From the Jaws
Philodora’s words rang in Brandon’s ears as a stunned silence hung over the ballroom of the Golden Hold. She hung imperiously at the top of the stairs, her gaze focused towards Brandon, who stood with Plum conspicuously at the center of a ring of gawking nobles.
There was a scrape from the opposite end of the ballroom, and Brandon turned to see the Marquis rising to his feet. He again drew the voice-projection spell, and his voice echoed across the ballroom.
“Duchess-Archmagician,” he began. “‘Tis, as always, a pleasure to see you, if an unexpected one. You are, of course, welcome here, but please, let us celebrate! There is no need for conflict here.”
“Conflict?” Philodora replied, her voice still amplified by her own spell. “Of course there is no need for conflict. My son is a fugitive-” Brandon flinched at her emphasis- “and his place is at my Keep.”
“Your son is my guest, Philodora,” Dolamn thundered. “At least he had the decency to arrive before the ball began.”
Philodora’s scoff, made physically and not through the spell, was audible even from where Brandon stood.
“‘Decency’ has naught to do with this, Dolamn,” she said bitingly. “‘Twould be a shame if the goodwill between our houses was shattered in the name of sheltering a son from his mother.”
Dolamn slammed a fist on the table in front of him.
“You would threaten war, Philodora?” he roared, all of the magical amplification gone with his decorum.
“I would threaten justice, Marquis,” Philodora replied calmly, still magically enhanced. “Last I spoke to Radiance, house sovereignty over our kin was still the law of his realm.”
Dolamn sputtered, red-faced. Brandon turned fully to face him, hoping against hope that the man could feel the pleading in his face from across the room. From the corner of his eye, he saw Plum slowly draw her wand.
“Fine,” Dolamn said eventually. “Do as you wish. And then leave my Hold, dim you.”
Brandon turned to meet Plum’s gaze, and time seemed to freeze between the beats of his heart. Then Plum exploded into action.
Through their fading mana connection, Brandon felt Plum grab ahold of the mana that still swirled around the two of them and channel it into a spell. If Brandon had twisted the mana like tying a knot, Plum directed it like a flood of water through a sluice. He felt her push the mana like a torrent and guide it to her desire.
Her desire, as it turned out, was a lot of swords.
As the mana surged through Plum, the flesh in her right arm opened almost of its own will. Blood poured from her exposed veins, dripping to the floor before rising from the ground in streams. The streams coalesced into several dripping, sanguine blades, pointed directly at where Philodora stood across the room.
With a snarl like an angry beast, Plum let the blades fly.
They streaked across the ballroom towards Philodora. Her wand had started moving before Plum’s blades had even fully coalesced. She traced her familiar scarlet magic, and as she completed her sigil a mass of vines erupted from the ground around her feet, blocking the blades before they could strike their target. Regia, her familiar, screeched as he appeared from somewhere above her, already aglow with mana. The wall decayed as quickly as it had grown, probably reabsorbed by Philodora to get the mana back. Plum growled and sent another volley of blades across the room, blood still pouring from her arm.
Brandon gaped, horrified. He’d never seen his mother fight, especially not like this, and Plum… there was so much blood. He was distantly aware of screams from the room of nobles as the crowd scattered, fleeing the dance floor so as not to get caught in the middle of a battle of this scale.
The swirling mana in the air was quickly fading—Plum was burning through mana fast. She snarled again and turned her head towards Brandon.
“A little help, love?” she asked through gritted teeth.
Brandon started, and in a panic tried to reach out and reform the connection between them. This type of battle was beyond him, but perhaps he could supply her with mana.
He reached out for Plum’s presence and… floundered. He could feel her there, but it was like she was just out of reach. He strained, trying desperately to grab hold, but as he reached, she only seemed to grow farther away.
“Plum,” he began. “I-”
Her nostrils flared, and she turned to him. Her hand—the one that wasn’t slick with her own blood—reached out to grab his.
“‘Tis fine,” she said brusquely. “Come!” She dashed towards the edge of the dance floor, dragging Brandon with. Meeks darted along with them, still moving in sync with Plum and now aglow with a soft purple light.
Plum’s eyes darted back and forth across the room as she wove through the panicking crowd of nobles. Philodora, and her squadron of armored knights, were rushing down the stairs and toward them, currently wading through the crowd that parted for them like pedestrians from a palanquin. Philodora gestured to her knights to guard the entryway and stalked towards Brandon and Plum, already drawing another sigil in the air. Her movements were quick and precise, the practiced movements of a magician with a lifetime of skill. She finished a complex spell in less time than it would take Brandon to say his own name.
Plum cursed loudly and pulled Brandon towards the door to the kitchens. She skidded to a halt as another wall of vines grew to block their path.
As Plum tried unsuccessfully to hack her way through the vines, Brandon found his gaze darting about the room. There was no sign of the others—he could only hope that Liana, Willam, and Caliburn had successfully escaped in the chaos.
Philodora was close enough now that Brandon could see the expression on her face. He’d expected anger, perhaps revulsion, but what he saw left him far more terrified.
His mother was smiling.
“Come now, Brandon,” she said, not bothering to magically amplify her voice. “Do not make this harder than it needs to be.”
“That is not her name,” Plum snapped, her ferocity surprising even Brandon.
“Plumeria, dear,” Philodora said chidingly. “Kindly shut the fuck up. This does not concern you, child.”
Plum growled like a cornered animal and threw another volley of blades at Philodora, who parried them casually with yet another wall of vines. Brandon found himself speechless—he felt like a child again, being disciplined for his perceived mistakes as Plum tried in vain to protect him from his mother’s wrath.
“I’ll not lie,” Philodora continued casually, as if she weren’t dueling for her life. “This attack did surprise me initially. How are you doing this without a wand?” Brandon noted a hint of genuine curiosity in her town, but Philodora laughed it off. “But ‘tis the same reckless power you have always had, Plumeria. Enough of this.”
Philodora cast another quick spell, and with a flash, a sharp spike of wood leapt outwards from her hand and struck Plum in her good arm. Plum hissed in pain, and then another spike burst from Philodora and struck her in the leg. She buckled, falling to her knees.
As a third spike burst from Philodora, Brandon cried out, and before he realized it, had pushed out with his barrier. The shimmering orange field sprung from him, and he threw himself between his mother and Plum. The spike of wood glanced off his shield and shattered.
Philodora looked at Brandon with an expression that almost looked like surprise. She raised an eyebrow, and Brandon took a step towards her.
“Leave her alone!” he cried, taking another step closer. Behind him, Plum snapped the wooden spurs with a closed fist and quickly cast a spell to heal her wounds.
“Both of you,” Philodora murmured, more to herself than to Brandon. “Interesting.”
Philodora began casting another spell, but behind Brandon, Plum threw another volley of blades. Philodora sucked her teeth and tried to change her sigil at the last moment, but one of Plum’s blades struck true and stabbed her through the arm. It speared directly through her arm and out the other side, cracking the stone floor with its impact. Her wand clattered to the ground next to her.
“Shadow and shade!” Philodora cursed, tracing a healing spell with the finger of her off-hand. It was clumsy, but it served its purpose, and she immediately drew another spell with her newly healed main hand.
Brandon felt a lurch as vines crashed into his shield from the side and sent him tumbling away from Plum. He grunted with the impact as he hit the ground and slid like a stone skipped across a pond, crashing into several people in the crowd. His shield kept him from hitting anything directly, but it still felt like he’d been buffeted about like a blade of grass in a thunderstorm. He was relieved to see the people he’d crashed into jumping to their feet and scurrying away with no more than a few bumps and bruises.
Brandon staggered to his hands and knees, breathing heavily, and looked up to Plum and his mother. Plum had found her way back to her feet and was still throwing her blades, but Philodora had reclaimed her wand and created a series of walls that grew wider. Plum was quickly being encircled by the mass of growing plant matter. Meeks hissed at the walls, hackles raised, as he shrank down between Plum’s legs. In spite of her smug expression, Brandon could see that his mother was sweating with exertion.
“Shades!” Brandon cursed and scrambled to his feet, throwing himself towards Plum. He dashed in front of her just as the wall of plants closed in a circle, and the walls were quickly closing in.
With a shout, Brandon threw his arms out and pushed with his barrier, and he felt it grow. It slipped around Plum as it passed her, and before long it pressed against the growing walls of plant matter, enclosing Brandon and Plum with Meeks as Philodora’s spell closed in.
Brandon stood with his arms outstretched, panting, as the plants pressed in on his barrier. A circle at the top of the dome grew smaller and smaller as the barrier was covered completely, and within a few seconds, he and Plum were completely enclosed in the darkness. Brandon grunted as the barrier groaned under the pressure.
“What do we do?” Plum asked, sweat dripping from her brow. She swayed, unsteady, as her arm continued to drip blood. “Meeks is nearly out of mana and I…” she wavered again. “I may have used more blood than I could replace as I went.”
Brandon grunted, straining. There was a crack as a fracture rippled along his barrier.
“I do not know,” he answered through gritted teeth. “‘Tis all I can do to-” he grunted again as another crack ricocheted across his shield.
Plum’s eyes darted back and forth. She glanced outwards at the pressing vines, and took a sharp breath in.
“Adelaide,” she said, locking her gaze on Adelaide. “Do you trust me?”
Adelaide met her eyes. “Always.”
Plum grinned wildly. “On my mark,” she began. “Drop your barrier.”
“Drop it?” Adelaide asked incredulously. “I-”
“Just trust me.”
Adelaide hesitated for half a heartbeat, and then nodded. It couldn’t be worse than the current situation.
Plum clapped her hands and drew her wand. From her favored second position, she began scribing a spell. Adelaide couldn’t have followed it even if she weren’t intently focused on preventing the two of them from getting crushed, but she could tell that it was an incredibly complex and lengthy spell. Plum drew, precisely and carefully, for what felt like minutes, and before long sweat was dripping from her face.
Adelaide cried out as a wave of pressure hit her barrier, and more cracks spiderwebbed across it. An entire section of the shield was nearly opaque with cracks by now, and Adelaide felt her knees growing weak.
“Plum,” she called, her voice quavering. “I am nearly out of mana.”
“Just hold it,” Plum panted. “A few more seconds.”
“I don’t-”
“Adelaide!”
Adelaide clenched her jaw tight enough that she thought she felt a tooth crack, and wrenched her eyes shut. She strained, pushing against her shield with every ounce of her being. With a shock, she realized that her fingers and toes had gone numb.
Not good, she thought. No more mana.
Adelaide felt, more than heard, a distant whining in the back of her head. The numbness had spread to her hands and feet now, and she whimpered as her barrier groaned. She couldn’t hold it any longer, she was going to-
“Adelaide!” Plum shouted suddenly. “Now!”
Adelaide flinched and opened her eyes to see Plum closing the circle, and in the same instant she felt the pressure reach a breaking point as her barrier shattered with a sound like a thousand dropped glasses. She didn’t even have time to feel the terror as, half a heartbeat later, Plum began to glow like a roaring wildfire.
The plants surrounding what had been Adelaide’s shield withered and died as Plum drained their mana in half a second. The mana rushed into her in such a quantity that Adelaide could literally see the subtle red glow as Plum sucked it in like a drain at the bottom of a washbasin. As she reached her limit, more mana rushed off of her in a wave of purple gloam mana, and the two colors swirled together.
Plum met Adelaide’s eyes, and grinned.
There was a sound like a clap of thunder as a massive, bloody sword suddenly appeared above Plum’s head. It must have been at least thirty feet long, and Adelaide noticed that Plum hadn’t sliced open her own arm to make it. With a yell, Plum gestured with her wand, and the massive blade streaked toward Philodora. The wind of its passing was enough to cause Adelaide to stumble, and she fell to her knees as the wave of exhaustion from the destruction of her barrier hit.
Philodora’s eyes went wide, and she barely finished a spell to create a wall of vines before the blade crashed into it. The force of it plowed through the vines like a hot knife through warm butter, and Philodora yelped as she threw herself to the side. There was a sickening crunch as some part of her was hit, and the piles of quickly dying vines collapsed on top of her, burying her.
“Adelaide!” Plum shouted, grabbing at her hand and yanking her to her feet. “We need to go!”
Adelaide nodded and let herself be pulled along. Her legs felt like they were made of lead, and she still couldn’t feel her hands or feet.
I hope that is not permanent, she thought, surprisingly lucid through the fatigue in her body. That would be rather inconvenient. She felt almost detached from her body, as if she were watching what was happening to her impassively from the outside.
Plum pulled Adelaide toward the edge of the room, where the high windows opened up into the night. Adelaide stumbled along, barely able to keep herself upright, dimly aware of a clatter of metal as three of Philodora’s knights rushed forward to block their flight.
Plum’s lip curled in a sneer as she raised a hand.
“Back. The hell. Off,” she growled, punctuating her words with the creation of a blade.
The knights glanced back and forth at each other nervously, but brandished their own blades at Plum anyway. It seemed there would be no talking their way out of this.
Plum launched her blades at one of the knights, who threw himself to the side as the blade whizzed past where he’d been standing.
Plum stepped forward to lean into her fight, leaving Adelaide to try her best to stay upright. She wavered, parts of her vision blurring, as she fought her exhaustion.
Adelaide felt, more than heard, another one of Philodora’s knights approach from behind her. She turned, swaying unsteadily, as the knight approached her.
“Prince-Adept,” the knight called. Adelaide blinked at the feminine voice, and blinked again as the knight flipped her helmet up.
“Please,” the knight begged. “Come with us. This does not have to be this way.” Adelaide struggled to remember the woman’s name—Dame Elora, maybe?
Adelaide shook her head. “You know that I can not,” she said, her words half-slurred together with exhaustion.
Elora sighed, and drew a long sword from her belt.
“The Duchess told us to try to bring you in peaceably, Prince-Adept,” she said, the tip of her sword held high and steady. “But if you will not come willingly, I’ve no choice but to make you.”
Adelaide’s eyes grew wide as Elora lunged for her, taking a swipe at her leg. She wasn’t able to react in time, and she felt a hot flash of pain in her leg as the sword bit deep into her flesh. She whimpered and fell backwards onto her rear, meeting Elora’s gaze fearfully.
“Give it up, Prince-Adept,” Elora demanded. “‘Tis over.” She reached down as if to haul Adelaide up to her feet.
Adelaide yelped in surprise as a crimson blade embedded itself four inches deep into Dame Elora’s face.
“Addie!” Plum called from behind, rushing over and dropping to her knees next to her. “Dim her,” Plum cursed, pressing her hands against Adelaide’s bleeding leg to heal it.
Adelaide gaped at Elora’s lifeless body. Plum’s blade slid out of the hole in her face with a sickening schlick, and Elora’s blood was quickly pooling around her.
“Plum,” Adelaide stammered. “You… you killed her.”
“She hurt you,” Plum answered simply, healing Adelaide’s leg. “And she was about to do worse.”
“You did not have to kill her!” Adelaide cried. She glanced backwards at the other three knights Plum had been fighting, and was relieved to see motion from all three.
Plum grunted. “I’ll not hesitate to protect you, Adelaide. You know this.”
“Could you not have-”
“Adelaide,” Plum said sharply. “We do not have time for this right now.” She gestured towards the other knights, who were stumbling unsteadily to their feet. “Chastise me later,” Plum finished. Some of the knights’ armor was dented and scratched in places, but they seemed more than able to keep fighting.
Dazed, and still exhausted, Adelaide let Plum pull her to her feet and to the giant, open windows, where the cool night air was enough to make Adelaide’s eyelids flutter. Plum glanced out into the courtyard, five stories below, and nodded.
“Can you make your barrier again?” she asked insistently.
“I-” Adelaide tried weakly to push out with her dawn magic again, but nothing happened. She shook her head. “No mana,” she forced out. Her jaw felt leaden, too.
“Hey,” Plum said, and took Adelaide’s face in both hands. She leaned in close and pressed their foreheads together, and in spite of her exhaustion and their situation, Adelaide felt her heart flutter.
“Take mine,” Plum said, and pushed. Adelaide felt a rush of energy as Plum’s red mana poured into her.
Suddenly alert and full of red mana, Adelaide caught Plum as her body collapsed from the strain. She was now probably completely tapped out, too. Adelaide glanced through the crowd that had circled to gawk at them and back at Philodora, who was loudly cursing the darkness as she staggered to her feet, finally free from the mass of dead vines. One of her legs was mashed to a bloody pulp, but Adelaide knew that wouldn’t slow her down for long.
She glanced back out the window, and almost laughed as she realized what Plum’s plan had been. She wrapped her arms tight around Plum and pressed her mouth close to the other woman’s ear.
“Hold on tight,” Adelaide whispered, as she pushed out with her barrier and threw herself and Plum out of the window.
The wind whistled past Adelaide’s ear as she and Plum fell from the window of the ballroom. She had the presence of mind to take note that her barrier apparently still allowed air to pass through before they hit the ground.
Adelaide felt her barrier hit first, and it hit with enough force to cave in the earth where they impacted. The barrier itself shattered on impact, but the lurch from where it forced Adelaide away from the edge was enough to slow hers and Plum’s descent almost instantly. Her stomach lurched, but they fell the last six inches or so as if they’d only fallen from that high.
Adelaide breathed heavily and cast her gaze about. She and Plum lay in a crater perhaps three feet deep, rounded at the edges. She could see the outline of where her barrier had been when it shattered, and she could even see a ripple in the earth where it had pressed outwards with the impact.
A sound escaped Adelaide’s lips. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but then another came, and before long she was laughing. Plum murmured from beside her, still weak from the lack of mana, but Adelaide found herself exhilarated, and for a few moments couldn’t help but laugh. Her own reaction confused her—now hardly seemed a time for laughter.
With effort, she wiped her eyes and pushed herself to a sitting position, pulling Plum up with her. They’d landed in the main courtyard of the Golden Hold. The main gate was about 100 yards across the way, and the ring of guards stared at them open-mouthed.
Adelaide glanced back up at the window they’d crashed through. A few nobles gawked down at them from on high, but there was no sign of Philodora or Dolamn, or their guards.
Adelaide glanced about the courtyard, suddenly fighting a wave of panic.
“Where are the others?” she asked, more to herself than to Plum. “Did they make it out?” She glanced up at the window again, her heart in her throat, desperately hoping that the fight had been distraction enough.
“Way to make an entrance, Vermillion,” came a familiar voice from behind Adelaide. She turned, and felt a rush of relief as she saw Caliburn, accompanied by Theoderic. There was a shimmer as Liana banished what must have been an invisibility spell, and she and Willam appeared next to Caliburn as well. Adelaide noticed suddenly that Theoderic was covered in blood, and her eyes went wide.
“Don’t worry, kid,” he said, following her gaze. “It’s not mine. Mostly.”
“Yes, yes,” Caliburn said, waving his hand. “We are all pleased to be healthy. Now can we go? We have—at best—minutes before one of our parents comes chasing after us, and I’d rather not be here when they do.”
Adelaide nodded, and gratefully accepted the hand that Theoderic offered to pull herself and Plum out of the crater.
“Right,” she said, practically holding Plum upright next to her. “Let’s.”
Cambria's Corner 
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