Ten years after I began at Hogwarts, Sebastian Sallow is back. And he's Professor Sallow now. He disappeared after the fall of Ranrok and Rookwood, after I lost Professor Fig, and after Ominis and I couldn't keep him from losing himself. But I never...
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Maybe it has something to do with my gift of ancient magic or maybe it's due to the waning effects of the centaur's tea - hell, it could all just be in my head - but, standing here in a moment of quiet with Sharp in the colony's clearing, I feel like I can sense the chaos approaching in my mind's eye like a tidal wave. The sensation of thundering fills my body. Visions of lightning strike in my chest. Slowly, from the soles of my feet to the base of my jaw, it reverberates throughout my whole being.
The clicking, squealing cry of Ominis' warning high in the treetops precedes the reality of it by mere milliseconds when his small bat body, with its large, goofy ears, and broad wings break through into the clearing in a desperate attempt to alert us all.
Time stands still.
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My sight is a blur. So many figures rushing around me.
Focus, April!
"No pillows. Stabilize his neck," Nurse Blainey commands from a distance.
"There's not enough for pain management. Plenty in my stores – I'll be back." A deep voice.
I slowly turn my head in time to see the large cupboard doors across the room fall shut. My father's silhouette seems to exit the doorway and I reach for him but he leaves without a glance backward.
He's limping.
Wait – not my father. My Sharpie. Or they're the same? Or...
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A slow, final glance towards Sharpie. His brow is furrowed and his booming voice is calling out instructions I don't understand in my muffled ears as we walk towards the others.
A last, wistful look to Sebastian - my love, my heart – listening intently, metering his breath in preparation for the unknown. My body still shimmers and twitches with the effervescent echoes of our love for one another and the incredible, powerful command of his body over mine.
Kai, distracted between Vannevar's onslaught of chatter while he gestures wildly to – I turn my head – Anja across the clearing who is all but swimming upstream in an attempt to usher their youngling son to safety, against the relentless flood of centaurs who are hastening back towards the colony keep's center.
Väinö standing quiet, stoic and unmoving beneath the moonstones.
Ominis soaring high above in observation, and Thiago frantically tracking the bat – his deft feet navigating the uneven forest floor without issue.
Aksel, steely-eyed and resolute, re-entering the glade with numbers of centaurs, all of whom have swapped their gauzy layers of cozy linen and crystal pendants for Centaurian armor.
And then, as if the rays of the sun were cursed and dimmed with Dark Magic to rise from the North and in the dead of night, a massive wave of centaur warriors, unknown to me except for the one at the front of the group – Elek – breaks through the trees. Behind their long, galloping strides emerge a group of two-legged, masked offenders, most of them human. And they're all eerily quiet except for the menacing intensity of the centaur's hooves as they begin to descend into the clearing.
