Embers of the Lost

The building was full of a chill that Lily could laugh in the face of, cold stone and shadow. The infrequency of windows made the place feel indefinitely like a jail with no escape. Though, Lily supposed that was the whole point.

Looking up and down the corridor she had entered, she could see cells bending around each curve on the inner walls.

“Help us!”

“Let us out!”

“Oi! Over here!”

Voices of inmates echoed, almost covering the sound of footsteps running her way. Shifting her right foot in the direction of those approaching, the vines and branches shot out from the frame they were giving the building and sped down the corridor to bind anyone they found.

With the anger in her heart making her expression cold, Lily walked past the closed cells and ventured until she found the witches who were trying to defend the jail.

“Argh. Let us go!”

“Don’t kill us!”

Lily’s eyes narrowed at the pleading one of the men made for their lives. Each witch was bound with their wand hand wrapped up completely so their wands had fallen to the ground. With a flick of her hand, vines wrapped around their mouths to keep them from speaking. It wasn’t unheard of for them to use wandless magic, but they still needed incantations.

“I’m not going to kill anyone.” Lily sighed as she walked past them and continued through the corridor looking for Oscar and Kiki. Pausing by the last bound witch, she turned her cold eyes to the female and raised an eyebrow. “Where are my cats?” Even though she was still muffled around the mouth, the way the brown eyes flicked downwards told Lily all she needed to know.

Lily was a force to be reckoned with as she followed the staircases down into the floors below ground level. Anyone who came against her either became bound by vines or sealed to the spot by ice. Every single one had their wand taken and their mouths covered to stop any noise.

“Dhula!” The door at the base of the stairs disintegrated to dust as Lily knocked the scythe against it and spoke the incantation. She hadn’t been able to master the spell on many materials, but wood was something she knew intimately down to the base molecules.

“Whoa! Hang on!” The male behind a desk yelped before being bound like his colleagues on the upper floors.

“Should make your doors out of metal.” Lily mumbled as she walked past into the odd collection of arms obviously taken from those who had been arrested. Wands, polearms, armour… all sorts existed in there, soul companions locked in cages away from their humanoid counterparts.

“Lil!”

Rushing over to the two little cages where Oscar and Kiki jumped up at the bars to try and reach her, Lily felt some of the pain and anger loosen in her heart. They were ok! Kiki has a small cut on her right cheek but otherwise both were completely intact.

“Oh, thank the wings. You’re both ok.”

“Don’t worry about us! Are you ok?”

“Yeah, it took you ages to get here! Did something happen?”

Lily paused in her freezing of the locks to shatter them open. “What do you mean?”

“It’s been a month,” Oscar explained. “We thought you’d gotten into trouble. Especially when Finnigan turned up here and his stoat came in to mock us.”

A month? It had taken her that long to walk a large field? She’d been alone with the voices for that long? All the days had merged together, and she had definitely laid down more regularly to sleep in silence where it was safe from torment more than she should have.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered shamefully as the locks cracked open on all cages. The companions quickly dashed out their confines and out the door to find their counterparts.

“Don’t be sorry,” Oscar jumped up onto her lap and nuzzled against her cheek while Kiki hopped up onto Lily’s shoulder and purred loudly. “What happened?”

Lily lowered her gaze before catching them up; it was sickening to have to repeat half of the things that continued to repeat in her mind even though the voices were gone. But they’d kept up with her as she walked that route for a month! So, maybe they were right. Maybe she was pathetic and everything she was trying to do was pointless.

“That makes sense.” Oscar commented when she had finished. “We heard the witches talk about how no one ever escapes here because of the cursed land surrounding it. Anyone who steps foot on it will be put through torture of the mind.”

“Yeah, it’s why they tag the wings of fairies and draconians that get put in here,” Kiki added with a venomous tone. “Makes the wings so heavy that they can’t fly.”

“Welcome to my world…” Lily mumbled with a shrug. “We’ll have to remove the tags so people can escape.” Pushing herself to her feet, Lily walked back over to the desk the witch was still bound behind. Further past him was a storage unit filled with files.

Turning back to the witch she raised an eyebrow. “Is there a list of who is in what cell and what they did?” She had a lack of patience about her which showed through the appearance of crackling ice in the air around her. The terror on the witch’s face was not something Lily felt good about, but she also found she didn’t really care at that moment. If Finnigan was here or nearby, then Lily didn’t have time to waste. He may not have killed her last time, but she didn’t think she could afford more injuries like her arm.

Glancing to the healing area which remained reddened and stitched together, she shook her head. No, she could do this.

“Tell me.” She commanded, pulling the vines away from the male’s mouth so he could answer her.

“Drawer on the bottom left! Please don’t hurt me… I’m just a record keeper!” The man pleaded. It was wrong to have people so scared of her, she was barely five foot five and she was only sixteen… yet he trembled as his eyes flicked from her face to the shards of ice hovering around her.

Rolling her eyes, she moved the vine back to stop him talking. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just here to free those who don’t deserve to be here.”

“You’re going to free more than the draconians?” Kiki asked, hopping up onto the desk.

“You want me to leave fairies and innocent witches behind?” Lily deadpanned.

“Good point.” Kiki nodded before leaping back onto the floor and trotting to the door. “Let’s bust this place!”

“You’re in a good mood,” Oscar chortled as Lily pulled the binder from the drawer she had been pointed towards.

“Just excited to see the sun,” Kiki chimed, jumping over the wood dust on the floor so as not to dirty her white feet. Lily shook her head, the cat could just fly, but she supposed it was a habit that she still didn’t, even though their world had changed considerably.

“Well, we’ve got quite a few floors to get through first.” Lily commented, flicking through the paper in the binder, each page’s colouring indicating how long that particular inmate had been there. Frowning at one page that looked almost as old as the parchment in her satchel, she raised an eyebrow. No name, in for treason, no one except the guard captain was allowed into the isolation room where the person was kept. Flicking through she also noted that every inmate was in for treason. Was this where they put anyone who had questioned the world order around them?

“People!” Oscar called as footsteps sounded from the higher floors.

“Not a problem…” Lily placed a hand against the closest wall and reconnected with the vines infecting the building. Shouts of surprise and anger sounded before only prisoner yells for release were left. The cats turned to look at Lily with surprise on their faces, she shrugged in the face of it and stepped out of the records room. “I’ve had enough.”

Walking past any witch she had bound, Lily shattered their wands and continued to the first cell. Shattering the lock with ice, Lily pulled the door open and took in the inmate. They were a light fairy, male, obviously having been there for a while from the outgrown shaggy locks framing his face. His golden eyes were dull and he seemed resigned to the cell even now the door was open. True to Kiki’s words, his wings had been tagged together so they couldn’t spread and be used to fly.

“Why are you here?” Lily asked, wanting to confirm her theory of the reality of the crime ‘treason’.

The man looked at her suspiciously, unsurprising as she had fairy colours but no wings. But Lily kept her feet firm and folded her arms waiting for an answer.

“My friends and I started a protest against the war… next thing we know we’re being taken from our homes and locked up in this place.” He spat.

“You’re against the war?”

“I was… then witches locked me in here.”

“Fairies would have had to snatch you from your bed.”

“So?!”

Lily sighed. “So… the war is a load of rubbish, it should be stopped. There’s corruption in both communities and it’s killing so many. If I release you and your friends, I want you to go home and remember that the enemy isn’t that clear. Most witches are innocent too.”

The man snorted.

“We could just leave you here.” Kiki commented coldly from the bars she looked through.

His golden eyes flicked to the two cats before returning to Lily. “Why don’t you have wings?”

“Born without them. What?” Lily raised an eyebrow at the sceptical look she was given. “You think I’d have winged, talking companions if I wasn’t really a fairy?”

“You’re avoiding the deal.” Kiki growled, flicking her wings and flying up to mere inches in front of the man’s face. “If we let you go, you go home and take up your old viewpoint.”

For a moment Lily thought he was actually going to refuse. Though, it didn’t really matter, she just wanted to put the cats among the pigeons with people thinking differently when back in their original homes.

“Fine!” The man eventually conceded. “I don’t like it, but you’re right; innocents don’t need to die for stupid wars. But I’m not doing anything to get myself arrested, I don’t owe anyone anything.”

“You’ll owe Lil!” Oscar hissed from the doorway.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lily interjected calmly. Walking over to the male, she crouched down behind him to get a look at the tag binding his wings. “I don’t need anyone to owe me.” Grimacing as she examined the tag, she noted that it had teeth which punctured through the wings and linked together to prevent removal without ripping the wings completely.

“Oz, go scout for some keys for these, I don’t want to risk using magic and damage the wings more. It’ll be uncomfortable enough to fly with these holes in them.” Lily called over to the cat still sitting in the doorway. With a nod, he vanished back down the corridor to search the staff who were still bound.

“You know the cavalry will be on their way with that alarm going off?” The male droned with judgment in his voice.

“I’m aware.”

“So why aren’t you rushing?”

“The whole building is encased in ice and vines that will replenish and give them a hard time.”

“Encased??” The man exclaimed angrily. “How are we supposed to escape?”

“When I tell you to.” Lily snapped, ice cracking around her feet and rising up in sharp stalagmites. “When you are untagged, you will go and stay next to a bound guard and when I release this building, you will take them and you will fly to safety and leave them somewhere safe.”

“But…”

“Enough! These are my terms, if you want to deny me, I’ll leave the blooming tag on you.” Why couldn’t people just do what was right?! The guards were just doing their jobs and she had taken their wands. Doing their jobs was not enough of a crime to have them walk through the nightmare that Lily had experienced first-hand. What if they stopped walking? What if they gave into the voices?

No, Lily was angry at the world but she wasn’t cruel.

“I’ll let you think it over…” she mumbled as Oscar joined them with a chain of keys dangling from his jaw. Reaching down to take them, Lily left the man in his cell, door open, and moved onto the next one. She’d let him go either way, but she was done being silenced because someone was too blind to see a different viewpoint.

She came up against similar concerns in the cells as she raised through the building. Thankfully, most of the inmates seemed to care more about the freedom than the terms she was putting down. Draconians and fairies agreed to carry the wingless to safety, most fetching one and bringing them back to the cells where Lily had said she would shatter a hole when the time came to escape.

“Lily?!”

“Oly Moly! Girl you are insane!” Tanith yelled as she spotted Lily down the hallway her and Xalina were kept in. “What are you doing here?”

“Sightseeing…” Lily deadpanned, making her way along the corridor, unlocking and de-tagging draconians as she went.

“She’s here to rescue you, obviously!” Kiki chimed before announcing the plan for escape to the corridor for everyone to hear, her high-pitched voice cutting through the excitable murmuring of escape.

A ricocheting bang sounded, shaking the whole building and cutting the little cat off.

“Cavalry’s here.” Oscar stated.

“Took their time.” Kiki laughed, “We’re most of the way through this place.”

“Yeah, but we aren’t finished yet. Oz, take this key and go de-tag the stubborn ones.” Lily leant down to offer one of the key chains to the larger cat who ran off as soon as he had it gripped. Turning to Xalina, Lily smiled lightly.

“You’ll have to carry Tanith out of here. Do not step on the ground below.”

“Wait!” Tanith exclaimed, grabbing Lily’s elbow as she turned to the stairs “What about you?”

Lily blinked. She hadn’t thought about that. Shrugging lightly, she offered an unsure smile “Someone upstairs will carry me I’m sure. The rest of you, spread out along the corridors and if you see a wingless person, pair up with them and get ready to fly!”

The crashing of spells into the ice and vines cocooning the building became almost rhythmic as Lily hurried her way through the last two floors of cells. Debris began to drift to the floor as the building struggled under the onslaught.

“We’re going to have to go…” Kiki murmured.

“We will. There’s only this floor left.” Dodging a larger piece of stone which fell from above, Lily pushed open the door to the final floor.

This floor was different. It was one big room, and in the centre was a large white feline with black stripes designed into its thick fur. The creature was on its chunky paws with its blue eyes narrowed at the turmoil of the building. It had cuffs that bound around the paws to prevent claws being used and it was muzzled tightly. Wind howled through the room, flicking Lily’s hair in front of her face the moment she walked in.

“Ok, so we can go?” Kiki commented.

“It’ll die if we leave it bound while the building collapses.” Lily mused, stepping against the wind to move towards the creature with her hands out to show she wasn’t here to harm it. She left her scythe at the doorway and crouched herself down so she was at eye level with the creature. It watched her closely and something in those baby blue eyes made Lily feel like it knew what she was doing. Perhaps it was magical, was that why it was in a prison? The wind died down a little as she reached out her hand to the shackles around its paw. “It’s ok…” she soothed. Another thud shook the building, cracking the ceiling above. They didn’t have time for her to be going this slowly!

Letting out a huff of breath Lily shattered the hinges of the shackles and unbuckled the muzzle to allow it to fall to the floor.

“Ok. Now we can go.”

“How?! We can’t fly and that’s not got wings!” Kiki yelled over the crumbling sound that indicated the building was reaching its last straw even with the supports Lily held in place.

“I don’t know! Everyone else first, then I’ll figure something out!”

Lily took hold of the scythe and stood with it in front of her, blade to the floor and slashed into the grout. With the use of the vines now etched throughout the building, Lily punched holes in the sides giving those inside obvious ways to leave so long as they could fly. All she had to do was hope that they did take the wingless.

The structural integrity of the building was officially diminished, Kiki jumped into the air as the floor began to crumble beneath them.

“Get outside!” Lily yelled at the little cat, diving to the side to dodge a large chunk of ceiling. She could hear the faint cries of fighting outside and the snarling of the large cat before her.

“I’m not going to leave you!”

“I can’t save everyone Kiki! Get yourself out!” Lily yelled back, eyes desperate as she pulled her scythe out of the floor, jumping away as the area crumbled too. A deep growl sounded and within an instant, Lily was shoved to the floor face first, her grip tightening on her scythe with intent to fight back. However, the feline didn’t bite her, instead it took a mouthful of her clothing and leapt up out of the hole in the ceiling and jumped up a few feet in thin air.

Lily blinked, her mind frozen with surprise.

With no wings, this cat was walking… on air…?

A spell shot up and sliced across the cat’s nose, causing Lily to be dropped and fall towards the collapsing building. Multiple times her body seemed to get stopped by an invisible force that couldn’t quite hold her, turning her stomach and making her hold back vomit when her body finally stopped moving about three feet from the floor.

“How did she…?”

“Who cares! Get her!” That voice. That intoxicatingly painful voice. Lily scrambled to get her feet beneath her to draw up a shroud of shadow around her, watching the confusion of many before her but those green eyes of Finnigan continued to look straight at her. Could he see through the darkness she created? No. That was impossible. Only the caster could see through fairy darkness. Silently pulling up vines from the ground, Lily quickly counted how many were there.

Too many. They were all on charmed tools so they didn’t have to step on the ground but thankfully quite a few were aiming at the other escapees.

“Mariatio.”

“Havatu.”

“Sokari.”

An array of spells was launched her way and within the darkness, Lily could do little but attempt to deflect or block. How was she going to get out of this one?

Fire burned through the darkness, licking across the left side of her head, pulling a howl of pain from her throat. Water immediately doused the burn, but not swiftly enough to prevent the hair from being lost from the left side of her head.

Expanding the darkness with her as her body was blown backwards by a Sokaruu charm, she glanced around desperate for a way out. Raising a hand to attempt to cradle the wound on her head, she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t fly out without being right in the firing range of those spells. The only reason she could block enough now was because they couldn’t see her to aim.

Something heavy thudded to the ground behind her, causing her to jump and spin on her heels.

The striped feline.

It sniffed at the air and walked towards her, nudging at her knees and motioning for her to climb on its back, which stood up to her shoulders.

“Yes!” She whispered. “Good plan. You run us out of here and I’ll use magic to block their attacks!” Whatever this creature was, it wasn’t average but it was certainly going to be the only reason she survived this if she managed to. The creature huffed in a way that sounded like laughter and shook its mighty head as Lily climbed onto its back and held on with her left hand leaving her right with the scythe raised and ready.

The air around them began to pick up in speed, circling around the feline’s feet and instantly blasting outwards when it leapt into the air and took a steep path to try and stay ahead of the witches who turned to follow.

The fight was overwhelming immediately.

Spells of all levels of viciousness were sent after her, Lily only being able to block with ice which smashed and broke with every hit. Her eyes closed for a moment as she expected the knife launched her way to hit her. A loud clang made her flinch.

“Lil! You ok?!”

Opening her eyes, Lily couldn’t help but smile at the sight of Xalina carrying Tanith while the brunette brandished a long metal pole which looked like she’d torn a prison bar free from the rest.

“What in wings name is that?!” Xalina called, motioning to the feline.

“No idea! But it can walk on air and it’s helping!”

“Good enough for me!” Tanith laughed before slashing the pole through the air angrily, attempting to send spells back in return and failing.

“They’ll follow us the whole way home!” Xalina curved her wings around Tanith to block a slashing spell sent at them.

“No,” Kiki called as she flew over to them. “Oscar just confirmed that the others are retreating back to help these guys. Lil, you’re the main target.”

“Of course, I am…” Lily rolled her eyes before yelping in surprise as the feline suddenly hissed and spun around to face the witches. They had scorched its back leg with a fire spell, and it returned the favour by roaring and creating a hurricane force wind that knocked all oncoming attackers off course and spiralling to the floor.

“Whoa!” Tanith whistled. “I definitely like this cat!”

“Lil! Move!” Oscar’s voice yelled. Turning to find the cat and what he was talking about, Lily saw a flash of silver hurtling her way, then a blur of black which collided with her chest.

“Oz? Oscar!” Lily’s jubilation from the sight of spiralling witches was replaced with terror as her mind registered what she held in her arm.

Oscar’s body was limp. A large dagger lodged into his side, blood dripping onto the fur beneath them.