Once everyone had agreed to the plan, Kartiel cast the illusion spell. Maahes and Codix flanked his side as they approached the wraith dart Kartiel had been eying; without him saying anything, the two of them had decided to switch their forms to lower ranking wraith. They had to keep their pace slow. The illusion spell Kartiel was casting was complicated, and he had to keep his focus if he wanted Aegeas, Raiden, Bo and Nadira to all stay covered.
They got about a foot away from the dart when a wraith bumped into Kartiel.
The illusion of nothingness broke for a few seconds, but that was all the time that was needed. A group of wraiths that had just come back from whatever planet they had just culled saw the group of prisoners and made a beeline for them. They had no way of knowing that the three wraiths beside them were on in the escape - and were responsible for the illusion in the first place - but Kartiel wasn’t able to use that to their advantage.
Because Codix, frustratingly unsurprisingly, went to protect Nadira the moment the wraith started coming towards them.
Maahes lingered beside Kartiel for a moment before fire and air burst to life at his fingertips. Kartiel knew he could try to fight the wraith, and could probably win against this first group. But then more would come, and more after that, and no matter how hard they tried to win, they would be another wave.
Memories flickered through his head.
--The room was chaos. Empty test tubes spilled their contents all over the floor. Everyone was coughing, and kneeling over, and he was pretty sure some of them were about to curl up in the fetal position. The experiment was supposed to make them stronger, not kill them! And no amount of magic could ever save them--
--He stood in the cavern, whispering the words to a spell that brought back their final moments. He couldn’t make it through more than the first few moments. If he had just been there - if he had just cast the right spell at the right time - he wouldn’t be standing in the forgotten grave of the first friends he had in a long time--
Kartiel didn’t know how he was going to convince Sirun that this was for the best, but he didn’t really care at that point. He was sick and tired of losing the people he cared about, and he was not going to have a repeat of what had happened in the forest. It was a miracle they had survived the mess Boris and him had created; he’d make things right now.
He closed his eyes and concentrated.
Without any warning, the group - save for Maahes, who had never asked to be a part of this - collapsed to the ground. When Maahes heard the crashing, he spun around with his magic ready to go.
“What did you do?” he asked, frantically looking over at Kartiel as the first wraith tried to grab him. Maahes sent the wraith flying back towards the rest of the wraiths with a strong gust of wind; they were all momentarily knocked to the ground.
“I sent them back to their homes,” Kartiel said. “I didn’t want my test subjects to die.”
Maahes gave him a look. For a moment, Kartiel was sure he had been seen through - there was something about the way that Maahes looked at him that made Kartiel wonder if, somehow, Maahes had been through a moment just like this.
“Are you sending me to my reality, too?” Maahes asked.
“You’re one of my subjects,” he said.
Maahes gave a tiny smile. “I had my suspicions.”
Kartiel didn’t get a chance to find out what those suspicions were - when he saw the wraith were starting to get up again, he muttered the words to a spell that would send Maahes home. A few moments later, he was heading towards the wraith dart.
Once he got inside and left the hive, Kartiel wasn’t sure if he wanted to smile or cry more.
This time, he had been able to save his friends.
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