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Isella

She could feel herself blushing. Stupid thing to do. Lorcan’s quick eye glanced her up and down. He saw, and didn’t care. He treated it as something normal. Of course. He’s handsome enough he’s used to ladies blushing when he talks to them.

She cursed herself and blushed deeper with embarrassment, then tried to force the color out of her cheeks.The next instant she forgot about herself: a look had come across Lorcan’s face. A look like even talking with a young woman hurt him. In a flash the thought crossed her mind, There was someone.

Just as quickly she decided whoever it was was dead. The next instant she berated herself for jumping to conclusions. I don’t even know if that’s what his look meant.

But it did. she knew it, and like a sickening blow she realized that, whoever it was, she had felt her die. A sense of guilt, not unfamiliar to her, threatened to break her composure. She wanted to shout, “I didn’t do it!”–but everyone here would think she were crazy; nobody could understand. Only the Mirror could really know what she was feeling, and that had no mind or soul.

Lorcan was kneeling beside the man who had healed him, looking into his pain-twisted face with a look of cool wonder, asking him “Why?”.

the man tried to explain, but his words came in short gasps and it was evident they didn’t make sense to Lorcan. He stood up, shaking his head.

“For the same reason you saved me from the dragon.” she didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until everyone looked at her. Then she shrugged. She couldn’t un-say it, and it was true anyway.

All at once the green girl started to panic. Everyone looked at her. She was telling us, pleading with us to get away.

“Please help me get Abirami to safety. Please.”

Who’s Abira–oh.

She started tugging at the man on the floor. Instinctively, Isella dropped to her knees beside him and started to lift.Could a man be thrown across one’s shoulders as a wild boar or stag was? She thought so, but she was too small to lift a man of Abirami’s size, much less carry him.

Another girl glanced over at Lorcan. “A little help?”

Isella could see hesitation cross his face. a struggle between his pride and his sense of justice.The girl began to explode at the delay. Abirami was heavy, and he was sick, so he wasn’t giving us much help.

A thousand things flashed through her mind to say: If you don’t help, I’ll ask Daire to.

Would she want you to help?

And lastly just, please.

She didn’t say any of them, but watched him make up his own mind. At last he started forward and took the weight of Abirami’s left side from the girl who had asked. Daire started forward, intent on grabbing the same part of Abirami that Lorcan was carrying.

Oh, great. She saw Lorcan stiffen at the sight of Daire. Isella called his name and he diverted–unwillingly enough–to her.

“Daire, you’re the only one here with water,” she didn’t know if it was true, but it might have been. “You stick close to us and make sure nobody is thirsty.” she could imagine what that would look like: Lorcan would never be without the offer of a drink. She sighed. It was the best she could do.

They reached the stairs, but there Isella stumbled. Abirami was heavy, and he was hardly walking anymore. Diare was at her side, asking if she needed a drink. From behind them the green girl snapped something. A moment later the man in armor took the weight of Abirami’s arm off her shoulder and they started up the stairs again. They hadn’t gone far when Abirami fainted again. for one instant Isella echoed May’s hot remark earlier.

What does everyone have with fainting? In the stress of that minute it made Isella chuckle.

without a word, with barely even a look, Lorcan and the armored man agreed, and Abirami was lifted between them and carried up the stairs faster than Isella could walk.

With one last warning, the green girl sprinted after Abirami. In an instant she was out of sight. Isella turned to see who was on the stairs. The girl who had helped her [Enydd] and May, but there was someone with May. Someone who looked so much like her that the relationship was plain.

brother. Isella had barely thought the word when, as unexpected as it was impossible to control, memories of her own brother flashed through her mind. She froze on the stairs, like a statue. She and he hunting together; riding as fast as their horses could gallop across the green hills, or running, laughing, through the rain. Him, helping her with the lessons that seemed so wooden and long; his face, the last time she had seen it–suddenly the memories broke off, with a shout from someone.

Isella stirred and looked around. Looming behind the stairs was a purplish cloud, moving faster than any cloud Isella had seen driven before the strongest wind.

It was almost to the foot of the stairs, where May and her brother were running. They couldn’t run fast enough. She glanced up the staircase. Daire was just disappearing after Lorcan into the shadows. They would be too late.

She looked back at May and her brother. Suddenly, May fell, her foot caught by a loose stone on the steps, that rolled into the purple menace that rose behind them.

Her brother turned at her cry and hurried back. The purple cloud reached May’s foot, and as soon as it had touched it, it was obscured from sight.

They were out of time.

Time! For a moment Isella hesitated. Abirami had taken her weariness,or she could never have dreamed of manipulating time twice. But there was something no healer could remove, and that was the pulse that battered her veins every second of every day. the pulse that connected her with time. She was already mentally exhausted from the first manipulation. She would be twice that if she did it again, as well as physically tired. Having stopped time for others, she would have none to escape herself.

It flashed through her mind in an instant, and the next instant she was leaning forward,  concentrating.

she could feel the pull of Time. The pulse in her veins became more insistent, but she ignored it. Her fingertips began to glow; the power that ran through her veins, a power that her ancestors had lived and died with for generations began to work.

The pulsing became a throb. Light stood out from her hands, bouncing from finger to finger in her partially curled palms.

It was ready. She raised her hands just as the purple cloud reached May’s waist.

Time ground to a halt around them. The purple menace wavered and paused.

History, present, future–the whole weight of Time pressed against her, and she alone held it back. For an instant.

She sank to her knees on the steps; it couldn’t be much longer.

“Run.” The word boomed across the cave in the voice she used to call the hunting dogs, or to whistle Cirian across the acres of green hillside.

May and her brother staggered up, sick from the effects of the cloud. Isella prayed they could make it in time. [Enydd] hurried up to Isella as if she would put her hand on her shoulder. Isella didn’t know what disaster would happen if she did, so she risked a look. She met the girl’s big eyes. “Run!” she bit the word off.

May and [Halmar] were too slow. The cloud would overtake them as if they had never moved.

With one quick motion Isella took one hand from holding Time. The weight crashed against her left hand, threatening to buckle her elbow. Her right hand shot out, followed by a streak of white light, and hit them. She heard May gasp as Time took hold of them. Their stumbling steps soon passing even Lorcan and Abirami, farther up the stairs, as Time pursued them.

Her hands began to tremble, and near the roof the cloud began to move again. The trembling spread to her whole body, and turned to quaking. The throb was a hammering in her veins. She closed her eyes, wondering if she would feel the pulse of her own death.

At least I won’t feel May’s death and her brother’s. Because they wouldn’t happen. She would never again stand by and let a beloved brother be killed for the sake of secrecy when she could do something.

The pressure became unbearable. Her shaking hands shot away dragging her with them, onto her back on the stairs. The white light fizzled and went out, and Time reclaimed his seat, chafing at the delay.

As the purple cloud rushed over her, she could smell something acrid.

Nothing more.

@everyone whose characters I mentioned

Okay, so Idk how Isella escapes the effects of the cloud; if some of Ku’s bugs are immune and can help, or if her connection to Time does something…idk, but she’s not dead, just so you know.