Twisted Destiny

As we sobbed together I noticed that Sam wasn’t carrying her necklace around anymore that she had received from Gamma. “What happened to the necklace, Sam?” I asked, I could move my body a lot more freely now and the intense pain had also diminished a lot. 

“It did its job.” Gamma replied first to spare Sam the effort. “It made sure that Sam could be revived after her death. It would have been a lot harder otherwise, especially with you out of the count as well.” 

“Best piece of jewelry I ever owned.” Sam smiled weakly. “Well, aside from our promise ring.” 

I processed that for a moment, looking down at my own hands too. Luckily I hadn’t lost the ring during combat and it was still sitting safely on my finger. Now that I was looking down, however, my attention shifted to the golden bracelet on my arm. It had been cracked and in the cracks I could see some faint purple lines shimmering through. 

“What the…” An intense jolt of pain stung in my head as though someone had just jabbed an icicle in my brain. It was so intense it instinctively made me close my eyes and reach for my head. It lasted for at least three seconds before the pain ebbed away again. I even had to catch my breath a little. 

My sister had already approached me and put her hands on my shoulders, pressing ever so slightly. “Ami, I think it’s best if you continue to lay down for a little longer. That seemed like it hurt a lot.” 

“Maybe not a bad idea.” I nodded and let my sister help me lay down again on the field bed. 

“I saw that you were looking at your bracelet, Amicia. Do you know what happened to it?” Hilda asked. 

“Hey, back off a little, will you?” Lise shoved herself in between Hilda and I like a mother bear protecting her cub. “Couldn’t you see she’s in pain?” Her tone wasn’t necessarily aggressive. My sister and Hilda got along plenty fine, but she was maybe being a bit overprotective right now. 

“It’s fine, Sis.” I replied. “I can still talk.” 

My sister turned around and puffed her cheeks a little. “Maybe you should also give your voice a rest for a while. You just came back from the dead.” 

Nikki supported her girlfriend in the matter. “We can talk about this later when you and Sam have recovered a bit more, okay?” Nikki looked at Hilda. “She’s not going to run away.” 

“I know that…” Hilda nodded. She had toned down her voice and then nodded at the group. “But we will talk about this later, agreed. Sorry for getting ahead of myself.” 

“As I said, it’s fine. But resting for now might be a better idea…” At least that’s what I hoped. 

The group gently cared for Sam and I while both of us rested. Of course I was recuperating a lot faster than my girlfriend was, not illogical as I kinda had divine skills running around my body. But at least my presence was also helping Sam to get back to her two feet. 

When I deemed myself rested enough, some two hours later, I sat upright on the field bed. The sun was starting to get pretty low by now which signalled that we would also need to return to Earth soon. Which also meant that if I wanted some answer to questions, now would probably be the easiest time to ask them. For starters I decided to reply to Hilda’s question from earlier, looking at the bracelet around my wrist. Gamma was quick to run to me to help me analyse it too. 

“Are you feeling pain now, Amicia?” Hilda asked as Gamma hung around my wrist. 

I shook my head. “If you mean the headache from earlier? No, thankfully.” and then stared back at the cracks in my bracelet. The purple glow distinctly reminded me of the miasma and its creatures we had been fighting lately, but I couldn’t really tell what it was doing, nor when the bracelet turned that way. 

“It could have been caused while you were fighting. You took quite a lot of heavy hits.” Gamma’s eyeball was almost glued to to the bracelet. “Maybe it got infused by the miasma after it cracked.” 

“Could be.” I shrugged. “The only thing I felt cracking during the fight were my bones.” 

Gamma paused, looked up, staring directly into my eyes. “That… sounds pretty horrible, but also quite badass.” 

“Mostly horrible, please don’t go bragging about that, sis.” 

“Says the person who is still bragging about getting impaled by a tree after getting exploded.” Nikki rolled her eyes. 

“That’s very different.” My sister frowned. 

“I don’t see how it is. But anyway, please continue.” Nikki beckoned us to continue our analysis. 

“Do you think it could have been caused by using the blue crystal?” Sid proposed. 

“That’s also an option.” Gamma nodded. “That thing required a lot of energy to use. It might have pulled from the artifact to do so.” 

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “It felt like it was mainly draining from me, and I have a pretty good feeling for that now.” 

“Hmmm.” Gamma held her hands above the bracelet and closed her eyes. “I don’t really sense any of that sinister energy coming out of it, like from the material of the bolt. I can possibly tell you a bit more if I get my equipment but I can’t do that here, besides, I also need to recalibrate it after I used it last…”

Veanya rolled her eyes and crossed her arms while staring at the purple tornado, but Gamma shrugged. 

“I was busy preparing for this outing and making that necklace. Just didn’t have any time.”

“So, to summarize, we don’t know why it’s cracked and we also don’t know why it’s also partly purple now?” Hilda asked. 

“Pretty much.” Gamma agreed. “But, as I don’t feel the slightest hint of bad energy, I’d rate the chances of danger to Amicia’s health to be rather low.” Already anticipating on my sister’s answer she continued. “But… I will recalibrate my equipment as soon as I get home so we can more thoroughly test it. Could take a day or two though.” 

“Okay. Thanks, Gamma.” I smiled.   

“No problem.” 

“Speaking about the crystal…” Sam asked, righting herself just a little to ask the question to the group. “Where is that thing? It looks like you all don’t have it.” 

“It’s still on the other side of the portal.” Hilda replied to me. 

“Being guarded by our court mages.” In a whirl a familiar looking mage appeared in front of me, putting herself in between me and the rest of my group. “Interesting, the rumors were true. So even gods can die.” She smirked. 

“Who in the actual fuck?” My sister immediately arms herself with her sword but Carol and Max in their stead jump in front of my sister so she doesn’t do anything rash. 

“That’s Cynthia Blackrose.” Carol replied. 

“Cynthia who? Why do I give a shit?” 

“She’s the court magician for the empire.” Max added. 

“Mage of the Court, but yes.” Cynthia smirked. “I’m surprised that no one of you detected my presence. It was just a simple invisibility spell I was holding onto. Shouldn’t be too hard for anyone to notice. Especially not the mages.” The ‘Mage of the Court’ looked around at the magic users in the party. “But then again, you had other things on your mind.” She then looked back at me. “I suppose we should thank you for bringing a halt to the invasion.” 

My sister sheeted her sword once more. “You should be incredibly grateful. They risked their lives for your people.” 

“We are.” She nonchalantly replied, not breaking her eyes away from me as she shrugged. “Without you many would have died. And there’s still of damage to fix and lives to save as a result of the invasion’s actions.” 

“Then why are you here?” Nikki replied. “If you are such an important mage. Couldn’t your help be more useful anywhere else?” 

“Hmmph.” She grinned. “All in due course. But right now I’m looking into a weapon which destroyed an entire army of seemingly unstoppable creatures while using another weapon in the form of a crystal found on a seemingly foreign world. Which, you will probably agree, is rather concerning on its own and well worth looking into by one of the close advisors of Her Royal Majesty.” She proceeded to stare at me in silence for a couple of seconds before she straightened her back and just smiled friendly at me before turning back around. “A weapon which has also captured one of our nobles, albeit in our own army camp, by the way.” 

-Ah right, that guy…- 

“We were going to bring him to the court, we just didn’t have the time yet…” I replied. 

Cynthia shrugged once more. “I know. You adventurers do have your own time schedule, it’s just a pointer that the Empress would still very much like an audience with you. It’s not like I can force you to come with me. That would not be a good idea.” She looked at my friends and family, in particular to my sister who was staring daggers at her. “Just tell one of the guards you are present when you arrive in the capital next time. While we don’t expect you within the next week or two, please don’t let us wait longer than a month for your arrival.” She stated. “What our noble friend is concerned. Don’t worry about him anymore. We will whisk him away with us once we pass through the settlement again. Have a nice evening.” She waved and just like that she had disappeared again. Though this time, as I was paying attention, I could notice her presence leaving our little encampment.” 

“So random, what a tornado visit.” Gamma pouted, crossing her arms. “I was just about starting to like her.” 

I chuckled and with me some of the others present. -Gamma, why am I not surprised you do?-