“Now!” Luc roared at Rolan. “Together!”
Taking advantage of the monster’s distraction, master and apprentice scurried beneath the Cryptic’s tentacled belly and began cutting their way to the center. Luc’s great sword proved much more effective than Rolan’s shorter blade, scything through the tentacles, clearing a path to the critical core.
“Now!” Luc shouted.
He swung his sword in a mighty arc, lobbing off tentacles as quickly as they sprouted. Darting under his arm, Rolan positioned himself beneath the dark spiral of the Cryptic’s core.
“STRIKE THE CORE!” Luc ordered. He held out his large palm, and Rolan placed his foot squarely upon it. Then the Arcanist flung Rolan upward, his Arcanic strength launching the boy like a stone from a slingshot.
Rolan flipped once in the air, then plunged his sword into the aleth at the center of the Cryptic’s belly, all the way to the hilt.
At first, nothing happened.
Rolan’s heart stopped. Theworldstopped. He hung there, triumph giving way to horror.
But then, slowly…cracksappeared, webbing out from the epicenter of the Cryptic’s aleth and Rolan’s buried blade.
Cracks… splinters… a groaning sound like a shifting glacier…
And then all at once, blue light erupted from the wound, as if the monster were spouting magic.
Rolan ripped his sword free and dropped to land on his feet.
Then Luc barreled into him, knocking them both clear of the Cryptic as it crashed to the ground. Earth sprayed, the ground trembled. The monster’s maw gave one final, jagged roar, the sound making Rolan’s ears ring. It clawed at the dirt, still trying to fight, still thirsty for violence.
But then, its roar fading to a whine, it fell still.
Rolan looked back to see the monster dissolving into dust, its spindly legs and tentacles first, then the great heavy head and scaled body. All its monstrous bulk crumbled and flaked away, as if it had never been.
The silence that followed felt unreal, as if the world were afraid to move again, wary the monster might return.
But gradually the birds began to sing. The wind stirred. And Rolan’s heart resumed beating.
“It’s done,” Rolan panted. “We… we did it. Guess you have to muck Apple’s stall now, old man.”
He turned to his master, grinning with triumph, only to see Luc stone eyed, his face as cold as death as he looked around, searching the ground with a terrible, icy blue gaze.
“The relic,” growled Luc. “Where is it?Where is it?”
- CHAPTER 42 -THE WEIGHT OF A SECRET
A fevered flame blazed in the Arcanist’s eye. He cast about, the blue light finally draining from his gaze, the last of his Arcana depleted. Rolan felt his own strength flicker away, leaving him to feel every bruise and wound as if they were freshly inflicted. He gasped in pain, dragging himself to his feet.
They’d won. They’dwon. The Cryptic was dust on the wind.
But for some reason it didn’t feel like the fight was over.
Dread slithered through Rolan’s weary bones.
“Arcanist.”
The familiar quiet voice came from behind Rolan.
He spun to see his pa standing there, his face twisted with fury, his hair and clothes disheveled with grime and sweat. He leaned heavily on his cane.
He wasn’t alone. Hoff and Cabbot flanked him, along with the rest of Rabb Strider’s gang, all thirty or so of them. They fanned out like wolves, hungry and snarling. They’d come, just as Rolan had feared they would. And the guards were too far distant to be any help.
In fact, Rolan suddenly noticed, the rest of them had fled entirely, withdrawing into the palace. As if they’d beenorderedto retreat.
