In her chambers, Jennah, Queen of Kryta, paces in worry, hours after midnight, having barely slept. Countess Anise, personal guard of the queen, sits on a luxuriously-upholstered chaise, hands folded demurely, eyes bright and alert, watching.
Jennah had given up trying to come up with some political stratagem to circumvent Minister Caudecus’ scheming. She’d interceded in his argument with Logan’s second-in-command, informing the venerable Minister of her position on the matter, but he would not be moved. She had spent hours with Anise, desk scattered with parchments, calculating favors she is owed from various nobles and how she can gain more - various requests she could concede to, for example - to gain a faction’s support.
Nothing worthwhile had turned up, although Jennah will ensure the law is modified as soon as she can convene the Chamber of Ministers - as soon as daylight if possible.
Caudecus has a lot of influence, but not enough to stop that. Not when Caudecus is so obviously exploiting a loophole - although why he would be so obvious is beyond her. He’s usually far subtler, but of course he and Logan have been at loggerheads since Logan was made Captain five years ago. And he’d been at loggerheads with Logan’s predecessor, Dylan Thackeray, long before that.
Loyal captains are hard to come by. It seems the Thackerays breed them well.
“What if he’s hurt?” Jennah asks Anise for the ten thousandth time as she paces in her chambers.
“Then he will recover,” comes the quiet reply for the ten thousandth time. “Logan is resilient; you know it best of all.”
Jennah returns to pacing. This is no ordinary battle, else Caudecus would not be so blatantly opposing his access to reinforcements. Something important is going on.
“It is beyond conscionable,” Jennah bursts out, “that a Legate Minister should have the power to limit Kryta’s access to military force in a time of danger!”
Logan’s arms groan in protest as he raises his sword. He is warring with bone-deep exhaustion.
“Well said,” Anise says stoically.
Jennah fumes. She doesn’t have the support to oppose Caudecus on a matter of written law. Even now, she cannot risk dividing Kryta. Not on a whim; not on a worry. “What… what if I lose him?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper. She curls up next to Anise on the chaise, slippered feet tucking underneath her for warmth.
Anise wraps her arms around Jennah and remains silent for a long moment. “Then he will fall defending you, and Kryta, and he will have died content.”
“Oh, don’t talk like that!” Jennah cries, burying her face in Anise’s shoulder. “Is there nothing we can do to help?”
“I won’t ‘talk like that,’” Anise says gently, “if you will likewise abstain. Don’t worry - Logan will come to no harm.”
“I cannot help but worry!”
Logan fights exhaustion and sleep and relaxation just as desperately as he fights the centaurs when they come.
“You cannot send help without violating the law of Kryta. If that is a political step you feel secure enough to take…”
Frustration bubbles out of Jennah with a cry. “Oh, Anise, I cannot - !“ and she returns to pacing, up and down in the large room. “What if he’s hurt?” she asks again, plaintively. “He’s out there - fighting - without adequate troops!”
Anise’s lips curve into a rare, gentle smile. “Would you call seven against a dragon champion ‘adequate troops?’”
Logan fights to get moving again, fights with himself and sometimes he doesn’t move when he tells himself to move.
Jennah chuckles softly. “Well - I suppose - when you put it like that - “
“So, will you sleep now? You can do no more good tonight, and will do little tomorrow if you are not rested.”
“Oh, I - I don’t know, Anise. I think not. I don’t think I can rest ‘till I know he is safe. He is in danger, whether or not he has beaten it before.”
“At least lie down,” Anise urges. “Worry in your bed. Dream your dreams of him; perhaps in that you can find peace.”
Jennah reluctantly allows herself to be led to her bed, hung with embroidered drapery and gold, and lies down. She stares up at the canopy. Logan is in mortal danger. He is quite capable, of course, and had pulled out of many similar messes before, but… Jennah cannot shake the feeling of doom and despair that had settled over her.
Logan, at times, faces the oncoming stampede, hands stuck to the hilt of his sword and unable to lift it.
Jennah props herself up on one arm and looks over at Anise. “Anise, do you think - “ She pauses for a moment, struggling with words.
Anise looks at her expectantly.
Jennah opens her mouth again.
She is interrupted by Logan’s voice speaking directly into her mind. His voice is weary and labored, and resignation tinges his tone. I’m sorry… my queen.
Her heart skips a beat. No - no! Logan! He is speaking to her from his heart - as she had once spoken to his in the midst of danger. He can’t have already given up - !
Jennah scrambles and nearly falls out of the bed, sheets tangling about her ankles. Anise looks up in alarm.
“He’s calling to me,” she murmurs. “Logan is calling to me.” She scrambles to her feet, Anise helping her up. Jennah takes a deep breath and regains her composure. “Logan is in trouble. Real trouble.”
Anise’s brow creases and she frowns, confusion marring her features.
“He’s calling to me!” Jennah insists at her friend’s disbelief, glancing around for her scepter. “I have to go! He needs me!”
Comprehension dawns on Anise’s face and she nods. She had been there when Jennah bonded Logan to her. She had been there again when Jennah’s heart had cried out to Logan - and he came and turned the tide of a battle, if not of a war.
Jennah sees her shift from Anise, concerned lady-in-waiting and friend, to Countess Anise, Master Exemplar of the Shining Blade, loyal advisor, bodyguard, and right hand of the queen.
“It is late,” Countess Anise says. “My magic is spent and you are tired. What - ?”
Jennah lifts the royal iron-wrought scepter from its place by the door and turns to her advisor with eyes like steel. He’d come for her. She can do no less. “Take me to the city wall.”
Anise bows her head in acquiescence.
~oOoOo~
Logan can’t make himself move - he just stands there as the centaur throws back its head and bellows a challenge. Logan’s body had shut down. It feels good - like resting while standing up. He can’t move.
His Seraph surge forward and surround the centaur - the lone centaur - and it puts up a serious fight. Logan manages to stumble forward a few steps while the Seraph (and the trio of civilians) batter it down, some of them falling in the process.
Logan can barely stagger two steps forward when two soldiers retreat out of the fray, carrying Lieutenant Francis. Logan grimaces - this is the third time Francis has been taken out of the fight, but at least it seems it’ll be over soon.
The centaur does finally turn and - miraculously - flee the garrison.
There are no other centaurs. They’d made it. Logan allows himself to relax.
The ranger and the mesmer are running after the centaur, and some of the less weary Seraph run with them.
Logan slowly drags himself out onto the bridge. He thinks of calling them back, but if they have the energy to run and take down the centaurs’ leader, Logan isn’t going to speak against it. A smile spreads across his face. They’d done it. He’d survived. Shaemoor had survived.
Kryta will stand another day.
Logan checks his injuries - he might have a few broken ribs, from where a centaur had kicked him earlier, but that will heal. It’ll be okay. Everything will be okay. He'll see Jennah again. He'll have his opportunity to make a chance.
The ambient magic stirs like a motionless earthquake - cracks creeping along the ground, but no shaking. No rumble. Just cracks quietly spiderwebbing outward in an ever-growing expanse, like something twining gently across his skin. Logan glances back at the centaur and those following it. He opens his mouth to request its capture, not death. Logan wants to question it closely.
But it is standing on the hilltop beyond the bridge, hands in the air, and surrounded by flying earth and debris... casting a powerful spell. Seraph and the three civilians are clambering up the hill towards it.
Oh, no…
But he can’t quite react to this new threat right away. He’d already relaxed. His body isn’t going to be moving far anytime soon.
The earth circling the centaur suddenly coalesces into two gigantic hands, an elemental rivaling the garrison itself for size, reaching for the sky. The centaur, standing between the two hands, gives one last gesture and topples over. The dangerous whirlwind of flying debris goes on unabated.
Logan heaves a sigh and immediately winces, putting a hand to his chest. The centaur sage’s death means little in the face of this threat, and Logan can only hope his men and the civilians can handle it. He’s useless. That elemental - possibly a greater elemental, although Logan had only ever heard of them - is probably mobile, highly ranged, nigh-indestructible, and with a mind of its own. There can be no retreat from this. Only the garrison stands between it and Divinity's Reach. A chill runs down Logan's back.
They had this up their sleeves? Scrap starving out the city in weeks - those giant hands would batter down the walls in days.
They still might. Even with no centaurs guiding it... Logan's heart races.
One of his soldiers gives a shout of fear upon seeing the greater earth elemental. “By all Six Gods,” she shouts, “what is that thing?”
Logan sets his jaw. Those hands are a threat to Divinity’s Reach, Queen Jennah, and Kryta. It is his duty, and that of every Seraph, to stand between them and destruction. Logan raises his voice - about the only thing he can do - to include all the Seraph in his reply, and speaks with confidence. “That, soldier, is a threat. And we’re going to take it down!”
~oOoOo~
Jennah stares over the rampart of Divinity’s Reach at the distant, square-shaped silhouette of the Shaemoor Garrison… and the shifting, glowing mound beyond it. The wind flaps the queen’s robe about her feet. Jennah has eyes only for the something that is commanding a swirling vortex of ambient magic… right in front of the garrison Logan is defending.
Jennah’s expression firms. There is only one thing she can do. She grips her robe tighter around herself and draws herself up to her full height. “Anise, I’m going to overload it.” She draws out her scepter and holds it at her side, between herself and Anise.
Anise’s eyes widen ever-so-slightly, then nods. She steps up to stand next to Jennah and places her hand over the queen’s on the scepter. Jennah raises her left hand toward the disturbance. Anise raises her right.
Queen Jennah of Kryta summons her magic.
Her palm glows purple.
~oOoOo~
Logan can only stand there as his men hammer on the giant hands of the greater elemental... and the smaller elementals it had spawned.
Logan had failed Kryta in numerous ways tonight, and now he can’t physically move. Kryta's welfare is his responsibility, and here he is on the sidelines not lifting a finger while his men batter on the elemental hand. In fact, he's still forcing one foot after another, trudging toward the conflict.
But none of their efforts seem to harm it. Its sheer size shrugs off all attacks, physical and magical.
At least it isn’t moving - but the capital city of Kryta is in very real danger if it can’t be killed. There has to be some way.
Logan remembers Caithe’s words: everything has a weakness. You just have to find it. He remembers Rytlock roasting devourer tails with his sword. He might never see them again.
No! Logan shakes his head and focuses. He will live, and he won’t see Rytlock again. This elemental has a weakness, and it’s up to him to find it and kill it.
Logan’s magic thrums within his veins. It had been hours since he’d cast a spell. But all his magic is useless if he has no energy to manipulate with it.
Well… I have plenty of energy. It’s just, you know, keeping me alive right now - if barely. Living takes a lot of energy. But if Divinity’s Reach is in danger… if Jennah is in danger…
A purple bolt of magic shoots through the air and spears straight into the elemental’s magical core. It seems to shudder at the impact. The bolt leaves a purple trail behind it, pointing back to…
Divinity’s Reach. Jennah. Only she could cast a spell from this distance, much less cast and hope for it to be effective.
The purple trail hovers in the sky. Hope rises within Logan’s heart just looking at it. His queen is watching. His queen is fighting. Seraph glance up between trading blows with centaurs, only to return quickly to their battles.
The elemental begins to glow from within. Significant power must be pouring into it from that bolt, that purple trail. My queen came, Logan marvels. She came for me! She is his reinforcements in this battle. One of the giant hands begins to shake. The ambient magic quivers violently.
Another bolt soars beside the first, another purple trail. Logan’s eyes light up at the sight. The second hand trembles. The whole elemental is destabilizing. But even two BOOMA’s from a mesmer as powerful as the Krytan Queen - probably with Anise backing her up - are not enough to bring down the elemental.
Purple magic coalesces in the air near the trails. The image of Jennah shimmers into existence, standing in the air and gesturing with an iron-wrought scepter. It is a mesmer clone - insubstantial, unreal, and yet a projection of Jennah’s presence and power onto the battlefield.
Purple magic gathers around the head of the scepter. The illusion slashes. A bolt of magic, glowing so brightly Logan has to shield his eyes, soars out of it and stabs like lightning into the heart of the elemental.
The greater elemental rumbles ominously, glowing with yellow energy. The ambient magic quivers like still water disturbed - ripples circling outward, the site of impact heaving dangerously.
Logan draws a sharp breath at the sight, but the next moment he shouts, “brace yourselves, I think it’s going to explode!”
Even as he speaks, the hand crumples upward into a floating ball of debris. The Seraph barely have time to at the elemental and turn away before the elemental falls thunderously to the ground. A shockwave ripples across the hill, and many soldiers stumble and fall. Huge boulders and other debris roll down the hill, freshly-churned earth falling in chunks.
Seraph shout in alarm. Others scream in pain. Some yell in desperation as their friends fall under the landslide.
Logan cannot move. He tries to step forward to help, but his whole body groans in protest.
The illusion of the queen wavers. Sways. Flickers. Alarm sparks in Logan’s heart.
Then it winks out, along with the streamers of purple. Logan stares upward at where they had been, transfixed; only one thought pounding through his head. Is she alright?
It takes no small amount of power to cast a spell like that, from that distance - Logan remembers the day, five years ago, when she had cast a mighty spell to end a battle, and perhaps a war. Afterward, she had mustered the energy to make a grand proclamation from the top of a tower, and then toppled into Anise’s arms and remained unconscious for days.
