Vacant Throne

The chaos of a battlefield wasn’t entirely foreign to Alyssa. She had gone through her fair share of fights. As such, she knew what to do. It was almost instinct at this point to go invisible. Having essentially planned for this exact outcome since first connecting with Tenebrael and even more since relying on Tenebrael’s power to replace spell cards—directly by casting miracles instead of regular spells or indirectly by creating the spell cards themselves—Alyssa had her backup deck of cards in her satchel.

At the same time as she turned invisible, she activated one of the Fractal spells to create a mirrored barrier between her position and the oncoming arrows.

The plinking rain of metal against magic mirror sounded like thunder to her ears. Though her heart was sure doing its best to drown out the sound.

That had been close. The time between the spell appearing and the first arrow hitting the ground had been less than a second… in the wrong direction. Alyssa wasn’t moving, just staring at the arrow that was half-buried in the ground five feet to her side. A bullet had whizzed by her just seconds ago, but for some reason, the arrow felt far more real.

Probably because that bullet was somewhere off in the distance now and the arrow was right there, touchable.

Tons more were hitting the ground all around her. The mirror she had conjured was not of the domed variety. That Fractal spell would have cut her off completely from the battlefield. She wouldn’t have known if it was safe to emerge as not even Messages worked while separated. But here and now, with just an immobile, flat, and thankfully impenetrable mirror, she couldn’t move anyway. The onslaught of arrows wasn’t stopping. After the first volley hit down in roughly one contiguous curtain, the raining arrows turned into a scattered shower. Invisibility wasn’t going to let her get through that.

Mind racing through her library of spells, she couldn’t think of one that would give her a mobile shield. Maybe there was one, but it was slipping her mind.

But their footmen had been approaching. Surely the arrows would stop once the soldiers came in range. Being invisible, she should be able to easily slip past them. Even if she couldn’t, Spectral Scythe would instantly kill anyone who came within melee range.

Unfortunately, the Lyrian army was charging forward now as well. Or was it actually unfortunate?

Brakkt was at the forefront of the army. He charged forward on Ensou, leaving behind just about everyone else. The only ones able to keep up with him were other draken. Fela on Dasca and Izsha. Neither Irulon nor Companion were sprinting ahead of the main bulk of the army.

Alyssa wanted to tell him to stay away. To keep himself safe. He was clearly coming for her. So were the others.

It gnawed at her stomach. Would the arrows pierce draken hide? Bullets? Brakkt wouldn’t charge in without a plan. Not even for her. Fela, on the other hand, was certainly charging in without any real thought behind it. Her fur might protect her, but her fur didn’t cover her entire body.

They didn’t need to put themselves into danger for her. She could handle things on her own. At the same time, seeing Izsha rushing here, imagining taking Brakkt’s hand and hopping onto Ensou’s back, or simply being carried away by Fela… Alyssa didn’t want to be in this position. She wanted to get to one of them and get safely behind the lines of other men.

But what would that do to their morale? The avatar of Tenebrael, fleeing from battle?

Was that what this was all about? The Juno Federation’s stupid prophecy of victory? Was that inscribed so heavily into the black book that it couldn’t shift?

Alyssa grit her teeth as the thought occurred to her.

The battle was going to begin in earnest now. She had been trying to avoid that. To utterly crush the Juno Federation’s morale until they knelt down in despair, surrendering for lack of anything else they could do. But she had failed. Her falling from the sky must have sparked enough hope to get them charging across the battlefield again. Had that been what Bastiel wanted? Was this war somehow so integral to the continued functioning of the universe that she had to find a way to reignite it? Or was it just a small divot on an endless road that the angels were forced to smooth over?

What was the angel’s true goal?

Or what was the plan of the Throne?

Alyssa couldn’t imagine one little battle on one little planet among an entire universe would matter that much.

So was it her? Once again, was this something Alyssa had caused simply because she was some abomination, as Adrael had put it?

Alyssa’s fingers rubbed over an Annihilator card. There was a definite temptation. She could put a stop to this. Blasting the Juno Federation off the face of the planet would keep her side safe. Lyria would suffer little to no casualties. But… the reverse thought occurred to her as well. What if the Juno Federation was meant to lose the battle? The whole prophecy could have been a ploy to get them out here, ready to be slaughtered by Lyria. Angels weren’t supposed to lie, but Adrael might. Even if she hadn’t lied, Alyssa had heard the words to another prophecy back at the Society of the Burning Shadow’s outpost. The words had clearly described Alyssa—or at least Irulon—walking around their fort, but they had interpreted it as a traitor among them. She hadn’t heard the exact phrasing of this prophecy, so who knew how poorly it was being interpreted.

It was too much.

If she kept thinking, she would just end up locked in indecision. No matter which way she put her foot down, it might be a trap set by an angel. Yet standing still might be a trap as well.

This was what she had wanted to avoid by connecting directly to the Throne.

An angel screwing her over.

She had let her guard down around Bastiel.

Maybe slipping away once Bastiel mentioned her warning would have been wise. It had seemed to require a physical touch to sever her connection to Tenebrael. Running might have spared her long enough for her to get back to Brakkt… Maybe just that would have given the Juno Federation a spark of morale anyway. It was too late to consider what she might have done.

What can I do?

That was the really important question.

Reconnect to Tenebrael?

Doing so put her into a trance of sorts. Her body would be vulnerable… though if the invisibility remained, perhaps that wouldn’t matter. As long as she didn’t take too long…

But Bastiel would likely sever it again. Even trying might trigger the angel to action. And if she did something while Alyssa was in the middle of connecting, who knew what the consequences might be.

Then what? Blast an Annihilator? She couldn’t do that. It wasn’t that she was balking at the idea of slaughtering an entire army—though there was some of that—it was who was in that army. Kasita was out there somewhere, among the enemy’s force. Annihilating the enemy without finding her was unforgivable. So… Wait for Brakkt? Fight like a regular soldier, reaping souls with a scythe instead of a sword?

Bastiel might not let her do even that. If the angels didn’t like her stopping this war, why would she let her stop it in a different manner?

The angel was still high up in the air, watching. Brakkt was racing toward her. At the speed the draken moved, it wouldn’t be long before he reached her. A mile wasn’t much of a distance to them.

Alyssa couldn’t sit in inaction any longer. First and foremost, she had people she cared about that needed to be kept safe. Safe as safe as possible given the current circumstances, that was. Pulling out a Message spell, she said, “Message. Brakkt. I’m fine. The army needs you to lead them. Stay with them, we’ll meet up later. Keep Fela and Izsha safe.”

The second she finished talking, Brakkt and Ensou started to slow. Alyssa breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Brakkt trusted her enough to not rush forward like she was some kind of damsel in distress. It made her feel so much better, just that little bit of trust.

Fela and Dasca lunged forward ahead of him, but he turned his head and shouted something. They both slowed shortly after.

Izsha did not stop. If anything, it sped up. Even though his helmet covered his face, Alyssa could tell that Brakkt was shouting after Izsha. Even with that, the draken did not slow.

Alyssa grit her teeth, about to send a Message to the dumb draken, only for her grit teeth to morph into a tight grin. With Izsha, she would be incredibly mobile. Hundreds of options would open up to her that hadn’t been there before. But she needed to get Izsha to her safely. Coming back from the dead might have given Izsha some undue confidence, but without Tenebrael’s connection, Alyssa wouldn’t be able to easily replicate that feat or even heal anyone if they got injured, which had been a prerequisite to full-ish resurrection.

To that end, Alyssa pulled out her least favorite spell.

Fractal Mirror.

Shards of glass surrounded Alyssa. Each pane displayed a different version of a few seconds into the future. She was used to this spell… mostly. Without being caught off guard and knowing roughly what she wanted from the situation, Alyssa quickly got to searching through the possible futures. With her distaste for the spell, she only had one more in her permanent deck and no ability to simply conjure them from nothing at the moment, so she had to make them count.

Through the mirrored glass, she got information that would have otherwise been difficult to discern.

The Juno Federation was approaching, but were still quite far off. Naturally. Draken could move incredibly quick compared to humans. There was no way that people could possibly run to Alyssa’s position faster than Izsha. That meant that the arrows would still be a problem for the foreseeable future.

And arrows were a problem.

Glancing hits would deflect with minimal damage to Izsha’s tough scales. If they skimmed its side on the way down or it at the wrong angle, they would harmlessly bounce off. More direct hits were not so harmless. Alyssa witnessed countless futures where Izsha wound up brought down due to arrows hitting directly against its head, eyes, and legs. Its back was surprisingly a strong point even against direct arrows. A consequence of thicker scales and the saddle occupying quite a large surface area.

In those futures, alternate versions of Alyssa tried a number of things to keep both herself and Izsha safe. Hardening spells helped, but required proximity. Speed from Accelero worked extremely well, but again, Alyssa couldn’t activate that without physically touching Izsha beforehand lest she leave the draken in real time. Shoving all those shards aside, Alyssa searched for a future in which Izsha reached her without any injuries.

The search did reveal something nasty. Bastiel was not passive. Any time Alyssa made a move to directly attack the Juno Federation’s army, she stepped in. Annihilator blasts were snuffed out with but a whimper—apparently some few future versions of Alyssa decided to try the spell despite Kasita being possibly caught in the blast. Fractal spells to literally decimate swathes of the army were swatted aside. Even smaller things such as an All Shall Burn were deflected.

For a moment, Alyssa thought to find a future in which she got rid of the angel, but she couldn’t find one where she even came close. Interestingly, no future showed her reconnecting with Tenebrael. They didn’t even show her trying. It wasn’t like she tried and died or otherwise failed. Plenty of the shards showed her death—any that did destroyed themselves, yet she could still remember those futures. It felt more like the spell itself simply couldn’t account for the act of reconnecting.

And without Tenebrael’s power, Alyssa doubted she had a chance at harming the angel.

So she ignored that option and continued her search for Izsha’s safe arrival.

It took a few moments, but she eventually found it.

The solution was quite simple. Direct attacks against the Juno Federation were answered. But an Annihilator blast straight into the sky to destroy arrows? That, Bastiel apparently felt was an acceptable course of action. With Fractal Mirror, Alyssa didn’t have to time it right. She just had to select the one in which the sky blast successfully resulted in Izsha making it. And she had to touch it.

With the way Fractal Mirror worked, reality seemed to skip forward. Alyssa didn’t actually carry out the actions shown in the shard of glass. One moment, she had been standing near her shelter, surrounded by a whirlwind of image-laden glass. The next, she was standing out in the open, feeling the heat haze of a recently cast Annihilator against her face.

It was so sudden and there were so many other memories no etched into her mind that Alyssa didn’t move for a few moments. Sorting out which one actually happened compared to the rest took long enough that another volley of arrows was coming her way. The Juno Federation was apparently not as cowed by the Annihilator as they should have been.

But it didn’t matter. Izsha was at Alyssa’s back. With the mirror providing a general area to look, Izsha’s sense of smell helped her hone in on Alyssa. Reaching out, Alyssa planted a hand on Izsha’s flank and immediately cast Accelero.

A silence rolled over the landscape. She hadn’t even realized how much noise was being made by both charging armies until it all stopped. It wasn’t just the arrows that slowed to a crawl. The falling arrows froze in mid air. Some, uncomfortably close. She could see their gleaming tips in the sunlight…

And there was quite a bit of sun now too. Her Annihilator had destroyed what was left of her own storm cloud. All that was left were some circular rings along the edges of where her Annihilator would have been. Not that it mattered too much. The rain had essentially stopped the moment Bastiel cut off her power. Juno Federation had spare gunpowder that they would definitely be putting to use soon.

As she stared upward, Alyssa glared at Bastiel. The angel was still watching her, though that wasn’t much of a surprise. Adrael had, after a few moments of acclimatization, been able to move normally relative to Alyssa. Bastiel would likely be able to do the same.

She would have to be dealt with. Sooner rather than later. With Izsha, even if Bastiel reverted her to normal time, she had the mobility to get away from human enemies.

Quickly, before Bastiel did do something like that, Alyssa sent a text to Tenebrael. If that angel could get rid of the other angel, everything would be so much easier. Alyssa would be able to reconnect and stop the fighting. This time, rather than rain, she thought she would simply modify gravity on a wide scale, forcing everyone to the ground. That sounded like a good way to immediately stop all hostilities and allow the Lyrians to capture everyone. She should have thought of it before, but she hadn’t fallen to the ground under gravity’s power then.

For now…

Alyssa swung her legs up and over Izsha’s side. The draken didn’t even jump in surprise despite Alyssa’s invisibility. Opening her mouth, she almost told Izsha to take her back to the Lyrian back lines. But the moment she did, she thought again about the possibility of fresh black powder somewhere in the Juno Federation’s supply lines.

If they got all their cannons working, those things would tear apart swathes of people from Lyria.

“Charge forward,” Alyssa said, recasting the larger version of the invisibility spell to cloak Izsha too, just in case. It also had the benefit of allowing everyone to see everyone else within the bubble, namely Izhsa at the moment. “Keep an eye out for Kasita as we move.” Without a sense of souls, the mimic would be difficult to locate. Hopefully Izsha would be able to smell something different about her.

Izsha did not offer up a single complaint, nor did it try to head back to Brakkt. As soon as Alyssa pointed a direction, Izsha carried them off.

Given that an angel could screw both them over at any time, Alyssa felt like she was being given far too much trust. At the same time, she couldn’t just do nothing.

Izsha was charging straight through the soldiers. And it wasn’t being all that careful about avoiding smacking a tail or a foot into them. That wasn’t to say that it was deliberately trying to smack into every person, it just wasn’t going out of its way to not whip its tail against every other soldier’s helmet. For the Juno Federation, it… had to be horrifying. From their perspective, people were suddenly collapsing, likely dead. Some with crushed helmets. Others with giant talons piercing the thick armor of their chest. They might think it was a spell of some sort, but there would be nothing to indicate one thing or another.

Alyssa tried to pay them little mind as she directed the draken toward one of the cannons. Once pointed out, it didn’t take long to get there, leaving a trail of injured or dead in their wake. From there, Alyssa quickly spotted a keg with a cork in the end. It looked just like the powder kegs in pirate movies. It wasn’t that large, being small enough that one person could lift it and dump the powder into the cannon, but it had likely survived the rainstorm.

A fireball launched out from Alyssa’s spell card. Even though time was effectively stopped because of Accelero, the fireball continued to its target like nothing was wrong. Probably because it had been touching her at the time of casting. The actual explosion clearly started, Alyssa could see the bright red embers and sparks clinging to the sides of the barrel, but that did not continue.

Hopefully everything would explode once time started. For now… “Find more of those barrels. As many as possible.” A thwack of Izsha’s tail on their way to the next cannon sent the heavy weapon downward as the wheel broke off, barrel of powder falling as well. Although they moved when hit, they quickly slowed, freezing mid-air.

Every cannon seemed to have three separate kegs. Alyssa quickly realized that she would run out of fire spells if she kept blasting at them individually. There were a lot of cannons. Hundreds? Too many. That was for sure. Even if she gathered the three together and hit them all as one with a fireball, it would be far too many.

So she started gathering them to a central point. Behind each battery of cannons, there were a pair of carts, each of which held dozens of powder kegs. Gathering up all the kegs from the cannons to the central distribution carts would take time, but time was the one thing Alyssa had an abundance of at the moment.

For each keg they gathered, they destroyed its associated cannon. Just doubling up on their certainty that those weapons wouldn't be able to be used. It was far less elegant a solution than an awe-inducing maelstrom, but it was probably far more certain of an option.

Once they finished, Alyssa pulled out another Fireball spell card.

The moment the flames left her fingertips, a flurry of feathers appeared before her.

Bastiel emerged, swatting the fire away like it was a gnat.

Alyssa blinked, taken aback. She hadn’t forgotten about the angel, but she was just surprised that this was when she chose to intervene. Destroying the cannons hadn’t mattered, but the powder did? Or was it just that destroying a few cannons wasn’t enough to significantly change the plotted course of the future but blasting a crater in the middle of the army was?

Probably that latter option, now that Alyssa thought about it.

Still, she wouldn’t be deterred.

Spectral Chains lashed out, dragging Bastiel to the ground. A second fireball followed, careening over the top of Bastiel to splash against those kegs. Sparks and fire started, but quickly froze to temporally match their surroundings.

“Next set of cannons,” Alyssa said, keeping the chains around Bastiel.

Izsha took off, dragging the angel behind them.

“Soul energy tether interfering with tertiary objective. Resolution requested,” Bastiel said, voice completely calm as she spoke in a completely robotic manner. That was despite being dragged across the ground. Alyssa tried to ignore her as she focused on gathering up another group of gunpowder barrels.

Until she started talking again.

“Resolutions proffered. Testing. Shutting down; restarting: failed. Disconnect reconnect: failed. Attempting to restore last known good file state: failed.” As Bastiel continued to talk, she started talking faster and faster, sounding like a recording that was being sped up to unintelligible levels. After about twenty seconds of that, she stopped. “Success. Logging resolution for future use.”

As soon as she stopped talking, the Spectral Chains shattered.

Bastiel stood, lifting herself to her feet without using her wings. Her clothes were completely clean and pristine. Alyssa just gaped as those glowing eyes turned toward her—only Tenebrael had been able to break Spectral Chains before. “Subject Error: Undefined Angel Alyssa Meadows determined to disrupt Tree Diagram flowchart.” Those glowing eyes turned, locking onto Alyssa. “Authority suggested action: Escalate discouragement.”