Warden's Justice - Chapter 5
The Magisterium will not be challenged. They do not want you thinking for yourself. Otherwise, you might realise there are questions they cannot answer.
Kaila Dwyn only ever dreamed of becoming a Warden, a protector of her people. So when she discovers an intruder in her village stealing precious agimet crystals, she does what any loyal subject of the Magisterium would do—she tries to stop him. But as the pair wrestle for control of the crystal, something awakens in Kaila. Something powerful. Something forbidden. Magic.
Now Kaila finds herself hunted by the very heroes she once worshipped. Nothing is as the Magisterium taught her to believe, and pursued by a monstrosity of iron and magic, Kaila must unlock her hidden powers if she’s to survive. But there is only one man who can teach her the magic of the Elysian—Theron, the man who destroyed her life. Can Kaila set aside the past and join forces with the Elysian thief?
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Kaila woke to a pounding headache and an empty room. She might not understand what she’d done with the agimet yesterday, or how she’d failed Sister Eurador’s test, but something had clearly happened with that damned crystal. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been this sore.
Well, if this was the kind of pain Wardens had to suffer, maybe she was better off after all. She snorted and levered her legs over the side of the bed, then moaned as the pain redoubled. It felt like someone had splintered her skull with a wood axe. Rubbing at her temples with her knuckles, it was a few minutes more before she gathered the strength to stand.
There was no sign of her father, but a pot of porridge had been left on the coal range. It was still hot to the touch, warmed by the dying coals inside the stove. She must have been really out of it to have slept through his cooking—she could see the burnt flecks amidst the curds. Still, citizens of Fresia didn’t make a habit of wasting perfectly good food, to say nothing of the coal. Only three pieces remained in the basket beside the stove, and the jar of oats on the shelf was almost empty. There wasn’t much else in the way of food either. She muttered a curse. They wouldn’t receive their next rations for four days and the nights were already growing cool. They would have to go cold for at least one of them.
Or rather, her father would.
Her stomach gave a little rumble, so she took up the pot and a spoon and carried them to the table to break her fast. The porridge had little flavour, not even of salt, but the oats were nutritious and a growing young woman needed her strength.
There was still no sign of her father when she finished. Stinking man! It was just like him to vanish when she had to make the biggest decision of her life. He had probably headed into the mine early to set out the lanterns and make preparations for the workday. Kaila couldn’t fault his dedication, but if she was really going to become a Sister, she would be gone before he returned.
Her vision blurred. She blinked angrily and scolded herself, but for some reason, once the tears started, they would not stop. Instead, a sob unexpectedly bubbled from her throat. Always, she and him had been a team, tackling the world together. The thought of leaving Elgoss behind, of leaving her father to face the world alone…
She’d always known this day would come. A Warden was also required to sacrifice. Those who wore the armour of T’iana swore vows to take no partner and bear no children. But at least she would have been living out her dream, fighting to defend her kingdom so that others could live in peace.
The void in her chest, the one that had opened when she’d seen that terrible light in Caellum’s eyes, swelled until it filled her up. The walls of their flat closed in around her. She shot back to her feet, chair scraping against the floorboards. Choking in little gasps, Kaila struggled for some semblance of calm. She could do this, couldn’t she?
Couldn’t she?
She batted away the tears and crossed to the little window that looked out over the street, yanking open the shutters. Cold air swirled into the room. She welcomed it. It cut through the panic. She needed to think, yet all she could see was her father, stooped and weary, returning from the mines to find her gone.
She couldn’t leave. Not without saying goodbye.
The realisation brought everything into focus. Lurching to her bed, she pulled clothes from the drawers underneath. Her father had an old canvas bag he used for carrying tools to and from the mine. She claimed it and filled it with her belongings, before dressing herself in a set of rough pants and a tunic—the ones she usually wore on laundry day—followed by her heavy coat. There would be no time to return to the flat—she would go straight to the colonnade from the mine. Finally, she tucked her knife into the sheath in her boot, heaved the bag over her shoulder, and marched down the stairs into the street.
The sun was creeping into the sky, but the hour was still early and the streets were filled with shadow, the other residents only now coming awake in their neighbouring flats. Her teeth chattered as she began the long march uphill to the entrance of the mine. The air tasted of ice, and the breeze was so sharp it cut through her coat and set the base of her skull to aching. The sulfuric tang of coal smoke hung in the air, as those fortunate enough to have a few lumps remaining struggled to warm their flats.
A knot twisted in Kaila’s gut as she threaded her way through the narrow streets and thought of leaving this place. Elgoss was all she had ever known. Its people were hard workers who wanted for little, happy for the safety they had in a world of violence. A simple place, but honest. Tah’raus was not like that. The heart and soul of their kingdom, everything she had ever read nevertheless spoke of the city’s soiled underbelly. Of enemy agents who evaded the Trials and human criminals who rejected the teachings of the First Matron. A place of great virtue, and unspeakable evil.
But she was nearing the mine and the time for second thoughts had passed. The streets gave way to a winding path up to a dark hole in the cliffs above the village. There was a wide courtyard outside, with several piles of waste rock still waiting to be disposed of, but otherwise, the place was empty.
As Kaila approached the entrance, she found the steel doors hanging open. She slowed as she neared, relieved to feel the hot air billowing from the dark. As she stepped inside, she was already unbuttoning her coat.
Within, the inner chamber was mostly natural rock, chipped away by the first miners so many generations ago, but in more recent decades concrete supports had been added to brace the heavy stone. It had reduced the number of cave-ins, though all efforts to secure the deep tunnels had failed. Concrete that would endure decades on the surface rotted away in the space of weeks when exposed to the fumes that bubbled through those passageways. Recalling her father’s description from the night before, Kaila suppressed a shudder.
The pens were empty. Her father must have already taken the condemned down for the first shift. Kaila allowed herself a smile as she thought of Leonardo chained and collared, forced into the bubbling darkness. It was vindictive and beneath her, but it was still gratifying to know after his cowardice had cost the life of another man that he would not escape unpunished.
She lingered a while in the quiet, waiting to see whether her father would return, or if any of the other early risers would arrive to accompany her down. Finally, though, she could wait no longer. Sister Eurador had told her midday, but if she had to venture into the tunnels to find her father, there was no time to waste.
Drawing a breath, Kaila took one of the lanterns hanging from the brackets in the entrance. The swish of oil from within confirmed it was full. The wick flared to life on the second strike of the mechanical flint inside. Then she faced the opening leading into the depths and started down the iron tracks the miners used to roll their carts to and from the surface.
She had come this way many times before, normally with her father or another of the miners, but this time Kaila couldn’t keep the tremors from crawling down her spine. She imagined the weight of the rock looming above, how tiny she was amongst all of it, how even a small tremor in the earth might bring it all crashing down—or open a pit beneath her feet and drop her into the volcanic flames below. Her fear rose, its cold fingers closing around her throat, whispering for her to flee, to run back to Elgoss and her future with the Sisters…
I am not a coward.
Kaila forced herself onwards into the darkness. Silence embraced her. Funny, how easy it was not to notice the little sounds of everyday life. The chatter of voices from a nearby building. The creaking of floorboards shifting beneath boots. The whistle of wind and the rumble of a cart on unpaved streets—even the groan of the front gates as they were opened to allow the field workers access to their crops. All were a part of daily life in Elgoss, always there, in the background.
But now Kaila was embraced by the silence of the earth, swallowed by its darkness, wrapped in the stillness of the world beneath theirs.
Further into the depths she went, surrounded by a tiny sphere of light, her only lifeline to the world above. Her mind was heavy and unfocused, lingering on a future that just a few days ago had been unimaginable.
A Sister, her, Kaila Dwyn.
She both dreaded and was excited by the prospect. Tah’raus might be a dark and dangerous place, but it was also filled with wonders. Their histories claimed the enemy had built the city long ago, as a sister to their secret fortress of Eurador, where T’iana had first raised the rebellion. But while Eurador had been lost to the mists of time, Tah’raus remained, claimed by humanity as the seat of their own kingdom. She would study there for a decade before she was allowed to leave. It weighed on her, that knowledge, the cost she must pay for this new future.
Clang!
Kaila came to a halt as the harsh sound echoed up the tunnel. It sounded like the banging of metal. She stood frozen in the middle of the track, staring into the dark. Had that been her father? All of a sudden, she realised she’d been walking for ten minutes and this was the first noise she had heard. There should have been others, if her father was really down here with the condemned. The rattle of chains. The rasp of picks against stone. The grunt and cursing of men.
But there had been only silence—until that crash.
Her skin prickled as something else occurred to her. The entrance. There had been something odd about it, but only now did the truth occur to her, the thing that had been out of place.
There were no guards.
Her lantern flickered, guttering as the oil swirled inside. There were no lights other than her own. Shouldn’t there be others? Her father would have left lanterns on his way down.
Her mouth was suddenly dry. She tried to recall the entrance, if anything else had been out of place, but her memory was foggy.
Cursing, she hesitated in the dark, before plunging onwards down the tunnel. Her father must have forgotten the lanterns. Yes, that was it. And the guards…they would be helping her father with the prisoners, so there were no more incidents like yesterdays.
But now she’d noticed the silence, Kaila couldn’t shake her sense of unease. Goosebumps raced across her skin and her scalp prickled. Could it be the enemy? But there had been nothing. No alarm, no sound of combat. The town had been peaceful as she walked through the streets.
She was overreacting. Nervous after the decision she had made—
Clang!
She froze again, staring into the darkness ahead. Except it wasn’t dark any longer. There was light ahead. The flickering of a lantern. The hairs on the back of her neck were tingling. So, someone was down here.
Her father?
Or the enemy?
Kaila stood rooted to the spot, blood roaring in her ears, fingers twitching in the direction of her knife. What the hell was going on? Something was wrong—she could feel it. But there were no answers waiting to leap at her where she stood. She could only continue down the tunnel, or go back and report…what, exactly? Some strange noises?
She shuddered, her mind made up. If something was going on, she needed to find out what. She knelt carefully and set her bag and lantern on the ground. She didn’t want to alert whoever was below to her presence, just in case. With her load lightened and hands freed, she slipped the dagger from her boot. Then licking her lips, she summoned her courage and set off again. If there really were Elysian in the tunnels, she knew she couldn’t fight them, but she could alert the rest of the town.
The air grew thicker as she continued, spoiled by dust and burning with an acrid tang that had her eyes tearing up and her nose dripping. She placed her shirt across her mouth, but it did little to help. It was hot too, enough that she could feel it through the soles of her boots. Each breath grew more laborious, like a weight was pressed against her chest, forcing the air from her lungs. And these were not the deep tunnels. Fear fluttered in her stomach.
Fear is a great teacher, but you must never allow it to be master.
A favourite saying of her father. Easy advice to follow in the light. Down in the dark, she struggled to keep the beast in check.
Her eyes strained to pierce the black. The light source had grown brighter—she could make out the silhouette of the tunnel walls and uneven ground. She crept forward with deliberate care. If it was the enemy, even a whisper in this place might alert them. That could not happen. If something was wrong, Kaila was the only one able to raise the alarm.
“…all you can find?”
A voice echoed up the tunnel and Kaila froze. Distorted as it was, she couldn’t identify the speaker, and she missed fragments of the reply that followed.
“Please…chains…help you…”
Holding her breath by instinct, Kaila crept closer. That voice had been thin and reedy. Familiar. Neither had been her fathers. The tunnel curved ahead of her, slowly brightening, until at last the scene came into view.
There were half a dozen people in the tunnel. Several men dressed in the grey overalls of miners were on their knees, hands bound behind their backs and mouths gagged. She spotted her father immediately, a purple bruise swelling on his cheek and blackening his eye. There were two other miners who appeared untouched, plus Tomas and Sareen, who were in worse condition even than her father, barely able to keep themselves upright.
And then there were the prisoners. Leonardo plus three others—the criminals from the pens, she assumed. They still wore iron manacles on their ankles, connecting them so they couldn’t run anywhere quickly. Leonardo was holding out a bucket towards a man.
A man Kaila did not recognise.
He was young, maybe a year or two older than her, with stubble on his cheeks and scruffy blonde hair that hung around his shoulders. His eyes were strange, blue flecked with gold, and a little too large for his narrow face. He stood with his hands tucked casually into the pockets of a tattered trench coat, oozing a calm confidence that set every hair on Kaila’s head on end. The way he stood between her father and the prisoners without a hint of fear, everything suggested this man was in control. And that smile, the casual smirk on his lips…
Kaila’s heart gave a little thump.
“Is this all?” His voice was rough like gravel as he craned his head to study the contents of the bucket, before turning those gold-flecked eyes on his prisoners.
Chains rattled, then snapped taut as Leonardo tried to take a step towards the stranger. “The vein is almost empty,” he rasped. “Please, maybe without the chains—”
The stranger interrupted with a short, barking laugh. “What’s this?” he asked. “I thought we had a deal, Leonardo. You bring me a bucket of agimet, and I remove your chains.” He raised the bucket, waving it in his face. “This isn’t even half full. Now, what about other veins?”
Kaila’s blood ran cold at the words. He was after the agimet!
Leonardo wrung his fingers. “Please, we can’t go back down there,” he rasped. “It could take days to uncover a fresh vein.”
The stranger grunted. “I don’t have days,” he muttered, eyes flicking to her father and the other miners. He let out a sigh. “Well, I guess you won’t be getting your freedom after all.”
“Traitor!” Leonardo tried to hurl himself at the stranger, but the chain around his ankle snapped taut and all he ended up achieving was pitching face first to the ground.
The stranger chuckled as he scooped up the bucket before the thrashing man could knock it over.
“Sorry, mate. A deal’s a deal.”
Shaking his head, the man turned to the miners and placed his hand on his hips. “So,” he said lightly, “it was most inconvenient of you lot showing up, but now you’re here, maybe you’d like to tell me where you store all the agimet from this here mine?”
Her father and the others said nothing. Kaila swelled in pride for their bravery, but the stranger only tisked and walked down their line. Her father didn’t flinch when he came to a stop in front of him. Kaila wondered how the stranger had gotten the better of him in the first place. All of them, even Sareen, were larger than the newcomer, and her father largest of all. Kaila had never seen him bested with blade or fists. How had the intruder overcome them by himself?
“Well?” the man asked her father. “Where is it?”
Looking up from his knees, Gideon Dwyn drew back his head and spat on the stranger’s shoes. The intruder did not react immediately. His frown only deepened, lips curling into a frown.
“Charming,” he muttered, wiping his shoe on a rock with a look of disdain.
Then reaching into his pocket, he drew out a piece of crystal.
And his eyes began to glow.
Kaila stiffened as light spilled across the cavern. Not the warm glow of a lantern, but with the burning white of atar trapped inside the facets of agimet. She stared at the crystal in abject horror, a cold sweat dripping down her neck. Bathed in that light, time seemed to slow, as she was gripped by the terror every child in Elgoss was taught from the cradle.
Agimet. He had agimet.
Now she knew why the others didn’t resist, why they knelt, beaten and subjugated. This was no ordinary man they were dealing with, but one of the enemy. An Elysian. He might only be one man, but with that crystal, he could do terrible magics.
The thump of a body hitting stone snapped Kaila’s attention back to her father. She stifled a gasp as she saw him pinned to the wall of the tunnel. The stranger hadn’t laid a hand on him, yet he hung a foot off the ground, squirming against some unseen force. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. To Kaila’s horror, she realised he was choking.
“You have seen what I can do,” the intruder said softly. His hand was stretched towards her father, eyes burning.
With a flick of his fingers, her father crashed to the ground, wheezing for breath. Whistling a tune to himself, the stranger turned to the next man in the line.
“Where.”
He spread his hands.
“Is.”
Rocks clattered against one another as they lifted into the air.
“The.”
The light of atar burned brighter as the stones circled the hapless man.
“AGIMET!”
The last word came out as a roar, followed by a crack as a stone slammed into the miner’s shoulder. He screamed as he was thrown to the ground. Moaning, he tried to scramble away from the Elysian, but the intruders boot came down on his ankle.
“I’m waiting,” he hissed, those terrible eyes burning.
“Please!” the miner cried. His face now lit by atar, Kaila saw it was Everett Macy. He’d never been a soldier, but he was dutiful—one of the only men who would arrive each morning before her father. He looked terrified now, staring up into the face of evil. “Please, no—”
He screamed as another stone struck, this time square in the chest. There was force behind the blow, for Everett doubled over, clutching at his stomach.
Kaila’s heart was in her throat. She had to do something to help them. But what? The Elysian had already defeated her father and four others. What chance did she stand alone? She could go for help, but the intruder would be gone long before reinforcements arrived. It was unlikely the vile creature would leave any witnesses alive when he was done. There had to be something she could do.
She slunk closer, keeping to the shadows, taking care only to step on firm rock rather than gravel.
“It’s gone,” Everett sobbed as he recovered his breath. “Please, it’s gone. All gone!”
That brought a frown to the stranger’s face. “Gone?” he quizzed. “I know it was here. How can it be gone?”
“We don’t keep it in the village,” Everett whispered. “They take it every night! Pack it up with the waste rock and wagon it out of here.”
Traitor!
Rage, unexpected, boiled through Kaila’s veins. Everett had just revealed vital information to the enemy.
“Interesting.” Scratching his stubble with a dirty fingernail, the stranger seemed to consider this new information. “But quite unhelpful. You, overseer!” He swung back to her father. “Is this true?”
Her father leered back. “Those scraps are the only agimet you’ll be stealing today, mongrel.”
“Are you sure about that?” the stranger asked, his voice dropping a pitch, suddenly dangerous.
The air hissed as the stones shot towards her father, only to halt an inch from his face. Several yards up the tunnel, Kaila flinched and cracked her elbow against a protrusion in the wall. She had to slap her hands over her mouth to keep quiet.
“I’ll give you one last chance. Tell me where it is—or die.”
Muttering a silent curse, Kaila wiped away the tears that had sprung to her eyes and took a firmer grip of her dagger. This was it. The risk be damned, she wasn’t going to watch while this monster murdered her father. His back was turned to her. And was it her imagination, or was his agimet dimmer than before? Yes! It made sense. The atar was the source of his magic. He was burning up its power with these little displays of strength.
“Burn in hell.” His hands still bound, her father could only glare back at his attacker, defiant.
Stuffing her fears and uncertainty deep down inside of her, Kaila crept closer. It was a foolish, terrible plan, but it was all she had. She didn’t have to fight the monster or his magic—only deny him atar. If she could knock the stone from his hand, her father and the others would have a chance of taking him.
“Trickster’s Balls,” the stranger muttered. Hands clenched behind his back, he began to stalk back and forth across the tunnel. “Sneaky Fresians. And I bet none of you have any idea where they take it. Maybe someone else in thrice damned village knows…”
By now, Kaila was close enough to see the bucket the stranger had set aside. She caught the glint of several crystals inside—maybe half a dozen. If he escaped, it wouldn’t be empty-handed. Thankfully, the stones were dim, lacking the shimmer of atar that meant they’d been charged in a nexus. Only the one the stranger held was charged. If she could separate him from it…
“I could follow the wagons.” The Elysian seemed to be brainstorming to himself. He snapped his fingers. “Yes, that’s it. They can’t have gotten far!”
Kaila was close now, her only concealment the faint shadows cast by the mix of lantern and atarlight. With his back turned, the stranger still hadn’t noticed her. Nor had anyone else, thankfully. Every eye in the tunnel was on the man holding the magic—and all their lives—in his hands. Kaila was but a silhouette amidst the twisted shadows of the earth.
Her eyes never left the crystal. Nothing else mattered but separating the man from the source of his power. Ten yards and she paused, sucking in a lungful of air. Eight yards. She was almost inside the shroud cast by his agimet. Six. No one looked in her direction, but if they did now, they would see her. Her eyes flickered to the condemned. Their attention remained on the Elysian man.
Until Leonardo looked in her direction.
“Hey what are you doing—” he began.
Kaila didn’t wait for him to finish. Screaming at the top of her voice in the hope of confusing her foe, she hurled herself at the intruder. He held the piece of agimet at his side. There was no time to think—she went for the stone with everything she had.
But warned by Leonardo’s cry, the man was already turning. His eyes grew wide in the fraction of a second it took for him to realise his danger. He froze. Probably, the image of a halfway wild young woman hurtling at him from the darkness was enough to momentarily disarm him. Unfortunately, the moment didn’t last. His hand snapped out, catching her dagger-wielding right hand—just as her other hand closed around the crystal and tore it from his fingers.
Then they crashed together and went down in a tangle of bodies. Light flashed from the agimet, brilliant in the darkness. As the magic failed, the flying rocks reverted to the normal rules of gravity and crashed to the ground.
Blessedly, this time the darkness didn’t come for Kaila when she held the crystal. She scrambled across the ground, the agimet clutched desperately in her hand, trying to escape her foe. No luck. A weight slammed into her back, driving her face first into the gravel. Air hissed between her teeth as it was forced from her lungs. Choking, she curled into a ball. But even as stars filled her vision, she clenched the agimet tight in both hands.
Then another pair of hands closed around her own. Firm, yet soft, as though their owner had never done a day of honest labour in his life. Her vision cleared in time to see the grim face of the stranger crouched atop her. His hands were wrapped around hers, but she refused to release the agimet. To her surprise, he was smiling.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” he said casually. “They call me Theron. And who might you be?”
“Lemmego!” Kaila choked back, still struggling for breath.
Theron sighed. “So hard to have a proper conversation these days.” To her horror, his eyes began to glow. He was drawing power from the crystal even though she was still holding it. “Would you care to let go, or are we going to have a firm discussion about property rights?”
Terror prickled Kaila’s skull, warning her of peril, but she bared her teeth instead. “Never!”
“Very well.”
Around them, the ground began to vibrate as a hundred tiny pieces of gravel rose into the air.
And Kaila saw.
The world changed. She was no longer in the dark, but in a cavern lit by a thousand pinpricks of light. They were all around, shining like the glow worms she had read about in Sister Eurador’s books. Beautiful, shimmering, each slightly different from the last; this one a verdant emerald, the next ruby red, one as large as her fist, another as tiny as a grain of sand.
There was even a light inside of her, she realised with a start. And in her attacker as well. His burned brightly, swelling suddenly like a fire fed a fresh piece of coal. A dozen threads of gold spun away from his light, extending to the other stars, connecting them all in a fiery net. Slowly at first, then faster, the lights began to shift.
And the world moved with them.
A tingle spread down Kaila’s spine as she realised what this was. Magic. This was how it worked. And she understood. The lights were a spectral representation of their physical world. The intruder had used atar to connect and bend them to his will. He could make the fabric of the universe dance to his tune…
…and Kaila realized she could do the same.
She didn’t pause to think. The enemy was before her. He would kill her and her father and everyone else in this tunnel if she didn’t stop him. She had to deny him the agimet. Clutching the crystal tight in her fists, Kaila reached for the golden power inside, and pulled on it.
Fire flooded her chest, a heat unlike anything she had ever felt. The Elysian thief flinched as though he sensed what she’d done, but Kaila couldn’t allow herself to be distracted. Taking the power of the agimet, she touched the light inside the intruder.
Move.
And just like that, her assailant went hurtling backwards as though she had struck him a powerful blow. He crashed to the ground a few yards away, unharmed, but with a look of such stunned surprise on his face that one of the miners probably could have taken him right then without a fight, if they hadn’t also been staring at her with utter bewilderment.
Still holding the agimet in both hands, Kaila scrambled to her feet. Theron rose as well, his manner unhurried. He made a show of brushing off his coat, the smile still on his lips.
“My, my, aren’t you full of surprises,” he said with a smile. “Where did you come from, girl?”
Kaila found a smile of her own. “I am Kaila Dwyn of Elgoss,” she said defiantly, “and I will protect my home against your kind to my dying breath, Elysian scum.”
“Ah, Elysian scum?” Theron said, raising an eyebrow. “Bit of the pot calling the kettle black there, isn’t it?” He took a step towards her.
Her hand came up, flashing the glowing stone. “Don’t move,” she snarled. Why hadn’t her father and the others sprung on him already? She felt strangely weak, as though whatever she had done with the stone had drained her as well as the crystal. “Surrender, and I promise you will be given a fair trial.”
Theron snorted. “Yes, with the executioner waiting outside with a sharp blade, no doubt.”
“You have nowhere to run.”
“My dear girl, you have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
Kaila bared her teeth. “I am dealing with a thief.”
“The prince of thieves,” the stranger corrected. “I always have a way out.”
With his words, the glint of atar appeared in his eyes. Too late, Kaila realised one of his hands had reached into the pockets of his overcoat. He must have another crystal hidden there. With a jolt, the agimet was torn from her fingers by an invisible force. It shot across the tunnel to land gently in Theron’s outstretched hand.
The moment it left her possession, the strange lights in Kaila’s vision flickered and died away.
“Well, thank you for the bit of entertainment,” Theron said briskly. He stepped over to the bucket of crystals and swept it into his hand, “but I’m afraid I have overstayed my welcome.” Still eying her, he backed his way up the tunnel. “So, if you don’t mind, I’ll be going.”
“Wait!” One of the prisoners, Leonardo, cried. “You’re meant to free us!”
“Oh. Right.” Theron hesitated, glanced at the dimming glow of his agimet, then looked back at the man. “Sorry, I’m a little short on atar, especially after this last part.”
“What last part—”
Even without the crystal, Kaila felt the magic as Theron’s eyes grew bright again. It didn’t help. Even as she raised a hand as though to stay him, there was a roaring sound from above, before the ceiling came crashing down in an avalanche of stone and earth.
And everything went dark.
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