The Soul Keeper

"Kai!" Aoife's scream was muffled by the waves that quickly covered me. 

Pain jolted throughout my body as I slowly sank into the depths. It took me a moment before I could move. I tried to swim up, back to the surface as the waves tried to pull me away from the shore. My lungs burned as I tried to reach the surface. My entire body ached, though my spell had already started healing me.

When I finally broke through the surface of the water, my vision had already begun to blur from the lack of air. I swam to the black sand shore, then crawled my way away from the water.

I forced myself to stand up despite my shaky legs. As soon as I did so, I felt magic up above. 

I didn't need to even glance there. I knew it was Rohir. He knew this fall wouldn't kill me, so he had waited for me to crawl to the shore. 

"You're just like them, crawling back up whenever we try to rush you." 

I ignored his words and took a shaky, uneven step towards the cliff wall. Three meters – it was this close. I glanced at Rohir. A blade made of light hovered high up in the air above his raised hand. With his wicked smile and glowing golden eyes, he looked more like a demon than the Keeper did most of the time.

"We will rid this world of your kind, and then we will once again thrive – you can not hope to stop us!" He raised his voice as he spoke. I hesitated. "You kind is weak, no different than animals. You have no magic, no power," He continued.

I furrowed my brows. Was he monologuing? He was, wasn't he? It was almost comical, he was spending my weakest moment just speaking. I did nothing to stop him, I allowed myself to fix my breathing and by then, whatever pain I felt had disappeared too. 

I prepared myself as the Divine continued speaking, the blade of light still hovering up in the air. He could have killed me, perhaps. If I were a moment too slow to dodge, a split second too late to escape, I would have been dead. But now, I was ready dodge, and even strike back.

"Thus, I sentence you to death!" He shouted. I hadn't listened to most of what he said, so I wasn't sure what his superficial reasons for sentencing me to death were, and I didn't care either. As he lowered his arm, the blade of light descended upon me.

Fallen Grace empowered my body as I leapt up and away from it's trajectory with grace, then responded with an attack of my own. My scythe was nowhere to be seen, but I didn't need to rely on it.

A volley of dark bolts leapt up from my hands, heading towards him.

His eyes widened. I had already shattered his barrier before, he had nothing protecting him right now. He raised his arms to protect himself in a moment of shock, and the satisfying sound of him, grunting sounded. I grinned as I landed back down on the strip of black sandy beach.

"You little demon!" Rohir suddenly shouted. His eyes glimmered with wrath as the sky rumbled. I didn't mind his threatening voice. Another volley of bolts leapt up towards him, and he grunted again as he had to stop casting whatever spell he was preparing to throw at me. A new barrier formed around him.

I didn't let him just cast that though. While I couldn't fly, I had plenty of ways of harassing him. Purple and black flames flared up around me, and then burst up towards him. As they clung on to his shield, slowly depleting it's strength and, in turn, his mana, I grinned. 

As he was busy trying to extinguish my flames, all I did was feed them more power. Along with the flames, I sent several more dark bolts his way. He grunted and reinforced his shield, rendering most of my attacks useless.

I gritted my teeth. Despite his limited mana, he was still very strong, and I was slowly beginning to feel the effects of exhaustion, despite Fallen Grace's effects. As he was busy getting rid of my flames, I forced myself to pause and think. Did I really have an opportunity to kill Rohir now?

The answer was no. Even if I depleted his mana almost completely, he could just fly away. I had no way of exerting pressure – he was simply out of my reach. I would never be able to kill him.

But I knew someone who could. I glanced at the mark on the cliff wall. The Keeper hadn't told me how to activate it, or what to do with it, but I already had a faint guess.

I shot another volley of dark bolts towards the Divine, then dashed to the cliff wall. Reaching it in the blink of an eye, I touched the mark on the cliff.

Nothing happened, naturally. But the Divine's annoyed grunts stopped, and he drew a sharp breath.

"What- no!" He shouted, and I felt his mana form above me. He didn't do anything flashy like summoning swords and trying to strike me with them. Instead, he beat his wings and dashed down, towards me. My eyes widened as I poured whatever mana I had into the mark in the wall.

"You little-!" His voice cracked as he shouted. A blade made from golden light appeared in his extended hand. I poured more of my mana into the mark – I regretted not asking the Keeper what the hell I was supposed to do with this mark.

I felt something change – the earth rumbled, and the cliff shook. Mana began gathering on the mark as it began emitting a faint glow.

"I won't let you open the gate!" The Divine shouted. 

Could I pull my hand away from the cliff now? I wasn't sure. I hesitated, and high up above, at the top of the cliff, noticed the pale face of Aoife. 

I couldn't die here. Not now, not like this. I threw myself aside, avoiding the Divine's blow just in time.

Behind me, something flashed, and a cool breeze blew my hair forward.

The familiar smell of starsnatchers filled my nostrils.