The Spire

My eyes shot open. I was immediately aware, my senses feeling sharper than they ever had. The room I was in was encased in ice, and my mana was pulsing wildly. I pushed myself to my feet, and despite the ice surrounding me I still felt Anare's heat. She was fighting that person, the one who came through instead of Mari.

I looked toward the hole Anare had bored through the entire house, the charred wood peeking from underneath my ice. Outside, snow covered every inch of the ground that I could see. I simply stared out. What was I supposed to do? If that person was still alive against Anare, then this was a fight between gods.

I heard a weak, sputtering cough, and my head snapped to the source. "Mom?!" I shouted, my legs tearing free of the ice that had begun to encase them. I rushed over to her, my hands shaking uncontrollably. Ice was covering her body, and I couldn't will it to stop.

"Mom I-- I don't know what to do!" was all I could manage, as I watched blood trickle from the corner of her mouth. I'd never felt more helpless before, or more like a child.. despite everything she did to me I was still scared of losing her. I hated her, but that didn't mean I wanted to watch her die.

I couldn't think straight, and my thoughts began to fade into the background of the roaring of my blood rushing through my head. I did the only thing I could think to do, and I let my mana go. If she was frozen, then at least we'd have time to figure out how to save her. Or, I was killing her quicker.

When she lay completely still, encased in a thick layer of ice, I stood and forced my legs to move. I walked through the path Anare had carved, and stepped out into what should have been a frigidly cold world. I couldn't feel it though, not like I did before. In the distance I could see a bright glow, and the faint sound of thunder in the same direction. I turned, my eyes going wide as an incomprehensibly massive spire of ice entered my field of view.

It had consumed a large chunk of the estate, and the base of it continued in the direction of the town. "I did this.." I whispered to myself. I could see waves of ice and snow pouring from it, covering every bit of green land I could see. I swallowed hard, and took off running for the academy. My legs protested, but there was only one person I could think to speak to.

The snow never stopped falling, and a part of me was worried that I was making things worse by moving away from that spire, but I pushed on. When I finally made it, the academy seemed entirely empty. I couldn't hear a single thing even when I focused my senses.

My legs shook as I tried to figure out where Faye might have gone, my head whipped back and forth. I suddenly felt paralyzed; I had no idea what was going on or what I could do to stop it, and the only two people I could think to ask for help were gone.

I turned and stared off into the distance, watching black clouds forming above a distant forest. I still heard the thunder from that storm, even with how far it was. Then a sudden realization hit me; it wasn't thunder. That was the sound of the fight Anare was in right now, which meant it was still going.

In my brief moment of distraction, I didn't notice a new presence next to me, and I enarly jumped out of my skin when Faye suddenly spoke. "I thought I knew what it would be like when they returned.."

"Faye! You can't sneak up on me like that!" I shouted in return, my nerves already frayed beyond any level I'd experienced before.

She turned to me and gave me a weak smile, but remained silent. I looked toward the spire, to the gathering storm in the distance, and back at Faye. "This.. Faye, I don't know what to do.." I choked out, as an overwhelming sense of dread closed its hand around me. I felt like I was suffocating, that every breath I took wasn't enough to fill my lungs. I started breathing heavier and heavier, my fingers clawing at my chest. Why couldn't I breathe?

Just as I felt my knees give out under me, Faye caught me and held me close. She didn't try to say anything, didn't offer me empty guarantees that everything would be okay. What part of this was okay? Even now, snow was falling above us, in what should have been the start of summer. A battle raged far off in the distance, and even so we could still hear the sounds of it.

"Stupid.." I looked up from Faye's chest, expecting her to be staring down at me angrily, but she was looking up at the sky. The voice spoke again, "Never trust.." it said. It was distorted, but there was a spark of recognition, and I spoke aloud. "Mari.."

Her voice came from seemingly everywhere at once, and the snow seemed to fall more and more heavily with every word she spoke. "Failure.. naive child.. thief.."

Tendrils of ice were branching from that massive spire, like the branches of a tree they clawed across the barren sky, bringing in their wake a frozen tundra. I couldn't feel the cold, but I could feel Faye shivering against me, still at a loss for words.

"Murderer.." was the last word I heard, before my thoughts snapped to a single point. The spire. I pulled away from Faye, and I spoke, my voice solid and steady. "I'm going up the spire. Mari is waiting for me. You need to try and stop Anare."

"Good luck, Marin." Was all Faye could say. It would have been far too easy to convince me to stay, and she seemed to know that. I gave a nod, and began to run. I left a trail of solidified snow in my wake as I sprinted back toward that monumental spire. I wasn't sure what would await me if I managed to get to the top, but I could feel something like a small piece of string, tugging the whole of my being towards it. So I continued to run. I ignored the thundering sounds of Anare's battle, I ignored Mari's pained words echoing through the world itself, and I simply ran.