Severed

Chapter 10

Magic took everything from me. My family. My kingdom. My throne.

Kashina and I arrived quickly in Apocalypse because of a teleportation spell named "worldly launch". It only took 2 jumps which drained Kay's magical energy on the first one and half of mine on the second one. We probably shouldn't have even attempted to track the magic dealer with our lack of power, but I didn't expect to find her today so we walked toward the capital, Brighten, where the undead would likely sell information about the girl. Kashina shrunk down to her smaller size, which shrinks anything she's touching except other living beings, and hopped into the chest pocket on my uniform. That just meant that I got to carry both of our bags /and/ her too. Great. I trudged on anyway, smiling at her tiny, sleeping form despite the extra baggage. Brighten isn't far from Erus anyway, the latter being close to the edge of Portagus and the former being close to the border of Apocalypse. The hot afternoon sun filtered through the multicolored birch leaves as I walked leaving me heavy with sweat. Kashina slept the entire way until we came to a small waterfall. She then proceeded to jump out of my pocket and straight over the edge of the fall. She expanded to her normal size midway and landed with a splash into the water below. She must've gained back a portion of her magical energy while she slept because she was obviously feeling better. Her brown hair bobbed to the surface, followed by a madly grinning face. I sighed at her, secretly trying to hide my own wild grin, and said in my best I'm-tired-of-having-to-clean-up-your-messes voice, "come on Kay, we have to find this girl. You know the council is antsy because of this case". It was true, the council was particularly worried about this magic dealer; more so than the other ones. They had only said that she was too young to be a magic dealer and that I should "at no costs" end her life like we usually did with other dealers. I knew they were hiding something and I had a nagging feeling that I had seen the girl before, but there wasn't exactly anything I could do about it. Kashina didn't give me much more time to dwell on it, though. While I was unfocused, she sent a tripping spell my way and down I went. Off a cliff.

The chill water sucked the air right out of my lungs and the bags pulled me down like lead weights. I wrestled my arms out of the straps and kicked upwards through the murky water with all my might. My head breached the surface, but not before I saw a shadow hovering by the now discarded bags on the rocky river bed below. The river itself wasn't very deep in that area, maybe 6 or 7 feet, but the shadow seemed to be much to large to be in such shallow water. Gasping as I came to the surface, I said gravely, "Kashina, get out of the water. Now". Once she heard the urgency in my voice, she hurriedly swam for the banks, but it wasn't fast enough. She gave a half scream before being pulled under the water by the unknown creature.

"KASHINA!" I roared, swimming as fast as I could toward the nearest edge and hauling myself out of the water. I frantically searched for any movement, fear growing inside me like a storm until I finally broke. I fell to my knees. Salt water ran down my cheeks mixing with the fresh water of the river that still dripped off my chin. She was gone. Dead. Drowned. At this point, panic had overtaken me and was shaking, my breath coming in short, gasping, bursts. The sad part is I almost knew I was overreacting, but I couldn't help it. Crispin had drowned too.

So next chapter there's going to be some more on Leonus's past and this new character, Crispin. Please leave a vote if you think this chapter deserves it and a comment if anything need improvements at all.