Galaxy of Hyperion: Mystic Heir

Chapter Fourteen: Expansion

Jay tilted her face to the sky as soon as the ground started to shake, and she had to resist the overpowering urge to lay down, curl into a ball, and block out the rest of the world. The events that had transpired in Cloudpeak were more than enough action for her, and the matter of her magical withdrawal was not helping in the slightest. If she wasn't careful, she knew that she was going to collapse, but there wasn't much of anything she could do to stop it given the circumstances. 

"You killed Cryai, didn't you?" came the sudden whimper of Arian, and Jay looked up at him in shock, not expecting him to sound so fearful. Still, she supposed that it made sense, and he appeared to have come to the same conclusions that she had. 

Lana nodded, knowing that the question was aimed at her. "I didn't have a choice," she murmured, and Jay knew that Lana was right. Cryai clearly wasn't going to be backing down, and if they wanted to get out of Cloudpeak, they were going to have to get rid of him. He was insistent on keeping Ronan within the borders of Cloudpeak as well, and that only made the problem worse. If they were going to gather the Skylian Mages, they had to free Ronan from his grasp, but that simply wouldn't have been possible as long as Cryai remained alive. 

Of course, this came with more than a few consequences, and the volcano was quickly establishing itself to be one of the more frustrating problems when it came to the aftermath. Cryai had been keeping the volcano from bursting for many years as far as she could tell, and his death meant that the powerful Ice magic that had been keeping the peak from exploding into flames was gone. There was nothing stopping the volcano from letting out lava for the first time in generations, and if its inevitable rupture was strong enough, it would wipe out all of Cloudpeak. Hell, it could have gone all the way out to the City of Steel, destroying all of Lana's hard work in the blink of an eye, and her people, once protected under the glass dome, would be trapped beneath the very thing that kept them safe as the flames grew stronger. 

"Ronan, you're an Earth mage, aren't you?" Lana suddenly questioned, her words catching Jay by surprise. Lana had turned back to face Arian, Jay, and Ronan, and her eyes glimmered with determination. Ronan had only been given the chance to nod his head slightly before Lana was dashing towards him, and she wrapped her hand around his wrist. Ronan was surprised at first, but he didn't pull away, seeming to understand the urgency of the situation. 

As soon as Ronan was secured in her grasp, Lana thrust her other hand downwards, creating a puff of Air magic that sent them both flying skywards. They disappeared into the blue void above, leaving behind only Jay and Arian on the ground. Jay watched them, longing to say something but not sure of what words would even fit the situation. Her tongue felt too large for her mouth again, as if her brain was swelling inside of her skull and on the verge of bursting. 

"I should go and help them," Arian suddenly said, and Jay knew that he was right before he even had the chance to finish speaking. He slowly eased Jay back down onto the desert sands before rising to his feet and looking back to the mountain. He was terrified, and anyone could see it, but he didn't let that stop him. He gave Jay a small yet anxious wave before taking off, using his magic to levitate through the air. 

Jay watched as he vanished from sight the same way that Lana and Ronan had a few moments earlier, and she swallowed nervously. So much was happening all of a sudden, and she had no idea how she was supposed to handle it. Cryai had revealed some incredibly key information to the truth behind all that had happened in the past, but she still needed a few pieces of the puzzle to fully to piece everything together. 

What she knew was that Ronan was one of the Skylian Mages. He had been for quite some time, and he was an immortal the same way that Lana was. He had been in Cloudpeak for much of his life, and Cryai was taking advantage of that to hide him from the rest of the world. Jay didn't need to ask to know why Cryai wanted him hidden, but the confirmation that it was for the Ice Lakinya made a striking amount of sense.