Chapter 5
Rowan
Cold, metallic air breathed out of the tunnels, brushing my face like the exhale of something alive.
Xan was waiting ahead, slumped against the wall like he’d been holding up the stone itself.
Cayden missed the last step. I reached out and steadied him as he came down hard.
Instead of growling or throwing me off, he merely caught his balance and gave me a nod.
Cayden was a shell. I’d take his sharp mouth over this silence any day. We needed his fire, not another soldier.
Xan pushed off the wall. “Come.”
His first few steps dragged along the stone-and-gravel floor before he suddenly perked up. I assumed he ate his magic once more.
I’d managed a bit of sleep, but we were burning our own power—every step weaker, every breath tighter. It would take months to rebuild the muscle I’d worked years to earn and only days to lose.
But I shouldn’t complain. Xan looked like a corpse on his feet. Deep bruising ringed his eyes, a lacework of white veins spidering beneath the skin. Even strands of his baby-blue hair had gone stark white. He hadn’t rested a single minute since this all began.
The Architect had a long history of overusing his magic. We didn’t need an unconscious leader.
Our footsteps echoed until the train loomed out of the shadows. Its back half crooked on the tracks, ladders slouched like weary sentries, and half-welded metal jutted like broken bones from where work was abandoned.
My stomach twisted unhappily. I knew something was wrong with Quinn's sudden work study. I should have forced her to stay at my side.
My chest ached where Quinn’s second heart should be. I’d felt her every injury before—now there was only emptiness, and that terrified me more than the pain.
A ball of baby-blue mage light bloomed to life above Xan.
“You could have prevented all of this,” Cayden murmured.
The words barely rose above our footsteps; even knowing they weren’t meant for me, they landed like a blow to the ribs.
Xan didn’t respond. Unlike Cayden, whatever Xan was going through, he kept close to his chest. He was the Architect; he had to lead by example, and that meant staying strong. He needed our support, not our judgment.
“And I could have never pursued Angela.” I clenched my fist, well aware of the consequences of that mistake. “And saved myself a lot of bullshit. But I did what I thought was right. That’s the best any of us can do, right, sir?”
Xan sighed. “I swear to whatever deity is listening, Rowan, drop the ‘sir.’”
I smirked. “Yes, sir.”
Xan sighed again. “You and Quinn are going to be the death of me.”
I raised an eyebrow. Did Quinn call him sir as well? I shook my head. No. I couldn’t picture that, but she obviously called him something.
We lapsed into silence, and the train vanished into the gloom, allowing me to bury the memory of Quinn’s limp, skewered body back into the deep recesses of my memory. She was never doing shit alone again. Not on my watch.
Although we were underground, I was one of Ezra’s five, and my mental map of the grounds suggested we were nearing The Great Hall.
The hair rose on my arms moments before low static muffled our echoing footsteps. A hint of roses cut through the thick smell of grease and metal filling the train tunnel. Everyone in the family recognized this odor.
I looked at Xan’s back. He and Professor Holiday had exchanged a look before the ancient monster left the meeting. Oil coated my skin, and a feeling of unease settled in my gut. My elemental magic danced beneath my skin.
The ground shook, and the pressure dropped, causing my ears to pop.
Xan quickened his steps until we reached a section of the tunnel wall that appeared identical to the rest. He turned to Cayden and beckoned him forward. “Let me into your mind.”
Cayden flinched away, and his vacant gaze flickered with trepidation.
Less than two days ago, the three of us sat in the Alun. Cayden had been frustrated, angry, and wary, yet he had not once shown fear. What the fuck happened in his compound?
“He’s begun,” Xan said. “Cayden, I needed you here, with us.”
A glob of slime hissed on my leathers, burning through the hide and sending the reek of scorched flesh clawing down my throat. What had Xan unleashed?
Cayden took another step away from us.
“Dammit.” I grabbed the smaller mage. “You literally just said you’d let the world burn for Quinn. You’d let Xan scrub the minds of as many people as he needed if it meant saving her. Pull your head out of your ass. If we don’t fix this, we can’t help Quinn.”
Cayden’s gaze ignited with familiar righteous indignation as he shoved me away. I savored his first sign of life.
“Cayden. It’s fucked up, I know,” Xan said calmly.
I jerked back. The Architect never swore.
“This world, what you’ve been through…” Xan leaned forward. “The Silvers sold me to slavers.” He clenched his fist. “They taught me to make collars. I was twelve.”
The anger in his voice echoed through my gut.
“I didn’t understand what I was making, but once I did.” Xan’s gaze blazed. “I killed thirty-seven people with just a thought and walked over their bodies to get out of that hellhole.”
Cayden’s eyes widened, and he stepped back.
“You didn’t choose your parents, but you can choose your family. I need you now.” Xan pressed his hand against the stone. “The Alun lies behind this wall. You’re a rune-master. You see patterns that the rest of us don’t. And Emil, your brother, is using the same rune magic you wield.”
Cayden nodded as if slowly digesting Xan’s words.
Xan clenched his fist in front of him. “I’ve unleashed a monster I can’t contain above us.”
As if on cue, the world shook. More acid rained down on us. A drop hit Cayden’s cheek, and he flinched away.
“That monster is our distraction. We need to get into the Alun right now. Or I lose everything, and we lose Quinn.”
Another bit of acid splashed onto Cayden’s other cheek. The rune mage grimaced and wiped it away with his sleeve, obscuring his face. When he lowered his arm, his eyes burned with determination. My magic danced, and my adrenaline surged.
Xan extended his hand, palm facing Cayden.
“Let me share my knowledge with you. Stop hating yourself. What’s done is done.
I spent years wondering if the men I killed had families and if I had made the right choice.
How many of them were truly evil? How many just had no other options?
” A tear rolled down Xan’s cheek. “I will never know. You will never know. What matters are the choices we make here and now.”
Cayden’s chest rose and fell once, twice. “I raped my sister. I raped all of them.”
His voice was so calm, so matter-of-fact, I almost didn’t understand. My lungs locked. Bile scorched my throat. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t fucking believe what I’d heard. Every rumor I’d ever heard about his family slammed into me at once, jagged and undeniable.
“You bowed to your Prophet,” Xan responded with more understanding than I could imagine. “You did what you thought was right until you knew it wasn’t.” His voice hardened. “You have two paths in front of you. Wallow in what has already happened, or create a better future.”
Two fat tears streamed from each of Cayden’s eyes as he flung himself forward, dropping to one knee in front of Xan, who nearly stepped back in surprise.
Cayden pressed his forehead into Xan’s palm. “You’ll protect Quinn from me?”
“I’ll train her so she doesn’t need protection from anyone,” Xan promised.
I’d already sworn my loyalty to the Architect. It was just a simple exchange of a scrawl and a handshake. But at this moment, I was seconds away from dropping to one knee as well. Xan said he wanted to create a world of equals, and for the first time, I truly felt it.
Cayden’s eyes widened, and the life behind them reignited.
Xan turned to me. “Drill forward as straight and as fast as you can. Don’t stop and don’t look back.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I lunged at the wall, stone groaning under my grip. Heat and earth roared through me, rock melting to slag as I forced it aside, clawing a path forward inch by brutal inch.
Power radiated at my back.
Cayden let out a low whimper. “This is too much information.”
Magic glowed off the rocks around me.
“You’re the product of a hundred years of breeding, Cayden.” Xan's words rang with power. “And a lifetime of training more detailed and intense than I can fathom. Control it. Did you lie to Quinn when you told her Majekah was imagination and will?”
The first foot of my tunnel dented into the wall. Thick, dusty air coated my lungs and stuck to my skin. I had to go faster.
“I didn’t lie to Quinn, you pompous ass.”
My heart soared hearing the fire in his voice between the sound of grating stone and hissing acid rain.
Xan laughed. “Welcome back. Get us into the Alun. Now.”
A stone wobbled in my magical grip, teetering the very foundation of The Great Hall.
I grunted and forced a glob of molten rock to hold it before stepping a few more feet forward.
A thought halted my magic: if the Alun was in front of me, then I was going to bust through a wall to get into it forcefully.
If I kept going, I’d break something I wasn’t supposed to. Shit.
“Um, what is the plan here?” I asked.
Before Xan could answer, an explosion rocked the tunnel system. Part of the ceiling collapsed, but not from my work. Xan’s light snuffed out, and the two threw themselves against my back. I didn’t stop drilling forward.
“The shield’s down,” Xan said, voice too calm for the quake above us. Something roared overhead, shaking the walls. I didn’t ask. I drove another keystone into place, snapping another foot of tunnel into existence.