The Algea: Grief

Asteria grinned, near feral, as she caught an opening. Ducking into a roll, she flung her knife directly at Grief’s heart, aiming with pinpoint accuracy. Just as the tip of the blade grazed flesh, one of the heads started to turn, perhaps sensing the attack. Too late, Asteria thought with a smirk. The next second, the knife vanished from the air. Asteria tumbled out of her roll.

She looked down. Both knives were still in her hand. She gaped at them. It was like she had never thrown them at all. She glanced up at the creature. One of Grief’s five heads was staring at her, while the rest were preoccupied with Rhei.

As she watched, Rhei slashed at Grief’s second head and grimaced in pain. Seconds later, blood began seeping through his scarf. She hadn’t seen an attack hit him. Perhaps…

Asteria leapt back into battle, sprinting past Grief’s feathery, gnarled elbows. She reached the base of the third head, grabbing Grief’s attention. It swiped at her, and she ducked around its arm. Grief twined its head down, watching her with intelligent, belligerent eyes. She slashed at its cheek, then dodged away, watching carefully as the wound faded away— and reopened on its wing. That was a third ability, Asteria noted. A trade taken under the third head, after damage was directed externally by the second, and denied by the first. Grief had also, apparently, forsaken its innate healing in exchange for these abilities.

She grinned triumphantly. Even without knowing what the other two faces could do, that gave her a strategy.

“Rhei!” She called to where the boy was fending off the attacks. He was sweating, and from what little she could see of his skin, he was growing pale as blood steadily dripped from several areas that showed no damage on his clothes. “Try to hold out a little longer; I have a plan!”

“Okay!” He nodded and returned to battle with renewed vigor. Rhei darted forward, sword flashing toward one of the creature's legs. Grief's nearest head twisted toward him, smiling acceptingly through the tears.

His xiphos passed through empty air. Rhei stumbled with the momentum of an attack that had suddenly encountered nothing and had to fall into a roll to dodge another incoming attack. He grimaced as it jostled his wounds and blood dripped to the sand.

Asteria darted into battle, aiming her dagger straight for the yellow-and-black eyes of the second face. She slashed across the bridge of its nose and felt a cut open up on her own face as Grief blinked. Before Grief’s eyes could open, she reversed her grip and plunged her blade deeply into its face, tearing through to the other side in a quick flick of her wrist.

It reared back, screaming, but its face did not heal or direct the damage onto her.

“I will go for its eyes!” She called out. “Keep the others distracted. But beware; each head has unique mageia!”

“I’ll keep its eyes on me,” Rhei promised, swinging with new vigor and drawing Grief’s attention away from where it had strayed to where Alista was carrying Ferazia to safety.

Asteria took the third head out easily. She planned to go back to the first when an attack from the fifth grabbed her attention and changed her priorities. She fell back, jumping around clawed slashes and chaotic swings from the two blinded heads. She found herself near Rhei as the attacks doubled in speed and ferocity. It was surprisingly easy to trust him to support her back, as they flowed around each other and faced the chaotic tangle of weaving heads, flapping feathers, and long claws.

Asteria spun and flung her two daggers towards the fifth head, as it bore down on Rhei. Accustomed to Asteria’s rhythm, he ducked, and the creature, without time to anticipate the attack, couldn’t allow it to pass through in time. Asteria’s aim landed, one dagger in each eye.

That left just two heads capable of using their powers, the first and the unknown fourth, which had, thus far, remained hanging low, eyes downcast and long feathery hair draped into the sand.

The three injured heads howled, thrashing around, pushing back against Rhei, who was losing ground. He chanced a glance toward Asteria, now visibly pale, ashy hair clumping with sweat. “I can't," he grunted, shouldering the force of a hefty limb being flung out. “Hold this thing back much longer!”

“You won’t have to,” Asteria gloated, seeing an opportunity and racing forward to fling a fistful of sand at Grief’s first head. It howled, four heads rearing back in unseeing agony. They slumped, seemingly worn out. Rhei relaxed cautiously, heaving for breath. He stepped toward Asteria.

Grief shifted, and suddenly, the fourth head lifted, eyes shadowed by thick, plumed lashes and shimmering with unfallen tears, stared straight at them.

Every limb felt heavy, gravity forcefully pulling Asteria to the ground. She couldn’t find the energy to move, to lift her blade. She just wanted to sink into the warm sand and let it bury her alive. Her heart rate pounded in her ears. She could hear it slowing. She didn’t even have the energy to keep breathing anymore. What was the point of this battle when life was all meaningless?

Asteria’s eyes remained locked with Grief’s.

Then Rhei was there, Xiphos sliding through Grief’s gaze and cutting off the connection. Asteria stumbled as the lock that had seemingly bound her suddenly dissipated.

She took just a second to shake the fuzziness out of her limbs, and then darted back into battle at Rhei’s side, waiting for an opportunity to strike at Grief’s heart now that all its heads were incapacitated. They fought as a team, weaving past Grief’s now desperate attacks, though both were growing weary and were no longer able to deflect every cutting swing.

Finally, Asteria spotted a gap and raced forward. Dagger in hand, she stabbed it directly into the heart of the creature. She slumped in exhaustion, letting her guard down too soon.

She was suddenly half a foot back, knife no longer plunged into Grief’s chest.

Oh, Asteria had just enough time to think back to her first attack: Grief had only just started to turn its head when the knife disappeared. The first head didn’t refute attacks it had seen—it was the opposite. Unless Grief was watching, then it was as if the attack had never happened.

The next second, its talons slammed down on her, leathery skin in contact with her bare arm.

Then, she wasn’t in the desert anymore.

Instead, she was drowning in grief and betrayal as, over and over again, Perses placed an open palm where he had stabbed her and made her burn.

How romantic my death was, she thought deliriously on what felt like her thousandth run. And it was almost true: his hand was gentle on her sternum, almost loving, almost sad, even as it carved a hole through her chest.

There were flashes of other things too. Mottled, distorted images. A tiny hand. A city of glass buildings bustling with life yet so lonely. Perses, again. His hand, over her heart, again.

With a sob, Asteria came to, out of the illusion, tears dripping from her face. Heaving, he had to blink away double vision, the momentary sense of an out-of-body experience as she looked up at Rhei’s back. He stood, a bare hand placed gently against the chest of Grief. The creature’s skin cracked and blackened, and then it was disintegrating away with a final, stricken cry.

Rhei let out a great sigh, and his shoulders slumped as he watched the dust scatter on the wind. He breathed in deeply, and spun to face Asteria. His image overlapped with her mental image of Perses, the lowering sun staining him with the same sheen of ichor. She flinched back, staggering to her feet and backing away.

“Are you okay?” He asked, stepping closer than he normally would. Asteria stumbled away, gritting her teeth against the torrent of memories of Perses killing her.

“Asteria?”

Khaos, his voice... Rhei shuffled just a bit closer.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose when she felt a few faint sparks of his mageia brush against her. The world was suddenly whirling around her as she spun around and flipped Rhei out of panicked instinct. She misjudged his weight and fell with him. As she fell, she managed to hook a leg around his, pulling him off balance and flipping him over. They rolled in the sand for a second, and she came out on top, pinning him. She stared down at him, eyes wide as she gazed upon his face, hair tousled out of the way from their struggle. Asteria’s breath hitched. Those warm eyes, which had looked so brown under the shadows of his hair, were now lit like gold in the sunlight, set into a face too familiar.

She reached down in a daze, fingers skimming the skin of his cheek. She felt a spark at the contact, the same as their first contact all those years ago, and could practically hear the seal on her powers splinter at the brief contact. It didn’t matter.

All she could see was a man with the same face, with soft white hair, and the same golden eyes. That same face, seen through blurry vision, looking down at her as she bled out. A voice echoed through her mind.

Hello, Starshine.

Rhei flinched back, turning his face into the sand, recoiling from her touch in panic. He bit his lip, eyes deeply concerned. Asteria realized distantly that he was probably worried his curse or powers or whatever they were would kill her.

As if he hadn't murdered her in his last life.

He looked up at her, eyebrows pinched, long lashes lowered, no recognition lighting his expression. She had no clue how he’d ended up in a mortal body as she had, but there was no way this was not him. Did he truly not remember, or was he pretending? Was he making a fool of her?

She was a fool for thinking his powers merely reminded her of Perses, for not seeing the truth. Hot anger, sudden and rash, flooded through her.

She doubled down, pressing her forearm harshly against his neck. She bared the point of one of her daggers against the hollow of his throat. His eyes went round with confusion.

“How dare you,” she hissed. “Did you wish to make a mockery of me once again?”

“What? Asteria, I—” He was choked off as her dagger dug in, drawing up a bead of blood. “I don’t understand.”

“I will not give you another chance.” She growled. “This time, I shall kill you first.” His eyes, gold, gold, gold, like ichor, were bewildered. She would not trust it. He swallowed. He pushed up against her, but she didn’t budge. He flinched as she bore down harder and steeled herself to plunge the knife in and end his life before he could hurt her again.

Then she was being yanked off, hauled upwards by a firm hand at her collar. “Cadet!” Alista barked. “What the Hades do you think you’re doing?”

“Let me go!” Asteria snapped. “I have to- I have to-”

“He’s not the enemy,” Alista snapped back.

“Yes he is!” Asteria’s gaze snapped back to Rhei. He was struggling to sit up, his hand working to staunch the flow of blood at his neck. He was worn down, covered in scrapes and bruises from the battle they had just fought together, and Asteria—Asteria didn’t know what to do.

Instead of thinking, she yanked herself free of Alista’s grip. She stared at Rhei, at Perses, for one long second.

Asteria fled toward the slowly opening gates of the city.