Kastori Restorations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 4) (13 page)

“Cyrus!”

20

This is not how I envisioned escaping Vostoka.

“Celeste!” Cyrus cried, but she was rapidly becoming a dot on the planet, blending in with the white snow on the ground. He felt nauseous as the monster lifted him higher and higher into the sky, its talons digging into his shoulders, causing him to bleed profusely.

But his sword had lodged into the creature’s chest. He had done something.
And I’m going to destroy you while we’re up here. Celeste… you better save my sorry butt.

Doing his best to focus on the creature above him and not on the clouds around him, Cyrus grabbed his sword and twisted the handle. The creature screeched, but its grip remained unyielding.

“Dedicated to the job, huh? Crystil would like you,” he shouted as he pulled the blade in and dug it down, moving along the creature’s body like a saw. “Too bad I like her a little bit more! And that I’m more dedicated to my job than you!”

He continued down until he could not go any further, but still the creature’s grip did not loosen. Even as the creature’s loss of blood seemed to work against it, it still focused on rising as high as it could in the sky. The sky began to turn a darker blue, and Cyrus knew he did not have long before a lack of oxygen became an issue.

Why won’t it die?!? Why won’t it suffer—

Because it’s like Calypsius. It feels no pain.

Time to disable it.

With stars becoming visible, Cyrus pulled the sword out of the creature’s chest and took one last breath in. The oxygen in the air was barely enough for him to stay conscious, but with one adrenaline-fueled chop, he swung his sword into the creature’s right wing. He did not sever it, but he caused enough damage that they began to glide down.

“Yeah, take that!”

With one more chop, he completely destroyed the creature’s right wing, and the two tumbled back down to the planet.

But to Cyrus’ horror, the battle had not ended. The creature, despite being unable to fly, turned its evil gaze toward Cyrus and breathed lightning at him. Their fall ensured it did not have the accuracy it once did, but Cyrus couldn’t believe his ill fortune.

He held his sword out and endowed it with a fire spell once more and attempted to cast fireballs at the creature. The monster easily dodged them, but it also made its lightning strikes even more inaccurate. Cyrus knew that he could not win the battle unless he annihilated the creature, and so he tightened his body up, pressing his legs together and his arms to his body and diving for the monster.

“Typhos!” he yelled. “Do you see this? I will defeat your monsters!”

When he got close enough, he swung his body to the side to avoid the jaws of the creature. He lifted his sword and swung it through the neck of the creature, decapitating it and destroying the beast entirely.

“Better luck next time,” he sneered.

But with the monster out of the way, he became conscious of his free-fall descent. The sky became a lighter blue, the ground came rushing to him, and his death seemed seconds away.

“Celeste!” he yelled. “I could really use some of your new magic right now!”

21

Celeste watched in horror as the monster lifted Cyrus into the sky to an impossibly high elevation to survive. She tried to cast spells to slow the monster down, but the creature ignored all of them, pushing through whatever barrier and red magic spells Celeste had.
I need Tapuya’s power right now. A monster like this…

Cyrus is not going to survive. The creature’s going to deprive him of air or kill him with the fall.

She fell to her knees, tears starting to fall, as the two of them disappeared out of sight entirely. She felt no amount of power could make up for the loss of her brother, and that coming to Vostoka had become their undoing.
Typhos is going to tear us apart and destroy us if we’re going to destroy him.

“Cyrus,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help you.”

She continued sobbing. The screeches of the monster from above continued, but Celeste took little comfort in them.
At least he’s going down with a fight. Always the hero. Always had to play the hero. At least you’ll die with a good story for Crystil. Sorry we could never make that happen, Cyrus. I’m sorry. I’m—

But as she kept her gaze on the sky, she saw the two figures descending. She thought her mind was just hopeful, though she knew she would not teleport without a body from Cyrus or his sword. So she waited, keeping her eyes on the sky.

Sure enough, the two of them were, in fact, descending.
Look at it through his eyes.

Celeste almost smacked herself for not thinking about that earlier. She could see the descent of Cyrus through his vision with her magic. She closed her eyes and focused.

Immediately, she saw him diving toward the creature and raising his sword. He sliced through its neck, killing it immediately.
There you go!
But she quickly shook herself of the thoughts and oriented herself. From Cyrus’ perspective, he was falling on the far side of the base.

She removed herself from his vision and sprinted toward the other side of the building, her eyes on her brother at all times.
You gotta figure it out.

How. How.

Think. Think.

By her estimation, they had less than ten seconds before he would collide with the planet.

You won’t heal him.

Barrier? No.

But barrier, friction…

The thought came so fast and Celeste had so little time that she didn’t even consider the dangers or chances of it working. She looked to Cyrus and cast her strongest magical barrier spell she had, one even more powerful than the one she had cast around the two of them during their battle. Simultaneously, she produced the largest fire she could, one which rose from the planet all the way up to meet Cyrus, pushing the barrier up like a cushion.

If it works, the friction will slow him down, and he can survive. If it doesn’t, then—

Cyrus disappeared from view. Celeste could not hear his impact.

“Cyrus!!”

She sprinted ahead, dousing the fire immediately. All of the snow had melted away, making it easy to find Cyrus, who laid face down on the ground, his body still intact. To the side, the body of the beast lay, shattered into thousands of pieces.
At least it kind of worked. Please…

She reached him and felt his body. His leg was broken, his collarbone had shattered, and his right wrist was broken.

But he had a pulse.

“Cyrus!” she shouted.

“Let’s never, ever, ever, ever do that again,” Cyrus said. He tried to roll over, but the pain became so intense that he stopped and swore loudly and repeatedly.

“I can fix this,” Celeste said. “But you’re probably going to want to kick me in the face. Just stay still as best as you can.”

“Lovely,” Cyrus said.

He then screamed at a high pitch as Celeste worked on his leg. She concentrated on mending the bone, bringing it back into the original state. It took about a dozen seconds, but then it stopped, and Cyrus stopped groaning.

“And I really wanted a titanium leg to compliment Crystil,” he muttered. “But… wow, Celeste. It feels great.”

He tried standing up with great caution and did so with ease. He did not grimace. He even jogged forward about ten feet and turned back.

“OK, if this is what taking a planet does, I call Tapuya,” he said with a smirk. “Can you get my wrist and collarbone too?”

Celeste nodded, rising and placing her hands on the injured areas. Each one brought groans and gasps from her brother, but he was fully healed within seconds.

“So the deal is, when we get back to Monda, we’re going to say that I fought the beast while you recovered in bed and that at the last second, you woke up and saved me. Think that’s dramatic enough?”

“What, the real thing isn’t?” Celeste said in disbelief. “You’re crazy. But don’t you ever die on me.”

“What, me? I’m not going to die at the hand of some aviant,” Cyrus said with a snort. “It’s going to take something a lot more powerful than that.”

Celeste smiled and hugged Cyrus, just happy to have him in one piece after being tens of thousands of feet in the sky. Cyrus started to make a smart comment, but Celeste stopped him.

“Thanks,” he said.

Celeste could tell he wanted to say more, but he wisely stopped at the one word. She pulled back and gave an exhausted sigh.

“I think I’m over Vostoka,” she said with a smile. “Teleport back to Monda?”

“Please. I’m sure Typhos sees this,” he said as he raised an obscene gesture to the sky. “And he’s going to be even angrier than before. He’s had time too. We gotta reconvene. Like I said before, I have some people I want to see.”

“Uh huh,” Celeste said with a knowing smirk but added nothing more.

And I have people I need to see.

She closed her eyes, grabbed Cyrus’ arm, and teleported them both to the outside of the warehouse on Monda. She looked up and saw humans and Kastori alike furiously working, moving materials and building more ships. To the far left of the warehouse, three ships stood ready to fly.

“I think Crystil did her job,” Cyrus remarked.

“Just like we did ours,” Celeste said.

22

Crystil lifted a heavy piece of metal toward the base of the newest ship, dropping it to the ground with a thud. Exhausted, she bent over, her hands on her knees, struggling to stay awake with too little sleep and too little food. The thoughts of taking a break constantly crossed her mind, but when she looked at the faces of the Kastori and the humans and remembered the faces of Dyson and Eve, she kept pushing.

She went and grabbed more metal, her legs trembling, carrying it across about a hundred feet toward the ship. She dropped it to the ground and sat down on it, needing at least a few seconds of rest.

But when she did, she saw Cyrus and Celeste returning and entering a private room.
I think you can justify a break for this one.

She excused herself from the group and walked with new-found strength in her legs. She peeked into the open door and saw Cyrus and Celeste sitting down, exhausted.

“Mind if I come in?” she asked.

“Only if you don’t mind me never flying one of those ships,” Cyrus said with widened eyes and a smirk.

Crystil, curious, entered, walking slowly and assuming a seat between the two of them after she had given quick hugs to each.

“Let’s just say Typhos decided to test my fear of heights. And when I say heights, I should say a fear of outer space.”

“Oh,” Crystil said, the thoughts of whatever had happened frightening her.
Magic and monsters. Two areas I will never be able to understand. Probably for the best. I can still fight them, though, even if I don’t understand them.

Celeste cleared her throat. Crystil looked at her and saw weary but strong eyes. They also seemed to have a different color to them—a hue of green, though her original blue eyes still remained present.

“And the rest of Vostoka? Did you get its power?”

“Oh, she got its power,” Cyrus said. “But her getting its power was the least interesting thing that happened. We met some weirdo named Novus. Claimed he was the last human on Vostoka and that everyone else had left him. We left him, not wanting to die because some lunatic killed us in our sleep. As a result, we had to kill an ursus and sleep in its guts for warmth—you think it’s gross, but it was that or shiver to death. Celeste went and talked to the planet. She became all powerful. We returned and found out Novus was actually a delusional crazy killer. Shocking, right? The person who won’t look you in the eyes and talks about other people being gone turns out to be dangerous. Celeste saved us using her barrier spell. We slept, woke up, fought a giant aviant that looked like Calypsius, I got dropped from about the height of Mount Ardor, survived because of my sister, healed, and here we are.”

Crystil had heard many stories during her time as a soldier, ranging from the clearly fabricated to the real but still unbelievable, but this story seemed to take on a whole new dimension. She almost yearned for the days when it was just her, her ship, and her Emperor when magic didn’t exist. The only reason she believed the story was because she had no choice but to given their circumstances.

“So, in other words, a totally typical day for us.”

Crystil didn’t respond but inside laughed.
Funny thing is these days, it kind of is typical.

“Celeste?”

“All true,” she said. “I don’t understand half of it myself. The only thing I understand now is that, fortunately, I have power to neutralize Typhos’ black magic. I don’t know if it’s strong enough to defeat him, but it’s powerful. Powerful enough that I know in his weakened state, he’s not going to come to Monda with me here.”

“That’s encouraging. But aren’t you weakened too?”

“No. Because I didn’t kill the planet,” Celeste said. “I didn’t take as much power as Typhos did. But the differences between what he got and what I got are minuscule.”