Their attention was brought back to the two young women who were facing the direwolves. A howl pierced through the woods as another direwolf was struck by Iris's arrow. The direwolf collapsed on the ground and made a whining sound as blood seeped from its injured eye.
Iris hoped that it would be dead soon, but she was now out of arrows and the only thing she had to protect herself was the sole dagger she usually kept in the hidden right leg pocket of her pants.
She felt the tightness in her chest as she heaved a deep breath, aware that she was almost at her limit now.
They had been trying to fend off the direwolves as soon as the pack pounced on Luca. Amelia was able to chase away the wolf that had bitten his leg, but she couldn't stop another direwolf from slashing Luca on his back with its sharp claws.
While Iris was able to stop his bleeding, Luca had fallen unconscious due to shock. Amelia had brought her enough time to heal Luca's wounds and clean the blood off of him by ripping the edges of his clothes that were stained by his blood.
Iris didn't waste time to clean him and discarded the scent of fresh blood from her friend. Anytime now, it could lure other predators once they caught the scent.
At the same time, Amelia was doing a good job in keeping the other direwolves away from Luca, who sustained the injury earlier. She wasn't doing any better than Iris and was starting to lose her strength to keep fending off the direwolves. If they had known that there were darklings waiting for them in the woods, none of them would have come out today to hunt.
Iris pulled out her hidden dagger and dragged her right foot backwards and bent her knees, putting herself in a defensive stance.
'What do we do?' She wondered, knowing that neither she nor Amelia could take on all the direwolves in their current state. It was only a matter of time before both of them would be defenseless against the remaining direwolves.
They came here to hunt for food, but they suddenly found themselves being hunted by the direwolves instead. Would this be the end for them?
Iris refused to accept that she would die here along with Amelia and Luca. It wouldn't have bothered her if she was the only one, but Luca had yet to start a new life with her younger sister, while Amelia still wanted to pursue her dreams of restoring the honor of the Buchanan family by becoming a knight. It would really be a real pity if these two died with her today.
The remaining direwolves drew closer, encircling around them, making sure none of them would be able to escape. Iris was starting to struggle to keep herself straight, but her eyes never left the direwolves in front of her. They were growling at them, baring their sharp fangs that undoubtedly could easily tear their human flesh.
They were not too far from Calaren Town, but even so, Iris didn't think that the direwolves would let them off easily. Calaren town was a small territory of Dravial. Iron fences were placed around its borders in an attempt to keep the darklings away. Most people knew that they could rely on the treaty they made with the Court of Shadow to keep them safe.
However, now that more darklings' appearances were recorded near Calaren Town, some were starting to wonder if the Court of Shadows had slowly lost its control in Asnar. A millennium was a long time after all and many things could happen and change.
One second passed. Another one followed and no one made a move, until one of the direwolves moved and jumped towards Amelia.
"Amelia!"
Iris was immediately distracted by it and lost her focus on the direwolves waiting for the chance to pounce on her. She suddenly found herself pushed onto the snow covered ground, with her dagger barely keeping the sharp teeth of the direwolf from biting her throat. Its whole body was hovering on its own and then she felt another set of fangs piercing her left leg, making her scream in pain.
'No! No! No!' Iris refused to perish like this.
Suddenly the world went white, and her scream resounded within the woods. Iris felt dizzy and breathless as energy sizzled and cracked across her body. An inexplicable amount of mana rushed through her and burst around her, creating a force that threw off the direwolves from herself and Amelia, who had just fallen on one knee, holding onto her sword for support.
The four demons were quick to back away to avoid the great flash of magical force that emitted from her body, their eyes widened in surprise witnessing the scene in front of them. The ground shook, the wind howled and from a distance, the icy lake started to crack. The gray clouds above them slowly dissipated along with the bright light from Iris's body.
Once the bright light vanished, everyone was left astonished by what they'd seen. The once snow covered ground was now a lush carpet of moss and grass. The trees regained their vitality as their leaves grew in the blink of an eye. The moon shone brightly above the sky for the first time in ages.
Yuri Alistair then turned to look at his lord in disbelief, seeing that his shadows were still thick and lingering on his body, yet it had no effect on the tree he was perched on.
What kind of anomaly was this? He wondered as his eyes returned to the human who just let out a magic that dispelled the effects of Randal's weather spell along the border of Asnar and Dravial.
Her magic was unstable, threatening to burst once again, but Lord Kieran lifted his hand and cast a spell on her.
Burning pain. This was what Iris felt the moment the bright light vanished. She wasn't sure what was happening to her or where the pain was coming from. She was so occupied with her pain that she didn't notice a demon lord casting a spell on her - to help her.
A golden band appeared over her head and rested on it like a crown and the pain immediately started to diminish. However, it had already left her beyond exhausted. High level darklings like Lord Kieran and his three companions could see it, but it was invisible to the naked eye of a human.
"Melina." Lord Kieran murmured, but was loud enough for his companions to hear. His blue eyes lit up as a small part of his magic embedded itself on Iris's body. He could feel the bond strengthening between them.
Through this bond, the demon lord would know whether this human had perished or was in danger. She was the only person Lord Kieran had bestowed a geas on throughout his long life.
Iris's whole body trembled in reaction. Her magic attempted to repel the magic limiter, but with the geas being established between them, Iris had unknowingly allowed herself to become associated with the demon lord she just saved the other day.
The three men looked at their lord with astonishment and disbelief, knowing what Lord Kieran had just done. None of them expected that their lord would do something like this, especially not for a mere human.
"Milord, why did you name that magus?" Aiden asked Lord Kieran with a conflicted look on his face. Everyone in the Court of Nightfall knew that their lord had a great aversion towards humans and maguses. It was one thing to bestow her with a geas, but a name?
The demon lord had not only bestowed the human magus a magic limiter, but he had also placed a geas on her. A geas of protection from enchantments of any kind of magic or glamor. Moreover, being granted a new name by a high-ranking darkling like Lord Kieran meant that he was declaring the human to be under his protection.
The Lord of the Court of Nightfall had never done this before. Not on another darkling. Never on a human. So, how was this young woman able to gain their lord's recognition? This had never happened before.
Something must have happened while the three of them weren't around. Aiden thought. They knew that their lord had fought with the vampire lord and had sustained an injury.
Still, they found it hard to believe that the Undead Lord would bestow protection on a human. This meant that no darklings could subject her under mind control or deception and they would be forced to recognize her as part of Lord Kieran's Court of Nightfall.
Breaking a geas was impossible. It could only be removed by the caster itself. For some, being given a geas meant obligation or a vow they couldn't break. Geasa could potentially harm them if violated, or bless them if obeyed.
"We are even now, young lady. Whether you live or not after this, it doesn't concern me anymore." Lord Kieran said before he turned and leapt from the tree branch he was perched on earlier, leaving his three vassals once again.
He didn't bother to explain his actions to them or the reason he helped the human magus to control her raging magic that was threatening to kill her. From now on, Lord Kieran didn't need to think that he owed her something.
"My liege! We have to return to court. The selection is fast approaching and the other demon lords are demanding your participation." Callum said as he leapt to the ground and followed his master.
Aiden gave the human one last look before following Callum, while Yuri stayed, his eyes never leaving Amelia's bloody form. She was now crawling over to check on Iris who was frozen in shock.
In Yuri's eyes, Amelia looked like a kitten fighting for her own life, even though she knew that she was no match to a darkling. Direwolves weren't the strongest darklings in Asnar, but if they moved together as a pack, it would prove to be challenging to defeat them without proper knowledge and weapons.
"Yuri?"
Yuri only moved from his place when Aiden called his attention. He gave Amelia a quick glance before deciding to leave. He had never seen a human that had fought tooth and nail to protect both herself and her friends from the direwolves.
Lord Kieran proceeded to trace his way back to the mountain range that separated Dravial from Asnar. With the snow now disappearing from the ground, his pace was smoother and easier now. Not that snow could slow him down, but he would rather not have anything on his foot as it crunched the ground with his weight.
He hadn't walked too far when he caught something glittering behind a thick bush next to a large tree. He elegantly bent down and picked it up, discovering that it was an obsidian crystal embedded in a golden ring.
Lord Kieran then briefly remembered what the human said during their first encounter. Didn't she say that she came to the woods to find something?
"I came here to find my ring that I lost yesterday." She told him then.
"So it's a magic limiter, huh. No wonder she was able to live with the rest of the humans this long."
The demon lord surmised that she wasn't even aware of how dangerous her magic was. If it wasn't for this limiter, that scrawny little human would have long been dead. She didn't even know how dangerous she could be to those around her.
That scrawny human wouldn't last long without a magic limiter. It was either she would be killed by her own magic, or by the people of the Kingdom of Dravial. Without the limiter, there was no way the human would be able to survive in Dravial, not when their leaders had been persecuting her kind harshly.
Author's Note:
Geas. noun. geas plural noun.geasa.
an obligation or prohibition magically imposed on a person.
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