Bomber. They called him that for a reason.
I never liked the guy—one of Vasquez’s little favourites, smug and cruel with a taste for explosions.
Right now, he was priming another blast in each palm.
Hurried footsteps pounded down the stairwell. I pressed back into the shadows, breath shallow. If Vael saw me—if he remembered me—it was over.
Outside, Ashton’s voice rang through the air like a blade.
“Get out here,Brother!Before I bring this godsforsaken tower down—with you still inside it!”
Bomber lifted his hands. Magic crackled—wild, volatile,hungry.
From somewhere unseen, a voice answered—amplified and unnervingly calm.
“Don’t you think this is all a little unnecessary, brother?” Vael’s chuckle slid through the air like oil.
“We had a deal!” Ashton snapped. “Bring me my shadowmancer—now!”
“You don’t frighten me,” Vael snarled. “Pitiful excuse for a man. Father should’ve killed you at birth.”
Another blast hit—closer this time.
The walls rattled. Screams rose from somewhere above. A statue down the hall cracked straight through the middle and crumbled to dust.
Claire had vanished in the confusion. Good. She didn’t belong in whatever was coming next.
I bolted.
Down the corridor. Past the washroom. Toward the servant’s stairwell we’d nearly reached before.
No one stopped me.
No one even noticed me—too many guards running the other way, too many panicked servants clogging the halls.
I slipped through the stairwell door and closed it behind me, heart pounding.
The air was thick with dust and the scent of fire. From somewhere above, I heard a deep groan of stone—like the tower itself was reconsidering standing.
I climbed fast.
Two flights. Three.
The master’s wing couldn’t be far. If Lia was right, it would be at the highest point in the tower – as close to the gods as it would let him be.
I just had to get there before someone else did.
A crash echoed from somewhere overhead. Shouts. A flash of red light lit the stairwell window.
Keep going.
For Elira. For Leo. For all of us.
I reached the landing—and froze.
Footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate.
A silhouette moved across the top of the stairs.
