The Restored: Chapter Forty-Five

“Oh, Archangels above and Thrones below, you’re alive,” I said, rushing over to them. I slipped my arm under Hadiya’s other side, helping lift her up with Rhys’ help. We pulled her over to where a large, collapsed piece of rubble was flat enough to let her rest on it. With her situated, I pulled Rhys into a hug, squeezing him tightly, and he did the same. I leaned down and hugged Hadiya as well. 

She was already drawing a spell in the dirt with one finger, leaning forward, and a small part of me couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that the first thing she did after surviving and presumably casting a spell so massive that it was able to banish every demon in the city, was to go back to working on a spell. I was sure it was important, whatever she was doing with it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still a bit amusing to see. 

“This is nice,” a sleepy sounding Odril said in the back of my head. “I’m really tired. That was a hard fight. I need to sleep and replenish my soulstuff soon, but before I do, introduce me to your husband and kids and friends.” 

I sighed – she could see my memories, and knew full well that I wasn’t even sure if Rhys was interested in me. Still, I mentally gave my ascent and raised my hand. With the ambient aura of the city no longer being sucked dry by Alyphize’s magic, nor by the millions of spells constantly sucking it dry in every possible direction at once, my aura was already more than refilled enough for this. Frankly, I’d never felt it refill this fast. 

“Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to someone,” I said. “Or, in the case of my sister, I’d like to re-introduce you to someone.” 

That got a couple of interested looks, so I held up my hand and poured aura into my familiar bond. An instant later, Odril manifested. She was short, and quite humanoid, though not as much as the Contractor. Her legs were slightly too long, her horns more obvious, and her tail was thicker, with a sharp edge at the end. She actually even looked different to how I remembered her, and I wasn’t sure if the sheer amount of soulstuff she’d channeled through me in the fight was responsible, or if my memory had simply failed me. 

“Everyone,” I said, “this is Odril. The demon who helped me realize the brainwashing that the Arenamaster had put me under.” 

“So you managed to break the seal,” Hadiya said, looking up from where she was drawing in the dirt with a grin. “Was it when you became an archmage?” 

“It was. Wait, how did you know about that? Actually, no, hold on, Odril?” 

Odril surveyed the group, her tail lashing behind her, and she smiled, revealing her slightly-too-sharp teeth. Despite the fact they could rip out a throat, it was clear she was doing her best to mimic a human smile, albeit with only moderate success. 

“I wanted to thank you all for taking care of my human while I was gone,” Odril said, her voice light and teasing. “And for giving him something to look forward to after.”

She bounded forward, shaking Rhys’ hand first before circling around, greeting everyone. At Devi, she paused, and her eyes sparked. 

“Oh. ohhh. Yes. I like this one. If Axel dies of old age, can I take on a standard familiar bond with you?” 

“Hey,” I said, sighing. “I’m not that old.” 

“I haven’t aged a day in the past two decades,” Odril teased, spinning and flaring her tail out like it was a skirt. 

“Maybe,” Devi said, a small smile touching her lips, though it was sad more than amused. Odril patted her head and sashed away, holding up her hand. 

“Now, if you’ll excuse me. That battle with the Throne of Souls almost killed me. I need to sleep.” 

At that, her body collapsed back into red light before swirling away into the metallic gray of my own aura. I turned to Hadiya, who had gone back to drawing in the dirt, having crawled off her slab to continue working on it.

“How did you know that I became an archmage?” I asked. 

“We saw you in the automobile,” Rhys said. 

“I wasn’t in an automobile,” I said. “I think I threw one at the Soulwitch, though? It’s honestly all a blur of combat now.” 

“Not you, us,” Rhys said. “We were driving to set up the banishment spell. Though I guess we should back up and explain from the beginning. The last we all met, Hadiya and I were heading to one of the ritual points in order to set up a zone that would exclude all Fallen Void power, right? Well, we…” 

Rhys launched into the explanation of everything that had happened, from being blown up, to waking up in the rubble, collecting components, their spellwork in the Depository, helping the Contractor take the Throne of Sacrifice, and how the aftereffects of the Miracle Drop wound up destroying Hadiya’s foot. Hadiya seemed mostly focused on the spell she was drawing in the dirt, but she did chime in occasionally with her own insights into the events that had transpired. When he finally finished, I shook my head and whistled. 

“Damn, You did… a lot. It sounds like I need to thank both of you for saving the city,” I said, pulling Rhys into another hug. “You were incredibly brave.” 

Rhys flushed and dabbed at his neck with a handkerchief. It was blackened from all the soot and ritual work they’d done, and left long black streaks that I wiped off with my thumb, smiling. Jin snorted, and I let go, then turned to them. 

“What about all of you? What did you do?” 

Jin and Kelly launched into their story, how they’d been watching the airship docking yard, and then snuck aboard the Dancer. When they said the name of the ship, and mentioned its weird  power core and impressive spell spike, I started to laugh. I laughed until there were tears in my eyes, and I was hunched over, wheezing. After a few moments, Hadiya looked up, and she also started to laugh. 

“What?” Kelly asked. “What’s so funny?” 

“Remember in my lawsuit, how Aiden, the attorney, argued that I couldn’t have been the one to kill Senator Ermonte because I had serviced an airship at that time? Do you remember the airship?” 

“Oh!” Jin said, her eyes widening. 

“And then, after working with its aura generator, my aura size went down. Just a bit, but enough to be noticeable. I later found that there was a sort of hole punched in my aura, and it was providing a trickle of aura to me, but decreasing my overall aura size. When you all were powering up your big attack, it drew from me, and I fed it.” 

“That’s how you got there!” Devi said. “That had been nagging me. But how?” 

“I can answer that one,” Hadiya said. “One of my tasks with the new job was to improve on the aura generators, to try and get better ones. The goal was to make ones that produced ambient aura, but that’s all a pipe dream. But one of the prototypes, a type based off of an aura tree?” 

She grinned, looking at each of us to make sure that we were all paying attention. 

“They produced lots of power, far more than a normal generator. But at a cost. They  permanently consume a portion of a mage’s Aura to begin working, and are picky with who was used. Then, after a few months, they burn out.” 

She pointed up at the sky, where the airship had been. 

“I think I’ve got why they take a punch of aura, and what that really means. Still not sure why they burn out, but… the airship fell, right? Its generator burnt out after producing such a massive blast.” 

“That… makes a lot of sense,” I conceded. “What happened after you shot Alyphize?” 

“We escaped into the Wandering Path, where Devi implanted a bomb into our auras and demanded we help her blow up the Malapert,” Kelly said, averting his gaze from me. I looked at Devi, who had a grim, determined look on her face. She nodded, and Jin did the same. 

I sighed and stepped over to Kelly, ruffling his hair. 

“My sister just shot the Archmage Consulate in the back. Admittedly, Davalier was about to attack me, but listen. I don’t agree with killing Nexus wholesale, but what’s done is done. I don’t know if it’s what’s really best, but I’m not going to be the one to judge one way or the other. Tell me.” 

And so they did. They talked about sneaking onboard, capturing a demon, and Kelly’s resistance that had led to ensuring all the members of Nexus died. I pressed my lips together, not entirely happy with that, but… I understood. 

Jin, Devi, and I could perhaps understand better than anyone else in the city what it was like to be stuck in service to a powerful mage who would utterly destroy you if you so much as looked at them wrong. While I couldn’t agree with Devi’s actions, I understood them on a visceral level. I couldn’t judge her without throwing stones in my own glass house. 

I turned to my sister. 

“What about you? What did you do after I flew off? And is your husband okay? You never answered.” 

“He’s fine. Sheltering with the Concrete Crown,” Jessica explained. “After you left, I did everything I could to cut off Alyphize’s access to the fifth of the city where I was. I built a set of thirteen concentric isolation and abjuration enchantments that self-reinforced with the power of the draining spell, and managed to just barely cut her access off.” 

“I saw that, while I was flying. Your slice of the city returned to normal.” 

“Right. After that is where things got really wild. Creating a ritual to levitate myself and my husband out onto the street was simple, but I don’t have your aura capacity, so charging it took ages. When we finally escaped, the demons were out. People were panicking, fighting, and I started creating wards. I stole power from street lamps, from buildings generators, whatever I could. That was when the Concrete Crown found me.” 

She frowned and tapped her fingers on her knee. 

“I’ve never seen anything like it. They’d managed to rouse every mob member who could hold a gun, and were sweeping through the city in waves. No, that’s not right. It wasn't just their mob – it was everyone. Gangs that would normally have fought against the very idea of the Concrete Crown stepping foot in their territory were standing side by side with people who had never held a weapon more dangerous than a kitchen knife in their life. Mages that had graduated from Bronzelight were standing next to punk sorcerers who only knew three spells.”

She shook her head and let out a puff of breath that managed to convey her sense of amazement and wonder. 

“I don’t know if it was an illusion of the Crown or the real one, but they ordered people around, sweeping through buildings, killing the land based demons, and having mages take out flying demons. They were moving steadily, creating a perimeter, and turning the chaos into… well, organized chaos. They had me start webbing up wards across a chunk of the city, and then left to push out into one of the sections of the city under Alyphize’s influence. They were somehow organizing an entire war alone.” 

She jerked her thumb at the slice of the city where she’d come from. 

“After I got my wards set up so that they drew power from demonic magics in order to repulse demons and the defenders were together, I left. I used demon parts to slap together weapons and half-mobile anti-demon wards. I could see the fighting – everyone in the city could – and I knew you’d need help. It was slow going, but I got here.”

“And saved my life,” I said. “I owe… all of you. So much.” 

“What about you?” Rhys asked. “I saw you’d fused with Odril. What’s your story?”