“Yes, the rumors are true,” Jularra chided with scorn. “I only came here to speak with you and Abranni. But I see things are going a different way. Unfortunate.”
Melcayro chuckled and looked to one side. The enigmatic woman—previously child—emerged from another section of the risen dirt mounds.
“My sister, Abranni,” Melcayro offered. His voice dripped with condescending courtesy.
Abranni reached out to Jularra. Her hand shook with strain from the beginnings of a spell. Her fingers stretched taut, splayed, trying to grasp Jularra’s veils of protection.
Jularra resisted her grip, fighting for control over her magic. Like the sensation of having a healthy tooth pushed gently by a finger, it was a nuisance at first, but began to feel more and more like a failing tooth being picked at, poked at, and aggravated. Jularra had to get ahead of the struggle.
She dropped her sword and brought both hands beneath the sphere, focusing her full attention upon it. The sphere grew. The veils around her people became stronger, more resistant to Abranni’s formidable power. The nagging prodding from Abranni’s efforts weakened.
But that was before Melcayro joined in.
The momentum in their magical fight shifted dramatically as Melcayro and Abranni’s combined efforts bit at her power. Jularra's protective veils were holding, but the rhythmic pains she felt while resisting her assailants grew sharper and longer. She knew she would have to let go soon.
She began to shift her focus. While still giving her all to the sphere, she looked back to Vischuno, Wona, and the others. They were waiting on her direction. She widened her eyes and lifted her chin.
“Now!”
She dropped the veils. Melcayro and Abranni lurched forward, suddenly finding no resistance to their magic. With full control of her energy sphere once more, Jularra shifted her focus from a force of creation to one of destruction.
As her comrades rushed behind and around her to confront the Messyleian magicians, Jularra shot the energy out from her palms and up toward the roof of the barn. Just before it hit, the sphere fanned out into a large, flat circle of pure momentum. It slammed into the roof, shooting beams, planks, splinters, and thatch into the air, hundreds of feet out into the town around the barn.
Jularra dipped down, retrieved her sword and pointed it to the sky. She waved it, first with small twirls of the tip and then with wide, powerful swings, all the while still pointing the blade skywards.
The sky, clear and salted with stars, began to cloud over. By the fifth full circle of her sword, the sky flashed with lightning and rumbled with thunder.
The weather crashed, and below it Jularra’s men and women clashed with Melcayro and Abranni. The siblings were proving adept at defending themselves, finding cover in the numerous towers of dirt holding up the other Acorilinians.
Between strikes, blocks and parries, the siblings placed their hands onto the earthen mounds, transforming them into dirt creatures full of brute force to complicate the fight. These new enemies not only challenged the attacking Acorilinians, but also left the hanging Bedrock and Spire at the mercy of their nooses once again.
But Jularra harnessed the weather itself. She summoned a strike of lightning, then another, and then more, half a dozen, dozens. Each strike sliced through a noose, freeing each captured Acorilinian and dropping them to the ground.
Within moments, the captured soldiers wriggled free and tore the bags off their heads. Most still had their sword belts and joined in the fight. The dirt creatures fell quickly, crumbling when struck into harmless piles of earth. But the fighting between Melcayro, Abranni, and Jularra's forces was at an impasse.
The Messyleians were too overwhelmed to wage a meaningful offense. Their swords flew skillfully and their free hands fired off continuous bursts of deflecting and blinding bolts, but they were mostly on the defensive, waiting for an opportunity to take advantage of the stalemate.
The stalemate was indeed about to be broken, but not by Melcayro and Abranni.
Jularra inhaled a massive breath, blew it out, then sucked in another chest full of air before squatting. She extended her arms, wrists together, and then flipped her hands so that the backs touched. With the bulk of her remaining magical energy stores, she forced her arms out from each other. Like parting waters, the fighting Messyleians and Acorilinians were caught up in sliding walls of energy. One by one, the combatants stuck to the invisible wall, losing most of their ability to move. Like bugs on flypaper, they could only twitch as they strained to free themselves from Jularra’s magic. The moment Melcayro and Abranni were caught up in the waves of restraint, the noise and chaotic violence subsided.
Jularra stood. Though she seethed with fury, she maintained her hold on her magical traps as she walked towards the suspended siblings. Her deliberate steps gave her time to think, and to maintain her magic. The room, previously filled with the violence and energy of dozens of people, was eerily still. All but Jularra floated, powerless, writhing like newborns under her absolute physical command.
Jularra walked up behind Melcayro. He could barely twist his head, but strained his eyes to keep Jularra in his periphery. Abranni could not see her at all.
“You have one chance to explain why you captured my people.”
The Queen of Acorilan still had her arms out, but slowly brought them down to her sides. They remained rigid as she worked to retain control over everyone in the roofless barn. Releasing her hold on one would release them all.
“One chance!” Jularra repeated.
Melcayro’s neck jerked and shook as he tried again to face her.
“You won’t break that hold,” she said, confident. “As you can now see, the rumors about my superior magic are true. Now: explain yourself.”
Melcayro merely rolled his head a few inches to the other side. Jularra circled around to Abranni.
“Or you," she whispered in the woman's ear. "I don’t care. One of you will tell me why you attacked my people, or I’ll crush you both where
