1
Luna lay back on her mattress, her legs crossed over the other, holding one of the books she’d stolen from the Grand Library of the Evermore Realm above her, idly flipping through the pages.
Beside the mattress, there was a stack of more books she’d stolen from the ancient library that she needed to get to as soon as possible. It hadn’t been easy, stealing the books from the guarded library, so she grabbed as many books as she could before dipping as soon as the knights from the Starlight Kingdom stormed in.
Right now, she was reading a book of ancient, outlawed spells that had once plagued sorcery thousands of years ago. She carefully memorized each spell she came across. She never knew when a spell like this could come in handy.
She frowned when the uneasy feeling of something watching her crept over her like a spider climbing its web. She smoothed her expression, trying to act as though she suspected nothing.
Without moving her head, she looked around the cave but didn’t see anything. Whoever was here must’ve been using some invisibility magic.
She suddenly leaped from her mattress and landed on her feet and cast a bright, magical burst of light meant to burn through any invisibility barriers, a spell she’d recently learned.
In the corner, a small, dark, skeletal creature was crouched in a fetal position. It was made of bone with dark patches of soot marring it, small yellow orbs in the eye sockets where its eyes should’ve been. It let out an ear-piercing shriek and covered its eye sockets.
“What the hell are you?” she shouted at it. It glared at her and gave her a deadly hiss before disappearing into smoke that wafted away.
She stared at the corner where it’d been, bewildered. The uneasy feeling she’d felt come over her multiplied, and she knew something was off. She racked her mind on where she’d seen that creature before, and it took her a moment to realize what it was.
A sleep demon, or an Alp or a Mare, as humans in whatever culture they belonged to would call them.
She frowned, her forehead creasing as she tried to uncover what was going on here. She’d encountered sleep demons before, but only when she was asleep. If she saw one here, then that meant -
All the memories of the recent events came rushing back to her in a tidal wave, and a gasp escaped her lips.
She was in a coma.
She let out a scream of frustration and flipped her mattress over and put her fist through the cave wall, ignoring the pain radiating through her arm since it wouldn’t affect her physical form.
Damn it all! She growled in frustration and started pacing back and forth, roughly running her hands through her hair.
She’d brought Christian Erikson back to life and had traded one of her lives for him to return. Whenever one of her lives ended, and she wanted to come back, it would take a long time for her body to gather all of her strength and for her powers to come back full force, so her body would be in a coma for the foreseeable future.
She had never bargained her life for someone else’s before, so she had no idea how long it would take for her to wake up. She couldn’t afford this. She couldn’t afford to be asleep when the fate of all the worlds in existence was on the line.
She didn’t regret bringing Christian back to life. He was a vital part of the prophecy, but she wished the recovery wasn’t so long and tedious. The turd had better be grateful for what she did or else she’d stick her foot so far up his -
“Luna.”
Luna stopped short and spun around, and saw Mystic standing by the cave entrance.
“Mystic, what’s happening out there? How’re the others?”
“The others are fine. I brought them back to your cave for now. I had to go back to my realm. My powers need to regenerate, and my herd needs me. I don’t know when I’ll be able to return to help, but I will do so as soon as possible. In the meantime, the others will watch over you. I trust them enough to protect while you recover.”
Luna crossed over to her friend before she could stop herself and wrapped her arms around her neck in an embrace, allowing her emotions to get the best of her in a rare moment where she let her guard down.
“Thank you for everything, Mystic. We might not have made it without you.”
Mystic lowered her head on her shoulder, returning the embrace. “It was an honor to fight among you, my friend. Recover swiftly.”
Mystic stepped back and disappeared into the mist that swirled outside the cave, returning to her world.
