Gravity's Revenge by A.E. Marling

thumping against the crystal viewing portal. For a panic-frothing moment, she forgot how to open it. She clawed at her jewel sash, searching for a gem with which to fight.
    Outside, the Bright Palm sprang behind the staggering Fos. He gripped his greatsword’s hilt with one hand, the other clutching the right side of his face. The staff clamped over his throat, the woman behind him holding the bar of wood on either side of his neck in a chokehold.
    Fos struggled, even as his face flushed purple. She jerked him forward and back, maintaining the pin as she whispered something in his ear. The spellsword stopped his thrashing, and she pushed him toward Hiresha and the tower.
    “Open this door,” the Bright Palm shouted. Her chin was on Fos’s shoulder, her brows downward hooks like streaks of charcoal. “Open it, and I will not kill him.”
    Hiresha heard the murmurs of enchantresses saying something behind her, but they were drowned out in her roaring fear that she would see Fos killed before her eyes. A man so full of life and potential, broken and paralyzed. The magic of the Bright Palms drained their human emotions, and Hiresha had no doubt the woman would do as she threatened.
    She had already ruined his eye. Fluid of a distressing consistency leaked down one side of his face. I must regenerate that. Fos must live for me to heal him.
    Hiresha stepped to the right of the door, Lightening its stone. In a fist she clenched a jewel of Attraction. All she had to do was open the door, and lob the gem to immobilize the Bright Palm. Even if she hurt Fos as they fell, Hiresha’s magic could likely save him before he stopped breathing.
    The enchantress locked eyes with the Bright Palm. The woman’s blank expression reminded Hiresha of a statue with stolen eyes and skin. Hiresha hesitated. A rush of chilling uncertainty flowed over her. The spellswords never would’ve given a Bright Palm an amulet. Did she climb? Why is she here? The enchantress had a terrible sense she should not open the tower door to this woman.
    Hiresha shifted her enchanted jewel between her fingers and overcame her doubts. I will save Fos. Her amulet unlocked the door. Her gloved fingers folded under its stone designs of clouds and pushed upward. The way into the tower was opened. Hiresha lifted her hand to throw the jewel.
    The Bright Palm shielded herself behind Fos, the skin of his throat bent inward from the pressure of her staff. She turned her head to the side and called behind her. “For the innocent.”
    Two more glowing figures raced around the tower and toward the door, one with the curved blade of a scimitar in hand. Three Bright Palms, one jewel. Hiresha fumbled for more gems, but knew in that sharp moment of surprise that she would not reach them before the two hitherto unseen Bright Palms rushed into the tower. They would invade her safe world, her sanctuary. Hiresha had an instinct to drop the jewel of attraction into their path at her own feet but discounted it because the spell would entrap her alongside them.
    She flicked the jewel at the tower wall, in front of the charging man with the scimitar. The gem made no sound as it hit the carvings of interlocking geometric shapes, but the Bright Palm grunted when the Attraction spell smashed him into the wall. A thunk. A metallic snap as the bronze blade shattered into sand-colored splinters.
    The second Bright Palm stomped into the tower, seized her with metal-studded gloves, and used his momentum to swing himself around her and throw the enchantress outside. Or so seemed his intent. Her skirts tripped him up, and they both sprawled in the tower threshold.
    As Hiresha pushed herself to her feet, she realized that she should have dropped the jewel in the doorway. The Attraction enchantment would have slammed the portal shut, even if doing so may have crushed her beneath the stone. Hiresha worried she faced as great a danger amid the Bright Palms. They scorn enchantresses, our position and our