The pain in my spine was gradually fading, and the wound from biting my tongue had already sealed, but my legs still weren’t fully functional. I was starting to get some feeling back, but my legs buckled as soon as I tried to put any weight on them.
I was fortunate to be recovering at all. Without the barriers to absorb much of the force, I probably would have been snapped like a twig.
That was little comfort when I heard the telltale cracking of repeated blows coming from back up the stairway.
Derek had almost caught up to us, and I was still helpless.
Communicate. “Uh, guys, Derek is almost here. Be ready.”
Sera nodded, but continued to focus. I had to hope that would be enough. I didn’t get a reaction from anyone else, at least that I could see.
Vera had caught up to Orden again, only to take a hit from a blast of flame at point-blank range. She shrugged it off — her shroud must have absorbed most of it — and managed to land a hit on Orden’s right arm that caused a barrier to flicker into visibility.
A thin trail of ice began to spread along the barrier where Selys-Lyann had landed.
Good.
I heard a crash from up the stairway.
Less good.
I dug into my bag for options.
I still had a bit of the flask of attunement water or whatever it was, but I had no idea what kind of effect it would have on me. The water had clearly made Sera more powerful, but she wasn’t demonstrating anything new — just extra mana. And it was clearly hurting her, too.
More mana wasn’t going to solve any of my problems. I was an unarmed Enchanter. I had no offensive or defensive capabilities to speak of.
I did, however, still have my sigils, even if they were mostly drained. I grabbed my phoenix sigil and began to pour energy into recharging it.
It was dangerous to push too much mana into it too fast. It was built to recharge itself over time, not to be recharged manually like the school-issued ones. I could feel its capacity pretty easily, though, and it was nowhere close to full. I started gradually filling it back up a bit. I needed all the protection I could get.
After that, I stuck my right hand in the Jaden Box. “Summon Katashi.”
Nothing happened, just as I’d expected. Either I needed to close the box, requiring me to remove my hand, or Katashi’s mark just wasn’t a good enough connection to summon him.
I pulled my hand out of the box.
Who else could I summon?
My standard-issue shield sigil was probably made by a university Enchanter, but I didn’t know who had made it, so I wouldn’t know what name to use if I put the sigil inside. Not good enough.
I didn’t know who’d made the bell, either, or any of my other miscellaneous items.
I had the book. I could try to summon The Voice of the Tower... But that clearly wasn’t the entity’s real name, and I doubted the box would respond to it.
More importantly, Orden worked for the Voice — or at least she claimed she had. I had to consider the likelihood that bringing the Voice to us might make things worse. We couldn’t afford worse.
I could hear footsteps on the stairs. I was out of time, and I still didn’t have any good summoning options on-hand. I needed someone on Katashi’s level of power to make a difference.
If I didn’t have anything to summon him on me, did someone else? Was there something in the room?
I scanned the area.
It was obvious that the battle between Katashi and Keras had continued after I’d left. The place was a wreck. Beyond the new chunks taken out of the pillar that I’d noted before, there were scorched sections of carpet and cleave marks taken out of several walls.
I turned my attunement back on.
I could still see Sera’s net weaving around the wyvern. The wyvern was struggling against it. I finally realized that she wasn’t trying to control or dismiss it. She was pinning it in place with some kind of binding spell, similar to what I’d seen Elora using against Keras. I didn’t realize that Sera knew a similar spell, but it made sense.
Vanniv was still smashing the wyvern with ranged spells, flapping out of the way when it managed to maneuver its tail. The wyvern was battered, but still glowing with an orange aura. Sera must have pumped a lot of her mana into summoning it, only for the creature to be turned against us.
Vera was still hounding Orden at close range, landing more hits to spread ice across Orden’s barrier. Orden didn’t look worried. She wasn’t even teleporting at this point, just dodging and retaliating with blasts of fire.
I could see a golden shroud beneath Orden’s barrier, implying at least one of her attunements was Citrine level and she was no longer suppressing it. Unsurprising, but good to know. Vera’s aura was still orange, as I’d expected.
But none of those things were what I was searching for. My eyes scanned every surface for anything glowing that looked out of place. I wasn’t disappointed. I found multiple splotches of brilliant color on pillars, on carpet, even a bit on a wall.
Dried blood.
Either Katashi’s or Keras’.
Honestly, at this point, I’d take either.
And, hand over hand, I started crawling toward the closest source — a splotch on the chamber’s central stairway.
Derek arrived at the entrance to the chamber before I got there.
“Derek’s here!” I managed to shout, hoping to alert the others in time.
Sera spun, discarding her binding web, and hurled a broad blast of frost at the doorway.
Derek’s hand twitched, then a flaming sword was in his hand, cutting through the ice.
Sera jumped backward. Then she was floating upward, carried by air mana, and hurled more blasts of ice. She winced after the third attack — the effort finally seemed to be taxing her — but Derek was undeterred, walking forward as he struck her spells out of the air.
As Sera paused between breaths, Derek rushed forward and leapt.
I twisted toward him and fired a blast from my gauntlet, but he slapped that aside with the flat of his blade.
“Wall.”
A wall of ice appeared between the two of them. Derek took a chunk out of it with a slash, but the wall was too think to part in a single strike. He impacted the surface and fell back to the ground, beginning to burrow into it with more swings.