The Halcyon Girl

The ground sloshed underfoot, muddy and red, scattered with the dead and dying. Few were completely dead, at least so far. That would take time, hours at least.. 

Isadore inhaled deeply. She could almost taste the blood in the air, or at least she imagined she did. It was tinged with an almost metallic smell— a familiar metallic smell, fortunately. After all, Isadore would be far different without those experiences. 

Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. 

She tapped into her Core, allowing her to see the spores of deep, rich green light from her view. She’d been deliberating about whether or not to use some of their Glow to see the souls of the dying, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The life forces were visible without it, abandoning their previous owners, blossoming from their chests into the night sky above. The misty souls were a beautiful shade of violet against the dark, starry sky. Isadore reached her hand through one. It continued its slow climb, not in the least disturbed by her presence. She moved on.

Ah, there he was. He’d fallen at the very beginning, before the fighting even started. Only a thin tendril of mist was coming off of him now, like the smoke from a candle just barely blown out. Soon all of his life force would be gone, moving on to who-knew-where. 

She knelt next to him, her cape and dress suddenly cold, soaked through with mud. She didn’t care. She could just clean that off later— assuming she had any Glow left after that. She probably wouldn’t, but honestly, she didn’t care. 

Isadore took a deep breath and reached out with her senses. This would either work or it wouldn’t. In preparation for today, she’d refrained from using the Glow for two weeks at least. She could feel motes of energy spread out for miles, her senses and power amplified by the full moon

Would it be enough? 

She flared her Charge, drawing the glowing motes toward her. The nearest ones settled on her skin, in line with a plain through the center of her chest. The others arranged themselves into rings like those encircling a planet, their radiance increasing just by virtue of being near each other. She closed her eyes. They were still there, but the way they were was impossible to describe. They felt like the energy of a lightning bolt when the volts became a part of the person in the seconds before that person was reduced to charcoal. 

She wanted to draw them into herself, feel that feeling as more than just an impression. But such mistakes had destroyed mages greater than her. She had a job to do. 

Mustering her strength, she drew every tiny mote of Glow toward her. She felt them streaking from every direction as far as her senses could reach to form rings around her, projecting around her a shell of raw power exploding into brilliant light. Her hold on it was slippery at best. But she didn’t need to hold it, at least not all of it. Gritting her teeth, she sent half of the light into the boy’s body and directed it to heal and mend and return to its prior state. The other half she held next to her as long as the healing process would allow. Sweat beaded on her forehead, pain blossomed in her abdomen. Afraid to breathe, in case that interrupted the delicate balance, she opened her eyes. The smoke of the boy’s life was…

It was gone. A wave of panic crashed through her— but there it was, in the sky, not quite gone. She sent the rest of her Glow up, and it obliged, glad to be doing something. It wrapped around the tendril of soul and rolled it up like a spool of thread. The mist strained against it, reaching for the sky, and whatever freedom lay beyond. Isadore yanked on her Glow, struggling against the celestial pull of the stars. At the same time, her Core cracked. 

She screamed, slapping her hands to the mud, clawing compulsively. But the soul in the stars above her finally gave, and the spool of magical energy, suddenly without resistance, spun faster than a top, collecting the misty soul, dragging it out of the sky. 

Isadore, freed from the worst of it (though she had to keep constant pressure on both aspects of the Glow), closed her eyes and sucked in breath after breath. She felt lightheaded and about five seconds from blacking out, but she opened her eyes again anyway to transfer the soul back into the body. 

She broke apart the motes of the magic spool, and before the soul could escape, used them to form a cocoon around it. She drew the cocoon toward her and toward the body. She lengthened it, then created a rope to twine around the soul.Then, finally she pushed it back into the boy’s chest. 

Closing her eyes, she could feel both the magic and the soul, coiling in his chest like a snake until it was all inside. With a sigh of relief, she pulled at the remaining Glow (some had been used up in the process, but not all of it). But it wouldn’t come. 

She frowned and tugged again. She hadn’t expected this. She could only hope it wouldn’t have any ill effects once she revived him. With a final puff of Glow, she started his heart and lungs. 

He coughed, jerked up to sit, and coughed again. His eyes were panicked, Isadore noticed dimly. Panicked and green. 

And then, to her utter humiliation, she slumped into oblivion.