By the time I regained awareness, I realized Vikra already had me in his arms, carried as though I weighed nothing at all.
"How was your nap?" he asked, his voice laced with dry humor.
"Ugh…" I groaned, throat raw, voice scratchy.
"I'm sorry I didn't catch the poisonous gas sooner," he said, stopping to ease me down onto my feet. "That one's on me. How are you feeling?"
I tried to steady myself, but my legs felt like lead, my mind fogged and disoriented. I stumbled forward and his arms caught me instantly.
For a heartbeat, we were too close. My face nearly pressed into the hard plane of his chest, his steady warmth radiating through leather and steel. His silver eyes locked on mine, searching, steady, and I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks, surely glowing brighter than any torchlight.
Flustered, I shoved gently against him and forced myself upright, wobbling but standing. "Uh… we should keep moving. The energy… it's getting stronger ahead."
His mouth curved into a smirk, eyes glinting. "Nice. A mage who can track dungeon bosses." He gave me a quick wink before striding forward, leaving me flushed and scrambling to gather my composure.
The tunnels widened into a cavern vast, trembling with quakes from the heat. Flames danced along jagged walls as the smoke curled upward toward a ceiling lost in shadow. The wide and open center, half-shrouded in embers, stood the boss of this dungeon; an enormous beast. It was part serpent, part wolf, its scales glowing with molten seams. Its eyes burned a deep emerald-red and its fangs dripped fire that hissed as it struck the stone floor.
The air pressed heavily with smoke. Vikra walked ahead, great-sword balanced casually against his shoulder, but the way his other hand hovered near his belt, always prepared for a fight, told me he wasn't casual at all.
"You always this quiet?" I asked, voice hushed, but sharp against his silence.
He glanced back, torchlight catching the scar that carved across his cheek. "You always this loud?" He retorted.
"Better noisy than dead," I shot back, trying to ignore the knot of fear in my stomach.
He smirked faintly. "Fair enough."
We ducked under a low arch, the stone wet, slippery and cold. From here, we can see the beast in its whole form. The narrowness forced us close, so close that my shoulder brushed his arm. His cloak smelled faintly of metal dust and charred leather.
"Stay behind me," he muttered as he blocks me with his arm.
Immediately, I was offended. "Hey, wasn't' I the one who saved us just earlier?" I whispered, demanding appreciation.
He chuckled low in his throat. "Yes, and I thank you. You're just not the kind of mage I'm used to."
"Oh, and what kind is that?"
"The ones that scream and runs away when blood hits the floor." His eyes flicked to me, grey glinting silver in the dark. "…you, however, look like you've seen worse."
The words sent an odd flutter through me. Not a compliment exactly, but something close. Respect. I thought about the wolf in the village... the smell of iron and blood churned my stomach.
I forced my gaze away. "Just focus on keeping us alive."
But his smirk lingered, even as we stood up out of hiding and stepped into the cavern where the boss waited.
*
We enter the center, facing the beast fearlessly. Vikra steadied his sword on in his attack stance.
The creature stretched onto its hind legs, making itself bigger and broader and then it roared, fire spilling from its jaw in a torrent aiming right at us.
"Move!" I shouted.
Vikra dove aside, cloak trailing through the fire. It caught aflame immediately, the fire clinging like oil.
"Vikra!"
He rolled, smothering the fabric, but the fire clung on stubbornly. His jaw clenched as he ripped the cloak free, tossing it aside in a heap of burning leather.
The beast lunged, its claws raking sparks with each step. Vikra met it head-on. His great-sword arced, carving into the beast was like carving into molten scale. The chamber rang with steel against bone. The monster shrieked, blood glowing magma gold as it sprayed across the cavern floor.
Vikra pressed harder, his strikes fierce and relentless. He moved with raw brutality. Each step drove him forward, but the beast was faster than it looked. Its tail whipped around, smashing into Vikra's shoulder with a sickening crack.
He roared in pain, his weapon clattering against the ground. His shoulder hung limp, grotesquely out of place.
"Damn it!"
Before I could reach him, the beast reared back and unleashed another storm of fire.
I had seconds.
Instinct surged. I inhaled sharply, and the moisture in the cavern air sang to me… latent vapor. Molecules collided at my will.
"Drench!" I screamed.
A tsunami of water erupted from thin air, crashing down in a wave. Steam exploded as the flames died, dousing Vikra's cloak and shielding him from the inferno. The cavern hissed, steam filled the space as everything cooled under my command.
Vikra's eyes widened, sweat dripping down his temple. "Water…?"
But there was no time to explain.
The beast howled and charged again. Vikra snatched up his sword with his good arm, swinging wildly. He fought with a ferocity that defied reason, each strike landing like thunder. However, his other shoulder dragged him down as his breath ragged revealing his exhaustion
He stumbled, and the beast's claws slammed into the ground where his chest had been. I lunged forward, catching him before he collapsed entirely.
"You're going to get yourself killed!" I said.
"Better me than you," he rasped, leaning heavy into me.
His face was close, too close. His breath ragged against my cheek, the heat of battle radiating from his skin. For a heartbeat, the world shrank to just us and the roar of the beast muted as the torchlight flickered in the grey of his eyes.
"You're insane," I whispered, though my hand tightened around his arm, steadying him.
"And you," he said, lips quirking despite the pain, "are trouble."
My chest tightened with something dangerously warm, something that had nothing to do with fire or fear.
Then the beast roared again, shattering the moment.
I forced a vial into his hand. "Drink. Its a healing potion."
His gaze flicked between my eyes and the potion, suspicion there, but his pain won. He swallowed.
Almost instantly, his body sagged, eyes rolling back. His sword slipped from his fingers, clinking onto the to floor.
"Sorry, Vikra," I murmured, easing him down. "But this one's mine."
*
The beast roared, magma saliva dripping from its fangs. I rose, swordless but far from unarmed. My lungs expanded, power flooding every vein.
The chamber thrummed with molecules. Fire, pure free energy, sediments and quartz, components of water, air… They all sang to me. Even stranger notes whispered at the edge of my senses, those unnamed elements, wild and unknown.
I spread my arms apart and yelled. "Come on!" taunting the beast.
The serpent-wolf lunged towards me, its jaws wide and ready to attack. My hands moved on their own, pulling up the charcoal and sediments around me then hardened them into compressed glass as thick as diamonds. The thick glass became a shield that slammed against the beast's fangs upon its attack. It ricochet off the shield and snarled as its tail lashed, flames spitting from its maw.
I placed my palms out and imagined, no, manifested thousands of water daggers, floating around me before uttering the words, "Aqua-pierce!"
All of the water daggers shot forward, hammering into the beast's face, dousing its flames and scalding molten scales. Steam clouded the chamber, hissing into a fog.
The beast thrashed wildly. I inhaled again, pulling with my mind and splitting the oxygen from the steam, and forcing pure oxygen into the beast, igniting it into a blast of fire that seared its exposed flesh.
"Fire on fire, only my fire is pure and yours isn't." I spit.
I spun molecules like dices, weaving fire and water, heat and ice, until the chamber rang with explosions and shrieks.
The monster pounced towards me, claws scraping my shield, splintering parts of it into dust. I stumbled, lungs aching, as my powers crackled dangerously close to breaking.
"More," a voice whispered inside me. "...more!"
I closed my eyes, reaching into that foreign hum. Silver-blue energy flared in my chest, a resonance too wild to name. I thrust my hand forward manifesting a giant hologram of a crystal.
The beast screamed as spikes of shimmering crystal burst from the stone, piercing its limbs, pinning it to the cavern floor. Blue flames shot out from the embedded areas, burning the beast and then spread like a disease, encapsulating the beast whole.
"Rearth" I hissed.
Fire roared from my lungs, engulfing the creature in a cyclone of flame. It writhed, shrieking, until at last it collapsed, scales cracking, its molten blood cooling into black stone.
"May you finally rest." I prayed.
The cavern shook with its final death cry, then silence.
My knees buckled. My lungs burned raw, every breath a knife, jolting the memories of my past life and how my lungs failed me so often. I took a moment to ground myself.
The beast was dead.
At its core and glowing faintly were two crystalline orbs pulsing. The pearl of the beast, they called it, but I can hear its constituents singing its elements to me. They were diamond cores, not pearls. They were remnants of its corrupted essence and they hummed faintly, alien and alive.
I staggered forward, pried them free, and clutched them tight. I can hear them and they sound like money.
Vikra groaned softly.
I hurried back, dragging his massive sword to his side. I gripped his arm gently, then exhaled over his dislocated shoulder. The unknown element hummed and I knew exactly what to do. I placed my palm onto his slumped shoulder and my vision began to knit the tissues together, reset joint-to-bone, and mend his pain.
It was not air, water, nor fire. This element was something else.
He gasped as his arm snapped back into place. His breathing steadied, pain lines smoothing from his face.
"Sleep," I whispered, brushing his sword into his hand. "It was YOUR fight and you won."
I lay beside him, closing my eyes, feigning exhaustion.
When Vikra stirred fully just minutes later, his gaze fell on the dead beast, to the glowing diamond-cores, and then onto the sword in his hand. His lips curved into a tired, proud grin.
"Did I? Was it me? How?," he muttered silently to himself.
We left the dungeon with the cores secured in Vikra's pack. Their glow lit the tunnels as we retraced our steps. At one point, our shoulders brushed again, neither of us pulling away. For once, his smirk wasn't teasing, instead, it was soft, tired, almost fond.
"Not bad, mage girl," he said quietly. "Not bad at all."
And I realized, with a jolt, that the spark I'd felt in the cavern hadn't been just heat or fear. It had been something else… something that might burn even brighter than fire.