Chapter 30
Cayden
The rune on my wrist flared to life with my Prophet’s call. The white circles darkened from pale brown to charred black, burning the edges of my wrist with the stench of seared flesh.
Unlike the Architect’s TBs, my family’s runes didn’t pass on full messages.
They only gave a vague sense of time and location.
It was an honor, part of becoming a man in the family, to receive the rune from the Prophet himself.
But after everything I’d learned, my rune felt like the brand it was, tying me to a world I didn’t want to be part of.
I used to think there was only one true way to live. I was wrong. So wrong. No higher power cursed me. It was my Prophet, the man who fathered me using his own daughter.
The ground shook, and pain stabbed my hip, ripping me from the spiral in my head. I reached down, pushing at the point of pain, but whatever I’d initially felt was already gone.
Someone screamed, and cries filled the front of the library. I jumped up and sprinted toward the sound.
My brothers. Shit. What had I done?
Smoke drifted out of an open door. A librarian held his hand on his face, just looking blankly through a door with smoke curling out of it.
“What’s happened?” I demanded.
“We don’t know. The train…”
Quinn. My worry about my brothers died. “How do I get to the train?”
“Through that door.” The man pointed at the smoking exit. I activated the runes covering my legs. “Third door, and down a ladder in the center. Then, second door on your right.”
My last rune fell into place. “And what direction does the train travel?”
The man spun. “Um.” He turned again, two of his fingers moving into his mouth. He finally pointed. “That way, I think. Maybe turn right? I mean, that’s the direction our eyes go when we read, right?”
I clenched my fist, nodded, and sprinted, my form blurring with my enhanced speed.
His directions were right, but I’d wasted time waiting for him to guess.
Prismatic, pink, and orange haze billowed from the right.
My legs burned as I charged through thickening clouds of wild magic.
I had to stop and draw runes across my face to filter out the toxic, power-laden air—so much power.
Bits of debris appeared first. A cog jutted out of the magically smooth stone walls.
Although the cauldrons were still in place, no light came out of them, and the world got darker with every step.
I created two balls of forest-green mage light that bathed the cave in even more shadow.
The static of loose power and the groaning of metal slowly cooling and losing its shape echoed off the tunnel walls.
A sheet of steel, along with a book, led to a larger pile of debris, which led to something long and tall. I slowed to climb over the unidentifiable piece of wreckage.
Someone coughed ahead and to my left. I sped up and found the body of a man I didn’t recognize lying on the stone floor as if thrown from the train. Blood crusted his lips and bubbled as he breathed. The leg and arm on his right side were lumps of swollen skin.
“Where’s Quinn?” I demanded, kneeling at his side.
The man tried to talk but wheezed. If I left him, he would die. I tried to stand, but visions of my brothers disregarding the pain of others assaulted me. It didn’t matter how simple or earth-shattering a problem was; I only helped at my Prophet’s command.
I couldn’t be a part of that cycle anymore.
It would take too long to heal him completely, but I could give him enough that he’d live. My hands never shook. Never. But knowing that Quinn might be dying at this very moment left me trembling with uncertainty. I prayed to hear another cough, but nothing met my ears.
My runes sank in, slowing his bleeding and easing his breath.
The man grabbed my hand. “She’s crazy. She fucking crashed us.”
Quinn. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I couldn’t clear the power haze cloaking the tunnel, and my forest-green mage light wasn’t bright enough to make out details. I cursed, wishing Rowan were here. Panic made my heart race and my blood pump. I’d lost everything: home, faith, family. Only she remained.
I forced myself to breathe and pushed down the emotions that were destroying my logic. If she had crashed the train, she would have been at the front, where I assumed the controls were.
With my speed and strength runes still boosting me, I surged forward, searching for the area with the most debris. Voices echoed behind me down the tunnel. I called out to them, informing them about the man I’d found while still searching for Quinn.
The shadows rippled as Ezra stepped out, vaulting over a twisted chunk of wreckage. I followed, then froze.
A small, crimson-soaked body hung limp, skewered by a brutal mess of metal rods jutting from her back. One pierced clean through her hip. Her head, framed by unmistakable waves of red and glints of crystal, lolled against a golden cog slick with a slow, steady stream of blood.
My heart seized.
Quinn.
Dripping blood echoed through the silence, mingling with the groan of twisted metal and the faint buzz of residual power. I looked down—more blood pooled beneath her, dark and spreading.
Ezra removed his fingers from one of her dangling wrists. “Her heart still beats. Xan’s coming as fast as he can.”
I tore my gaze from Quinn to Ezra. Devastation filled the stoic commander’s face, and his purple eyes darted around. But there was no one to fight. He reached for her, and I rushed forward, knocking his hand away.
“Pulling her down will only kill her faster.” The fear of the unknown, which had made my hands shake earlier, vanished, and I pressed two fingers to her throat. So slow, her pulse was too slow.
I met Ezra’s gaze. “Do you trust me?”
Ezra’s purple eyes darkened. A look I knew too well filled his face. Desperation, terror, and sheer helplessness reshaped his world. I’d looked like that when my Prophet took my daughter and put a knife through the back of her tiny neck, ending her life before she even got a chance to see it.
“I do,” Ezra stated.
I didn’t draw. She didn’t need healing; she needed to share my life force. I closed my eyes, and my time with her filled my world. This woman forced me to look beyond my conditioning. She supported me no matter how little I shared. Every person she touched lit up brighter. She had to live.
I placed my hands on her stomach, fingers sliding in the blood soaking her overalls, and pushed my essence into her, giving her my pure energy before hers could slip away. Her pain flooded me. I staggered, teeth clenched to stay upright.
“Quinn, you can’t leave me,” I said, gripping our magic like I held her ankle under the table, tight and sure. “Stay strong! You are so stubborn. Use that. A minor train accident isn’t going to take you out.” I swayed. Between her pain and the rush of power going through me, the world spun.
“A minor train accident?” Rowan’s hand pressed into my back, steadying me as his voice cut through the chaos.
With no awareness of anything but Quinn, his sudden appearance startled me, but didn’t surprise me. He’d felt her impact; if anything, I was angry it took him so long.
“She’s been skewered.” Fear clipped Rowan’s words. “I didn’t think she had that much blood.”
“Xan’s close.” Ezra’s voice, though it sounded distant.
I swayed, and Rowan stepped closer, pressing both hands to me.
With a grunt, a storm of elemental power tore through my body, latching on to my own and doubling it in an instant—too much, too fast. My magic howled out of control.
A blinding white crack split my vision, and thunder ripped through the cave as stone shards hailed down.
A second heartbeat flared next to mine. My senses locked on to Quinn, her fragile life force flickering beneath mine.
I wrapped myself around it instinctively, shielding her while taking the strength Rowan freely offered.
We floated in a sea of raw power, anchored only by our connection. Her pain eased. Her pulse steadied.
And slowly, either the storm calmed, or I learned how to stand inside it.
Feet slapped against the stone, and the sound of voices echoed amongst the wreckage. The Architect, Quinn’s other tether, the man who sent her here, appeared at Ezra’s side. He stepped forward as if to touch her. Power surged from me, shoving him back before I could think.
The Architect turned to me. “She’s dying.”
“She needs a medic.”“I am a medic.” He tried to move forward again. Again, I pushed him back.
‘He saved her life after the trials. He wouldn’t do that just to let her die now,’ Rowan said, though I hadn’t felt his chest rumble at my back or heard the words with my physical ears.
I looked at the Architect again. “You sent her here. Why?”
The man aged twenty years in a single second. “I didn’t. I didn’t change her schedule.”
‘Let him save her, or I’ll shove my hands so far up your ass they will come out your mouth.’ Rowan’s grip on me tightened, no longer supportive but painful.
I met the Architect’s baby-blue gaze and jerked my head toward Quinn. The moment he touched her, the pain making my bones throb eased. Like us, the Architect’s magic twined with hers, keeping her safe and stemming the bleeding so her heart had something to pump.
“Don’t let go of her,” the Architect warned. “You’re the only thing keeping her alive.” Baby blue-power twined around Quinn like a glowing fishing net. “We’re going to have to pull her off and pray I can patch holes faster than she can bleed out.”
My runes were too slow. I’d help, but her life was in his hands now. I wanted to fight, to argue, but she couldn’t stay like this.
‘Trust us.’ The words echoed inside my skull, not in my ears. For the first time, I felt him there.
I didn’t like this, not at all. Ezra stepped forward, ready to help, and on the Architect’s signal, we pulled.