RE: Monarch
Chapter 43: Enclave XIII

I felt the darkness call to me. Somehow, I knew, even in the addled depths of my mind, that all I had to do was breathe, and it would all be over. Just open my mouth and suck in, and I could go back to a different time. It had been so peaceful. Studying, learning magic, making new friends. The childhood I never had. The enclave was a civilized place. So different from Uskar.

Only something had happened that changed all that. Something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I didn’t want things to change.

But. Another concept took hold, almost too abstract to cling onto.

What if I didn’t come back this time. I didn’t want to die. I couldn’t die. There was someone I was supposed to protect. A promise I made. A resolve firmed within me.

I didn’t want to die.

My head struck something hard and cold. My vision returned. I was floating immersed in water. The memories came back in a flash of panic. I dove into the water, and something exploded.

A long layer of ice had formed over the surface of the lake, covering my head. My breath burned in my chest, begging for release. Beside me, a dark shape struggled, pounding at the ice.

Blackened hands, fingers breaking—

I pushed the memory away, turning inward, finding my center. It occurred to me suddenly that I’d drank a potion of iron lung. I didn’t need to breathe, I just wanted to. I swam over to the struggling shape beneath the water. Overhead, countless projectiles flew back and forth. The ones descending a higher elevation must be coming from the tower—which meant the lower ones were whatever was left of Ralakos’s men, firing from the shore.

I reached the struggling shape, darting backwards when they tried to cling on to me. Extending my hand out so it was clear to see, I called the flame, holding it to the ice above us. It burned a hole clean through. I widened it a bit, and guided him to it—it was Relyre, I think—then burned another hole in the ice for myself.

Air never tasted so sweet.

I spotted another struggling dark shape—Nephdos—and did the same for him, and then guided him over to where Relyre was.

Slowly, carving holes as we went, we moved slowly towards the shore. We made it about half-way. Nephdos was still in a full-blown panic, clawing at the holes, trying desperately to get out when the ice cracked in a dull spiderweb of cracks and fissures.

Fuck.

The response was immediate. A spear of magma crashed into the ice, crushing Nephdos and bringing the surrounding water to an immediate boil. My face and arms stung and blistered. I kicked away, Relyre beside me. Something came up behind us in a blur and touched my back. I was propelled forward, body cresting the surface and slamming back into it as a jet of water propelled me forward, gagging and sputtering until I hit the shore, rolling up on it in a tangle of limbs.

An infernal man I didn’t recognize dragged me up by the back of my armor and pulled me towards the rounded bubble Erdos and his men stood in—some sort of permeable shield they cast spells through. I hacked and coughed up water. From the side, another man ran up my rescuer and tackled him to the ground, stabbing him over and over as he screamed, glowing orange particles ebbing and flowing as he tried to form a spell, his arm eventually falling slack and extending towards me.

A fireball hit maybe a yard away, catapulting me to the side. I landed badly, my elbow smashing into my ribs, and something cracked. The ringing in my ears deafened me and for a moment I panicked, spinning around, looking for Thoth amongst the carnage, before realizing how moronic that was. She wasn’t here. If she were, I’d already be dead.

I staggered towards the bubble. The man who had killed my rescuer shoved me down. He was an infernal: a red, his eyes full of hate. His hands wrapped around my throat and began to squeeze. I gagged, little purple motes floating in my vision.

A pressurized blade of water struck him upside the face, tearing away his skin and revealing his teeth. He looked at me, surprised, before falling back onto the stone.

I stared at him for a moment in shock, a piece of the puzzle finally sticking out to me in all the chaos. Slowly, my eyes focused on a dozen men running down the beach towards us.

Why were other infernals attacking us?

Then a pair of rough arms yanked me backward. Relyre and Urish together, both still dripping with water. Relyre raised both hands. The stony ground jutted upwards, cutting us off from the incoming assault. I collapsed inside the bubble, drawing breath after ragged breath. Artillery spells still pelted the barrier, thudding booms muffled within the dome.

“What the fuck is happening?” I yelled at Erdos.

“The hells if I know!” Erdos yelled back, his expression grim.

“Whose men are those?”

“They’re sigil-less. No colors. Which means this is someone’s idea of an unsanctioned operation. Now pipe down.” Erdos chewed his lip. “I need to think.” The impromptu stone wall to our left began to shudder, bits of rock falling away. Another massive blue projectile impacted the dome and it began to crack.

Erdos finally came to a decision. “Urish, get a smokescreen up.” Urish began to cast, pulling chunks of earth into the air and slamming his hands together, grinding them into a fine dust that spread and thickened until it formed a thick canopy between us and the tower. It had to be constantly maintained, as the incoming projectiles would send the dust swirling in miniature tornadoes. Erdos shifted towards Urish. “Get the prince out of here.”

“What? Why?” I stared at Erdos.

“Too many questions.” Erdos reached up with glowing white hands, attempting to smooth the cracks out of the shield but only partially succeeding. “Someone’s trying to start a war. Avoiding that’s worth any price.”

“How am I supposed to get him out?” Relyre was looking around wildly, panic in his eyes, not fully recovered from the close call in the lake.

“Want me to wipe your ass, too?” Erdos pointed at the tall sheer wall of the cave behind us. “Make a damn door.”

I didn’t want to leave them. But the dome wouldn’t hold for long. Staying meant certain death and I had no idea how far back it would take me. I needed to make sure people in the enclave knew what happened.

So, when Relyre pulled me with him, I ran. Relyre tore open a narrow hole in the cavern wall, the earth groaning as it sealed shut behind us.

----

My hands were still shaking after hours in the tunnel. I had a cracked rib, and my left hip hitched with every step, giving me a debilitating limp.

It wasn’t a fast process. Relyre would focus on the stone in front of us, small fissures building until it finally cracked open. I used my flame to give him light, but without anything to set on fire the illumination was dismal at best. Relyre had some analysis method to detect parallel caverns in the earth—meaning we at least knew we were heading towards something—but that just meant we were being efficient. It didn’t do anything to speed up our actual process. He collapsed, panting, spent once again. I reached into my satchel and fished out another stamina potion, handing it to him.

He took it, bemused. “You have a whole apothecary in there?”

“That was the last one.”

“Damn me for asking,” Relyre said. His face was covered in a thin film of dust he no longer bothered to wipe off. “We might be close enough that it don’t matter.”

“Might?”

“Might,” Relyre confirmed, “It’s closer than it was before, but farther than I’d like it to be.”

I silently reminded myself that the man was saving my life, and it was incredibly improper to go on angry tirades on the subject of specificity to someone in the process of doing you that large of a favor. So instead, pressed my back against the wall as he meditated and tried to regain some mana of my own.

Finally, I couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Do you think Erdos is dead?”

“He’s a cantankerous old geezer, but…” Relyre’s face sagged. “There sure were a lot of them.”

Relyre stood and tore the tunnel asunder, finally leading us out of the claustrophobic tunnel into a surface cave. We were still deep in the known cave network, but it felt a damn sight safer compared to where we came from.

Guemon. I didn’t share my suspicions, but it had to be him. I was honestly surprised he hadn’t taken a swipe at me earlier. The bastard had bided his time well, but he made a mistake underestimating the sense of duty upheld by Ralakos’s men. I started to strategize, running through the most efficient ways to run him into the ground, cursing my lack of foresight for distancing myself from infernal politics since the trial.

I was so deep in thought I ran straight into Relyre’s back.

“Relyre? What’s…”

Words left me. My gut twisted, awash in nausea. The cavern mouth was elevated by around a hundred feet, providing a full view of the enclave. Above the city, the artificial sun had shifted to a vivid crimson, dyeing the city in bloody rays.

A thousand dark shapes infested the city like insects.

The enclave was overrun. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the NƟvelFɪre.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

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