Phoenix and Ashes

This had come without real warning. Granted, she had spent too long searching for the Air Master, and now they were pulling on her insistently, but she couldn't understand why she hadn't had some sign before this.

She felt them, like a corset laced too tight, squeezing off breath, and making it hard to think. Soon, they would become uncomfortable.

Then painful. Then maddening—

'I won't ask you for any kind of a decision now, Eleanor,' he was saying, as she felt her hands growing cold. 'But I would like you to consider the possibility of seeing me as more than your friend. I would like to know that there is a chance for me in your future.'

She wanted to pay attention to his words, but she couldn't. She felt the spells closing in on her. It was becoming hard to breathe; the tugging at her mind and body were growing intolerable. And she couldn't help herself. She began to shake, and she pulled her hands out of his and sprang to her feet in a single convulsive movement.

'Eleanor!' he exclaimed, as she whirled to face him, hoping he could see something of her inner struggle in her expression. 'Eleanor, what's wrong? Please, I haven't offended you again—'

She shook her head, frantically, and wrapped her own hands around her throat, trying to force some last words out of it before she had to run—

But the words that came were not the ones she had expected.

'Reggie—' she heard herself gasping '—I love you!'

And then, she turned, and ran, leaving him calling after her. She couldn't even understand what he was saying at that point, the spells were tightening on her so painfully. He had no hope of catching her, lame as he was, of course. Sarah would be waiting—

—but she could not stop for Sarah.

No, she could not stop for anything.

All she could do was run, for as long as she was running in the right direction the bands of pain around her body, around her mind, would ease just enough to allow her to continue running. But if she stopped, even for a moment. . . .

She did not take the road. The road was too long. She fled headlong and heedless through the grounds, across the long, empty lawn, and into the 'wilderness' which was no wilderness at all, of course, only a carefully cultivated illusion of one. She couldn't think; not clearly anyway. Only fragments of thought lanced across the all- encompassing demand of Alison's spells.

Why was this happening?

She stumbled across a bridle-path that went in the right direction, and turned down it; her rose-wreath and garland were gone, and her hair was down all one side. Her sides ached, but the coercions were not letting up. A branch tangled with her skirt and she yanked it free without missing a step.

How had the coercions suddenly snapped into place?

There was a low stone wall in the way; she scrambled over it, and found herself in a meadow full of sheep that scattered before her, bleating indignation. She kept going; at least here there was enough light to see—

Why were the coercions so strong, suddenly?

Another low, stone wall; she left more of her gown on one of the stones. Dimly, she recognized the top of the Round Meadow where she had met Reggie so often, the upper end, where she normally couldn't go. At least she knew the way from here.

If the pain in her side and her head would let her. Her world narrowed to the pain and the next step, each step bringing her closer to The Arrows, closer to the end of the pain. The end of the pain—

Run!

Her breath rasped in her lungs, sending sharp, icy stabs into her chest. Her vision blurred and darkened; she felt branches lashing at her as she passed. But all she could think of was that she must, must get to The Arrows.

Run!

She felt hard, bare dirt and hard-packed gravel under her feet. She was in the road to Broom. She didn't remember getting over the fence.