Chapter 55

Even though rage pulsed through Diya, he grabbed Gwyneth’s hand and pulled her towards the door. The building anger and doubt made him want to find Edgar and dismember him, but they were outnumbered. Fighting would them would be as good as a death sentence. Diya’s head told him to believe Victoria, but his chest hurt too much to listen. Diya saw her meet one of the De Lawneys head-on and hoped she wouldn’t suffer too much for assisting him. The thought that Edgar didn’t want her dead put his mind at ease.

They were ten feet from the gateway when a searing pain pulsed through Diya’s side. At first, he thought it was a stitch or something in his head. Then warm wetness spread from the area before travelling down towards his trousers. A sweet aroma filled his nostrils as he staggered and fell onto his knees.

“No!” Gwyneth screeched, but an invisible force pushed her away from him onto the ground. Then one of the climbers was on her. The man held her down with augmented, scale-covered arms.

Diya looked for the injury’s source. He could still feel the offending weapon inside of him. He clutched at the wound and found a shaft sticking out of his side. One moment there was nothing there, then Diya blinked, and Edgar was standing next to him. The red petals were transparent for a heartbeat before they solidified. On looking down, Diya found the hibiscus-topped staff pressed to the wound. Then Edgar pulled the weapon back, and the pain worsened. A colourless blade dripping with blood exited Diya’s side. The shape and form approached transparency as the red trickled off it.

A grunt escaped Diya’s lips as Edgar hopped back. Gwyneth and Victoria screamed at him—or Edgar—but he only heard muted incomprehensible words. Baba’s training and his initial days in the tower had inflicted various injuries to his person, but Diya had never felt anything so painful. It felt like the wound was on fire while the rest of him stood naked atop the Bear’s Tooth on the first floor.

“Stiffen,” he managed to get out as Edgar swung the staff at him. The coat blunted the attack, but the force still knocked Diya onto his front. Diya’s eyes became focused, and he could hear the world again.

“You’re just making this worse for yourself, Sen!” Edgar laughed like a madman before swinging again.

Diya managed to roll onto his back and away from the attack. Neither Victoria nor Gwyneth came to his rescue. The remaining De Lawney men kept them busy. Lawrence was nowhere to be seen, though. Diya worried his former friend would burst out of the grass and impale Gwyneth through the chest. When he caught Edgar’s next swing on his gauntlet, Diya remembered he could only afford to be concerned about himself in the situation. He suspected that the injury in his side was close to being considered a mortal wound.

“Don’t do this, Edgar!” Victoria grunted from not far away. “I beg of you. Let them go!”

Edgar ignored his sister and went in for another swing. The flowers fell away from the staff, revealing a short spear with an ugly curving blade—a glaive. The reveal confirmed it for Diya. It wasn’t invisibility he was dealing with but illusions. He grabbed Edgar’s leg with a gauntleted hand before willing the pen to release ink vines. It rushed out of the soul, enveloping the lordling’s knee and thigh as he screamed. Edgar swung at Diya again, but there was no power behind the blow.

Gwyneth came charging in and knocked Edgar off balance using her spear’s shaft. Then she swung her electrified spearhead at him, but the red coat and its wearer disappeared, leaving a sweet aroma behind. Then Victoria was by Diya’s side, helping him up.

“Don’t breathe in the smell,” she warned them. “That’s how Edgar enchants everyone! It’s the damn petals.”

Diya tried to get words out, but his body failed him. He pressed the gauntleted hand to the wound and rereleased sticky Slimeskin, patching it for the time being. Diya feared that unclenching his teeth would release the ear-rending screams building up inside, so he kept his lips sealed.

Burst of Strength would make things easier, but Diya wished to save it for when Edgar showed himself again. Instead, he called on the effects of Intoxicating Rose. A familiar smell filled the air for a moment, but he willed it to merge with his ink. The card’s effects obeyed.

“To the door!” Victoria exclaimed. “The vines won’t hold them for long.”

Every step made Diya’s body heavier, and the coldness spread, digging its way into Diya’s bones. The two women half-carried-half-dragged him into the tall grass away from Edgar’s angry screams. Now that the Slimeskin had his limb bound, he’d struggle to get free, invisible or not.

“What the hell did he do?” Gwyneth demanded. Her voice sounded like cold steel. Diya could feel the rage within Gwyneth. She’d been a good companion to him.

“Thank you for your help, Gwyn—”

“I’m sure he’s using illusory and mind-bending spells,” Victoria said.

“The smell must be the trace.” Both women ignored Diya’s attempts at getting his final words in. Gwyneth pulled on his left side painfully as she continued to speak and more blood poured from the wound. “Or it could be the controlling element too.”

The De Lawney Climbers came at them again when the trio was little more than an arm’s length from the gateway. Diya guessed his companions had only disabled them momentarily. The De Lawneys likely had more experience and potent upgrades, too. Victoria let go of Diya, ran up to the structure and pressed her right hand to the archway. Vines flowed off the limb and crawled over the frame before spreading from its top like a parasol.

“Get him in here!” Victoria exclaimed. “I can’t let go.”

The climber gifted with speed was the first to reach them. He ran straight into a lowering curtain of vines, though. They wrapped around the man entangling him. The man growled at them, bearing his teeth like an animal. His club swing almost reached Diya before the vines pulled his arm away and held it in place. He cast Frozen Ink Lance. As soon as the pen transformed into a spear, he thrust it at the man. However, the lightheadedness made his hands shaky. Diya struggled to keep his vision focused too. The spearhead only grazed the attacker’s ribs. Victoria launched more thorny vines at the man entangling him, and the armour around her left arm shrank.

“Maybe you’re on our side after all,” Diya said. He couldn’t tell whether it was the throbbing or the light-headedness, but a soft chuckle escaped his lips. “Good job, Victoria. You struck gold with that spirit. You can be a trapper now too.”

“I wouldn’t be as effective if they weren’t under Edgar’s spell,” Victoria grumbled as the gateway hummed. “Quickly, Gwyneth! Get him through.”

The man continued to thrash behind them, but his focused eyes slowly dulled, and slurred speech rolled from his tongue. Before Diya could investigate the change, he felt a shift to his left. He cast Burst of Strength without hesitation and pushed both women off him. Diya spun, bringing the spear around in a wide arc as the sweet smell of Edgar’s petals filled his nostrils. Much to his disappointment, his spearhead missed, but the shaft struck something solid.

A loud grunt followed, and something fell at Diya’s feet. Before he could target the mass with his spear, a dull force struck his knee. Burst of Strength gave him power and dulled the pain but did little to combat blood loss and whatever toxin Edgar had inserted into his system. Diya’s legs gave way. As he fell, he brought down his gauntleted arm and felt something crack under it.

Edgar’s pained yell filled the air. Before Diya could follow up with another attack, the De Lawney man with scale-covered arms appeared through the vines, grabbed the translucent lump on the ground and dragged him away. Gwyneth and Victoria rushed to Diya’s size and helped him up.

“I got the hyene’s card, you twisted fuck!” Diya yelled, spittle and blood spraying from his mouth. He let the card slip out of his gauntlet and held it into the air. It had appeared at the same time as the gate and Diya had enough sense to palm it before the De Lawneys attacked. “Good luck finding something good enough to empower your team. I hope you—”

“You need to go!” Victoria exclaimed, pulling Diya away from vine curtain. “Now!”

“What about you?” Gwyneth asked, pausing. “I doubt things will go smoothly for you now.”

“I can’t let go,” Victoria said, uneasily glancing between the pair and through the growing network of thorny vines. She fished a handful of cards out of bloody cards out of her pocket and slipped them into Diya’s pocket. “They’ll follow us, and this will continue on the other side. I need to keep the spell going and buy you time.” Her eyes scanned the tall grass. “The door should disappear if I run from this position. It opened for the three of us, not them!”

“That’s not how it works,” Gwyneth protested but Victoria ignored.

Diya grabbed at Victoria as darkness encroached on the edges of his vision. “It’s alright,” she continued. “Lawrence won’t ever let me get hurt. Edgar’s control spells aren’t as effective on him. We don’t know whether it’s his soul or exposure to the original plant. He won’t raise a hand against Edgar to help you but will take care of me.” She glanced over her shoulder as the vine curtain shook. “You two go! You need to patch Diya up before he dies of blood loss.” Victoria unclipped the pouch hanging from her belt and pressed it into Gwyneth’s hand. “This should help.”

“Thank you,” Gwyneth said. “I don’t know whether you let my secret slip-on accident or not but thank you for this. Once Diya isn’t a mess, I’ll tell him that you’re not a bad person.”

“I’ll remember,” Diya mumbled. The roaring Climbers outside the net of shifting vines drowned out his faint words.

“I don’t know if he’ll ever trust me again.” Victoria’s words sounded distant and devoid of hope. Then Gwyneth dragged him through the gateway’s white light onto soft, sun-kissed sand. The sounds of birds, waves and people filled Diya’s ears.

Diya’s back hit the soft ground as Gwyneth staggered and let go of him. The warmth and light fought the chill consuming his body.

“We need a healer!” Gwyneth screamed, scrambling to peel back the Slimeskin coat and shirt underneath. Diya felt her fingers on his wound, but it didn’t hurt anymore. “You have to remove the Slimeskin, Diya.” Gwyneth leaned in to speak directly into Diya’s ear. “I can’t do anything with it all stiffened.”

Diya didn’t remember using any of the command spells. In fact, the past five minute’s events felt like a dizzying blur. He struggled to recall the details after Edgar pulled the spear from his side. Instead of telling the Slimeskin to relax, Diya pressed his hand to his coat and willed every bit of it back into the inkwell. The emergency bandage, his jacket and finally, the gauntlet disappeared into the fountain pen. Then the soul fell away from his body onto the soft sand.

“Oh no,” Gwyneth’s whisper barely reached Diya. A weight pressed down on where Edgar’s spear had pierced his flesh. Then Gwyneth held a glass bottle to his lips, and a warming fluid flowed into his mouth. The sweet, spiciness reminded Diya of his mornings after training. He saw Baba, Alexander, and Neer sitting together drinking spiced tea even though the latter of the three had never spent much time together. “My friend has been stabbed! He’s bleeding out! We need a healer!

Gwyneth repeated herself and screamed, but Diya didn’t register most of it. He couldn’t tell whether the shadows blocking the sunlight were real or his vision was fading. The world darkened around Diya, and he let go of his hold on consciousness, drifting into nothingness.