Riftsworn by Emmie Mears

Author:Emmie Mears [Mears, Emmie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Fantasy, GameLit & LitRPG, Fiction
Publisher: Robot Dinosaur Press
Published: 2024-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-One

My body burns from the fight. And apparently, bottoming out my mana is not a good thing. It takes me a solid half hour before I feel even remotely stable on my feet, the wooziness and nausea a sloshing tide of discomfort. It takes everything in me to keep it from spewing right out my mouth. Gods, I’m a mess.

I cast Ela’s Touch on myself again, hoping at some point there will be a development that allows me to make it an area-of-effect heal or a full-party heal.

Ink is scurrying around retrieving the arrows that survived the fight, and it cheers me a little that the changeling’s quiver is at least half full by the time they’re finished.

I sit on a rock a short distance away, leaning back against the trunk of a scraggly tree that digs into my shoulder blades.

“Shall we?” Ferelthin asks, nodding in the direction of the hut.

I nod, shifting my shoulders as the healing continues to spread through me. The burning fades to itching, but I do not want another spider venom shower any time soon.

It’s only a short walk to the hut, which looks incongruously cozy in the absence of stampeding spiders.

Ferelthin stops at the door, hesitating.

At first, I’m not sure why, but I take a breath and try to listen in a way I haven’t thought to before. I can feel his mana rippling outward from him. I wonder if mine does the same.

I feel . . . something. Right at the edge of my awareness, like fingers brushing up against something just barely out of reach. I remember something Apathan said once—unraveling magic can cause as much damage as traps for the unwary.

Ink mutters under their breath about how arachne are generally shy. I catch something about rift-sickness before the changeling shakes their head. I turn myself back to the task at hand. Ferelthin meets my gaze.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Ferelthin asks, nodding at the door.

“What is it?” Like I’m grasping at something and getting closer to catching it, I push my mana against it a little more insistently. It pushes back with a slight sting.

Sensory spellwork. Apathan could do it, and he said I could too, though beyond my accidental drapery pyrotechnics, until recently, I’d never believed it.

“Just like you can feel someone’s body heat or the movement of the wind, as’lin, magic produces energies you can sense as well,” Apathan said to me once. “An observant mind can use it to spot traps, spells, and places of arcane significance that would escape a more distracted user.”

“Wards?” I ask tentatively.

“Exactly,” Ferelthin gives me a half smile that looks impressed. “Powerful ones, but unmaintained. It is likely whoever was maintaining them missed an appointment.”

“Feld,” I say flatly.

Ferelthin nods. “At this point, I would be surprised if this were not his work.”

It bothers me.

“If he were such a powerful mage, how did he die so easily?” I ask.

“You call that easy?” Sasun approaches, digging the point of her sword into the ground next to me.

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