uninjured but the same could be said for Zeres. This kind of spell even had to take a toll on her and it was showing. We would have at leasta few minutes now before she was ready to fight at full power again. This was our chance to finally finish this. I was about to explain what I had realized we needed to do, but Ari beat me to it.

“Of course!” She clapped,  “We need to find a way into Zere’s realm and then somehow cure the corruption that has spread throughout it.”

That was right, but there were still two other major problems, ”Yes but I don’t know any purification spells and even if I did, I doubt they work on something like this.” I gestured towards the goddess who was already starting to gather her energy again.

“I think I can help you with that.” Mom chimed, “Eli, you're a summoness that means you can directly interact with spirits.”

Oh.

Oh….

OHHHHH, RIGHT.

Having been without much use for the past couple weeks, I had totally forgotten that I was able to interact with spirits directly but... how exactly would that help us?

Arine couldn't follow either, as was made obvious by her tilted head, so Lyn explained for us, “Summoners, don’t just summon spirits, their magic is resonating with the spirits. It can manipulate them… like,” she paused, maybe to think of  a good example “like a puppeteer and his puppets!”

A puppeteer? 

“What Emily here tried to say,” Mr. Sirus stopped Emily from further embarrassment explaining, “that you're able to change the magic that is within a spirit. You can add your own to it, make it stronger or, and this is the important part, you can draw from it. Releasing their energy back into the world.”

Releasing them… yes, of course! I had seen this happening once already! 

We could use their pure energy to cleanse the spring of life... only that it would to to bring them directly into Zere’s realm. And then their fate would pretty much be the same as those of the spirits that resided there before. Just think of what Ari and I experienced there, it still gave me chills.

But Palliva somehow managed to convert their beings back into energy. Now if I could do the same thing and keep it, I wouldn’t have to worry about them getting corrupted would I?

If that worked, that only left one more problem or so I thought as I clicked almost instantly. I didn’t have to do anything at all. Just as I could feel what they felt, they could do the same. Of course, it was a mutual connection. Why didn’t I realize this sooner?

Okay, how do I phrase this? I did my best to think of something motivational, something they would be okay with to give their life for. After all if they returned to energy they would die. Or maybe they wouldn't because they were beings of pure energy to begin with?

I was overthinking this way too much but I gave it my best shot anyway, ‘Please every spirits that can hear me, old or young, large or small, will you lend me your assistance to fight the corruption that has infested so many of your siblings and keep restoring the balance that has been lost so many centuries ago?’

I might have overdone it a bit, but that was how I always saw people do it in tv and books and, more importantly, the spirits didn’t seem to mind. Some of them shared a glance with each other but soon their bodies started lighting up and I felt a new connection. Like an invisible bag of water that was levitation above my back. I couldn’t quite physically feel it but, emotionally I felt the weight of all their power now laying on my shoulders.

“Did you figure it out?” A parental voice called me from beside.

“Oh, uh, yes mom. I think I did.” 

“That’s my daughter!” I couldn’t hold back the smile on my face. I was useful again!

Another pat on the back made me aware of Mr. Sirus now also standing beside me, “Good, good, and in the time you were gone Ari here,” he quickly grabbed Ari who wasn’t standing too far away from us, “figured out a way for you two to enter Zere’s realm.”

Wait.. how long was I gone for? It was hard to tell from the feeling alone. It didn’t feel like more then ten seconds maybe but yet everyone was in full action again. And it looked much better than before. They were still no match for Zere but instead of taking her heads on it looked like they… were buying time?

The way they all moved and cooperated with each other, like a well oiled machine. Truly amazing, I could have watched this for hours if there weren't something more pressing right now.

“Remember the vision Zalla’s gave us?” Yes, I did but I didn't like where she was going with this, “remember, what palliva did back then to open the gate?”

Okay, I had thought she was going to get into a whole nother direction. This wasn’t so bad but that still beggar in question, “she meditated right? but what did she say… getting rid of all your dreams, emptying your head or something?”

Looking at the masses of portals that still opened everywhere and the giant thread of  Zere’s battling the council behind us, this did indeed seem like an impossible task. How could I empty my head when she could take everything for me within a second? It was a task so easy and yet so impossible at the same time, I-

“Hey, take my hand.” Arine said as she gently made us both sit down onto the cold, wet ground, “just take my hand and relax. They’ll take care of everything else.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll keep her busy for a while.” I heard Kate say.

There was another voice too, “yep, leave it to us.” It was Lyn this time. 

And even more voices, “What would I be for a teacher if I let my students die so easily?”

“I have lived for so long, it’ll take more than this to get rid of an old hag like me.”

“Eli, your mom will handle this while you’re away!”

What was this change of attitude all of a sudden? And even from the council members, the one who barely a few minutes ago wanted to seal Arine away? Strange, to say the least but Arine's smile reassured me that all would be well. I had no idea how she did it, but she did it damn well. I felt more at ease already. 

Concentrating on the warm hand that was laying in mine, our surroundings started to fade out and all I could think about was the beautiful person that sat opposite of me. In a white room with only the two of us, our breath in rhythm, she and I were all that existed for me now.

Then she started to withdraw her hands and soon, she too, faded into the background. It was only me and my body. My breath in perfect sync with my flow and when I felt a cold breeze brush my hair away, I opened my eyes.

Lexyna

Uhh, hi. I just wanted to say that I appreciate everyone of you that has read this far. Oh and if you're wondering we're almost at the end of our journey, I hope you enjoyed it so far and will like the last few chapters.