“Arghhhhh!” Stars flash across the sky as I look above, searching for help. For anything.
My necklace burns, scolding my skin, and the light is now a pillar, rising into the sky from me.
Until the walls of the well inside me crack and the hum overtakes everything within me and shatters. Breaking open, and the magic explodes, wrecking everything in its path, rippling free and blanketing everything around us to the ground.
twenty-six
. . .
Aten
“Go to sleep, Ten. I can hear your brain whirring from here.”
“I still can’t sense Ever.” I stare up at the sky, cursing this place.
My body isn’t healing as well as it would back home. But at least most of my wounds are scars and sores now. I’m tired. We’re both tired.
“What’s the plan, Ten? Because there’s no way in Zuns that they’ll let us get to her, and we’re not getting out of here without something changing.”
As I listen to her, I realise how badly I’ve let Crimson down, and Ever, too. My friend has risked everything to be here, and we’re stuck. No plan. No answers. I’m meant to protect her. I’m meant to be able to protect the woman I love, and I can’t. All I’ve done is bring misery and pain to us both.
“Quick. Reinforcements!” A deep voice echoes from outside, rousing Crimson as she sits up and listens.
“On whose order?” the guard grumbles.
“Fenix. He sent me to call for reinforcements. The prisoner has escaped.”
Ever!
Crimson and I glance at each other, but don’t move, not wanting to spook the guard. I’m sure it’s Kalan’s voice, but it’s too dark to see.
“You’re needed!” Kalan’s voice turns insistent, and he finally steps into view, a hulking shadow at the gate.
The guard still doesn’t abandon his post.
“Very well.” Kalan pulls a blade and stabs the guard before he has a chance to react. The blade is in and out of his body in a flash, and the man slumps in front of our gates.
We both bolt to the entrance and watch Kalan pull the key from its resting place at the entrance.
“You’ve decided to help, this time?” Crimson quips.
“Enough of that, deary. Ever needs you. Tonight.”
“What’s the plan?” I ask, adrenaline now humming through me that we’re doing something—anything against the threat to us all.
“No idea. She just needed to know you were out. Tonight.”
“That’s it?” Crimson’s temper rises.
“Hey, we’re out. That’s better than last night.”
“Here.” Kalan hands me the knife he used, and I take it, realising it’s my knife—the Ciro knife, Ever had for safe-keeping. I run my thumb over the hilt and the red stone that always signified a Warrior, before securing it behind me.
“Come on, we need to?—”
We all stop dead at the sight of a glowing beam of light coming from within the forest—deep within the camp. Its golden glow is unlike anything I’ve seen before. It reminds me of the light bestowed at a Transference Ceremony, as Aslendrix casts you in your Order. But never this colour. This aura.
“What the?”
