The Heroine of Irlesoph (FIRST DRAFT)

Part One

I was in the courtyard alone, still attempting to control the electricity in my body.

I couldn't manipulate it. I could shoot it, but where it hit was shaky at best, and anything beyond a single bolt from my hand was seemingly impossible. Delzri had told me that I was able to manipulate Affinity's power outside of myself as well, I just needed to learn how. Well, I wasn't learning.

It seemed like everybody was just waiting on me. Samoo just needed help knowing when to fight things. Delzri just needed to know when to use his magic, and Zinkah needed to learn how to summon her weapons. Of the three, Zinkah certainly had it the hardest, but she's already learned how to do it. Yesterday I saw her manifest a trebuchet. In the middle of town. It was kind of scary.

But I was still trying to get this right. This one simple thing right. Maybe if I was more like the others I would've gotten it already.

Samoo pulled me up to my feet. The sudden change in orientation jolted me awake, and I nearly toppled over. I quickly saw that Delzri had fallen out of his bubble, and was awake now. He was beckoning me—us—he was telling us to follow him. He was going to run out of the Enmity core.

"The spell won't work in here! We're too close!" He shouted over the obnoxious buzz of the electricity all around. The lightning storm omnipresent inside the Enmity's core had become more severe. It was louder, and the epicenter was brighter. It was like a bright white, outlined by red on all sides of the dome.

I grabbed Zinkah's hand and followed Samoo and Delzri out of the core. When we broke through the opaque barrier, I emerged on the other side. There were no bodies of leviathans piled on top of one another. It made me question when exactly I had been pulled into the dream.

The sound of the core next to us was nearly deafening, the brightness was blinding, but we needed to be as close as we could get. Delzri tried to explain something to us, but it was incredibly difficult to make out what he was saying.

"The spell... time... protect...!"

"PROTECT HIM!" Zinkah relayed it to me. I nodded to her, but shrugged.

"FROM WHAT?" I asked.

Zinkah looked at me like I was stupid. I remembered where we were. It didn't take long at all for them to show their ugly faces.

They were massive. They had a single blue eye, maybe the size of a small hill, and its bioluminescent light traced our paths like tractor beams to suck us in. These adult leviathans had no legs and they floated above the ground. Compared to their body it didn't seem like they were too far off, but compared to us it was like buildings of distance between us.

"YOU CAN'T REACH THEM!" I shouted to Zinkah. She told Delzri to let us float. He paused the spell and wrote into a page, and tore it out. It was cast and we were no longer anchored to the ground, and we could swim as if we were under water. He cast another spell, and now it was less swimming and more like flying in the air.

I could sense it. I could sense the power resonating from inside them—it was strong. Enmity. I could control it, I just needed to figure out how.

Zinkah and Samoo began to lift from the ground, and Delzri and I remained planted. All we needed to do was keep them at bay, and away from Delzri.

Zinkah was channeling her abilities. Samoo lead the charge with her ball and chain, whipping it at the leviathan which got the nearest to us. Zinkah had summoned a cannon. I couldn't hear it fire over the orchestra of busy noise all around us, but I heard the low grumble that the leviathan let out. It shook the sand beneath our feet, and vibrated the water around us.