The Spirit Wilds: Magic of the Green Sage (Fall of the Sages Book 1), стр. 49

Maybe she was right. Maybe she was wrong. Either way, it didn’t change the reality of the situation before Tuni Teal-Eye. Her family, dead. Her friends, dead. Everyone she’d ever known, dead. Her home, destroyed.

Her heart was a mess of pain. She groaned and put her head to her mom’s chest, not caring for the blood that soon covered her hair and face. She sobbed. Eyes pinched shut.

“Please don’t leave me,” she wheezed. “I’m sorry, Mom, don’t go!”

A cold hand slick with warm blood touched her cheek. She opened her eyes. Her mother stared back at her. For just a moment, she was the fierce and strong woman that had raised her. If only Tuni could have been more like her.

“You are…so strong, and s-so, so brave, my girl. I need you… I need you to be. Y-you… You need to get out of here. Survive. Live.”

“But, but I— I—”

“Do this f-for me. Promise me. P-please.”

With nothing else to do, Tuni nodded.

Her mother sighed, her gaze looking past Tuni. “I…l-love you, Tuni.”

Then her eyes became empty. Tuni grabbed her mother’s tunic. “No, no, no, no. Please, Mom, not yet!” But it was too late. She was gone. Her mother was dead. Her sister was dead. And she was alone.

Her cries weren’t as violent as they were for her sister, but that was because she didn’t have the strength anymore. She cried, silent, her shoulders rocking.

“I love you,” she whispered back, then her voice broke and she sobbed.

Her mind and heart were in turmoil. She didn’t know what to do. She had no answers. If we’d just magically teleported here, maybe the sage could have stopped this from happening. That line of thinking, that level of blame for all this death, wasn’t healthy, she knew. But it was all Tuni could think of.

The ground shook again. The demon roared. More death. More destruction.

Tuni stood wordlessly and walked out of the remains of her home.

Everything in her hurt. This is what a broken heart feels like, huh? she thought somberly. One foot after another she trudged forward, but she wasn’t really present. Her mind was adrift in a swirling sea of sorrow. She kept walking, numb to everything around her, numb to the dust in the air and the moans of the dying and the crumbling of the buildings.

Her feet brought her to the heart of the town, to the broken square. Ahead of her, on the western edge of town, the demon raged. She saw red. Rage consumed her. With a roar as chilling as the demon’s, she charged the beast. Was it stupid, idiotic, suicidal? Probably, but she didn’t care. She had to make it hurt, make it pay.

With a shrug, she whipped her bow around from her shoulder and loosed an arrow with little effort. The first one hit the demon in the arm. It did nothing but get the monster’s attention. Its glowing white eyes locked onto her.

Its smile grew wide, and a black tongue shot out and licked the teeth.

That didn’t dissuade her. She was blinded by rage and sorrow. She loosed another arrow, and another, and another. One in the arm, two in the chest, one in the neck. It did nothing to the demon. Not even hurt it. Still, she fought back. She had to fight back. She would not run. She would not cower.

She’d run her entire life—from her responsibilities and her family, always trying to find some sort of escape. She thought she’d found it with the sage, but it just caused all this death. So no, Tuni would not run anymore.

Even if it killed her.

Arrow after arrow she launched, until the monster was on the other side of the square standing amid the rubble of the bakery only a few paces away. She was out of arrows. That was it. But she kept running at it like a madman.

The demon regarded her like she was a bug skittering at its feet. It wound up its massive arm, ready to smack. Ready to end her. Tuni cursed.

Its arm came down in a violent arch. She wouldn’t be able to avoid it. She was foolish. This was what her mother didn’t want her to do. She told her to survive, and Tuni had immediately thrown that away. Even after death, I am failing her.

She expected the hit, the bone-crushing force of its hand against her frail body.

But then Gayla was there to her left, running through the rubble, staff up and glowing. She yelled a spell and suddenly, there was a translucent blue barrier in front of Tuni. Right in time to take the brunt of the demon’s attack.

The brunt, but not all of it. The shock of the collision sent her flying. The breath left her body, and she slammed into a pile of rubble.

Everything went black.

Tuni came to. Her head pounded. She sat up in a daze and found that she wasn’t in her village anymore. She sat in the ruined fields outside the small walls of the village. It was quiet. The demon was gone. Nearby, Gayla sat, dried blood caked in her hair and staining the side of her face. She was drenched in sweat and her skin was covered in dirt. She sat on her rear and hugged her knees to her chest, her hat and staff beside her.

“What— What happened?” Tuni asked.

Gayla glanced her way. “I defeated the demon. Then I buried everyone that I could find. I couldn’t find any survivors.”

“Oh.”

Tuni remembered what happened before she was knocked out. Her mom and sister, her friends, all dead. Her home was gone, and she had nothing else.

She had no tears left, though. She just felt numb all over. Sadness, anger… There was nothing but a deep dread that filled her from the depths of her heart and spread throughout her body. Slumping against the ground beside her friend, Tuni sighed.

The sage looked at her. “I have no words