The group of deserters hesitated upon seeing the wall of flames sprout up between them, but not for long. A few of the desperate men exchanged glances, wordlessly weighing their odds. The presence of Thalora should have been enough to frighten them off with their tails between their legs. Instead, it only caused them to clutch their poorly-maintained weapons, speckled with rust, even tighter, turning their knuckles white.
"Shards, the Magi have been sent to find us! We're done for if she goes spreading tales. Get 'em!" One of the men barked, his voice hoarse from a scar across his throat.
Talus remained immobile, his attention focused inward, the muscles beneath his skin rapidly twitched, expanding and contracting as he tested and calibrated their potential. Crow gave him a sideways glance and shifted uneasily beside him.
"Shards, what have I gotten myself into this time?" Crow muttered under his breath. He nervously licked his lips and subconsciously stepped away, like he was more wary of Talus than the armed men. Thalora was too preoccupied with the raging inferno before them to notice what was happening beside her.
"Remember, the Radiant Blood Flower needs to be delivered intact. Talus, try not to get too close to the flames. Crow, I don't care about you. Go rush forward and see if it's enough to set them scarpering!" Thalora instructed. She raised a hand and slashed the air, commanding the wall of fire to surge forward in an expanding arc. There was an eerie break in the wall in three places as the flames brushed past the invisible shades.
"I ain't doing any such thing!" Crow shouted back, shrinking back a step after seeing the brief outline ahead of them.
Talus didn't share Crow's hesitation. He shot forward with inHuman speed, wind-swept white hair streaking behind him. He overtook the firewall in a single breath, leaping through the flames in a scattering of embers. The deserters faltered, staring wide-eyed at his descending silhouette, their forgotten weapons hanging limply in their hands.
There was no resistance as Talus's blade cut down the first deserter, an unremarkable man standing in front of the scarred speaker from earlier. His ruthless sword emerged in a shower of blood and entrails, completely bisecting the man in two. Talus looked up and met the eyes of the scarred speaker in the middle of the mob. The man's terrified gaze reflected Talus's figure, darkened and outlined by the raging inferno behind him.
Talus slightly tilted his head to the side, unnerving the man as he drank in every detail of the Human's reaction. The wall of flames parted around Talus, not because of Thalora's control but by splashing on his unseen protectors shielding him from contact. Fire brushed against the black, lichen-ridden tree roots next to them, immediately igniting them and engulfing the area in intense heat.
The flames were suddenly dyed in an eerie mix of white and violet, turning them unnatural and luminous. The spectral blaze flickered beyond the visible spectrum and unveiled the presence of the Mirror Realm around them. The burning tree trembled with a responding pulse of Ether, shocking Talos's attention away from the men in front of him as ripples expanded across the stagnant marsh.
This is Ether! Unlike the Radiant Blood Flower, it's old, not fresh from my arrival in the Mortal Realm. Why does it remain? This is something I must discover, there may be more.
Fire licked along the damp wood, burning up the gnarled trunk and along the drooping branches without consuming them. Then, from the darkness beyond the flames, movement stirred. The ethereal light illuminated the shifting, grotesque figures of the three Fae servitors. Their forms materialized within the flickering light, towering shadows draped in squirming tendrils and hooded masks above a gaping abyss. They stood in utter stillness, waiting.
"Shades!" The deserters screamed. Thalora and Crow went blank, staring at the disconcerting silhouettes at Talus's back.
"Behind you, lad. Watch out!" Crow shouted, finding his courage to step in their direction. Talus glanced towards the outburst, his eyes flickering upward towards the shrouded faces of his attendants before turning away without a word, unconcerned. His nonchalant attitude wasn't lost on Crow, who felt his breath catch in his throat as realisation dawned on him. "He always knew they were there… He commanded them to attack the men escorting Thalora."
Thalora didn't overhear his muttered words and performed a series of hand gestures, attempting to redirect the flames inward. Fear kept the deserters rooted in place, darting their gazes uncertainly between Talus and the shades. Talus let the fire do the work in rounding the armed men inside a circle containing him and the shades.
"Talus, get out of there!" Thalora exclaimed. An opening appeared beside Talus, offering him an exit to escape through.
Talus ignored the breach, placing himself between it and the desperate men. They suddenly regained their wits, realising he stood between them and their best chance of getting out alive. The shades remained perfectly still, patiently awaiting their King's command.
Movement stirred within the hollowed heart of the Blackroot tree. A brittle crack echoed from within the trunk, then another. From the burning wood, something emerged. A magical creature of the old world, insectoid with the shape of a man covered in overlapping plates of natural armor and four arms.
"Humans, such cowardly and conniving creatures. Members of the benevolent Fae race stand before them. Instead of throwing themselves forward in veneration, they clutch at ineffective weapons forged of iron. It is not like the tales of old, mortal blades cannot harm that without flesh…"
Chitin scraped against bark as the being unfurled itself from centuries of stillness. Many-faceted eyes reflected the fae fire, and when its wings unfurled, they vibrated with eerie precision, forming fluent words in the Fae tongue.
"A Myrmekes…" Thalora gasped on the other side of the flames. Her containment spell momentarily faltered. The Myrmekes cocked its head, mandibles clicking in solemn contemplation.
"Great Fae servitors, where is your Monarch?" The question hummed through the air with reverence.
The silent shades turned as one to answer the question, their hollow gazes fixing on Talus. Eerie white flames flickered and dispersed in the wind, leaving only a few spluttering flames on the split Blackroot tree. With the disappearance of the otherworldly light, their forms unravelled in the air like dissolving ink, darkness swallowing the shades whole.
Talus said nothing, but the answer was clear. The Myrmekes exhaled a sound like a sigh, its wings trembling with sorrow.
"Man has driven away the Ether and starved us to near-extinction. We subsist on scraps beneath the earth, dwindling, fading. Mortality was never ours to bear, yet they have cursed us all with it." The Myrmekes said, flowers blooming on the charred truck at its feet. They were tiny, unnatural, luminous things that pulsed with an ethereal glow, withering as quickly as they sprouted, unable to sustain themselves in the fading light of the dying flames. "The Myrmekes have buried ourselves within the dirt to escape the foul Mana of the Human shard towers. We use the roots of the Blackroot trees to gather whatever Ether still resides below the surface. My people are few remaining and have eagerly awaited the return of the Fae."