Shit… Kaleo thought. He couldn’t think about the oddity watching; he needed to focus on Reven. He didn’t need much, just a distraction. The storm overhead made his head feel like it was swimming, purging all focus from his mind but he tried all the same until sending a wave of nettles at the attacker; he’d intended on sending shards of ice. No matter, the nettles made the monster jump back and drop the chain. That was enough - - until the chain came up to snag Kaleo on his ankle.
The ground came up so fast he barely had time to register his own panic, the wind robbed from his lungs as he crashed onto the muddied, churned earth. Kaleo felt the splinters of debris and rock pierce his clothing and tear up his back and wings as he collided with the ground. The wind was stolen from his lungs, his mouth working to draw in air that only made him choke more. There was too much sulfur and ash on the air to be of any use to him. He opened his eyes when a strong hand closed itself around his throat, lifting him up off the ground. On instinct, his hands went to the arm that held him, beating at it and thrashing as panic set in. A pit of fear and despair set in to his bowels when he realized who held him.
Xandrix. One of his father’s personal guards, hand chosen by the Lord General. He went missing with the Lord General and many others that were dispatched when the High Lord Speaker was taken. But the man that held him - no, the creature that held him - was not the same tywyll man Kaleo knew five years ago. The normally deep gray skin was now so pale as to be nearly white except at the forearms where it began to bleed black all the way down to clawed fingertips. His eyes, once a calming pale green were now blood red and fangs peeked from snarling lips.
“Xan-” Kaleo tried, feeling the claws dig into his throat. He could not breathe, could not call up any Power or even think straight. Blackness began to roll into his eyes, his lungs seizing until air finally rushed him. He landed hard on the ground, coughing and rolling into the churned earth. When he looked up, a chimera stood above him, growling ferociously as someone grabbed him by the middle. He fought them, though he did so with very little strength. The chimera had a rider but that was all Kaleo could make out before the blackness settled firmly over his vision.
***
"What are you doing?!” Xandrix roared as he stood, weapons at the ready with Jaysen snarling in front of him.
“Leave him alone!” Jaysen spat back. He held tightly to Tanis’s fur, his staff discarded somewhere in his haste to move with his audeas. She had given the warning, her mental voice surprised and almost afraid of what she saw. She described the avian boy down to the last teal feather, every inch of Jaysen tensing as she made him acutely aware of his friend’s presence on the battlefield. Kaleo was the one Vessel Jaysen swore to keep safe no matter the cost; he had to.
“Are we playing a new game?” Roth interrupted. “You’re not very good at Hide-and-Find, Nasty-Pants. You’re not supposed to let them go once you’ve found them.”
Xandrix only growled harder for it, shoving at Tanis and Jaysen so that he lost balance and fell off of his audeas. He was no fighter but needed to protect his friend. He had to think, to get a clear picture of what was happening.
“Roth,” he barked holding out his hand. “Give me your hand.”
“Why?” the Corrupted Speaker asked, taking Jaysen’s hand anyway to pull him up off the ground. Tanis snarled and barked, hair standing on end and wings out in a rage that Jaysen could feel.
“It’s a game,” Jaysen lied. Everything was a game to the idiot chaos engine.
“Oh, alright then, what sort of game? Is it a dancing game? A guessing game? A-”
“Sight Unseen!” Jaysen barked, digging in to Roth’s hand with his claws so the Corrupted Speaker could not pull away. Not that he tried. The spell practically froze him to the spot with confusion as his vision tunneled and was then shared with Jaysen. He saw what Roth did if in a greatly diminished form. There was no color or fine detail, but it offered more than the empty void of black that he existed in. There was a modicum of control over the subject, but not enough to see everything. However, what he saw was enough. There was a church and a centaur retreating with a winged form carried beneath his arm like a sack. He was safe. For now.
Jaysen let Roth go, remounting Tanis and heeling her toward the church. It made his skin crawl to be near it, the hallowed ground like poison to him. He slid off Tanis’s back taking a moment to pause, listening to the storm, the muted voices and smelling
