“HYAH!!!” Marge shouted as she launched her yo-yo-like weapon at the massive creature. My jaw dropped as the weapon returned, only to be banged up and covered in rust.

  “O-okay, I think now is a good time to run,” I suggested, slowly turning around and walking out of the forest—

  “Nope. You decided we were going to stay and fight this thing, so you’re going to stay and fight this thing.” Maverick grabbed me harshly by the shoulders. “I thought you wanted to save the poor little Vafirans from the ghula?”

  “I do, but not at my expense.” I huffed, but turned around nonetheless.

  “We’ll have to resort to non-physical magic,” Zephyr explained. “Anything that touches it corrodes, and that likely includes us.”

  Aidan nodded, his eyes filled with determination I had not seen before. He launched a ball of fire at the creature. It must have been asleep up until now, because for the first time, it opened its eyes. Its mouth followed soon after, releasing a horrible screech that forced me to cover my ears. My eyes still watered anyway.

  “What kind of weak fireball was that?” Finn asked.

  “T-that wasn’t weak! That was my normal fireball!” Aidan shouted back, dodging the creature’s swipe just in time. He began to pale, and I considered running anyway. Maverick seemed a lot easier to subdue at the moment.

  “We’re going to need something much stronger than “normal.” Oh! Ella! You should try!”

  “N-no.” I rapidly shook my head. “I should not try.”

  Marge summoned a large gust of wind, perhaps trying to blow away the mist. Again, this only made it more angry.

  “We should strike together,” Zephyr suggested. “A blast of fire from the six of us should work.”

  The rest of us glanced at each other and nodded.

  “On three. One… Two… Three!”

  For once, I underestimated how much ether I’d need and ended up with a slightly larger than usual fireball. Everyone else’s were rather large, though I could’ve sworn Zephyr didn’t have one? I must have missed it.

  The fire scorched the creature in front of us, and I once again had to cover my ears from its horrible screech. The fire, along with the strange mist, created a thick smoke causing me to cough. My lungs burned and my eyes watered as I tried to see if our attack had worked. Its left side was indeed scorched, but it was still standing. As the smoke settled, it was as if… it was growing another layer of skin?

  “Is it healing itself?!” Finn asked, alarmed.

  “If it’s healing itself, then there’s no way we can…!” Zephyr’s face paled. “Run.”

  The six of us began running in the same direction we came from, the horrible creature chasing after us.

  “Can’t we teleport out of here?!” Marge asked.

  “Only if you all want to stand still and hold hands. If we teleported out now, there’s no guarantee I can ensure everyone comes with.” Maverick snarled.

  “We can’t run forever,” I huffed, almost completely out of breath. Unfortunately for me, my magic wasn’t improving my stamina.

  “Yeah, how far do you expect us to run?” Marge asked. “We probably don’t want to lead this thing to the capital.”

  “I’m sure we’ll all pass out from exhaustion long before we reach the capital,” Zephyr huffed. It just occurred to me that he probably didn’t have a lot of stamina either, spending most of his time reading. Was that stereotyping?

  My lungs and calves burned, wanting to give up. I glanced behind me to see that the creature had nearly caught up with us. I could hear Finn wince, and I caught a glimpse of something purple on his arm.

  Fear pounded in my chest and in my stomach. “This isn’t going to work! We have to stop it if we want to make it out alive!” I shouted.

  “Zephyr, use your musket to—” Maverick was cut off.

  “Aidan, use a fireball to distract it!” Zephyr ordered.

  “O-okay!” Aidan launched a large fireball over the creature, but it didn’t fall for the distraction.

  Maverick grimaced. With the flick of his wrist, four fireballs appeared and flew towards the trees directly behind us. Within seconds, they collapsed, forming a fence between us and the creature.

  “That should buy us enough time to come up with a plan.” Maverick eyed Zephyr suspiciously.

  Marge ran over to Finn, healing the ghula on his arm. “Ella! Lend me your ether! I don’t have enough to heal him!”

  I nodded and ran over. Marge absorbed my ether as I watched Zephyr nervously comb back his hair with his fingers.

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  “What aren’t you telling us?” Maverick asked him.

  Zephyr exhaled, looking everywhere but at us. “I can’t fight anymore.” He bit his lip. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him fight at all in New York. He had kept to his illusions and seemed too tired to fight the Magus of Historia.

  …Was he actually tired?

  “Can’t or won’t?” Maverick snapped.

  “I promised I’d never hurt another living being.”

  “If you don’t help us, then more people are just going to get hurt! Have you thought about that—”

  “Leave him alone,” Finn muttered. “If he doesn’t want to fight, he doesn’t have to fight.”

  “What about—”

  “Ella’s going to die.” Marge’s monotone voice interrupted everyone else.

  “What…?” Finn asked incredulously.

  “I had a vision just now… If we don’t plan something soon, the creature is going to break through and attack Ella. The ghula will be too much for us to heal!”

  “Marge… This isn’t funny…” I chuckled, to my own surprise.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be,” Marge answered seriously.

  “Teleport us out of here. Now,” I demanded.

  Maverick nodded. Despite standing still, he somehow managed to trip, and would’ve fallen forward if Zephyr hadn’t caught him. “The ether is too chaotic.”

  “Y-you mean w-we’re stuck here?!” Aidan stammered more than usual.

  The sound of thrashing grew louder. It was only a matter of time before the creature broke through. I didn’t want to die. How stupid would it be for me to survive being experimented on but die to an oversized cursed frog?

  “Welp, I’m all out of ideas. Guess it’s up to you guys now.” Maverick shoved his hands into his pockets.

  That was it. That was the last straw.

  I walked up to Maverick and grabbed him by the collar, yanking him down towards me so we were at eye level. “Do something about this! You’re an Ethereal, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “You’re our friend, aren’t you?! We need you! I need you!” I cried. My voice wavered, the words difficult to get out because of the damn tears. “If you don’t do something about this creature, I’m for sure going to die! I know the rest of us haven’t been pulling our weight—me especially—and I’m sorry if you feel taken advantage of. But right now, you’re literally our only choice. You’re the only one of us who actually stands a chance! Please… don’t let me die.”

  Maverick pushed me back, and the trees blocking us from the monster had finally snapped. Marge and Finn looked to be trying to hold it off with fire, but they wouldn’t last much longer.

  I grabbed the cuff of Maverick’s sleeve as he stood up. “Please… Friend…” My words were so quiet, I wasn’t sure he heard at first. But then he looked at me—a glint in his eyes I had never seen before. The tip of his lips curved up into a smirk, but there was something more sincere to it.

  Thunder sounded in the atmosphere. Rain poured down, instantly soaking everything in its path. Maverick summoned his sword. It was difficult to tell at first, but the tip had a stream of water swirling around it. He charged at the monster, and to my surprise, the purple mist vanished upon coming into contact with the sword.

  Unfortunately, the creature responded by shoving Maverick back, causing the boy to go flying several feet backwards into a tree. The purple mist reappeared, but something about it seemed weaker. Was it weak to water? I glanced at Marge and Finn, who were already using this information to their advantage, summoning streams of water from their palms.

  “Ella!” Aidan’s blood-curdling scream sounded in my ears, snapping my attention to him, who had wide bloodshot eyes, before turning back to the creature—

  I screamed, but no sound left my lips. My mind instantly flashed back to the horrifying pain Greg’s team made us endure. I couldn’t decide what hurt more—that or being slapped by a giant creature with a purple mist that burned my skin. I shut my eyes, not wanting to see my perpetrator or my own skin melt off. The pain was overwhelming, like a thousand knives met a burning stove, and I wished I could just die faster.

  It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! My thoughts echoed since my mouth wouldn’t.

  Dad…

  I screamed, and this time the sound nearly deafened me. A bright light flashed before me, nearly blinding me. This was it. I died just like Marge said I would. Immortal my ass.

  The pain began to ease, and I could finally make out that my friends were trying to talk to me. And that I was still alive, somehow. Everyone except Aidan was crouched next to me, desperately using their ether to heal me. I noticed the stream of light from Maverick was dark purple, almost similar to the ghula. The sight made me shiver before warmth enveloped me as Marge wrapped her arms around me.

  “I thought we had lost you.” She whispered into my ear. When she pulled back, I noticed she was crying.

  I turned to where the monster we were fighting should have been to find purple liquid staining the grass. “What happened?” I asked.

  “Aidan killed it.” Maverick’s gaze was on Aidan. Both looked equally surprised. Aidan was glancing down at his hands as if he’d suddenly grown two more.

  “How?” I blinked. The six of us struggled to take it down and Aidan bested it himself?

  “T-there was light…” Aidan was still staring at his hands.

  “Looks like you finally found your Talent.” Finn slapped him on the back before wrapping his arm around his shoulder—a gesture Aidan hated and desperately tried to get out of.

  “M-my Talent?”

  “Light isn’t a normal element. You need a special Talent to use it. Or be an Ethereal.” Finn beamed—a look of pride on his face.

  “I-I wonder if I can use darkness too.” Aidan looked lost in thought, shifting his open palms up and down as if they were scales.

  “I don’t see why not,” Zephyr added. “Light and darkness exist within all humans to varying degrees. Even Maverick here is capable of light magic. Why don’t you show the class?”

  “Don’t feel like it.” Maverick shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away.

  “Maybe he can’t use light magic after all.” Finn teased.

  “I can. I just don’t want to.” What soured his mood?

  Deciding we had enough adventure to last us the rest of the year, we decided to go back to Meridia— Okay, we decided to go back to the inn. We were enjoying a meal in the lobby when two guards from the palace rudely disrupted our tasty crumpets. …I don’t know if they were actually crumpets.

  “Her imperial majesty, Empress Avaline—may she live eternally—summons you to the palace,” one of the guards spoke.

  “Again?” Marge blinked. “What have we done this time…”

  The guards motioned for us to get up and abandon our tasty food to follow them to a chaotically designed palace. Seriously, it’s the interior designer Avaline should be speaking to, not us.

  “Visitors from across the sky, I offer you my eternal gratitude,” Avaline’s voice resounded throughout the throne room. “You have accomplished what even I had failed to do, and slew a creature that we refer to as Falor Ghula, which, in the old language, means: “from the miasma.” Even my magic wasn’t enough to slay it.”

  “How did you know about that?” Marge asked bluntly.

  “The same way I knew of your arrival. Nothing in Vafir escapes me. You would be wise to keep such mindless questions to yourself.” Did she really just say that last bit?

  “Sorry…” Marge scratched the back of her head sheepishly.

  “There will be a feast tonight in your honor. My servants will guide you to your rooms and help you dress for the occasion.” Her gaze seemed to scrutinize our attire. “After all, all of the capital will have their eyes on you.”