Elven Legacy

Chapter 127

Tessa

It happened in the blink of an eye.

At first, she believed she must have died and reappeared in some alternate reality, because the event occurring before her now wasn't tantamount to anything she'd ever seen, heard, or even read about. It simply shouldn't be.

It rose up from the dirt road – no, it swallowed part of the road and appeared to reach far beneath it – like some grand gate to a city or castle with, in its midst, luminous layered patterns that had her vision recoiling with incomprehension. A crescendo of surging bright colors she could not name; liquid metals forming sculptures then instantly melting again; intricate symbols of light bleeding onto themselves. Fractured then reshaped. Staring at it burned her eyes like the sun, she had to slam her gaze away.

She lay crumpled on the cold trampled grass, on her right side, since her left was yet pouring out more blood than she'd known she possessed. She lay freezing from the loss of it, no matter that her cloak was draped over her like a blanket. The pain belatedly rushed her once more, albeit less sharp and encroaching than before – more of a roiling ache now, a mere veil of supine suffering to remind her that she was, still, dying.

Then, a maelstrom of screams claimed her senses – shouts of distress, roars of protest, yelps of shock, wails of anguish, echoing from everywhere around her. The dark mages . . . something was happening to them.

Her left hand clawed into the grass beside her face, and she managed to lift up her gaze again, though the effort felt like hefting a block of stone twice the size of her body.

But she was able to witness what was happening – not to the dark mages, to their demons. Yet in their animal forms, they were . . . called back . . . by the gate. No other way she could've explained it. She saw a demon horse galloping into it, as if eager to return home. But near the gate, a dog hugged its weeping master; clearly this one did not wish to leave. Next thing she knew, the dog was swept into the lights regardless, by some unseen force. And the same fate evidently awaited all the demons, whether they embraced it or not.

Much closer to Tessa, the woman who had slayed Juna held her jackal demon with the fierceness of a mother, whilst shouting and cursing in both Laethi and Chyulin. And her eagle demon clung to her arm bracer with his claws, only to let out a shrill cry as he was flung into the air, as if caught up in boisterous winds that only demons could feel. Tessa watched with tears in her eyes as the eagle, resigned, flew the rest of the way to the gate with the other demons.

Karma!

Tessa desperately glanced the other way, the fear of losing her phoenix again dredging up unlikely reserves of strength. But Karma held her ground – for now. Still reeling from the wasps' stings, surely, albeit Tessa realized – with a deep pang that hurt more fiercely than the fatal wound in her side – that she could no longer feel their bond.

But did it even matter? Tessa still felt the same affection toward the phoenix. She always would.

Karma, if you can hear me, please . . .

"Tessa." A strange low-pitched voice, looming over her, urgent and clear against the chaotic backdrop of screams, shrieks, cursing and weeping, demons racing away, demons being abducted. So, trembling with the dreadful cold that shrouded her body, Tessa made herself look up to see whom it belonged to.

A lanky shape with a narrow face, two small shadowed holes where the nose should be, big round eyes with the pupils of a snake. She peered into rich copper irises, luminous like fire. Leery. And over his shoulder, like it weighed nothing, was slumped Juna's body.