Chapter 40: The Southern Range [7]
"WATCH OUT!" Seris’s voice snapped him back to reality.
Alden’s eyes widened. He looked up.
Vincent was already above him, his sword descending.
’Damn it!’
’System! Activate Predator’s Instinct!’
[Unable to Activate]
[Predator’s Instinct — Cooldown: 2 minutes remaining]
’What—?! Pyri— No I also called off pyrion! I shouldn’t have done that!’
The blade filled his vision.
He closed his eyes.
Something hit him. Not the sword but a sudden weight from the front, shoving him backward so hard his feet left the ground.
He stumbled but caught himself.
Opening one eye slowly, he caught silver hair across his vision and a familiar scent.
Then he saw the blood.
"S...Seris?"
She was in his arms.
’Why?’
Alden tightened his hold around her, steadying her weight.
’Why would she do this? Why risk her life for mine?’
Her body had taken the position his head had been in. The sword had drawn a deep line across her back, through the fabric, through skin, blood already soaking outward in a dark stain.
Alden’s mind went completely blank.
For the first time since he had arrived in this world he had no immediate thought or next step or plan, just the person bleeding in his arms.
Vincent withdrew his sword with a satisfied click of the tongue.
"One down."
His crimson eyes moved.
"One more to go."
Seris’s fingers slid from Alden.
Then her head tilted backward.
Her crimson eyes found Vincent across the space between them, and what was in them wasn’t pain or fear or any of the things that would be reasonable to find in someone who had just taken a sword to the back.
"You..." Her voice was quiet.
"You damned fool."
The mana that erupted from her hit the cavern air like a physical thing. The walls trembled. Snow fell from the ceiling through the hole Vincent’s earlier impact had torn. Every loose piece of ice in the cave rattled.
Her scythe appeared in her hand.
She was injured. Still bleeding. Standing in Alden’s arms because her body had just shielded someone else’s.
Alden’s hand moved on instinct before his mind could catch up.
Thunder gathered along his arm, crackling as it raced from shoulder to fingertips. He pressed his palm against the shaft of Seris’s scythe and forced the energy through.
The lightning wrapped around the blade.
Seris looked at the weapon. Then at him.
Alden met her eyes.
"Finish this."
Vincent’s smirk came back.
"So you still have enough to fight." He raised his sword. His aura flared to full in one pulse, filling the cavern with the suffocating pressure of something that had been holding back and was done doing that. "Then come."
Seris raised her scythe. Her eyes on Vincent.
"Disappear."
She swung.
The world split. A massive black arc tore from the blade, it looked like it was consuming the space it moved through, twisting as it traveled, the thunder Alden had fed into it wrapping around the dark energy in coiling crimson lightning until the two things became one thing.
Vincent’s sword came up.
His eyes had changed. The confidence had left them before he finished raising it.
"What—?"
The arc hit.
BOOOOOOM!
The sound arrived after the impact and kept arriving.
Vincent’s defense didn’t slow it. The hit broke his blade and took his body with it.
He was launched backward by the force, crashing through the cavern wall in an explosion of stone and ice.
Then the next wall.
Then outside.
In the distance, somewhere past where the cave ended and the mountain continued, an entire peak shuddered. A low rumbling built and built until it became a collapse.
CRAAAAASH!
Silence.
Alden stared at the hole where three walls used to be, now open to cold mountain air and the visible aftermath of something that had gone considerably further than intended.
’That was supposed to stop him.’ He swallowed. ’Not demolish a mountain.’
The weight in his arms shifted. He looked down.
Seris’s scythe was gone. Her eyes had dimmed, the glow fading out of them like a lamp being turned down. The tension in her shoulders released all at once.
"Seris?"
Her body went limp.
"Seris!"
He caught her before she hit the ground. Pulling her tight against him, he slid one arm around her and the other across her shoulders, careful not to touch the wound on her back.
"Hey." His voice came out different than he intended. "Come on. Stay awake."
He shook her gently, but there was no tension left in her body. Just the slick, warm wetness spreading across his hands where he held her.
"Seris!" He called her name louder this time, his own breath catching in his chest. "Wake up!"
Her forehead rested uselessly against his shoulder.
For the first time, Alden feared losing someone from this world, he didn’t know why that thought scared him so much.
Alden didn’t understand why he cared this much.
She was the antagonist. A character he had written to eventually stand against Nicholas. A character whose fate was already decided in the story he had created.
One day, she was supposed to die by Nicholas’s hands.
So why? Why was the sight of her lying there making his chest feel so tight?
Alden swallowed and forced those thoughts aside.
’She’s going to be fine.’
He settled her carefully against the cavern wall, angling her so the wound wasn’t pressed directly against anything. Then he crouched in front of her and put two fingers gently against her cheek.
"Hey."
Her skin was growing cold, her breath so thin against his hand he could barely feel it.
"Seris. Stay with me."
He tapped her cheek, his own pulse hammering in his throat.
Her head just lolled sideways, her eyes remaining closed.
After a few seconds, her eyelids twitched and they slowly opened.
Crimson eyes found his.
"You’re awake..." Alden let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, relief washing over his face. "Thank God."
He glanced toward the cavern entrance. They should be coming soon.
"Just hang on a little longer. I’ll go get them to treat you, you’re going to be fine, and—"
"No."
He froze. "What do you mean?" He looked at her condition.
"You’re barely able to stay conscious. You need to—"
"That’s not the point."
Her grip on his collar was weak, but she held it.
"They can’t see me like this."
Alden blinked. "What do you—"
Then he looked at her properly.
Her skin was so pale it almost seemed to glow. Her eyes still shone with a dim light. Her ears were slightly pointed, and her sharp fangs were impossible to miss.
The gothic dress covered in black and crimson. And, most importantly, the unmistakable aura of a vampire surrounding her.
Alden stared.
Then he slapped his own forehead.
"I completely forgot."
"Now you finally get it" she sighed.
He looked at the cave entrance, then at the direction the sounds of the others would eventually come from.
"If Nicholas and the others see you like this—"
"There’s no scenario in which that ends well." She closed her eyes for a moment. When they opened again they were a fraction sharper. "So. Help me fix it before they arrive."
"How?"
She pressed her free hand against the wound on her back. The fabric around it was soaked through.
"Blood." Her breathing had gone shallow, each word costing something. "My body heals once I consume enough. The wound closes and the transformation..." Her grip on his collar tightened slightly, the last of whatever strength she had going into it. "Disappears."
Alden looked at her.
’She needs blood to recover and return to her human appearance?’
He turned toward the cave entrance. The sounds of the others weren’t close yet, but they weren’t far.
’Do we even have enough time before they get here?’
Seris leaned forward. Her crimson eyes looked directly into his.
"Can I have some?"
"...Have what?" He didn’t understand for one second. But he did soon enough.
She held his gaze.
"Your blood."