I let out a slow, uneven breath. I turned quickly back to the Ikon, who was standing unfazed facing me. I had noticed that the bubbles had phased through the palisades and other obstacles like they weren’t even there, and assumed the people who had taken shelter behind them had also disappeared. This was probably how the Ikon had eliminated all of the fairies outside of the capital. The bubbles left no signs on the walls or the ramparts. They didn’t even seem to have disturbed the air, since when they had rushed over my head, they had not made any sound or make any wind.

I bit my lips. Those bubbles reminded me of the invisible barrier around the demon capital, imprisoning Kol. But I wondered something. Why hadn’t the Ikon fired one of those towards me?

As if asking themselves the same question, the Ikon pointed a hand towards me and a bubble appeared. Sweat trickled down my forehead. A burst of adrenaline filled my body and the hairs on my neck began to stand on end.

The bubble shot forward in its strange floating way, forcing my eyes to concentrate on my own reflection as it became larger and larger in my vision. My body felt sluggish as my mind sped up, trying to manipulate my magic. I used motion magic to move to the side, also relying on the magic hands that I had preemptively stuck into the ground to help propel me away. A burst of air magic reduced the drag on my body, and my own physical body became strained to the limits as I forced it to rush to the side as quickly as possible.

At the same time, I prepared a barrage of magic spells to hit the bubble. Even if they didn’t cancel out the strange magic, I was hoping they could at least slow it down. Only the light and electric magic hit the bubble before it reached my body. The light seemed to reflect off the bubble’s surface, drowning out the rainbow sheen with a flood of white. Yet, my reflection remained, embossed in the white light. It made it feel like the image on the bubble’s surface wasn’t my reflection, but some sort of mystical version of myself. My soul? An imprint? A way to mark me as a target? I couldn’t be sure. The electric magic smashed right through the bubble, ignoring all of its thin walls and continuing on to the Ikon, who seemed completely surprised by the counterattack, possibly because I hadn’t been intending it as a counterattack at all.

I dove out of the way and the bubble passed me by. Right in front of my face, at the point where my magic had only materialized, the bubble slammed into everything. The fire, the water, the wind, the earth, everything passed right through the bubble. It wasn’t magnetic either. My magic hands had a stranger reaction. As soon as the tip of the magic hands touched the surface of the bubble, the magic dissipated. The bubble was unchanged so this seemed like a failure as well. The bubble flew through the air until it passed through the ground and disappeared from view.

“Is that thing going to go all the way through the planet or something?” I said under my breath.

I quickly refocused on the Ikon, who had created another bubble. I grit my teeth and this time, I was the one using my magic to desperately avoid a barrage of powerful magic. Thankfully, as I used my magic under such intensity and duress, my ‘wisdom’ increased exponentially, and my ability to coordinate different types of magic together to dodge the bubbles improved considerably.

But the Ikon wasn’t standing still. They were stepping forward with every bubble, as if all of the exhaustion, the panic from the near constant bombardment of powerful spells, had all been an act. No, I couldn’t believe it. Even if the Ikon was the Immortal’s servant, why would the Immortal give a mortal the ability to use infinite amounts of energy? Surely, borrowing the Immortal’s power and magic must have a cost. If I kept dodging these attacks, perhaps an opportunity would present itself.

Thus came the comical scene where a hooded Ikon pressed me with a barrage of soapy bubbles. Like a child playing a game, I dodged every bubble, which were streaming out as if they truly were playful bubbles and not arcane spheres of inexplicable destruction. Left, right, bending backwards, slipping forward, I contorted my body in incredible ways to avoid the bubbles. I soon realized that although I couldn’t use my magic to deflect the bubbles, I could try to force the Ikon to take a step back. I found electric magic the most useful for this, since it was fast and deadly. Every time a crackle resounded through the air, the Ikon activated their silver glow and avoided the arcs of lightning with a hair’s breadth and a blink’s worth of time.

The smell of sweat and ozone filled my nose. I was being pushed back towards the wall. I chanced a quick glance through the corner of my eye during a dodging maneuver and realized I would have my back to the gates soon. I wondered if I should ask the fairies to open the gates and let me in. It would cause a lot of casualties since there was no way anybody else could avoid the bubbles, not even Kelser. But surrounding this monstrous being might be our only hope. I even convinced myself I didn’t want to open the gates to save my own skin. The terror in my heart at being beaten back so one-sidedly, relentlessly, and mercilessly, had no influence on my decision, I said to myself.

I shouted. Then I finally heard the sounds I had been ignoring because of the intensity of the battle. Shouts. Cries. Burning wood, blood-curdling screams of anguish and despair. My eyes widened. I almost let a bubble brush past my skin, and only avoided it because my foot caught on something and I almost tripped. I quickly regained my balance, let out the breath I did not know I had been holding, and spun around with both hands outstretched. The Ikon, who had only just prepared another bubble to shoot towards me, froze.

Tendrils of white lightning arced from my fingertips, drowning out my shouts with their sizzle and crackle as the smell of ozone filled the air. The Ikon flared silver blinking in and out of the path of every tendril until finally the silver glow ebbed and the Ikon was hit in the chest by a burst of electricity.

The Ikon was blasted through the air, smoke rising from their chest, and almost slammed into a tree. Yet, the silver glow flared up again and the Ikon seemed to disappear in front of the tree before reappearing right behind it. The Ikon still kept flying, finally resting calmly on the ground. A rogue spark danced on the Ikon’s robes, and the Ikon groaned.

A high pitched groan. The robe was finally disheveled too. I could tell that the Ikon was a woman.

The shouts behind the gates got louder. I grit my teeth, grabbed the gates, and channeled a bunch of energy into rending the gate, opening a small hole in it just large enough for me to pass through.

Inside, there was chaos. Fires raged across the farmlands and open plains. Guard towers up in smoke. The city in the distance a den of destruction, flame, and suffering. I scanned the area but there was no sign of Kelser, Bain Rusta, or Taoc. There were some fairy and demon soldiers rushing around the place, but they didn’t even spare a glance at me. In the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar face. I rushed towards it, brushing past a demon and a fairy locked in combat. In a split second, I decided I had no idea why they were fighting or who was on my side, so I simply knocked them both apart and rushed right through.

I stretched out a hand, grabbed a familiar shoulder, and cast a spell pushing back a host of demons and fairies that were fighting Elder Kezler for some reason.

“Elder,” I squeezed out of my mouth while taking deep breaths, “what is going on?”

“Treason!” shouted the human elder, his eyes full of unfamiliar fury, a nasty gash running along his chin.

“Treason?” I repeated, “by who?”

“By everybody!” said Elder Kezler.