The Carnival at Moonbright

From rafter to rafter, Myla sent her daggers down into the battle. With a flick of her fingers, she would watch as the daggers made contact, piercing and cutting at Ulric and the hags, before reappearing in her hand. As Ulric stood back up from Lyla’s attacks, Myla dropped in front of him to stop him from getting the opportunity to attack her sister. Ulric lifted and swung his dagger at Myla, but she ducked underneath it, taking two slices at his stomach, before moving around and swinging again.

Ulric grunted loudly, but the large sound around her made it hard for Myla to hear. It sounded weak, broken, and higher pitched than she imagined. She sidestepped another attack, then lunged forward.

With both daggers in hands, she made a scissor-like motion with them, closing in on Ulric’s neck and slicing right through. His body fell next to Nix, his head rolling to her face.

The magic before her faded as if a veil had been moved away. She watched as Nix’s body took a new form. It was older, gray, and broken in pieces. Scars covered its body. Myla could see, as the magic moved up from its feet to its face, the face of Ulric…

She looked and saw the magic vanishing from the decapitated head of Ulric. Its skin changed from gray and ghastly to white, and its black hair flowed down to where the shoulders would have been. The eyes changed from black to white, with hazel eyes…

Inside Myla’s mind, her emotions became overwhelmingly loud. She could hear and feel those around her, and thinking and functioning was getting harder and harder. She dropped to her knees, letting the blood-stained daggers fall to her sides as she stared into Nix’s lifeless eyes.

They were switched. I… I killed Nix.

Tears fell from her eyes as the battle raged on around her. In a loud and open space, she felt herself closed in. The world became smaller, her chest grew heavy, and her lungs felt squeezed. She took deep, ragged breaths, trying to calm herself, but couldn’t keep the voices down.

Lyla… Where are you? She called out to her sister.

She waited. Five seconds, ten… She received no answer.

Lyla!

Her panic grew each second that Lyla didn’t answer her. She began to search for her frantically. Looking around, Myla couldn’t see her. She moved around the fight towards the entrance to take the ladder up to the rafters for a better view, but it wasn’t needed. Myla could see her sister lying about fifty feet from the tent, with Ramona standing over her.

“Lyla!” Myla yelled as she rushed forward. She threw her daggers across the open field, trying to distract Ramona until she could get closer. Myla watched as the first dagger flew wide, but the second pierced her shoulder.

“Get away from her!”

Ramona laughed, standing over Lyla’s body before the shadows surrounded Ramona, and she vanished. Myla ran to her sister, dropping to the ground and checking for a pulse. Trying to calm her own heartbeat took a second, but she could feel Lyla’s.

Lyla… Wake up. I don’t know what she did to you… Wake up!

Lyla’s eyes slowly started to open, and she grabbed at her sister.

What happened? She asked.

Myla held her sister close, happy that she wasn’t gone too…