Crystal Magic

Chapter 5. Trial by Fire

"They're firebombing us—why are they firebombing us?" Sorrel looked from Coppelius to Gwynn, then back again.

"I believe they have a sort of tracker on him." Coppelius stood and grabbed the sword. The smell of smoke filled the air, and the ground began to rumble from the impact. "Or something—or maybe a spell. If he ended up incapacitated, then. . ."

"Then they try to smoke you out." Gwynn's expression was grim. "We have to get you out of here."

"I don't think we'll be able to steal my ship back—"

Coppelius's pondering was interrupted by the all-consuming roar and the shockwave that emanated from it. The smell of smoke filled Sorrel's nostrils and her ears rang as she found herself in the snow, not entirely sure how she got there.

The white of the trees and the stark dark wood of the pines blurred around her. The ringing in her ears grew louder, as shrill as screams and drowning out everything else around her. The ground shook as she tried to push herself up and off the ground, only to fall back down again.

Before she could hit the snow again, Coppelius grabbed her arm and pulled her up. Gwynn somehow had gotten to her other side and placed her hand on her other shoulder, stabilizing her.

Still, Gwynn turned her head back to the dark prince lying unconscious in the snow. There was a high-pitched note of uncertainty in her voice, laden with the compassion that came as easily to her gentle-natured twin as breathing. "What about him?"

"He won't be coming after us any time soon." Coppelius let go of Sorrel's arm and started forward. "But I'd rather not stick around to find out."

Sorrel shook her head, Coppelius didn't understand. "She means that no one deserves to die like this."

Coppelius stopped and turned back around. Sorrel couldn't quite understand the look in his eyes. "Look, this isn't my first encounter with him. He's tougher than you think—he's gotten out of worse before and he probably will now."

The wind picked up, and there was ash already mixing with the snow—or maybe that was just Sorrel's imagination. Whistling of more fire-bombs drew her attention overhead. It was an endless meteor shower, the kind of apocalypse only in the movies.

And yet where she stood, it was as if time stood still.

Something's not right. It was a strange, clinical observation. But one that Sorrel noticed all the same.

"Trust your instincts."

She could hear her father's voice, as if he were right beside her here and now.

"Come on, we've got to move, we've got to find Maman and leave!" Gwynn was tugging at her arm again. "Sorrel, we have to go!"

Hearing her sister call her name broke the spell. Sorrel shook her head. "You're right!"

She grabbed her sister's hand, and then Coppelius, and the three took off into the final daybreak on Perrault.

...

The streets were frantic, the opposite of the eerie silence of just a few hours before. The streetlights were as red as blood and roses, flashing as sirens mixed into screams and shouting, a symphony of terror. People filled the streets, all hoverboards and land speeders forgotten in the desperation, the urgency to move, just move—

Sorrel clung tightly to her Coppelius and her sister's hands, knowing that one wrong push and they could be separated, possibly forever.

The Annwynese soldiers had disappeared, and not even the usual constables of the Society were out. All while the ground continued to rock and shudder, the air filling with more smoke and snow and ash becoming further indistinguishable in the sight and the smell, all with the bombs whistling and roaring.