My cards are drawn as if magnetized to a spot between the Seraph and I, level with his position but a fair distance to his right. They form a haphazard stuck-together pile rotating around in the air.
Before I have a chance to process what’s going on, a flash of red light blinds my left eye for less than a second. A sharp whistling sound starts low and rises in an instant to a fever pitch before dying on the wind as it sails past my ear, nicking its edge. I stagger as my hand reaches to my earlobe and closes around a burst of tiny downy feathers. I flood them with magic and feel them rot away to nothing in my grip, just to make sure the Seraph can’t have them.
I look behind to see what just sped past my face. Embedded in the pavent is one of the Seraph’s sculpted-light feathers, shedding its crimson glow. Seeing one of them up close, I notice the feather’s edges look thin and razor sharp. Its tip was keen enough to lodge it into concrete. There’s a sting like a paper cut where the Seraph’s feather just barely grazed my ear. It could have jabbed my eye out instead.
The feather bursts into sparks which blink away without a sound, and I turn back to face its origin. The Seraph looms with his hand outstretched towards once again. Rather than an open palm, it’s as if he’d flung one of his feathers like a dart. Like how I would fling one of my cards. The Seraph’s wings must be his implent, his version of my orbiting cards.
Has he been on guard with his weapon poised against this entire ti, and he’s just been pretending otherwise?
“What are you doing?” The words spill out of my mouth. “Are you actually trying to kill ?!”
“Hey, you started it,” he calls back, as if my cards even had a chance of hitting their mark, let alone scratching him. He pays the tarot pile he swiped from a short glance, and the cards cease their rotation and straighten themselves neatly into a deck, remaining suspended in the air. “If you really wanna get dangerous, we can get dangerous. But you’re crazy if you think you can beat . It’s pointless to even try. So just co along quietly and we can get this sorted out. You’ll thank later.” It sounds like he’s discarded walking ho and is just going to drag wherever he pleases.
“You’re the crazy one if you think I’ll go with you after you nearly stabbed in the eye!”
“Good thing I wasn’t aiming for your eye, then,” the Seraph answers matter-of-factly. “There’s no way that would have happened.”
“How do you know?”
“I never miss my mark. That’s just how it is,” he says with flawless confidence. “Now, what do you say?”
I can only glare up at him in reply. He seems to be waiting for to answer his latest demand, as if there’s anything more to say. I take stock of the situation while he’s giving the chance. I can sense the point in the air where the Seraph has collected the cards I summoned — it’s a concentration of his magic, similar to when he crucified Seryana and started turning her inside out. I guess this ti it’s attuned to in so way.
Hopefully he can’t pull my guts out just like that, but… sothing tells that if he could just drag around however he wanted, he wouldn’t have to go to so much trouble trying to convince to go with him while finding ways to pin down in the anti. Maybe there’s so condition he has to et before he can affect directly, like how thoroughly I’ve got to contaminate a Harbinger before I can drain its health.
I can still feel my cards at the point they’ve been gathered mostly the sa as usual, too. It’s a little like my fight with Tetha, when she managed to capture one of my cards in a sphere of water. My will still reaches my cards from afar, but they feel… heavy. Incredibly heavy, weighed down to that spot. The pressure on them is constant, and it’s difficult to get them to budge. Almost like he’s grabbed by the wrist and has held there, and all I can do is struggle against his strength.
What’s worse is that despite disarming , he’s keeping his distance from the cards as if he already knows what the infected ones can do. If he had them close by, then I might be able to catch him off guard by detonating them, but there’s no point in releasing my scourge if he’s too far away to be engulfed by the resulting plague-mist. Where he is now, he’s just far enough to make escaping on reaction easy. Does he sohow already know enough about my magic to prepare against it, or is it sothing else?
Even if he does know how I fight, though, there’s sothing he’s overlooked.
Without sparing another word, I imrse my body in my stored health and sprint to the left of the Seraph – opposite of where he’s gathered my deck – and start putting distance between us again.
“Oh? Gotta tucker yourself out so more?” he mocks, turning his neck to follow my movent before his entire body revolves smoothly in the air to face again. I don’t wait for him to react. The mont I’ve found a decent angle, I simply dismiss all my cards and resummon them around . They vanish from the point he’s drawn them to and reappear back in my orbit.
But the invisible force drawing them to that single point the Seraph anchored in the world hasn’t yet disappeared. I figured as much. That’s why the mont my tarot cards manifest around again, I launch them all at once. The only outside force acting on my cards is sending them towards that one specific spot the Seraph has chosen, so before they reach it, I have little trouble moving them in any other direction I choose, so long as they’re also still moving towards it.
And since my cards are constantly being drawn toward a specific spot, I can guide their path to pass through where the Stardust Seraph currently is by putting myself between him and that point. I can hit him even as he’s tearing my cards away. In fact, the force that’s pulling them makes their flight towards their target even faster.
As though tossed into the sky and blown away on a passing gale, the deck scatters at my command. So of the cards dart straight through the air at whatever angle I’ve managed to direct them to, while others twirl on their sides like spinning blades as I spread them further from my main volley, causing them to fly in more of an arc than a straight line.
I try to hold so of my cards back against the pull of the Seraph’s anchor with my will, and while I can’t entirely stop them from being sucked in, I do manage to delay their travel, slowing how fast they go compared to the other cards. So cards I hold back harder than others, so they’ll arrive at different tis rather than all at once.
Riding on the sa blinding speed he disard with before, I barrage the Seraph from every angle. He folds his arms behind his back as one card races towards him, then casually turns aside to evade its path. In the sa movent, he slides backwards through the air into what looks like a wide gap in the wave of tarot cards I’ve unleashed… and right into the blast zone of one of the four blighted cards I’d conjured with this deck.
I don’t know what Tetha’s condition was after I afflicted her, but I know she’s still alive, and right now, that’s good enough for . If Tetha could survive this, then I’m sure the Stardust Seraph can. I just hope it’s enough to even slow him down.
Right as I will that diseased card to detonate, though, the Seraph suddenly shoots in the direction opposite of it at incredible speed, like a crimson cot traced across the sky. He escapes the cloud of noxious fog that bursts forth, twirling once as he moves to deflect a blank card his path happens to cross off one of his wings. He’s too slippery.
I’m not done yet, though. The Seraph’s course takes him safely outside the range of two of my other blighted cards, but I’ve held back the fourth and last one as long as I could, saving it for the end. It’s now arcing through the air, about to draw close to the Seraph’s current position. It’s not as close as he was to the last card I burst, but if he keeps moving in the direction he is right now, he’ll fly right into the plague-cloud that blooms from it.
I ti the explosion perfectly, but at the very last second, the Seraph bounces upwards off empty air, skirting the edge of the cloud of illness for a mont before completely escaping its reach.
He passes behind the point where he’s once again gathered all the cards I flung at him, then cos to a sudden halt. “That won’t work, princess!” he calls out to . He sounds like he’s enjoying himself. But he’s also right where I want him, finally close enough to the anchor point that I just might catch him.
…Yet, before I have the chance to use the next two infected cards, both of them slide out of the floating deck and hit the street below like a pair of falling rocks.
He made a second anchor point on the streets right below the original one. I can feel it. The only difference is, this one only draws my corrupted cards towards it, dividing them from the blank cards. He’s already figured out.
I grit my teeth. As the toxic mist from the previous two bursts gradually swells outwards, forming a curtain of smog between and the Seraph that’s slowly drawing closed, I detonate the two remaining blighted cards to speed up the process. Erald haze rises up, joining the two disparate clouds and engulfing the street. Before he and the red glow that halos him disappear behind the encroaching wall of infectious fog, the Seraph falls back and folds his wings around his body as if to shield himself.
I whirl around and start running on my aching legs, filling my lungs with rough, ragged breaths each stride I take. My sweat runs cold in the chill night air. My eyes flit from one side of the street to the other. This brief mont could be my only chance to escape. It’ll take a second for the Seraph to rise over the miasma, which could give just enough ti to duck into an alley and find a place to hide. If I dismiss my regalia, he might lose track of . That might at least give enough ti to call Aisling.
But I’ve barely gone half the length of a street before a crimson shimr cuts through the shroud of my fog, flashing against the vapors like lightning in an overcast sky. I turn back to see the wall of smog I’d created collapsing into itself, shrinking towards a single point as though vacuud out of the air. Just floating there is a black speck, a pinprick hole in the world all my plague-mist is spiraling into like water down a drain.
Once more revealed from behind the curtain of my fog, the Seraph is pointing ahead of himself, twirling his outstretched index finger in the shape of a spiral. The miasma is cleared from the streets, and the little black speck it vanished into blinks out of being in a flicker of red.
The Seraph reclines backwards in the air and crosses his legs as though taking a seat, wavering slightly as if perched on a swing. He glides toward in that relaxed pose. The point where he’s captured all my cards moves in tandem with him, always maintaining the sa safe distance.
“Man, you’re so dramatic, princess. If you were actually that tired, you’d think you’d just give in. Why are you doing all this, really? So weird sense of pride? You’re completely Mary-ing out on right now, you know?”
I can only stare up at the Keeper who just completely evaded my attack without a single scratch and did it all as if it were easy. I don’t have any thoughts to spare for whatever nonsense he’s asking right now. Everything I have is dedicated to keeping my knees from buckling under my own weight.
He seems to pick up on my loss for words. “So, how’s that offer from before sound about now?”
“Worse the harder you push it.”
The Seraph sighs. “Cute. Right then.”
He raises his arm and flicks up his wrist. With that motion alone, the world around him answers to his call.
In front of a streetside restaurant, a section of the sidewalk and road has been cordoned off and arranged with plastic tables and chairs under the shade of parasols to make a modest seating area. On the other side of the street, there’s a construction project similar to the one that tore down the house Seryana was born from – it even looks like the sa company. From both these places, dozens of objects lift up off the ground and zip straight to positions arrayed around the Seraph, where they begin rolling in place almost like debris in a storm. Tables and chairs and empty flower pots join traffic cones, construction barrels, and a caution easel or two, all revolving in the air.
“Let’s make a wager,” he says, surrounded on all sides by his jumble of whatever happened to be nearby. “If you can actually beat , I’ll let you go. If I can get you to give up, then you’ll co along with . Whoever gives up first gives in, no argunts.”
“…And how’s that different from just making go by force?” I shoot back, however pointlessly.
There’s a pause for just a mont before he gives his deadpan reply. “Huh, I wonder?”
He swats his hand out as though batting away a fly, and that’s all it takes for the dley of junk he’s beckoned to launch at all at once. A plastic table big enough for to use as a bed flies straight at , barreling down the street like a speeding car. I hardly have any ti to dodge, and even if I did, I would just be stumbling into whatever else he’s hurled my way. All I can think to do in the mont is fall backwards, scrunch myself into a ball, and hope I’m conscious after it crashes over .
A second passes. Then another. The impact never cos. I peek my head out from between my arms to find the table frozen in the air, completely still.
“Hah. Made you flinch,” he says like it’s all just a schoolyard prank.
“A-are you actually insane?” I choke out between panicked gasps. “How much of your ti as a big fancy hero do you spend torturing people for fun?”
His shoulders slouch at my words. “…I didn’t even hit you, princess,” he answers coldly. “And I doubt I’d be having a fun ti if you managed to hit , either, if Tetha is anything to go by.”
Rather than simply running over, all the objects in the Seraph’s onslaught have spread out to surround at a distance, forming a ring that’s boxing in from every angle. They begin to swirl around slowly, almost like I’m in the center of a rry-go-round, every impromptu projectile continuing to roll through the air as it moves along with the flow.
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“I know to watch out when it cos to you. You stopped that flaring Harbinger’s ritual, after all. Still, that doesn’t an I’m going to blow up another Keeper just ’cause. I’m trying to show you what you’re up against. If you don’t like what you see, then yield. Otherwise, square up.”
I don’t respond imdiately, simply wiping away the tears I don’t have ti for. If I just sit here for a bit, he’ll probably give a mont to think, secure knowing he’s got right where he wants . But I’m not mulling over whether to surrender or not, like I’m sure he hopes. The only thing on my mind is how to get out of this. I clutch my chest and steady my breathing as I try to consider everything I have at my disposal.
Co on, Liadain. Don’t panic. Think. I’ve been in much worse situations than fighting this guy, who’s supposedly not even trying to kill . There has to be sothing, anything I can do right now to catch him off guard and turn the tables.
Yurfaln’s power-from-pain won’t help much. It puts more strain on my body than any other magic I have to my na. I certainly can’t rely on it the way I did against Aulunla; if I push myself any farther over the edge than I already have today, I’ll be overwheld by Ergence in more ways I can’t control, just as Aisling warned.
I would be so much faster, stronger, better if I walked the tightrope between life and death Yurfaln lived on, though. I’m not sure I would be an actual match for the Stardust Seraph even then, but it would certainly make this more of a fight, rather than sothing like a tomcat batting around a mouse between his paws. It would have made it easy to dodge through his entire barrage from before. I just… would have done it, just by willing myself to. Given I could resist the pull he has on my cards to so extent already, I’m sure I could actually seize my cards from his grip, too, at least with how much force the anchor point is currently exerting on them.
But I’m certain that if I embraced Yurfaln’s ideal right now, sothing would happen to that there would be no coming back from. I’ve never felt less human than when I was in that state.
What I gained from Aulunla’s heart doesn’t give much to work with, either. There’s sothing deeper to its curse than simply understanding Harbingers better, sothing intrinsic to its nature, but I haven’t had the ti to explore how to use it. I certainly don’t now.
The magical perception Irakkia’s morsels earned doesn’t seem especially suited to the situation. Transferring the vision from one of my eyes into a card and controlling it remotely seems good for scouting, but it would disorient more than it helps. I don’t even know if it could help at all, not while the Seraph has control of where all my cards end up anyway.
…Maybe the key to that lies in figuring out the rules and limits behind whatever power he’s using to control my cards in the first place. The Seraph’s powers seem completely overwhelming to – fast, impossible to challenge, and capable of overcoming anything I throw at them… but even though he seems to have the power to fling anything around him however he wants with only his thoughts, how co he never just picks up and holds in place? That would end this instantly.
The answer is simple: he can’t do that. Just like I can’t just drain a Harbinger of its health like I can a normal person. It’s hard to directly interfere with other beings of magic when they’re resisting you. You have to dig your claws into them sohow first.
…What does that say about Mide, then, who I can drain as easily as I can any normal person? I don’t have any ti to spare thinking about that.
Which leaves the latest heart I’ve swallowed. Does Seryana have anything for ?
When I search inside myself, feeling the shape of Seryana’s soul and the dying thoughts she left with , I get an abstract sense of the new way my power has grown through hers. And when I do, everything clicks into place.
I may have missed my chance to swallow the entirety of Irakkia’s heart when I split it with Mide, but it did start my magic down a particular path. A path Seryana’s heart is all too eager to lead down.
I’d thought that Seryana and Irakkia had similar tricks before, even if Seryana couldn’t twist perception as freely as Irakkia until later. She could intrude into my dreams, and even inflict nightmares in the waking world after she donned that mask, similar to Irakkia’s ntal attacks… I’m not sure I understand how much the two of them truly shared, beyond their desperate rejection of the cruel reality in which they found themselves trapped, but where Irakkia’s lost and broken truth once ended within like a road into a chasm, Seryana’s connects and continues on, their hearts building on one another with my magic as the foundation.
This could be it. This could be my key to victory. It’s sothing the Seraph would never expect. Could using this new expression of my magic be doing exactly what Aisling warned against? Maybe, but if I’m careful and keep things small, there’s no way it’ll affect the way betting everything on Yurfaln’s power would.
The only problem is that whether the Stardust Seraph expects sothing or not doesn’t seem to actually matter. He might only have been doing this for a couple years, but that’s an eternity next to my couple of months. He’s much more experienced than . He’s clearly prepared for any sneak attack I might muster. He’s had no trouble seeing through every last attack I’ve made so far.
“Well?” the Seraph asks, his patience finally starting to wear thin.
I conjure my cane, pick myself up on wobbling limbs, and look up through the jumble of floating debris to stare daggers at him. Burning an inner candle of the stolen life that got into this ss in the first place, I spread my legs out and raise my free arm defensively to show him this isn’t over yet.
I don’t think there’s any point in trying to get him to lower his guard by pretending to surrender. Out of all the bad things I can say about the Seraph right now, the one thing he definitely isn’t is stupid. Still, he’s playing around like this is so ga, and that ans he’s not fighting like his life depends on it. Like mine does.
He lets out a chuckle and simply says, “Alright then,” before flicking a finger at the empty air.
A cold shock jolts up my spine. Faintly, I feel his magic lashing out at from behind. I duck down and fall to my knees, and imdiately watch as a construction barrel hurtles overhead before passing back into the ring of churning debris.
“W-what…?”
If I had been a second slower, that heavy drum would have bashed over the head and planted my face into the pavent. Just the realization it ca so close to hitting makes my black blood turn to ice in my veins. No matter how I look at it, I would have died. This fragile body of mine would have broken into pieces and I’d have died.
The image of my corpse lying sprawled out against the street, a great raven of plague and hunger and malice ripping out from within before being crushed beneath the Seraph’s power flashes through my mind. The only reason that premonition died as nothing but a nightmare in my thoughts is because I sensed the Seraph’s attack and dodged at the very last mont.
I turn widened eyes back up to the Seraph. The impenetrable tint of his vizor gives nothing away. Were all his words just lies? I thought he was just going to try to wear down until I couldn’t fight anymore. I’ve done terrible things to people, but I don’t deserve to be treated like the latest incarnation of Sofia the Deathless, do I? Unless they were a real nace, a clear and present danger to everyone around them, killing a Keeper would be a disaster even for the Seraph, wouldn’t it?
…Maybe not.
Maybe he’s gotten away with this before.
After all, all the violence connected to Mary Hyland was buried until nothing remained but conspiracy tracts on the Coral Sea. If the Church would go that far to protect so random new Keeper, how much further would they go to protect their golden boy?
Another gesture from the Seraph draws six chairs from the ring’s swirling flow and into the air above . I spring back to my feet and dodge frantically as the chairs rain down one after another towards my position, clacking harshly against the street with each impact. My constant drip feed of health keeps nimble despite how tired I am.
Next co three dusty traffic cones thrusting towards like torpedoes, all disappearing back into the ring once I’ve avoided them. He imdiately launches six more, this ti coming at from every angle. Half of them seem to speed by harmlessly, just orange blurs coursing through the air to confuse ; I lunge behind one of the chairs he’s left inside the ring to escape the rest, guessing he won’t have aid his attacks towards sothing that would cut them off mid-flight. I’m right, and the three traffic cones sail past .
Before I can congratulate myself, however, the chair shifts to the side, making way for a seventh traffic cone. I push upright on my cane just in ti for the cone’s tip to slam into my stomach. All the air is forced out of my lungs from the blow. The cone just keeps traveling forward as I fall away. I’m knocked backwards and skid across the road.
A piercing, tender ache spreads out across my belly. It starts dull and then becos searing. My throat chokes on the pain and smothers the cries I couldn’t have made anyway on account of my lungs being empty. But there’s no ti to dwell on any of that, because even with my eyes blurring with another round of agonized tears, I can still sense a point of the Seraph’s magic shifting just above .
I roll to the side as another plastic chair slams down, probably trying to pin underneath its legs. My entire body winces with pain each ti my belly touches the ground. I quickly salve the hurt with a fresh injection of stored health. Despite everything, there aren’t so many wounds for my stolen strength to wipe away — no gaping hole in my gut; no cold gnawing agony of my own magic eating from the inside out; not even the inescapable nauseous misery of infusion days. Not enough to stop from scrambling through the onslaught and doing the only thing I can do: think.
Between waves of chairs, traffic cones, flower pots, construction barrels, and more, I consider what I actually know for a fact about what the Stardust Seraph can do.
Everyone knows he has power over light and can fly. That’s obvious just from those obnoxious glowing wings of his. But just like with Aisling’s ability to ask the world questions, it’s not like there’s any public information about how he does those things.
He can clearly do much more than control light and levitate himself. The power the Seraph is using to force my cards to a specific place is the sa one he’s using to fling all this junk at .
Each of the projectiles the Seraph is tossing around right now is affected by a separate point, invisible to everything but my magical senses, that’s pulling them towards a particular spot. The Seraph isn’t moving the objects themselves, but the points they’ve been bound to, and the objects just happen to move along with them.
I can almost sense these points in motion if I focus, predicting what direction he’s attacking from… but it’s a rough, vague, sense; an eerie chill creeping up the back of my neck that warns where not to dodge as I’m pelted from every angle. It’s hard to focus on it while I’m gathering my thoughts.
Whatever he’s doing here might be how he can fly, too… but it’s not just levitation. He can make things heavier and even crush them. Unlike when he’s moving objects from one place to a point he’s chosen, when he’s used his magic to weigh things down, it’s spread out as a field of hazed-over air, shimring like a twilight mirage.
As a plastic drum and several empty flower pots whirl past as though caught in a windstorm, I start to wonder. Maybe making things float and forcing them against the ground are just two sides of the sa coin, and this “field” is sothing he got from a Harbinger, building off his original magic the sa way the hearts I’ve eaten have built off mine. Maybe the only thing he’s doing is changing how heavy things are… but in different directions. The invisible points ford from his magic are like anchors that draw objects to them, after all.
What if light isn’t what he’s about at all? It could just be one expression of his power, the sa way I just happen to be able to control my cards.
From everything I’ve seen tonight, could what he’s actually controlling be… gravity?
My thoughts racing, I duck under an upended table as it spins overhead like a giant frisbee.
Throughout the endless days I’ve spent in hospital beds, one of the only things I had to pass my remaining ti was read. Across the countless pages I’ve turned, I know I’ve had gravity explained to at least once. I still don’t really get it. But I do know it’s the law that says everything that goes up is destined to fall back to the earth; a law the Seraph defies whenever he seems to feel like it.
Can you control light with gravity to sculpt it into feathers? Does it matter if you can when it cos to magic? Maybe it’s sothing he can just do like I can just summon my cards. I don’t know.
The Seraph’s onslaught is becoming more intense. The improvised armory of random junk he picked up off the side of the road catapults at and around in organized patterns. First he draws out half the plastic chairs from the swirling junk ring surrounding and lines them up in a row on one side of it, their legs hovering just a milliter off the street; with a swipe of his hand, the chairs all rush forward, raking across the breadth of the ring. I rush towards the attack myself, leaping onto the seat of one of the chairs and using it as a stepping stone to vault over its back… and right into the path of an oncoming construction barrel.
I throw my arms in front of my face before I’m bunted out of the air by a dull, hollow impact. I land hard on my back for the second ti since this ordeal began, and stagger up with my cane twice as quickly. I’m not going to give the Stardust Seraph the slightest hint that I might be slowing down, that what he’s doing is working.
And it’s good that I’m quick on the recovery, because the line of chairs he sent my way before is now coming right back at , moving in reverse. I rush towards the throng once again and, right as they’re about to run down, I dig the end of my cane into the pavent and use its leverage to force my light body into the air. I lift my cane off the ground as well just as the backs of the chairs pass under before finally landing safely on the other side.
The sound of clapping rings out through the night. “Well done, princess. Finally getting into the groove?”
Maybe. I’m sure I’m getting better at squirming through his debris, if only thanks to him pushing this far. Thanks to all the strength I’ve stolen, all the pain I’ve caused that’s now going to waste humoring the Seraph.
So I say nothing. I just dart my eyes around the ring, ready to deal with whatever the Seraph sends at next, and find the various types of plastic objects that make it up have been arranged into different circles, each a separate layer in the overall ring. Even the height and speed each circle is revolving at is different. Chairs, traffic cones, pots, and construction barrels have all been divided into their own orbits, with the outermost layer composed of the eight tables he picked up from the restaurant, their foldable legs curled into their bottoms. Above it all, the two caution easels rotate in a windmill spin, their fras splayed out like open flip books.
The Seraph drifts lazily beyond, lounging against one of his wings as he hangs in the air. I can’t see his face through his mask, but his visor is trained directly on and the arena he’s boxed into. He must have been organizing the objects with each attack he made, and I simply didn’t notice until now. The sight of this chaotic surge of shabby, grit-encrusted rubbish having shifted into an orderly waltz while I wasn’t paying attention is so absurd it almost breaks my concentration. This has to be sothing he’s practiced doing before. It’s just too coordinated not to be.
Unlike in the Wounds, the world around us isn’t malleable. Both of our powers are more limited in what they can achieve here. If I can infest a Wound with my plague and rot it from the inside out, Shona can engulf them in a storm, and the Seraph is already able to bend gravity to his whim like this, I can only imagine what he can do in the patchwork world of a Harbinger.
If his power really is based on gravity, he seems to be able to target whatever he chooses individually. But how is he able to distinguish between those targets? Maybe he can do it by sight… but he could also distinguish my blighted cards from my blank cards and separate them that way.
Back when he crucified Seryana, it seed like he was concentrating his magic at that point and “tuning” it to her sohow. It was the sa way with how he gathered up all my cards… It was probably the sa way when he vacuud up my wall of plague-mist. After all, it’s not like I felt any breeze rushing past and into that hole he’d poked in the world. There was no suction on the air. The only thing affected was the fog.
…Shona told before that the Seraph can sense Harbingers from miles away.
When it ca to dealing with magic, like when he tore open Seryana and stole my cards, maybe the way he’s attuning these points of gravity to his targets is based on the auras he senses? That would even explain how he was able to divide my tarot deck between blank and blighted cards, creating specific anchor points for each; my blighted cards are more strongly concentrated with .
Of course. If his senses are really that good, it’s no wonder he could tell which of my cards were imbued with my blight and get out of their way before they were a threat. He was just teasing back then, intentionally drawing right into their range and then leaping out of the way before they could even graze him. It must be even easier for him than it is for to sense the points where his magic is most concentrated.
Just like I could sense Roland’s presence even when he was invisible and hard to pinpoint, he should be able to sense attacks with my cards before they happen. If that’s the case, then no matter what angle I co at him from, he’ll be able to anticipate that direction and react accordingly. Even if I attack from multiple angles at once, it’s hopeless. He can buzz around however he wants and dodge or deflect anything I throw at him on reaction.
But that also ans that his focus is trained on keeping track of and my magic. If an aura feels especially different from mine, I’m sure he’d pick up on it, but… maybe he won’t notice it imdiately.
So rather than cards filled to the brim with my illness, bursting with my unique flavor of curse, what if I instead used one filled with sothing else entirely? A scourge extracted from the corpse of a demon. A card I’ve been holding in reserve since the first ti I struggled for my life in this world of magic and nightmares.
The disease I ripped from Yurfaln, the purpose behind its being.
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