She Will Come Back to Me
The world caught fire before their eyes. Air thick with heat began to scorch everything around them in an instant, and the three of them broke into a run on pure reflex, fleeing the flames.
Louis hauled Adrian onto his back. The fire was swallowing the ground faster than they could cross it. A sharp sizzle rose, and the smell of burning hair.
No!
They were going to be taken. The moment he thought the inferno had reached their backs, a cold wind closed around all three of them. Before they could even cry out, their feet left the earth, and they were flung clear of the forest in a single rush.
North Wind...
The chill of the North Wind felt almost pleasant, which was enough to tell them how fierce the heat around them had been.
Jin turned to look back. The light was too blinding to face. Golden radiance wavered across his sight, so bright it seemed dark, and black spots flickered before his eyes the way they did when one tried to stare straight into the sun.
None of them spoke. Little by little their speed bled away, and the North Wind guttered out as if its strength had failed. The three of them tumbled to the ground. On any other day they would have rolled with the fall and been on their feet again, but they had nothing left for that.
When a spirit could not hold its power to the end, it meant something had happened to its master.
Adrian stayed where he had fallen, curled against the earth.
Nina.
Nina.
Nina.
He was too angry to bear it. Rage came first.
Why? I told you. I told you plainly!
He drove his fist into the ground again and again. Then the strength went out of him, and he did not want to move so much as a finger. He wanted to cry. Instead he pressed his lips shut and pushed himself up, swept back his disordered hair, and wiped the blood away as best he could.
His mind went cold. Rage seemed to have burned every other feeling out of him. Without Nina, his life was as good as over.
Fine. Then so be it.
Every one of you who took her from me will lose everything you have.
He was still dizzy, but he could stand on his own legs. The blow to his head seemed the lesser wound. Taking the corruption head-on had done worse.
"To think a priest sent by the Temple would be the end of us."
The words came out rough. Louis, the vice-captain, let out a long breath. He was having trouble steadying himself as well.
"It seems the cult had already slipped someone into the Temple."
When he had seen the fake priest's strangely glittering eyes, he had only thought the man was worked into a fury by the cult's doings. Something about him had felt wrong, but Louis had never imagined he might be one of them.
Adrian bit down on his lip. It split, and blood ran, but he barely felt it.
Even when the man had said there seemed to be something wrong with the barrier and asked them to come over and stand there holding the objects, he had never dreamed the priest would blow the seal apart with a single spell. He had listened in a blank daze, certain it was only an inspection.
You stupid bastard.
Adrian forced his roughening breath back under control. There would be time enough later to curse himself.
Louis spoke.
"For now, let us return to the fortress. Your injuries must be seen to, Captain, and Kirill is there. We have to go back to Black Shield Castle."
He swallowed once, then added, "We may have to raise the Great Barrier."
Jin answered in a dazed voice.
"We're not going back? To get Nina..."
He did not know what he meant to say, and the rest of it faded.
"We're not going back."
Adrian said it and started walking. The stagger had left his steps. They were clear now.
"Why? What if Nina's still alive..."
"Then she'll come back."
Adrian's voice was low. Jin faltered. Adrian said it again.
Jin dropped his head.
It was the first time that red hair had ever looked so drained of life. Helplessness rose in him, and he closed his eyes.
After a contract, spirit-callers drew greater power from their spirits through an incantation. But if they wanted strength beyond even that, an incantation was not the only thing that had to be offered. And to borrow power from a higher spirit one had never contracted at all...
He had heard that a person offered up a part of the body to borrow such power. He had never imagined he would hear that incantation from Nina's own mouth.
Slowly, Jin turned. Golden firelight shone against the darkening sky.
"Nina. Nina."
Nina opened her eyes. She was curled among the bushes, and a familiar voice was calling her. Her eyes went wide.
Her brother smiled and held out his hand. Nina's face crumpled.
"Brother!"
"Let's go back."
Nina seized that hand and scrambled up. Her eldest brother, so many years older than she was, had always come looking for her. Whenever the youngest ran out insisting this was not her home, he had always come to find the little girl she had been.
Tears spilled over.
"Why are you crying, hm?"
He scooped her up and set her on his shoulders. Nina buried her face in both hands and sobbed as she answered.
"Because I know it's a dream."
"Oh? Is that so."
He laughed out loud. Nina ran a hand down her twin braids as they slipped forward over her shoulders.
My hair was this long when I was small.
Looking out over the wheat fields going the color of honey, she wiped her tears with both hands.
"Or am I dead?"
Had she crossed the Glass Sea?
"No. No, you're not."
At her brother's words she clutched his hair tight and said, "All right. Then even if it's a dream, I want to say it. Thank you for loving me so much. I only ever made trouble, and still you loved me. Thank you. Always."
"Because our Nina is the cutest Nina in the world."
Nina laughed through her tears. She was so happy she never wanted to wake.
"Why is our Nina crying?"
At the bright voice she whipped her head around. Her sister stood there in the headscarf Nina had embroidered so clumsily, looking exactly as she once had.
"Sister!"
Nina reached out, and her brother bent awkwardly at the waist. When she threw herself into the embrace, her sister laughed.
"Oh, honestly, our sweet Nina. You've grown so big. You're heavy. The prettiest Nina in all the world."
Nina sobbed without a sound. Her sister whispered.
"Shall we go back together?"
Nina's lips trembled. She looked up at her sister through a face soaked in tears.
"No. Not now. I can't leave Adrian on his own. So—so—"
As if afraid she would forget them, she did not take her eyes from her sister's face, or her brother's.
"I know this is a dream. I can't go back. I won't. So I don't know who made me dream it, but... come out."
A swift flutter, like pages turned all at once, and a wind came rushing in. Nina watched every part of the scene blur away.
Two figures appeared in a pure white space. No—not people, she thought.
The woman in golden scale armor had great curved ram horns rising from either side of her head, and a cloth was draped over her face all the way to the neck, so her features could not be seen. The other wore gleaming silver plate and a helm that hid the face entirely.
Both of them stood close to six foot three, and Nina had to step back before she could take them in properly.
The horned woman apologized, gently.
The apology was nothing like a human one. She could feel that it was sincere, and so her heart eased almost at once. Besides, it had not been a bad memory.
"No, it's all right. I was glad I got to see them. But that wasn't real, was it?"
"...You're right."
Nina said it softly.
"I think I'm going to cry..."
The woman in scale armor reached out and wiped the tears away. The gesture was utterly unhesitating. Something about it was close, and familiar, and though Nina was embarrassed, she had no wish to refuse the touch.
"So... what happens to me now? You are both spirits, aren't you?"
Nina asked it with her head tipped, and the woman laughed, a soft ripple of amusement.
A leisurely, beautiful voice. Strange. Strangely, she felt she knew it. It was familiar.
"This is going to sound incredibly strange."
"Have we met before?"