Radiance - The Alight Archives Book #1

25. An Escape

Another corner and Elaine exhaled a puff past her lips. Yes, this was the right decision. She was more than certain of it. However, that little confirmation encouraging her forward in leaps and exhaustion couldn't quell the thundering of her heart against her chest. Dueling a homunculus was one thing; could she really take on a fully grown deathstalker? And by herself?

Custas had bailed her out earlier. Had he not come along, well, Elaine couldn't necessarily guarantee that she'd be able to best the beast by her lonesome. Although, unlike last time, she possessed a single piece of information that would be crucial to her success: Deathstalkers were easily distracted by light.

In all honesty, that should have been a relatively simple summation to deduce. Most insects in the country—carriage-sized or otherwise—were attracted to any source of light, especially during the night. 

As a little girl, Elaine remembered that she and Liam would be weirdly transfixed by how all manner of winged insects would fly out of the canopy of a nearby forest. Those that weren't immediately picked off by nocturnal birds or toads hiding in the underbrush, well, they had an almost innate desire to congregate around the lantern Father fixed on their front porch.

They'd do so willingly, risking their own well-being in venturing out of the safety of their jungle havens to occupy an alien space protected from the infectious darkness by an astral flame. Surely there was bravery in pursuing the unknown. Hopefully, in Elaine's case, her fate would be much more triumphant than the insects she had watched fly directly into the lantern, blacken from a purplish singe, and then drop to the ground as charred specs.

But Elaine could use Light Magic. She'd practiced with it more times than she cared to count and should worse come to worst, at the very least, she had access to one incredibly powerful spell. Her arsenal might not have been inherently huge, even so, she could assuredly use it to defend herself, couldn't she? 

She had questions pertaining to her natural ability to cast it, a whole novel's worth, in fact. At the moment though, she'd banish them into the darkness of her mind, and count on the light Aeris had blessed her with.

A scream.

Another of Fearne's screams.

Elaine leaned forward into an accelerated sprint, blitzing around the corner ahead without so much as thinking, her boots skidding over chiseled earth as she came to a stop. Violet eyes, they focused on the girl who had fallen on the floor. All six of them. Elaine instantly recognized her friend scurrying away as the clicking titan drew nearer, a claw raised above its head.

"No! Get away!" Fearne screamed, throwing a handful of dust at it.

She didn't look like she was injured in any way. Then why hadn't she fled? Most importantly, where was her wand, and why wasn't she casting a spell? The deathstalker fidgeted its mouth filled with mandibles, sinewy slobber dripping out as strands.

"Fearne!" Elaine shouted.

The girl looked over her shoulder, and the fear-induced expression she was wearing—her eyes red with tears and teeth clenched inside her mouth—was numbed as their gazes met one another. "Elaine!" she exclaimed happily. But Fearne then glanced back at the approaching deathstalker, a hand raised in front of her. "No! Elaine, get out of here! It's dangerous!"

"I don't think so!" Elaine loudly refused, retrieving her commoner's wand out of its holster. "What kind of friend would I be if I abandoned you here like this? Not a very good one, I'd say."

"B...But the test..."

"Your safety is more important to me than some dumb test," Elaine grunted.

"It's not my safety I'm worried about!"