Alura | The Alura Trilogy, Book 1 [She-Ra 2018] ✔

32 | Nowhere Left to Go

Song: "Bed of Roses" by Adrian Von Ziegler

When corruption has its way, when the mind goes to waste, when all I love ends up erased, I will still be there.

I will still be there.

❂❂❂

Micah dropped to his knees, eyes wide at Festinia's dying form. Her once-beautiful features had been melted by Light Spinner's fury. "This was...why Norwyn hid the scroll." Festina whispered a breathy laugh. "It was the one place he thought she'd never look."

Micah struggled to process what had happened. Was Light Spinner right to be upset that Norwyn had hid the scroll from her? Or was all of what he'd done a good limitation - had her father figure just been trying to protect her, with Light Spinner having been in the wrong the entire time?

What about the Spell? Was that something Light Spinner had had within her all along?

Was I right to leave her?

Festinia's hand went limp, and Ahelia closed her eyes gently. Three Guild members had been lost that day - the day Light Spinner snapped.

Ahelia spoke gently to him. "We'd best tell the public what's happened. Light Spinner will be dead in a couple hours. Everyone who failed the Spell would be."

Micah swallowed. But her modifications - she told me it wasn't the original Spell.

That means there's still the fighting chance she's alive.

✧✧✧

Light Spinner teleported to the Hall of Sorcerers, her hateful gaze on her statue. They wanted to attempt to kill her? Then she would remove herself not just from the Guild, but from the history of Mystacor.

She fired her light, each one adding only shadows and darkness to the great pillar of marble, not destruction. Blood stung her skin. I didn't love Norwyn. I also didn't want him to die.

She fired one last large blast, then dropped to her knees. The first signs of sickness crept over her - nausea, joint pain, wooziness, coldness. Good. Just keep coming.

A footstep pattered behind her. Her gaze snapped up; Arvina brandished a dagger. Light Spinner tried to cast the same spell she'd done to suffocate Norwyn, but she couldn't get it to work this time.

She gathered her strength and teleported away before Mystacor could hurt her further. If they were willing to punish her for a mistake that her apprentice made, that was just one more way they had wronged her throughout her life.

✧✧✧

Light Spinner exited the teleportation spiral in the air, an enormous crack echoing off her surroundings when she landed on her stomach in sand. She moaned in pain as she clutched her side, bringing her knees to her chest, with no sense of place, no direction. All she knew was agony.