Misty
Georgia turns to the railing in awe. The students sharing our little alcove rise from their chairs in confusion as the books crash to the ground.
My already thundering heart nearly stops, skipping several beats, and in that time, the first screams echo all the way down to us on the second to last floor, splitting the normally silent air into pieces. I stand, my chair falling over backward, as green-hued light blasts through the upper section of the library.
“GEORGIA!” I scream, lunging for her as debris–a tangle of stone, books, and paper–cascade down the open space housing the staircase. A shockwave slams into us, knocking Georgia away from the railing and sending me backward into one of the racks, my spine singing in pain. More screams follow, growing in intensity, as I open my eyes to thick dust and the haze of magic I can taste on my tongue.
Shadowed figures move down the staircase. Wolves follow, their eyes glowing red and green in the haze. I choke on the pain coasting through my body as my healing powers ignite, quickly fading bruises and knitting together broken ribs, but Georgia is lying face down covered in books.
“Ge-Georgia,” I croak, falling to my knees and crawling to her, finding the puddle of what’s left of her iced coffee soaking the carpet. I pull her toward me as the students behind me hush each other’s sobs of fear. One of the figures senses my movement and stops on the staircase, looking through the fog of dust, right at us.
“Georgia, wake up,” I hiss, rising and dragging her across the coffee-stained floor. I reach the other students, who part to allow us space in their not-so-well-hidden shadowed alcove, but it’s too late. The cloaked figures are running now, reaching our landing of the staircase, and moving in our direction.
I shove a barely conscious Georgia behind me, thrusting her into the arms of a terrified looking young man whose glasses are cracked, his face covered in dust.
“What’s happening?” one of the women behind me asks as I turn back toward the staircase.
I glance around, noticing a break in the toppled racks, and motion toward it. “Go, get out of here and hide!”
The group nervously looks at where I’m pointing, tears in their eyes.
“Go!” I hiss, giving one of the women a shove, but it’s too late. Two wolves dart out of the gloom, snarling and clacking jaws lined with massive, sharp teeth. Shadowed figures appear behind them in black cloaks and black masks. Arcane Umbra members.
They’re attacking the university.
I spin on my heel as the wolves lunge at us and splay my hands out wide, screaming as I send a blast of bright blue light sizzling through the air between them and us. The light explodes, creating a force field I can barely contain. “GO NOW!” I shout at the group of terrified students, who are whimpering and gaping at me in shock. Tears of frustration well in my eyes as a few of the girls skitter away, tripping over fallen books and toppled shelving, but the young man holding Georgia struggles to carry her over the racks.
My powers are barely holding. I take several steps forward, blasting my light, pushing the wolves back even further until they’re forced to retreat in the direction from which they came.
“Get out of here!” I scream at the student holding Georgia.
He drops her and runs.
“No! Fuck!” I scream in frustration and sheer, unfiltered rage.
Georgia sputters, blood streaming from a gash on her forehead as she tries to lift her head.
“GG!” I yell at her, and she blinks at me, confused. “Georgia!” I take another step, pushing the wolves back again, but my magic is starting to fizzle. “Georgia, look at me. You need to get up! You need to run!”
“M-Misty?” she murmurs, blinking into the bright light cast by my magic.
“GEORGIA, PLEASE!” I scream. “RUN!”
I take another step, reaching the railing, turning and sending my magic in a straight, bright line that fans out over the balcony overlooking the staircase. Above me, other balconies come into view, and several students are running for their lives while others are screaming in the arms of order members carrying them away.
The worst of it are the bodies with their arms draped through the breaks in the railings, blood dripping from still fingers onto the books covering the floor.
Tears burn my eyes, blurring my vision. I scream again, so loud my voice cracks and breaks, as I send my magic hurtling in a deadly wave.
“The net! Drop the fucking net!” Someone above me shouts through the chaos.
“GEORGIA!” I bellow, craning my neck to watch her struggle to her feet. She wobbles but manages to grip a toppled shelf and pull herself upright just as something heavy is thrown from three stories above my head, metal singing through the air as it falls.
I make a snap decision to not look up. I watch my friend instead, silently pleading with her to hurry.
The wind is knocked out of me, then searing pain erupts all over my body as a metal net made of silver drops over me, extinguishing my powers completely. I crumble, screaming in pain, for help, for anything. My healing powers aren’t quick enough to fix the burns left by the silver as it touches my bare legs, my bare arms. My hair gets tangled in the net, exposing my neck, and the net settles against it, forcing me to curl my chin into my chest to try to get away.
“Ge-Georgia!” I sob, watching in horror as she slips, falling backward off the shelf she was trying to climb over. Two shadow figures reach her within seconds and roughly tackle her to the ground. “NO!!! NO! STOP!” I scream her name over and over, trying to find my powers, but the silver is eating me alive.
The wolves are nowhere to be seen, but several figures surround me, blocking my view of Georgia and her assailants.
“Get her up and cuffed, quickly,” someone sneers, and the net is lifted. I immediately try to wrench away, but I’m tackled to the ground, a boot flat against the back of my neck.
I scream, kicking and writhing as multiple hands touch my body, flattening my arms to my back. My healing powers work overtime, soothing the silver burns, but pain ignites again on my wrists as silver cuffs are tightened in place.
I kick wildly, the heel of my sneaker meeting someone’s jaw with a satisfying crunch.
“AH! Fuckin’ bitch!” I’m kicked hard in the ribs. It knocks the wind out of me. I choke on a scream as another kick snaps at least two ribs.
“Stop! He wants her in one piece!”
Someone kneels on my legs, preventing me from moving, and another set of silver cuffs are fastened around my ankles.
The burning sensation blinds me. My vision blurs around the edges, going dark. I open my mouth to scream Georgia’s name again, but someone stuffs wadded up fabric between my teeth. I bite down the best I can on his fingers but he pulls away and slaps me so hard my ears ring.
“Pick her up.”
I’m lifted and thrown over someone’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I spit out the gag, still screaming, and wriggle, trying to throw myself off his shoulder.
“Fuck, I’m going to drop her!”
I bite down on his back, and he screams.
I’m dropped flat on my back, my body crunching against books and shelving.
My world blurs as my head bounces against the hard, stone ground. All around me, books are falling from the shelves. Paper dances through the air, drifting like feathers. I can’t tell if the metallic taste in my mouth is magic–or blood. I go still for the first time, the pain too overwhelming to move, let alone think past.
Masked faces funnel around me, staring down at me. I can’t tell who's speaking, who’s telling me to fucking chill, that if I don’t stop trying to fight them, they’ll kill–they’ll kill Georgia. Tears fall freely down my cheeks. I can’t move. I’m losing feeling in my arms and legs. My back. My back has to be broken.
I slip away, mentally trying to grasp anything to hang onto. I find… something. Something deep in my mind, and tug tight.
“Help,” I manage to whisper, sending the word down whatever line this is to the voice in my head. “The–the university is being attacked–I’m–I’m hurt–They’re taking me away–”
“I warned you,” the voice echoes back, and it’s the last thing I hear before my vision goes black, and everything goes completely, utterly silent.
* * *
I’m thrown to the ground, which wakes me up. I’m not sure how long I’ve been out, but I know the second new air fills my lungs that I’m not in the library anymore. I don’t recognize the scent filling my nose at first. I blink away the darkness in my vision, lifting my head to murmured voices. Dark stone fills my eyes, followed by green-hued light. Dim light, thank the Goddess, because my head is killing me.
Someone releases the cuffs around my ankles. I don’t waste any time. I pull myself up to a kneeling position and it… takes all of my strength. My healing powers are trying to knit me back together, but it’s slow, especially while they focus wholly on the silver cuffs burning my wrists, trying to heal the skin there again, and again, to no avail.
I sway, swallowing back the urge to throw up all over the damp stone floor, but eventually lift my head to the two-dozen or so men standing in a semicircle on the far end of the room, arranged on shallow stairs that lead to a platform.
Most are wearing masks. Some aren’t, and as I sweep my gaze over the group, I come to a stop on Nathan. He stares at me, inhaling deeply as his dark eyes fill with dampness.
I bare my bloody teeth at him and rasp, “You.”
He closes his eyes and looks down at his feet.
A shuffling echoes through the… ballroom. That’s where I am. I’m in the ballroom from the party last night, the party that definitely happened. I wasn’t imagining it. I scan the men again, looking for the man with the silver snake on his cuff, but they’re all wearing them. The silver glints in the dim light as an elderly man parts the crowd and comes to a stop a few feet away from me.
He smiles with malice, chuckling to himself. “What a lovely little treasure you are, Princess Mystica. Quite the fighter. A pretty little warrior.”
I slowly turn my gaze up to him. “Who the fuck are you?” I growl, shaking from pain and the utter shock of what just happened to me. “Where is Georgia?”
“Do not speak.” His slap echoes through the ballroom.
I sneer up at him. “Fuck you.”
He lifts his hand again, but a deep voice nearby says darkly, “That’s enough.”
His voice is smooth like a fine, expensive scotch. His footsteps are heavy and trained as he moves down from the other men. “Umbra,” he says as he reaches the man’s side, wearing a mask. He leans in to whisper something to the man, who keeps his eyes on mine.
Impatient, I writhe against the cuffs holding my wrists behind my back. “Let me go, you fucking monsters!”
“You’re not going anywhere,” the elderly man replies sharply.
“Her hands are glowing!” one of the other men shouts in warning, and the elderly man’s hand comes down so hard on the side of my face that I topple over and see stars for several seconds. My vision clears enough to see the way the masked man has a death grip on the elderly man’s arm.
“Do I need to remind you of the deal we made?” the masked man sneers. He shoves the elder.
“I am the Umbra Mortis,” the old man growls, straightening his cloak. He turns to his assailant, giving him a deathly glare.
“And I am the king,” the man says, reaching up to take off… to take off his mask.
Dark gray eyes meet mine as the fabric falls away. Prince Cole looks down at me with disgust.
He just called himself the king, though. I don’t understand….
His gaze holds mine for several seconds before he turns to glare at the Umbra Mortis, who I assume is the leader of this group of criminals, and then faces the crowd of men standing in silence behind him. “If anyone so much as touches a hair on her head, they die. Am I understood?”
A murmur of acknowledgement passes through the crowd. But the Umbra Mortis is glaring down at me, his upper lip curled over his teeth. I’m not watching him, however. I watch as Prince–King–Cole stares into the crowd, right at Nathan, who still has his head bowed.
King Cole turns on his heel, and two masked men come down the steps, following him as he walks toward the same shadowed archway I’d explored last night. He pauses at the archway, turning toward the men again. “I want her sedated for the journey. Fully sedated.”
“Wait–” I rush out, and his eyes fall on mine. “My-My friend–Georgia–”
To my shock, one of the men at his side removes his mask, revealing… Declan. Declan’s eyes are pleading as he gives what I believe is a wobbly attempt at a reassuring smile. “She’s okay. She’s all right, I promise.”
Utter confusion blurs my senses. King Cole is still looking at me as I’m dragged to my feet by masked men. He holds my gaze for several more seconds before saying to no one in particular, “Alert her father that we have her, and he’ll heed my demands if he ever wants to see her again.” He turns and stalks into the darkness.