LIGHTNOVELONLINE Arc 2 | Chapter 67: Floating
The bubble of a giggle erupted out of Emilia as she soared through the water. She was weightless, sliding through the clear, increasingly dark liquid as Key trailed behind her, a smile plastered over his face.
According to what she’d learned from Zach, most of the Enclave families could use all types of magic with relative ease, but they generally specialized in one or two, depending on the lineage of their parents. The Stringers had previously specialized in air magic, and while Zach hadn’t known what magic the sibling’s father specialized in, Emilia could guess that it was water.
Occasionally, Key would float by her as they descended, eyes closed in the way only someone who felt perfectly at home in the water could. He was beautiful—strange for how red he was against the glittering green and blue rocks, but breathtaking.
As they fell, light began to glow from Key’s shirt, and he removed a necklace from beneath it, the amber stone on it emitting the light. He reached out, catching her hand and tapping against one of the magic stones attached to the armour bound across her forearms. Her companion’s energy raced through it, tingling slightly as it interacted with her own energy, which had naturally latched onto the stones after they had merged with her armour, even if she couldn’t yet use them. He looked mildly surprised for a moment, before continuing on and activating her light magic stone as well.
Their finger’s wound together, and they fell into the darkness, their speed slowing in case they ran into anything. Emilia let her eyes flutter shut, trusting Key to keep them safe, his magic slowly gathering heavy around them to counter the weight of the water bearing down on them.
⸂There,⸃ Key called, pulling them to a stop.
Emilia’s eyes opened, and she looked around, trying to find what he saw. Whether he was using something to enhance his sight, or hers was just shit from being a level 300, she couldn’t see anything. Not the ground or the walls or whatever had drawn the boy’s attention.
“Is something out there?” she signed at him, although with her one hand clasped securely in his, she doubted he could understand her single-hand question.
Luckily, he did remember the marker for questions, and was able to guess that she had no idea what he was talking about. Slowly, magic vibrating through the water so gently Emilia almost didn’t notice it, he pulled them close to whatever he was looking at.
It wasn’t until they were practically inside the cave that Emilia noticed it. Its entrance was relatively small, the same jagged rocks shooting out from the entrance, looking equal parts beautiful and terrifying. It felt like they were entering the mouth of a monster, and Emilia was reminded of the dream she had had, back when she had created the blade of her {Blood Dagger}. She had dreamed of a hallway inside a monster that had eaten the world, its flesh sticky and squishy under her hands.
She eyed up the cave nervously. It wasn’t a monster mouth, obviously… hopefully. Key, on his part, seemed to have no such worries, easily dragging them past those sharp teeth. Perhaps he had never seen a monster before—perhaps they were things that existed only within these near mythological labyrinth walls.
Monsters in her world were common. Even ignoring the monster’s of the war, there were huge beasts that lived in the northern reaches of Baalphoria, in the Grey Sands and the depths of the oceans. Most had been driven out of the more populous areas, but they existed. Ones were even known to attack the cities, occasionally. The Penns in particular was known for dealing with sea monsters every few years—it was part of why many of the most skilled soldiers had emerged from the coastal towns of the Penns during the first few years of the war: it wasn’t just their sub-30 D-Levels, but the fact that they already had practice using their willbrands and skills in battle.
A thousand bubbles of light erupted out of Key’s necklace, floating outwards to light their way. The inside of the cavern was much larger than the opening, quickly opening up above them into an air pocket.
⸂I will keep my air magic active,⸃ Key informed her as they poked their heads out of the water. ⸂I cannot access the magic necessary to analyze the safety of this air.⸃
Emilia appreciated his attention to details, and ability to err—ha—on the side of caution, especially since she wasn’t known for being the best at doing so. Dying because they breathed in some sketchy fumes wasn’t on her list of things to do.
Before them, a long, pitch-black tunnel opened up, the rocks around the rim just as jagged as everywhere else.
⸂I will lift us to shore,⸃ Key said, almost immediately frowning. ⸂Something is interfering with my ability to use more magic.⸃
He had already explained, on their way down, that these labyrinths often enacted limits on which magics people could use and when, although visitors were often less affected by those limits. It was due to this that Rin’s magic usage had been sporadic.
⸂The limits are often designed to guide each of the labyrinth’s challenges. We could not use movement or strength magic while climbing, for instance,⸃ he had told her, blinking absently at her while she ranted about how it would have been helpful if Rin had told her her magic was behaving erratically. She’d just assumed it was a result of the aether disruption caused by the building collapsing, although as time had gone on, she’d wondered if that was the only cause. Had the other girl told her that the magic she could use were shifting as they moved…
⸂From what I know,⸃ Key had continued after she had stopped ranting into the abyss, words too quiet for him to hear even murmurs of and hands too fast for him to even hope to understand the basics of, ⸂these limits vary between stopping the use of specific magics or specific types of magic, and limiting the number of simultaneous spells.⸃
Emilia had mulled over that last one in particular. From what Zach had told her, magic in this world often involved the use of multiple magic types. Even moderately simple spells required layering different spells from different magic types to achieve the desired result. This was part of why the closure of more powerful birthing homes had affected residents of the platform so profoundly. Without even basic connections to several types, and without a powerful, grounding connection to at least one, using magic was difficult without years of training. Even with training, Zach had admitted that more and more of his students were finding it all but impossible to use even single type magics.
Allegedly, this was part of why the Risen Guard directly recruited new trainees. Their members birthed children in some of the most powerful homes, but those children were not enough to fill their numbers. They filled out their numbers by recruiting children who possessed more connection to the heartcores and the world’s magic than typical. It both bolstered their power and kept those recruits from seeking out magic training from less legal schools.
⸂I’ll have to let the light go,⸃ Key said, eyeing up the distance to the shore—it would definitely suck to be dropped on top of those rocks. ⸂I will overshoot the edge, in order to see you safely over.⸃
There had been many moments on their trek where Emilia had been highly annoyed at her lack of ability to communicate with Key. Not being able to ask him if he was a good judge of distance—not to mention how he was going to find out if she’d actually landed on shore!—was definitely one of those times.
She had always hated being unable to ask questions. Unfortunately, she had had a few teachers over the years who disliked being questioned. When she was younger, she’d had her parents—and occasionally Rafe’s—behind her, eyes dark and menacing as they questioned teachers about why they weren’t allowing questions within their classes. Having three of the most powerful people in Baalphoria staring down their noses at you? Threatening to take things public if the school didn’t fire you?
Yeah, watching their parents stand-off against those shit teachers had been great, and as much as Emilia knew it would be mortifying for her dad to show up at Astrapan to call out some of her more dubious teachers, sometimes she missed that protectiveness—that never bending support. Sure, there had been times when she’d gotten in deep shit with her parents for the stunts she pulled, but her father had always been there bailing her out before grounding her.
Not that her groundings had ever been particularly effective—as previously noted, she had been a problem child most of her life. There had been a few months at the beginning, where she had tried to behave. She’d been miserable, and both her parents had assured her that they’d prefer she be herself. They had never wanted her to dampen herself, even if living as herself had caused them problems and heartache and—
Emilia squeaked as she landed roughly on the ground, and was then forced onto her back when Key seemingly didn’t realize she had already hit the ground.
“KEY!” she yelled, wondering just how dampened his hearing was. Given the way gravity continued pressing down on her for several seconds, apparently dampened enough that even her yelling couldn’t make it through from this far away.
⸂I hope you made it,⸃ Key whispered into her, and she lay, sprawled on the ground, contemplating life.
Emilia gasped when, a second later, Key landed on top of her.
⸂Oh! Oh! I’m—⸃ Key cut off as he scrambled off her, then yelped.
A moment later, light erupted out of his necklace once more and Emilia found herself staring at Key’s impaled shoulder, the boy having scurried back so far he hit a wall covered in jagged rocks.
“Well, fuck.” Emilia crawled her way over to him, examining the injury before unceremoniously tugging him off the rock.
Key cursed—something about burning metal—but let Emilia haul him away from the wall. ⸂Sorry,⸃ he muttered, cheeks burning in the dim light, and Emilia wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for landing on her or for panicking and injuring himself.
Emilia fingered Key’s shoulder, the wound slowly starting to seal itself up, drops of blood sliding back inside him. “Looks like you’ll be okay,” Emilia said solemnly, giving him a double thumbs up.
Key looked half-amused, half-horrified by her bland acceptance of his injuries, but whether he understood what she said or not, he nodded and began to inspect the surrounding area, little bubbles of light once again floating away from them.
The cavern reached out, spanning into the abyss of the hopefully imaginary monster’s throat. Seriously, hopefully they didn’t end up as monster food, dissolving in acid once they finally reached his stomach. Literally walking into a monster’s stomach would be such an uncool way to die.
“Guess we gotta walk!” Emilia cheered, walking two fingers up Key’s thigh and watching as his blush burned brighter, although he didn’t edge away from her.
Instead, his eyes caught hers, their rosy pink colour shining in the light of his magic as he caught her hand and pulled it upwards. For a moment, she thought that he was going to kiss it. That wasn’t really a thing in Baalphoria, but she’d met a few people during the war, from the Free Colonies, who had a custom of kissing hands as some odd, courting ritual. Charles and James’ homeland in particular had some interesting customs, and Emilia had enjoyed watching Charles attempt to court Nettie in a wholly foreign way. Someone, although she still wasn’t sure who, had eventually given him a few hints about how Baalphorians courted, and while he had still included many of his Free Colonies’ customs, he had also included more local ones in his attempts to woe her.
Key didn’t kiss her hand, though, and when he instead pulled her up with him, she couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed. Realistically, she didn’t need the complication of starting something up with a local boy. It would be short, impermanent, and likely result in heartbreak for at least one of them.
Plus, hadn’t she just been flirting with V!?
“For star's sake, Emilia,” she chided herself, letting Key drag her along through the dark path. “I knew we were a sex addict, but this is a little too much! Chill!”
Something inside her hissed at being told to chill, which, fair. Even if she hadn’t slept with anyone other than Elijah in months before today—real-world today—this was excessive! First, Olivier—which, fair. The man was just so fucking hot, it really was unfair to expect anyone to resist him. Then, V—which, come on, Emilia! Have some standards! Yes, he was a cheerful, smiley little thing, but also, cleanliness is important! And now, Key! Out of all the people on the list of people she had lusted over since the pink tide had arrived, he was definitely the most problematic!
Oh, wait. He actually wasn’t, because she’d definitely thought her Risen Guard babysitter turned attempted assassin was hot. There had been all that teasing and—
“Why are you muttering to yourself?” a voice asked, shocking a squeak of surprise out of Emilia, first at the sound, then at Key, tugging her protectively behind him.
⸂Who are you?⸃ Key snarled through the aether, the air suddenly heavy with threat.
“Ah~ you found another Enclave bodyguard, just as I finally managed to lose mine again,” V laughed, stepping out of the shadows towards them. “What happened to the little girl, though? Did you off her?”
Emilia tugged on Key’s arm, stepping out from behind him. “No,” she laughed, “but for a bit, I thought she’d disappeared and left me to die!”
