Proclus watched, shouting to get the boy's attention as the darkness seemed to move around him. The boy flinched as it began to latch onto him and stab him. Proclus and Lyra screamed, their throats hoarse, both trying to fight against the invisible barrier.
"Can you see what's attacking him?!" Lyra said as she knelt to reach for her bag.
"No." Proclus swung the mallet as hard as he could, but it seemed to bounce off something mid-air. "We need to get through!"
Lyra turned away from him, pulled out the silver object, and began whispering to it.
"Please," She said, "Do something! Was this not what you wanted? He's here, and he's in danger!" She shook the strange tool, but nothing happened. She stood up and slammed it against the invisible barrier. Nothing. She glared at the object, and blinked rapidly as it reflected something directly into her eye. A flash of blue.
She blinked the spots away and heard a loud commotion above. As small debris fell around the two, they saw one of the large stone creatures fall to pieces at their feet. Sunlight suddenly illuminated them, and they heard someone call from above.
"Climb on!" A steady voice called as strange blue light began to flood down. When it reached their feet, it pooled out until it became a flat disc. Lyra noticed the soft, glowing disc extended past where she and Proclus could reach, through the unseen barrier and directly toward Koa.
They saw him grit his teeth, his skin turning gray as he tried to turn it to stone. Yet just as quickly as his skin turned, the dark tendrils seemed to grow enraged, wrapping more and more around him and stabbing into his joints to keep him still.
"He needs help, he can't move!" Proclus yelled up. No one responded, but their jaws dropped as a jet of flame raced down as if possessed, engulfing the boy.
No, Lyra thought, not engulfing, encircling!
"It's attacking the darkness!" Lyra said, watching the flame spin rapidly, leaving a trail as it seemed to cut through each dark tendril attached to the boy.
"Hurry!" The voice called down again. Lyra and Proclus needed no further prompting, stepping up onto the disc, surprised at its solid presence beneath them. Koakiran, on the other hand, needed more time, and stumbled forward. He was three paces closer before another gout of flame shot down, looping into a halo just behind the boy as other dark tendrils reached out again. Koa limped onto the blue platform as it slowly rose. As it did, Koa felt a brief pressure, and the next thing he knew, Lyra and Proclus had rushed to him on the elevating platform. The barrier that had kept them apart had lifted, and they each wrapped an arm around the other's shoulders.
It felt like forever until they saw sunlight again as the blue disc lifted them onto a grassy knoll. Their eyes needed to adjust, so they didn't see the disc move beneath them or the ground reform as they were deposited on the soft grass.
"Where…?" Koakiran mumbled. He saw spots, and Lyra did too, on the boy's body. They were fading already, thankfully, but the boy's ragged breathing was still concerning.
"Step aside."
She hadn't noticed the woman until he had spoken. Behind them, a masked figure in a cloak walked up.
"There was a… a creature-"
"And it will not step through the barrier." The figure raised a gloved hand and gestured for the two Aeolon to move away from Koa. "And I do not enjoy repeating myself, young ones."
Her speech was strange, warbled, yet Lyra understood him well enough. She wasn't Aeolon, nor Saigan.
"Please," Lyra begged, "He's hurt!"
The woman paused, unmoving save for the gloved hand that twitched at his side.
"What… who is he to you?"
"He's…" Lyra wasn't sure what to say. Important? Chosen by powers beyond us?
"A friend," Proclus said. The figure stared before nodding.
"Move. I will lend him my aid." She waved the two aside and knelt. Koa had curled himself into a quivering ball, running his hands over the dark spots. Flakes of black had fallen off, leaving the boy's skin scabbed. Lyra had seen similar injuries before, of people whose arms and legs had simply rotted away.
Koakiran was barely conscious. He knew he'd been helped, but the last of his consciousness had been devoted to… protection?
Holding onto something? The pedestal? No… As his consciousness returned and his eyes shifted from a fuzzy starscape to a narrow tunnel, he heard voices around him. He smelled moist soil under his head and felt the tickle of grass and the warmth of the sun. A smooth warmth in his arms.
And the warm surface of the gem, cradled in his arms.
"Can you hear me?" Koa's head swam, but he nodded. "Good. Breathe."
The woman turned to the other two.
"What would drive you three down there? Have you no sense?!"
Her sudden ferocity startled them.
"We were looking for a stone creature! We were trapped, and he found a way out!" Proclus said.
"He found you a grave."
"He didn't know where it led!"
"Are you so certain? Do you truly know him well enough to trust him so?" They couldn't answer before Koa sat up, wheezing as if he had run a marathon.
"Thank you," he said to the woman as he released what he had been clutching so tightly. What he had thought to be a gemstone looked more like polished stone in the daylight. It was larger than Koa's hand, glassy and warm. It seemed alive in his hands.
"Is that why you went through the barrier?" The woman asked. "For this?"
Koa shrugged, his eyes never leaving it. What had drawn him to it? He tried to think back, but he hadn't realized he had narrowed his focus solely to that. Perhaps he would have noticed whatever hostile force it was, instead of letting himself be ambushed.
"It feels-"
"Alive?"
Koa blinked, then nodded slowly.
"What," the woman began to ask, trailing off as if lost in thought, "do you call yourself?"
"My family named me Koakiran." The woman tilted her head, as if surprised by the boy's response.
"You are Iquitli?" The boy nodded.
"Interesting. Tell me, does La'Lo still have his dear Pik'ni?" Koa blinked. How did this strange woman know about his grandfather's tytostrix? Regardless, he nodded.
"How do you know all this?"
"He and I have quite the history. More importantly, it is late. I can see the moons on the horizon, and I'm sure your guardians are unaware of where you are."
"She's right." Proclus groaned, looking at the sun's angle. "We're cleaning the stables tonight."
"I will guide you back." The man turned away before cocking his head to the side. As they set off, they realized they were in a different place entirely, further northward from the Aeolon camp.
"Down in the pit," The masked woman said when he and Koa had stepped further ahead, "you turned to stone?"
The boy nodded.
"Do you have any other peculiar abilities?"
Koa hesitated, then held out a hand. Loose pieces of grass and twigs moved, pressing together into a small ball. Koa caught it and tossed it away. It came apart midair, the grass floating apart softly and the twigs simply dropping to the ground.
"Does your elder know of this?"
"No." Koa hesitated, rubbing one of his healed wounds anxiously. "I didn't think I should show him."
"Why is that?"
"I'm already strange enough."