“Nah, it’s impervious to damage,” I said. “What’s it made out of?”
“No clue,” said Miles. “The spirit mages who founded the place would know, but they’re dead.”
Yeah. They were, and yet the citadel alone had survived whatever disaster had destroyed the rest of the town. “The spirit mages built the tower, but I guess they left it here when they abandoned the place.”
Had the spirit mages ever had dealings with the Family? I’d thought not, but they seemed to believe they supported the winning side despite the fact that the spirit mages had been the undisputed losers of the last war.
“Look,” Shelley said, pointing. “I see a node over there.”
I squinted at the horizon, where the sun’s rays dazzle the eyes. “Are you sure it’s a node?”
“Either that or a really big bonfire,” said Miles.
Shelley shook her head at him. “It’s a node. Trust me.”
“Better get there before we find out who really lives here,” Miles said. “Remember the incident with the ogre’s nest.”
“Miles!”
The pair of them launched into an argument, while I strode ahead and scanned the route ahead in search of hidden enemies. Lex’s words rang through my head, much as I tried to shut them out. She was right in that I hadn’t always been part of the Family. I’d been born elsewhere… somewhere which didn’t exist any longer. Somewhere she assumed I didn’t remember. And I didn’t, not really, but sometimes when I closed my eyes at night, I saw the town in my dreams. A town dominated by a pillar-like structure, obsidian in colour, the only landmark which wasn’t burning in magical fire.
It was nothing but a memory too old for me to recall in any detail. For all I knew, my subconscious had made it up. Yet the sense of familiarity grew worse the further we walked. The town was a wreck, as though something far more devastating than a war had taken it to pieces. Elysium might have taken a hell of a beating, but enough of it had survived that it remained inhabited. Arcadia, too. The war had left most of the major cities standing, but on a local level, it was hit and miss, and this place had clearly taken the brunt of a major magical assault. A targeted one.
The white glow grew brighter in the distance, then split into two blots of blurred light.
Miles halted behind me. “Shelley, that isn’t a node.”
“What?” Shelley peered ahead of us. “Oh… fuck.”
The glowing mass had begun to move towards us. Nodes didn’t move, nor did they fly, with transparent arms outstretched and glowing from within.
Phantoms: the Parallel’s version of ghosts. I conjured fire to my hands in warning. “Go away.”
They ignored me and closed in around our group, emitting moaning noises and seemingly unafraid of my fire.
“I think they want us to leave,” Miles said. “Too bad, mate—we don’t have anywhere else to go. Mind moving out of the way?”
“They can’t understand you,” said Shelley, conjuring spirit magic to her hands.
As cold hands reached for me, I fired off a ball of flames into the mass of phantoms, causing them to scatter. Their group reformed a second later, sweeping towards us and emitting a low moaning noise that sounded like half-formed words.
“Go away!” Shelley blasted them with spirit magic at the same time as I threw another fireball. Miles did likewise, his hands blazing with light. Our combined magic broke through their mass, sending them scattering in all directions. This time, they got the message and pulled back out of range, leaving the path clear. The so-called ‘node’ had vanished from sight, leaving nothing but wasteland behind.
Teeth bared in frustration, I marched ahead. An image kept intruding, the vivid picture of a burning town with a sentinel-like tower in the centre. I did my level best to push the image away. Getting out of here was more important than finding out what this place had once been… and who’d once lived here.
It took several minutes before I became aware of a scuffling sound among the ruins of a nearby building. Too loud to belong to a phantom. A hairless head popped up from the shadows. Then another. Revenants.
“Shit,” said Miles. “I think we attracted the locals.”
“The good news?” I said, conjuring up a flame. “There must be a node nearby. They feed on the nodes, right?”
“Best news I’ve heard all day.” Miles blasted the revenant with a handful of spirit magic, sending it recoiling. Shelley intercepted another, while I hurled a fireball, lighting up the gloom ahead.
We rounded a corner, spotting the welcome sight of a pillar of light. It wasn’t until we got closer that I saw the dark shapes moving within it. Revenants surrounded the node, feeding on its magic.
“No other way out,” I said. “Ready to run?”
“You bet.” Ryan conjured a handful of air magic, drawing the revenants’ attention. They abandoned the node and flocked towards us in a swarm.
A fireball grew in my hand, and I flung it at the revenants. Two of them burst into a torrent of flame in an impressive display which caught the others in its orbit, fuelled by Ryan’s fire. Bits of burning revenant scattered all over the swampland, and Miles whistled approval.
“Thanks, Bria,” said Miles. “You found our node and took out the dickheads guarding it.”
“It’s her fault we got stuck there,” Shelley reminded him.
“Actually, it’s more the Death King’s fault that he rescued Liv and left the rest of us behind,” I put in.
Ryan snorted.
I glanced at them. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“She isn’t wrong,” Miles supplied. “He did ditch us. I’m insulted.”
“Liv probably got injured again,” said Ryan.
“She did say she had a day to live,” said Miles. “Anyway, don’t blame Bria for the mess. Blame the dickheads who locked up those sprites.”
“He has a point,” I said to the others. “How’d they catch so many of them?”
“You think I know?” asked Ryan. “I can only assume they used magic to do it.”
“Never mind them,” said
