The Consequences

Flashes of red lightning tore through an ash-choked sky. Had they not been filtering oxygen to her lungs using her wind magic, they both would have perished. The blaze of Anare's flame was greater and more intense than it had ever been, even when she unleashed her strongest spell during the war. 

Her mana strangled the very land itself, as if the fires she caused weren't enough. Calliope stared on in awe, their body steaming violently with every blocked fist and swing of Anare's leg. For as long as Calliope had spent deepening their mana reserves, they were still blown away by just how much Anare was able to lose without seeming to even notice.

Anare's combat style was new to Calliope. They had expected a long-range fight of magical artillery, but Anare never once gave them the space to prepare something devastating. Her fists flew fast and hard, and the variation in the way she fought was keeping Calliope on the back foot. When Anare suddenly shifted from tight, controlled jabs and swipes to a wild haymaker, Calliope wasn't able to avoid it in time. In a near instant, a massive shield of ice appeared between them and Anare's fist.

Anare's eyes blazed with fury as her fist shattered the ice shield and finally made contact with Calliope. It was merely a slight brush, but the damage was undeniable. Anare's bright red mana scorched through Calliope's shoulder, sending tendrils of raging crimson flames through their veins. The attack itself had created a sudden flash of steam, blinding them both.

Anare's sharpened senses honed in on every little sound she could hear, searching for a heartbeat, the flow of blood, ragged breathing. She could hear nothing but the blaze of her flame. With a burst of wind around her, she cleared the steam. Calliope was nowhere to be seen. With a twist of her wrists, sigils exploded around her, and her entire body was engulfed in a wreath of fire that turned the earth beneath her feet to molten rock and soil.

Just a moment later, a thin spear of ice shot out from the smoke and steam, melting before it came anywhere near Anare. In a fraction of a second she had launched herself toward the point it came from.

* * *

I could feel the intensity of Anare's heat growing more and more, yet as I climbed the spire of ice, it seemed entirely unaffected. The snow only continued to spread, further and further, as the icy tendrils continued to reach across the sky. I'd never imagined something like this to be possible, much less for Mari to be the one creating it. 

Despite my body's affinity for ice, I was beginning to feel the cold. My fingers were getting harder to close around the shards of ice I had been using to scale the side of the spire, and my legs were moving slower. I wouldn't be able to sustain this for much longer, and yet I was only part way up the spire. I looked up, staring at the remainder of the climb with dread.

All I could do was press on, no matter what pains my body felt, no matter how cold I became, I could not stop. I opened a sigil with my right hand, and tried to warm myself with fire. I could never sustain fire for very long, but it had to be enough this time. I had no other choice.

* * *

Anare felt her leg pulled hard from behind, and her gaze whipped to it immediately to find a claw of ice wrapped around it, growing along her leg quicker than it was turning to steam. Anare raised her arm to shatter the claw, when she suddenly stopped herself. This wasn't Calliope's mana. She knew it well enough to know that it was Mari's, and in an instant her flame cooled.

It was barely a half second of hesitation before her heat began to build again, but it was far too late. Anare felt a pain she hadn't experienced in many, many years. She looked down, the climbing ice on her leg disappearing from her mind as her trembling hands touched a spike of ice that had gone straight through her abdomen.

She wanted to cry out in pain, but her voice remained trapped in her throat. She watched the blue spike take on a crimson red tinge as her blood started seeping from around the edges of the wound. She felt a trickle of liquid pour from her mouth. Faye wasn't here to save her this time. Her mind played out a cacophony of thoughts. Her vision pulsed as the pain truly began to assault her mind.

In her final moments, her mind began to quiet, and focused on one thing alone. 'I never got to tell her what she meant to me.'

* * *

My arms and legs screamed in anguish at me; every movement was a fight in and of itself. I felt I'd barely made progress, and the cold was harder and harder to bear. My flame had given out too long ago for me to remember. Every iota of my existence was focused in on making sure I didn't lose my grip.

I didn't notice when it eventually did happen, and wasn't aware I was falling until the roar of wind in my ears grew louder than the rushing of my blood and the pounding headache. So this was how it would end? Falling from an immense tree of ice and snow, with my final thoughts locked on my final failure. I couldn't reach her, I couldn't help ease the burden that plagued her, help to carry the weight of the guilt she now bore.

It was poetic, in a way. I fought with everything I had, and now I could watch as the place I had been grew further and further from me. I wouldn't know when I hit the ground, unlike the first time. That scared me.

* * *

I didn't want to feel anything anymore. I couldn't hear the screams of the people I had killed. I couldn't bear the thought of opening my eyes to the suffering I had already caused. Yet I could feel it. Every shard of ice, every flake of snow, every tendril growing from this prison I had built for myself. I could feel my mana violently clawing its way across all that I had come to know in the last few months, tearing apart every last cell of the people who this morning believed it would be just another day.

I curled up tighter, the ice around me growing ever thicker as the branches of my mana only grew and grew. I wasn't even sure I wanted to stop it anymore. I made Marin try to kill herself. I took her body from her. I killed her mother. I put Anare in danger. Perhaps even now Calliope stood over Anare's broken body in triumph.

What was left anymore? This world would end because of me, and my world would end because of Calliope. Twin calamities of ice, dooming the worlds to an eternal stillness. Calliope was right. People like us shouldn't have been allowed to live, to endanger so many innocents with our mere existence.

I wish I could feel the cold.