“Okay, this is just creepy.” Jasper stared at the severed hand floating above the enchanted platform with horrified fascination. Logically, he knew the hand must have sealed away for centuries, if not millennia, but somehow it looked as if it had been freshly severed. Large beads of blood were even gathered on its shorn edges, perpetually ready to fall yet never succumbing to gravity’s grasp.

  An assortment of other oddities floated beside the hand: a long, curled horn whose reddish hue matched no creature he was familiar with; a triad of glowing crystals covered in more glyphs; an inchoate green cloud he at first mistook for gas, but upon closer inspection he realized was actually a finely-ground powder.

  The memories he’d gleaned from his trip back into Qaspu?l’s mind allowed him to make sense of the items - or at least most of them. The powder was undoubtedly some sort of poison, fitting for a goddess named the “Lady of Poisons,” while the gems were a tribute to the way the Fey most often used the poison, as a method of crafting their many enchanted devices.

  Jasper was less certain about the curled horn - he hadn’t gained any memories from a Qaspu?l that allowed him to identify it - but he was willing to bet that the horn might be a representation of the warlike nature her spear and shield hinted at. The only thing he couldn’t identify the purpose of, though, was the hand. Who was it? And why would such an eminent master be here?

  Jasper closed his eyes as he meditated on the wisdom the hand offered him, his mind reeling with the many mysteries that it could unveil. He counted himself lucky to be in its presence and began to float toward the platform, pondering what gift he could possibly offer such a benevolent and generous lord.

  “Snap out of it.” The audible crack of Ihra’s hand against his cheek, followed by the burning sensation that quickly spread through his face, brought him out of it.

  “What-what happened?” Even as he stuttered the question, he realized what had happened. Despite the Fey charm he’d picked up in Birnah, the damn hand had clouded his mind.

  “You too, Tsia,” Ihra called out beside him, and the mage wobbled in the air as Ihra’s palm collided with her cheek.

  “Ow! Unhand me, you brute!”

  Jasper frowned, upset that his friends would fight before such an august presence. It was embarrassing. He turned to apologize to the hand but hesitated as an icy cold tingled around his neck. What’s that? His hand flew up, and he began to take the offending item to throw it away but as the cold spread through his hand, his mind began to clear. Damn it - it enchanted me again!

  Holding tightly to the charm he averted his gaze from the hand, looking over at his friends in time to see a spark of lightning leap from Tsia’s hand and shock Ihra. “Such behavior cannot be tolerated,” the girl thundered in a voice quite unlike herself.

  Ihra froze as the lightning coiled around her and even her spectral wings ceased beating as she plummeted toward the bottom of the pit.. Unconcerned by what she had done, Tsia turned her gaze back to the glorious hand and serenely floated toward the ward.

  For a split second, Jasper hesitated as his eyes flitted between the falling form of Ihra and the enchanted Tsia. Then, his wrist flicked up and he cast Shooting Stars at Tsia before diving after Ihra.

  He was almost too late. They were near the bottom of the pit by now and the broken crystalline floor was only a dozen feet away when he finally reached her. Unable to stop her momentum, he wrapped his arms around her still paralyzed body, and twisted over just in time to hit the floor back-first.

  Sticky blood dripped down his back as a dozen small shards stabbed into him, and he felt a few of his ribs give way before the force of the blow, but the wings absorbed the brunt of it. With a grunt of pain, he rolled over, and dropping Ihra on the ground, turned his eyes back toward Tsia.

  Shooting Stars hadn’t done the trick. Though fire and smoke billowed from the sleeves of her robe, she seemed unaware of the flames as she continued to float toward the ritual platform. It was only thanks to her slow pace that she hadn’t reached the shimmering ward, but she was only three feet away, and Jasper had a feeling he didn’t want to know what would happen if she made it.

  His cracked ribs punctured his lungs as Jasper shot upward, blinding bursts of pain that stole his breath away. Black spots swam across his vision as he strained the wings, and he held tightly to the Fey charm as he reached her, focusing on the icy chill that spread down his spine.

  The air gushed out of her lungs as he caught her around the waist and spun her away from the floating disk, but Tsia was not so easily thwarted.

  Jasper nearly lost his grip on her as a sudden wind buffeted him, the full fury of a hurricane in the space of just a few feet. His wings beat furiously as they surged toward the disk, but they couldn’t compete against her might. He cast his spell as the shimmering ward neared. Seraph’s Burst.

  The spell punched through the winds she’d summoned, and he angled downwards, hoping she’d snap out of it when they crashed into the floor. But Tsia wasn’t done yet. As they spiraled towards the ground, lightning wreathed his body. His muscles seized and his limbs convulsed, but not before he managed to press the icy amulet against her skin.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  This time, no one broke their fall. More ribs snapped as he landed on the shattered floor, and he was helpless as a pair of hands wrapped around his throat. Tsia’s eyes were blank as she choked him, and his vision dimmed. Then a rock hit the side of Tsia’s head and she toppled over.

  Ihra was limping as she stepped over Jasper and held the stunned mage down. “Use…amulet,” he rasped out. His hand refused to obey his command as he tried to hold it out to her, but Ihra understood his message. Leaving the amulet around his neck, she grabbed another out of her back and bound it around Tsia’s neck before retrieving a potion from her bag.

  “Here.”

  Jasper coughed up mouthfuls of blood as the sickly-sweet liquid trickled down his throat, but the paralysis afflicting his limbs began to fade. He sat up weakly, grunting in pain as his partially-healed ribs protested the movement, and cast Circle of Forgiveness before turning to face the others.

  Ihra sat on top of Tsia, her knee digging into the girl’s head as she held the amulet in place.

  “Is she still unconscious?”

  “Seems so,” Ihra shrugged. “Let me know before you heal her; I want to prep Still Pond, just in case…”

  It took another cast of Circle of Forgiveness before he began to feel human again, and as the pain wracking his body receded he could feel the insidious lure of the hand reach out to him. He focused on the bitter cold emanating from the amulet and nodded at Ihra. “Ready.”

  She grunted in pain as she activated her ability, and when she had pinned Tsia’s arms down, he cast the spell.

  He held his breath as Tsia stirred, readying a cast of Shooting Stars in case the mania still gripped her, but when her eyes fluttered open, there was only pain and confusion. “What-”

  She didn’t finish the word as her eyes locked on the disk floating above them, though the severed hand was, thankfully, hidden from sight. “Uh…sorry?” she said, offering Ihra a sheepish smile.

  Ihra rolled her eyes. “Going to need a better apology than that, but we can discuss the details later.” She lifted her knee off Tsia’s head and offered her a hand up. “Any idea what happened up there?”

  “Some sort of mind magic,” Jasper replied. “Either insidious enough or powerful enough that it slipped through our charms. Though,” he cocked his head to the side and stared at Ihra as something occurred to him. “Why didn’t it affect you? Did you really feel nothing?”

  Ihra lifted her shoulder in a half-shrug. “I don’t know. Everything seemed fine until you two zoned out and stopped talking to me. You were pretty easy to deal with; she was not,” she said, frowning at Tsia who looked away guiltily.

  So it affected us differently - but why? The only difference between that came to mind was their ability to use magic. Ihra hadn't felt the pressure, he'd succumbed briefly but been able to fight it off relatively easily, and the strongest mage among them had struggled the most. That's a hell of a trap. “Well, I guess it doesn't matter," he said after a pause. "Now that we know about the trap, I think we can resist - or at least I was able to by focusing on the amulet. What about you,” he asked Tsia.

  “I’ll manage,” she replied tersely.

  He suspected she was downplaying the task's difficulty but, if anyone could pull it off, it was her. “Of course, we still need to figure out how to disable this thing,” he continued.

  “Are you still sure we should?”

  “Hell no,” he shot back, “but what are our options? You didn’t see her back in the temple, Ihra, but this goddess seemed like the real deal. I mean, maybe she’s actually some evil monster masquerading as a deity, but I doubt it. And even if she is,” Jasper shrugged helplessly, “How do we fight her? She can just freeze us all in place until we do what she wants, or straight up send us back in time - how are we supposed to fight that?”

  She was silent for a moment, and then her shoulders slumped. “We don’t.”

  “So, any ideas,” he asked, returning to the question.

  Tsia clutched the amulet bound around her throat as tight as a plushie as she studied the floating disk above them. “Do you see those?” She pointed to a handful of glyphs in a spiral-shaped pattern along the bottom. “I never paid close attention when mom tried to teach me glyphs, but I think those are the anchors.”

  “What does that mean? Do they stabilize the formation?” Jasper guessed.

  “Sort of,” she agreed. “Unlike other glyphs, anchors don't have any meaning, but they're essential for the script to function. They act as focal points for the energy, and there has to be a minimal number of them for the glyphs to work. I think the glyphs that are actually powering the ritual are behind the wards, but the ones on the bottom of the disk seem accessible. If we can destroy the anchors there, it's got to do something.”

  “And by something, do you mean ‘blowing the whole thing up’?” Ihra cut in.

  “I don’t know,” Tsia admitted. “Maybe, they'll explode, maybe the platform will crash, maybe it will just deactivate the ward - I don't know enough to say, but it's better than doing nothing.”

  Ihra started to speak but Jasper talked over her, raising his hand for silence. “Wait -do you hear that?” He craned his head back, searching the darkness of the cavern above for the source of the sound. He could see very little, save for the flickering blue light of the enchanted orbs that danced across the torso of the fallen idol, but as he concentrated he heard the sound of metal against metal, and the shout of human voices. “Damn it - they’re here.”

  He sprang to his feet and pressed his hands against Ihra’s shoulder as he recharged Spectral Wings. “Ihra and I will try your plan,” he said. "You go help them."

  “Not happening,” the princess shot him down. “We still don't know what will happen when we deactivate the ritual."

  "Yes, but..." Jasper started to argue, but to his surprise, Ihra took Tsia's side.

  "She's right, Jasper. You should have more faith in those three - they can take care of themselves.”

  "Fine," he gave in. "But I hope you're right."