Chapter 47: Fugue

Glimmer raced across the steppe toward Tir in the distance.

The speeder, her PDA, the helmet covering her head, she'd synced all of it together, and she could see her current velocity—soaring with no end in sight—next to Kyle on video stream in her heads-up display. Judging by the fuzzy-at-best connection and the stars tumbling and twisting behind him, he was in space among the fleet, flying in formation with other warbird squadrons. All the better, she thought. He'd have an easier time tracking her out there than inside the Omen-Kador.

The comm system in her helmet crackled at her ear with his voice, and the distance between them made his words come out a half second delayed.

"We're starting to lose any sort of instrumental visibility into the city," he said. "Even looking down from space it seems like something is already forming on the surface. What the hell is happening down there?"

"The city is succumbing. The Abomination—it's affecting the atmosphere. That's what you're starting to see."

Already, a fog blanketed part of the city on the horizon. The Beast's essence, its force of will manifesting like a physical force of nature, was eating the planet.

"Is this what Rinne was like?" Kyle asked.

Glimmer frowned and pushed the speeder harder. As experienced in the field as Kyle and Lonnie and Rogelio were, she was the only one out of the four of them that had seen a planet turn into a Lost World. She had forgotten that.

"Honestly, this seems more abrupt," she said. "Rinne was tiny in comparison to this. We only had one megalith for the city. Tir has six."

The Beast hadn't taken any worlds this far in toward the galactic center since the war ended, so the fact they were moments away from losing Scavria was terrifying. She tried to focus on her one goal: getting Lonnie and Rogelio out.

The sound of several engines roaring like gatling thunder came from behind, drowning out her speeder and the howling wind. Glimmer looked and saw the six megaliths kicking up a cloud of dust as large as a mountain as they pushed off, lifting higher into the air. Dozens of warbirds circled them like escorting gnats, safeguarding the countless thousands of refugees inside.

The Scavrian race would turn into an endangered species within the next handful of hours. Glimmer turned her attention back to the city and tried not to think about it.

"Are you seeing what's happening here?" she asked, when something unexpected caught her eye. "This isn't just me, right?"

The tallest cluster of skyscrapers across the center of the skyline had disappeared fully, and the fog obscuring it had turned dark. An aura always hung around infected cities and planets—sometimes barely detectable and sometimes palpable enough to feel like a heavy dew coalescing around the body—but Glimmer hadn't seen it grow this thick before. Obscured, yes, but completely blocked out like this?

"It's not just you." Kyle sounded shaken. "None of my sensors are picking up anything in that fog, either. Multiple channels of command are freaking the hell out right now." He hesitated a beat. "How are you supposed to get in touch with me from in there if we can't even get a topographical scan from up here? How am I supposed to know where you are?"

"You won't. Not from in there." Glimmer nudged the speeder enough to let her careen past a boulder without hitting it. "We just have to hope that thing doesn't expand any further. I'll pull Lonnie and Rogelio and anyone else out of the affected zone, then you'll be able to come get us."

"On a one-seated speeder?"

Another row of skyscrapers disappeared in the fog and Glimmer's heart sank. So much for hoping it wouldn't expand. It mushroomed out, blanketing more of Tir with each passing second like a tide rising on a sandy beach.

"Glimmer?"

"I see it." She set her jaw. "I'll figure something out. Just keep scanning for my PDA signal and be ready to move as soon as I come back online."

"You have an hour until they start the orbital bombardment. If you aren't out by then, none of you will—"

The fog exploded out far enough it engulfed Glimmer despite how she'd just reached the outer edges of the city suburbs. Kyle's voice and image on her HUD disappeared, and her visibility cut to zero.

"Kyle?" She slowed, carving the speeder to the side until it stopped. "Kyle, can you hear me?" Static came through, but nothing else.

Glimmer sat back against saddle's back and cursed. She couldn't panic, not now. But considering how the Beast was powerful enough to suffocate her vision, it was difficult.

Stay calm, she chanted to herself. You've been through this before. Maybe not as drastically, but you've felt the Beast in the past. If you panic it just makes it that much easier to fall victim to it.

A light inside her helmet blinked red at her; it was looking to reconnect with Kyle but couldn't get a signal. She listened to static in her ear for a heartbeat, then two, pretending it was just white noise to try and calm down. Once she'd ridden her anxiety to calmer waters, she removed the helmet and hung it on one of the speeder bike's handlebars. She was liable to feel claustrophobic again with it on, and she could get in touch with Kyle through her PDA once she found Lonnie and Rogelio and the others, anyway.

If anyone was still alive at all, to begin with.

She beat the thought off before it could send her spiraling again. Kyle had deliberately not brought up the fact everyone might already be dead—that there were no guarantees anyone was still themselves after disappearing in the fog in the first place.

Again, she spiraled. The Beast's aura already beginning to seep into her psyche despite her best attempts to not let it. Despair, gloom, hopelessness—it had just never struck as quickly or as strong before, and this was becoming a recurring theme despite having plunged into the fog only seconds ago.

She needed to focus on getting to Lonnie and Rogelio's last known location. Anything else was the Beast baiting her. Thankfully, Kyle had already briefed her, and the castle district deep in the heart of the city was an obvious place to travel to. Maybe it was the one lucky break she'd get: them broadcasting their location moments before going dark. But she wasn't going to make it there if the fog kept her from seeing more than two feet in front of her face.

Her nerves chafed when she realized what that meant she'd have to do. She counted out ten deep and slow breaths, trying to center herself. The near-suffocating presence of the Beast suffused every pore of her skin, trying to chip away at her sanity and sense of identity. She focused on feeling every beat of her heart, every wayward breeze against her skin—on every molecule of air filling her lungs, each breath seeming to barely keep that sense of looming oblivion at bay.

She dismounted from the speeder, the tap tap tap of her boots echoing as she stepped away. Maybe she couldn't see the buildings and roads around her, but if she could touch them with her power, she could navigate from there. She reached out with her mind…

And recoiled as if burned.

Taline had explained it, once. If reaching out with your mind was a near-equivalent to touching something with your hand, then probing the Beast's aura like this seemed on par with plunging an arm into a vat of molten lava. How did anyone the other Battlemages on the front lines deal with this?

The fact the Beast had won meant they didn't, but Glimmer couldn't think about that when she had a job to do.

Despite the initial shock, she found she could bear the exposure if she steeled herself. The more she groped around the more of her surroundings she could make out. Skyscrapers sprouted up around her like towering trees. She was closest to the right-hand side of the street and the sidewalk was only a few paces away. There was an intersection up ahead, and dozens upon dozens of abandoned vehicles littered the area.

"That's odd," she said, speaking aloud to ward off how isolated she felt. "I stopped at the outskirts of town, not here."

The last thing she remembered seeing was a scattering of small buildings, but what she felt now was indicative of being deep downtown. She pushed the thought away and continued exploring. She had to learn to navigate by feeling the buildings like this, then she'd be able to mount the speeder again and move.

Except there was one thing she couldn't feel. She spun on her heel and stared at the expanse of nothing in the direction she'd come and reached again.

Where did the speeder go?

She searched around, feeling blindly with her hands, now, as well as her mind, taking uncertain steps forward, hoping maybe she'd bump into it on accident. She heard something in the fog—voices, whispering indiscernible words as she fought another onslaught of panic. How long had she been wandering? She had only taken a few steps, only practiced feeling with her powers for a minute at most, right? She couldn't have gotten far. Right?

One of the voices played devil's advocate: she might have wandered far from the speeder and just didn't remember. After all, the last thing she remembered before the fog hit was approaching the suburbs, and she wasn't there, anymore. If she couldn't find that speeder, her chances of getting to the others were slim to none.

Her hand bumped into something hard, something she hadn't sensed at all, before. She yanked back, runes flaring at her fingertips. Her heart thrummed hard enough she felt it in her throat. Nothing happened, and when she'd reasoned nothing was about to kill her, she snuffed out the magic and reached a hand out again to touch it.

It was a chair. She could tell when she ran her hand along the fine-grain wood of the back and down to the cushion on the seat. She furrowed her brow, confused. What the hell was a chair doing out here in the middle of a suburb street?

"Who are you?"

A voice spoke from behind, and Glimmer yelped, whirling around with magic crackling in her hands again. A woman stood there, short hair framing a youthful face. A lab coat hung off her frame, and she stood only a little taller than Glimmer, herself.

"Who are you?" Glimmer asked, scowling at the woman and refusing to snuff her magic out again.

The scene around her had changed without her noticing. The fog was gone. Instead, she was standing inside a well-lit room, where computer monitors and machines and lab equipment stood anchored to a grated floor, pushed against the walls. There was a long table in the room's center with chairs on each side. Glimmer was standing next to one of them.

"Ah, you're one of those," the woman said, beleaguered realization dawning on her face.

A knock came at the far door and Glimmer jumped.

"Come in," the woman said, projecting her voice before looking back at Glimmer and saying, in a more subdued tone, "Grab a seat, and don't distract me. No one else can see or hear you, but it still unnerves people when I pay attention to something that isn't there."

Glimmer scowled. 'Something that isn't there?' She was standing right in front of her! The door opened before she could respond, and a man with windswept hair and bags under his eyes stepped through, shutting the door behind him with a clang. He took a moment to survey the room.

"Everything okay?" he asked. "I heard you talking to someone."

The woman gave Glimmer a pointed look before slumping into one of the chairs at the table. "Everything is fine."

The man sounded exasperated as he joined her at the table. "Evie, if you're seeing things again you need to tell me."

Glimmer gasped. She could tell Evie had heard her and was trying not to show it.

"Seeing things when you're in touch with the Beast is one thing," the man said, reaching across the table to lay his hand over hers, "but to still see them when we're not touching it is something else."

Evie pulled her hand back and held it close to her chest. "They're just ghosts, Corynth."

"Holy shit," Glimmer said.

This got a reaction out of Evie. She shot Glimmer a death glare from across the table, and Corynth followed her line of sight too, although he seemed to stare past Glimmer instead of at her.

"It's getting worse, isn't it?" Corynth asked, turning back to Evelyn. "Maybe we should cut back on the number of trips I orchestrate for you."

Evie shook her head. "We can't stop now, we've almost finished deciphering ignominite's molecular structure. And I know where we need to dig next. There are some writings and artifacts I've seen that reference something, all of it written in ancient Eternian. Something about a wall or a barrier, I'm not sure yet."

"Since when can you read dead languages?"

"I've been tinkering with a program that helps. It's able to decipher enough of it to derive meaning. Whatever it's finding, it's important. We can't stop."

Corynth looked unconvinced and Evelyn huffed.

"It's no worse than normal, I promise," she said. "I'm just preoccupied with other things, obviously, and their presence is more irritating than usual." She leaned forward, propping one elbow up on the table and putting her head in her hand. "Taline is alive."

Corynth's expression hardened. "She is."

"I feel like I should be more relieved about it than I am. I don't want to lose her, and if it'd taken her then Archanas would have fallen—"

"All of the mid rim would have fallen within days if she'd been taken, not just Archanas."

Evelyn nodded. "Yeah. But it didn't take her, and she's alive, so why do I still feel apprehensive about it? Now there are two of you who can rebuff the Beast directly trying to corrupt you, but…"

"We have to deal with what comes next." Corynth finished her sentence with just as much trepidation. Glimmer had never before been so invested in something she had no context for.

"What happens now?" Evie asked.

Corynth leaned back in his chair, staring up at the halogen lights in the ceiling. "The Daiamid will send someone to make contact," he said. "She's passed the ritual. The first in hundreds of generations to do so."

"You passed it too," Evie said, confused. She looked off to the side where a pedestal stood flush against the wall, holding up a pulsating red and black-veined crystal sealed inside a glass container. "You protected me against that thing when it took over the research station. You were the first."

"Taline survived against a full-strength outbreak that was well on its way to taking an entire hub planet. It wasn't just a singular space installation and a few dozen scientists and staff. News of this will fundamentally upend the Daiamid. Again."

"Okay, fine. You were technically the first, then. She just did it better."

Corynth chuckled and shook his head. "Another fully-fledged Shaper within a handful of years. The old guard wouldn't even hold a candle to her, and she comes with far less baggage than I do."

"You both have plenty of baggage," Evie said, hints of a smile on her face, too. "Do you think they'll send you to her?"

Corynth shook his head. "I'm not the pariah I was when I was working security for your old team," he said. "But even with everything that's happened, my standing is still poor. They'll send someone less controversial."

Evie chewed at her lip. "Maybe you should talk to her before they do. Tell her the truth."

"Why would I do that? That sounds like a terrible idea."

Evelyn rolled her eyes and shot him a 'seriously?' look. "The Daiamid are pure folktale. Scary stories told to children to get them to behave, and she's already been through an ordeal. Some random person showing up to recruit her will go a lot smoother if someone she trusts eases her into the idea first."

Corynth shook his head. "We have procedure for a reason. I can't break it a second time."

"But if you—"

"You haven't forgotten what happened to the La Valettes." Corynth's eyes flared with indignation. "I know you haven't forgotten. I was sentenced to death because I revealed who I was to them. Because I didn't want to kill them, emperor's orders be damned. And they still died anyway."

A heavy silence came over them, interrupted by the ticking and whirring of the hardware surrounding them. Evie stood from her chair and made her way over to him. She knelt beside him and fished one of his hands out from his lap to hold in both of hers.

"They were dead the moment Horde Prime ordered your people to assassinate them," she said, voice gentle. "If they didn't send you, it would have been someone else and nothing would have changed. It was your empathy and refusal to eliminate an innocent family line that had them send you to me. Breaking protocol and revealing yourself to outsiders are just pretenses they used to justify it to the others." She tugged at his hand, trying to get him to look at her. "And it brought us together. All of us. What happened to them was terrible, and what happened to you was terrible, but there was still good that came of it."

Corynth refused to meet her eyes. His whole body was rigid with tension. Evie cupped the side of his face with one hand, startling him.

"If you're still apprehensive about it, then I understand. Just promise me you will tell her about yourself after the Daiamid made contact. If she hears from anyone other than you that you aren't really a Battlemage, she'll feel betrayed. You aren't breaking any rules by telling her if they've already reached out, right?"

Corynth relaxed and nodded. "I'll tell her after."

"It will still be a shock when they break the news to her, but at least she'll have you there when she has to process everything after."

"She'll have you, too," Corynth said. "You're her sister. She loves you."

Evie smiled wide. "She'll have us both."

The sound of shattering glass followed by shouting emanated from outside. Corynth and Evie both snapped their heads toward the door.

"Are Vasher and Ly fighting again?" Evie asked, letting go of Corynth and moving back when he stood from the chair.

"Have they ever stopped?" Corynth pressed his lips into a thin line. "One of these days I'm going to lock them both in a room until they figure it out."

"They'll either fuck, or one of them will be dead. Either way, it will be loud."

"I'll pick one of the sealed rooms we use with the Beast, then," Corynth said.

He opened the door and stepped through, the yelling and screaming amplifying until he shut the door behind him with a clang. Corynth's voice joined theirs, shouting above them, and after a few moments, all three arguing voices ceased altogether.

A moment passed in silence, then Evie turned and looked at Glimmer.

"You're still here?" she asked.

"I—"

"You need to go back where you came from. And speak nothing of what you've seen here to anybody. If anyone finds you passed out in a barn or slumped over in a coffee shop or laying on the floor of your office, it will only get worse if you start talking about the Daiamid and these random people you saw in a lab on top of it."

"You're her." Glimmer was still trying to find her equilibrium. "How am I seeing this?"

Evie stepped over to her and shook her head. "No, you can't keep dwelling on this, it will just make it harder for you to reorient yourself back where you belong."

She placed both hands on Glimmer's shoulders. Her grip was strong and corporeal, and it shocked her.

"Think!" Evie said. "What was happening right before you found yourself here. What were you doing?"

Glimmer scrunched up her face and closed her eyes trying to remember. Bits and pieces came back. Being surrounded by fog, searching in the dark for her friends, blind. Voices began to echo around her, whispers from some collective anonymity that danced at the back of her consciousness, barely noticeable.

Then the rest of it came back in a rush, like freezing water drenching her. Scavria, Lonnie, and Rogelio, the emergency evacuation. Glimmer opened her eyes with a gasp and Evie, the lab, all of it was gone. She was in the fog once more.

The whispering grew louder, angrier, and there was no longer any doubt in Glimmer's mind that she was indeed succumbing slowly to the Beast. Was that what Evie had been trying to warn her about? Was that why she seemed to almost panic when Glimmer wanted to dive further into the vision rather than find her way out?

A new presence was there in the far corners of her mind. No, multiple presences—a small crowd. Glimmer's immediate thought was that she had been set upon by thralls, but that didn't make sense. If they had found her, they would have rushed her already, not milled about aimlessly nearby like this. She also would have detected them long before they got this close, since she'd already been feeling about with her powers.

One of those in the crowd shambled toward her. Magic flared at the palms of Glimmer's hands, ready to strike. A bulky figure appeared, a dark, stained shadow against the fog. When it stepped into view, Glimmer recognized who it was.

"You have nothing to fear from me," Narre said, modulated voice coming through the front of his helmet's faceplate clear as crystal against the backdrop of whispers. His voice was just as she remembered it back on the emperor's citadel. The Beast had turned Scavria into a sea of ghosts.

"What are you doing here?" Glimmer took faltered backward as he advanced. "You can't be here. You're dead."

"Not a day goes by that you don't think about me, and you think I'm dead?" Narre cocked his head to the side.

Glimmer grimaced and decided to stand her ground, instead. She raised a hand bristling with magic at him as a warning. "Not another step," she said, pleased when Narre stopped. "What do you want?"

"We came to ask you something."

"We?"

More figures appeared beside him, still obscured by the fog.

"Why didn't you save us?" It was a different voice that spoke this time, and it came from behind.

Glimmer spun around to see even more figures. There were easily a hundred, maybe two. When they too stepped out of the fog and into view, Glimmer realized with horror that she recognized them as well.

"Why did you leave us behind?" said a small girl no older than five at the front of the group, holding her mother's hand.

The Rinnite's, like the Scavrians, had discernable features, too. Their lithe bodies and elfin features haunted Glimmer's sleep and slipped beneath her eyelids every time she blinked. Seeing them stand before her now was like a waking nightmare.

"We aren't remembered." Another spoke the words, although the voice coming from their mouth was frayed and full of static, like the pilot who had pleaded with her to wait had sounded, begging through the loudspeaker. "No one speaks of Rinne, of the billions of lives left there. Yet the call you the Angel of Archanas."

"No one remembers us," they all said in unison.

"I remember!" Glimmer said, voice hoarse. "I spoke of you when they first started calling me the Angel."

"We are dead because of you!" The crowd—not just the Rinnites, but Narre and those with him—roared as one, blowing Glimmer back on her heels. "You are no Angel. You are the Demon of Rinne. You are a failure. A fraud. Coward!"

"I'm…" Glimmer shook her head. "No…I tried to save you. I wanted to save you, I just—"

"You just failed to act," said a third voice.

Glimmer almost didn't turn around again. She didn't want to turn around.

Another person had stepped through the fog next to Narre, wearing the same fashion of armor but scorched nearly beyond recognition. Taline's second Sentinel looked as Glimmer imagined she might have after sacrificing her own life, immolated by her dad's portal when he brought the Rebellion to the emperor's throne room.

"How is failing to act any different than being a fraud and a coward?" Miri's voice dripped with contempt. "I sacrificed myself to save you because Taline commanded it. But even with her mentorship, you still failed to act when Rinne needed you. Everyone here, their blood is on your hands."

"That's not what happened!" Glimmer clapped her hands to her ears. "No, that's not…I couldn't have…" There was no anchor for her to find, try as she might. No landmark for her to orient herself.

"I might still have been alive too if you had acted," Narre said.

Glimmer looked up. He held both hands over his chest. When he let go, they came away covered in blood, and Glimmer saw the gaping hole in his armor that Prime had made when he killed him.

"If you had grabbed that knife, if you had attacked Prime before he could do this to me, I might still be alive."

More figures stepped out of the fog, surrounding her. One by one, Angella, Micah, Catra, Adora, the other princesses revealed themselves. They looked unharmed and unchanged, save for the bottomless black holes where their eyes should have been. It looked as something had gouged them out, and only their sockets remained.

Glimmer clapped a hand to her mouth in horror. She had long ago extinguished her magic, no longer able to maintain it with the onslaught of emotions flooding. Finally, Bow pushed forward out of the group, stepping closer than any of the others.

"Are we next?" he asked. "Are we to fall and die because you don't have what it takes to fight?"

"That's not what happened!" Glimmer said. "Bow, please…"

She couldn't let them drag her under like this. She had to keep fighting, had to say something, even if whatever she tried seemed no more effective than trying to keep her head above water in a tsunami by paddling.

"The Beast is coming," everyone said, speaking together again, chanting. "Soon, we will all be as those of Rinne are now. At last, we shall be whole. At last, we shall be together."

Adora stepped forward this time, her voice a solo. "Join with us, Glimmer. The fight is over."

Something changed inside Glimmer at hearing that. There was insight and recognition where before there was none.

Her friends wouldn't speak that way, least of all Bow and Adora. It reminded her of where she was and what was happening, and Glimmer at last put enough distance between herself and her fear to think clearly.

The Beast had was corrupting her, and fast. If she didn't act now, she'd succumb and turn into an Abomination. There would be no hope for the planet then, and billions more would die as she ripped through the surrounding sectors.

Glimmer pushed power to her hands again. She drew no runes; they weren't needed for what she was about to do, and although she had never attempted something like this before, Taline had taught her what to do. Most can't do this, she had been told, early on in her training. But you grew up with your connection to your runestone. You're better prepared than most. Taline had drilled her over and over again to prepare her for a moment like this. A moment where she really might fall to the Beast.

You as an Abomination? she'd said, early during Glimmer's mentorship. It wouldn't just be a lost planet. You'd probably take a whole system with you, maybe a whole region before we stopped you. The emperor would likely reinstate me by special command to do it. Not as a punishment, but because the damage you'd cause and the power you'd wield would be so extensive, I'd be the only one who could excise you.

Glimmer shuddered at the memory and swore she heard the voice actually echo around her, amplified by the Beast. It was a stupid decision to risk herself like this for Lonnie and Rogelio, but she refused to regret it.

Everyone around her took a step forward. "Come, Glimmer," they said, chanting again as one. "Don't postpone the inevitable, join us. Join us now." They took another step forward, and then another, growing closer, closing in.

Glimmer reached for than she had ever used at one time. The blue around her hands grew opaque, more defined. It writhed and oscillated, spinning faster and faster like a living thing stimulated and jolted by the sheer force of her will. Power raced up her arms and engulfed her body. She was on fire and still she did not stop reaching for more. She couldn't afford to mess this up; it had to work on the first try. She needed more.

"It is hopeless, Glimmer," the mob said. "Did you not hear us the first time? All will become one with us. We shall all be together again. You will no longer feel lonely and far away. You will never be far from your home because your home will be us. Do not prolong the inevitable."

Glimmer set her feet and looked at her parents' doppelgangers, staring into the endless voids where their eyes should have been.

"No!"

She released everything she'd gathered within at once. A shockwave of magic exploded out with her at its epicenter. The fog cleared, and within moments, entire blocks of the surrounding cityscape with its towering skyscrapers became visible. Fatigue crept into her bones, and remaining upright was a struggle, but her head finally cleared. Anxiety and adrenaline and fear no longer plagued her, and she could finally think straight now that the whispering voices had gone.

The mob had changed, too. Narre, Miri, everyone from Rinne, her parents and her friends—even Bow and Adora—they were all gone. Thralls stood in their place, shambling corpses with missing limbs and wrinkled, grey, half-decomposed skin, their clothes torn and tattered from the elements. Glimmer both sensed and saw them when the fog cleared, looking off in random directions as if never having noticed her to begin with. They all turned together, fixing cloudy eyes and empty eye sockets on her, each finding her at the same time.

One of them roared at her and charged. A rune sparked to life at the end of Glimmer's palm, drawn instantly and with surgical precision won through years of grueling practice. A ball of magnificent purple shot forth from the rune and engulfed the thrall in white flame.

The others watched, and a steady thundering of anger grew and roiled among their ranks. The thrall on fire screeched and flailed before crumbling to ash. The mob roared together in fury, and Glimmer aimed her other hand with the first, bristling with magic, ready to fight.

The thralls stopped upon seeing it, and they didn't attack immediately either. Silence stretched between them, tense. Glimmer knew they'd attack anyway, so why not immediately? Why would they hesitate?

The answer came not long after as thousands of voices screeched back in answer to the first. The sound bounced off the walls of the skyscrapers and reverberated down the wide streetway corridors. Thousands of thralls materialized out of the buildings, breaking through windows and crawling down the sides of the buildings like ants swarming. All of them rushed her.

Glimmer didn't think. If she thought, she'd surely be overcome by fear. So instead, she threw her arms out to the side, hands palm-down, and cast a different spell.

A ring formed around her, wide enough to accommodate a small fireteam had she been leading one. Bright purple marks appeared on the outside perimeter. Once the markings were complete, she threw her hands high into the air. A wall of white fire twice as tall as she was roared to life, encircling her.

The first group of thralls to slam into it screamed in pain as they tried to push through. Glimmer couldn't see them, since the fire immolated them to a crisp as soon as they touched it, but she could sense what was happening on the other side.

She could also sense the sheer number still approaching her, could see thousands more follow the thousands who came first, filing endlessly out from inside the surrounding skyscrapers. They were like a flood.

The fog began to encroach upon her once again, slowly blanketing the farthest street corners. She still couldn't sense the speeder despite having cleared the fog earlier; wherever she had wandered off to before coming to her senses, it was far.

An arm stuck through the flame before it too crumbled to dust. Then a second arm, a leg, part of a face—half a thrall then got through before the flames stopped it. The screeching and roaring from the army outside continued to build. They were moments away from breaking through and tearing her to shreds.

I really wish I practiced this more, Glimmer thought, moments after deciding how to proceed.

She centered herself and reached out with her mind again. After a moment, she found what she was looking for: the castle district and its location relative to her. It wasn't nearly as clear as she'd have liked, given how far away it was and the fact the fog still permeated the majority of the city, but she could approximate its location.

More thralls (and more parts of each thrall) continued to penetrate the wall, clawing for her before evaporating. She knelt, placed the tips of her fingers to the ground, and concentrated. Blinding purple magic began to etch itself steadily into the road. It arced away from her, twisting and turning like the roots of a plant growing far faster than anything natural.

Glimmer went as fast as she dared, keeping in mind what Taline had told her the last time they spoke.

Speed is important on the battlefield, sure, but so is drawing smooth, accurate ley lines, she had said. Teleporting only half your squad—and by that, I mean half of each member of your squad and not half the number of them—is just as undesirable as not teleporting out of a sticky situation in time at all.

A thrall got through the fire as she finished. It charged at her with its body aflame. Glimmer looked into its eyes in shock and activated the spell just as it grabbed her.

A bright flash of light engulfed the both of them, then they were gone.