When the cave stilled, Julia cast her light spell and looked around. The place where Falcon and Lotus stood was now completely buried in rock. She began frantically clawing at the wall of rubble. As she pulled out small boulders and rolled them aside, she yelled their names. Jagged rock scraped her skin and dirt pushed painfully under her nails, but she kept going. It wasn’t until her voice was hoarse and her fingertips were bleeding that she stopped. Panting hard, she fell to her knees and stared, through teary eyes, at the wall she had barely made a dent in.
Suddenly, she heard something. She didn’t breathe as she strained her ears, but the noise wasn’t coming from the other side of the rocks. It was coming from up the western tunnel―the only way out of the room she was now in.
When she recognized the snorting sound of another minotaur, she grudgingly forced herself to stand. She took a deep breath―not in preparation or fear, but in a halfhearted attempt to fill the hollowness inside her chest. It didn’t help.
Her glowing white orb followed after her as she made her legs carry her forward. She walked a short way before coming to a sharp turn in the tunnel, and as she rounded the corner, she came face-to-face with the large, hairy man-bull standing at the cave’s dead end. She realized then that she was trapped inside the mountain.
For the first time she didn’t feel scared. All she felt was anger, and it was all focused on this beast. Even as the monster roared ferociously and lunged toward her, she felt no fear.
She lifted her hand without a single thought in her mind, and the fireball just came on its own. She wanted the thing dead, and that desire fueled her magic.
It dodged her spell and raised its ax over its head, ready to strike. She didn’t care. She threw another fireball, and then another, using the last of her mana. The spells hit, and the thing was pushed back several steps, its shaggy brown fur singeing. She almost gagged on the nasty smell of burnt hair.
It snorted loudly through large, glistening black nostrils, and charged. Its head slammed into her, sending her flying back and landing hard on the ground. She groaned in pain but pushed herself back to her feet.
The minotaur charged again.
This time when it drew close, she quickly pressed herself against the cave wall. It rushed past, narrowly avoiding her. As soon as it was able to skid to a stop, it turned back and charged a third time. Once more, she dodged at the last minute. The monster didn’t pay attention to what was beyond her and plowed into the rock wall.
The place rumbled with the brute force of the massive beast's impact. She glanced up warily, ready to run if there was another cave-in, but it was the low ceiling above the monster that started to crumble. Within seconds, the minotaur was almost completely buried under rock. And out of sheer luck, Julia found a way out―there was an opening above where the ceiling had collapsed. She waited a minute, watching. When it didn’t move, she walked over and put her hand an exposed portion of its back. It wasn’t breathing.
Climbing on top of beast and rubble, she made her way through the small opening, and onto a grassy mountainside.
Then, all at once, the adrenaline wore off and she felt pain in every part of her body. She stared at her hands for a moment, covered with dirt and blood. Though she had automatically healed her wounds, everything still throbbed.
However, it was her heart that hurt the worst―it felt like shards of glass had made hundreds of little stinging cuts inside her chest, leaving her broken and hollow.
A movement caused her to go rigid, but then she saw the small, silver-and-black animal running toward her. “Jade.” She hugged him when he jumped into her lap.
“I felt your pain. What happened?”
“The physical or emotional?”
“Both. But it was the grief that made me come find you. Where's Falcon and Lotus?”
Hot tears flooded her eyes. “There was a cave-in… I don’t… I don’t know… we have to find a way into the other side.”
“I’ll go, I’m faster. Wait here,” he said and ran off.
She glanced up at the moon, still high in the starry sky; they hadn’t been in there long. She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them as she stared off into the dark forest in the distance. She chewed on her lower lip as she waited, clinging to the small, desperate hope that Jade would bring them back, or at least find a way in.
She must have sat there for an hour by the time he returned. "I’m sorry. I went all the way around the mountain, but I couldn’t find a way in, and I didn’t see anyone.”
Her heart sank, and the pain inside her grew until she could barely breathe. “I can’t open… the entrance. Not without… her.” She felt cold inside. “I trapped them. What if I…” She couldn’t finish.
“It was an accident.”
“You don’t know―”
“Whatever happened, I know you didn’t mean it to.”
She shook her head longer than necessary. “I… I triggered―” But her words were cut off by her sudden sobs. She couldn’t breathe for a moment; she was crying so hard, it was choking her.
Finally, she gasped, pulling in a gulp of air. She closed her eyes as she rolled onto her side and gave herself over to the pain, the grief, and the feeling of utter helplessness.
__________
She must have fallen asleep at some point, because something touched her cheek, waking her up. She looked around, squinting in the bright morning sun.
Suddenly she gasped and bolted upright. She threw herself at Falcon, now crying in relief. He grunted in pain. She let him go and gasped again when she saw the dried blood at his temple, then held his face, his beautiful face, in her hands. Thankfully, her mana was replenished enough for her to be able to heal him. She tried to blink to see him more clearly, but she couldn’t stop her tears.
When the spell was finished, she slid her arms around his neck and pulled him close again. “Oh god,” she breathed. “I thought I lost you!”
He leaned back to look at her, then caressed her face and kissed her forehead. She felt a dampness on his skin and realized it was tears of his own. That’s when she remembered, and icy dread poured through her. “Lotus…?”
He looked down and shook his head. He didn’t need to say the words―she was gone.
Julia’s heart constricted painfully. “Oh god,” she said in a horrified whisper. I killed her, she thought.
Falcon pulled her closer with a hand on the back of her head and kissed her cheek before holding her tightly against him. She felt like she was hyperventilating as the pain in her chest continued to grow and twist. She wished that it had been her instead. It should have been her. Someone like Lotus couldn’t be dead, she was so good, so much better than Julia knew she could ever be, and yet there she was, still breathing.
She felt Falcon’s tears seep through her hair, and, if possible, hurt even more. She had taken Lotus from him; she had cared about her, but he had been in love with her. How much was this hurting him? How much was he suffering now? And that was her fault as well.
“Don’t wish it,” Jade said sadly. “Nothing would be helped if you died.”
“I… deserve to… die,” she told him between sobs. “It’s… it’s my fault.”
“Don’t even say that,” Falcon whispered hoarsely. “It’s not your fault, it was an accident. And god, I… I couldn’t stand to lose you, Jules,” he add fervently, his arms tightening around her.
“He’s right,” Jade put in. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, it is,” she thought as she continued to cry.
