RISEN || The Keepers of Astraela #2

11.2 || MYSTIA

|| CHAPTER 11.2 ||
|| MYSTIA ||

A BRIGHT, FIERY FLASH consumed Mystia's senses.

Bobbi yanked her backward with Corrupted strength, just as the attic was consumed in a shower of wood, glass, and flame. Splinters and shards prickled their skin with stinging cuts.

Together, they raced down the attic hatch and emerged in the back hallway. Panicked yelling rose over the calamity, growing closer as they zipped around the corner to the main hall. The air had grown stifling; smoke consumed the nearby living room, and orange sparks flickered with the promise of all-consuming flames.

Nox stood outside the master bedroom with Jade latched onto his back. The girl's arms wrapped around his neck, and she buried her head in his pulled-up hood, stifling coughs as foul-smelling smoke crept throughout the remainder of the home.

The door to the bedroom burst open, and Sage ran out with Eva in tow. As they hit the wall of blackening smoke, their coughs joined the orchestra of strangled breath. The smoke was awful. Putrid.

Sulfurous.

Hellfire smoke.

"Go through the basement!" Mystia shouted.

They wasted no time. Joining hands, they allowed Nox to lead them through the blinding smoke. His sight would have been no match for hellfire's wrath even on the darkest of nights. But even he let out a series of raspy, rattling coughs as they plastered themselves along the living room's back wall. They moved swiftly yet carefully to avoid the flames that turned the core of the room into a sickly blaze. And judging by the mess of glass and debris crunching beneath their feet, the first earth-rumbling blast must have hit the living room.

Mystia's shoes moved on from the ash-covered carpet to the kitchen tile. She slouched down, trying to pull her head lower than the rising smoke, but it was to no avail. Every breath set her lungs on fire. Her eyes blurred and teared.

Finally, the sound of the basement door opening brought hope to her chest. They moved quicker, scrambling for the wooden stairs and into what Mystia hoped would be cleaner air below.

As the smoke billowed in behind them, Mystia let go of Bobbi's hand and swiftly turned to slam the basement door shut. It wouldn't be long before the blaze ate through the wood, but it would hopefully buy them a few moments of solace. While the air was far from ideal, it was more tolerable in the sealed-off room, and Mystia gulped in sweet breaths of relief.

She ran down toward the others, who had gathered around the cellar hatch. Sage worked quickly to disenchant the necromantic locks, her runes whirling and spinning in a flurry of rushed spellwork.

"What the hell was that?" asked Bobbi.

Nox shook his head vigorously. "I don't know. The others were asleep, and I kept watch in the living room like Mystia asked. It hit too fast. Total darkness and then a fucking fireball nailed the front of the house."

"And the attic," Mystia added.

Another blast rocked the house. Sage yelped; her runes flared and dimmed before she lifted her hands to regain control of her spell. Meanwhile, Mystia flung open her satchel, rummaging through its contents for anything that would've been helpful. Explosives were her constant default—but when their temporary hideaway was burning down around her, it suddenly didn't feel like a grand idea.

Sage pushed the hatch open before she could get too close to her favorite pyrotechnics, and Mystia was forced to close her satchel. She trained her focus on the task ahead: getting them away from the blaze far and fast, hopefully to a new part of town before they could meet whatever the hell was causing such mass destruction.