THIRTY #2
Her heart leapt uncomfortably in her chest, ice injecting in her veins as she began to panic before there was even a problem.
“It will just be a scholar,” Silas murmured quietly. “Hide the journal, and let’s walk out like we belong here.”
Amelia swallowed, heart pounding. Nodding, she tucked the journal away and began to move with false confidence down the aisle.
As they got closer to the figure, her pulse increased.
The person still did not move, and when the light of her lamp touched them, she saw they were clothed in dark robes, hood covering their bowed head so she couldn’t see their face beneath.
Silas sucked in a sharp breath and his hand was suddenly around her elbow, stopping her in her tracks abruptly. Amelia was hauled to a halt, just as her eyes found what must have spooked him. The symbol on the front of the figures’ robes.
The Sanctum of Equilibrium.
They both took a step back quickly.
“The chip,” Silas said.
Amelia shook her head. “They don’t work in here. The runed door stops magical travel in and out.”
He let out a rough breath. “Fine,” he said, and with one arm, he held Amelia back as he raised his other at the figure. She felt the burst of magic he released, the robed person grunting as they were flung backwards, sprawling heavily to the ground. Silas tugged at her arm. “ Run .”
They moved quickly, but the moment they stepped into the open chamber, she realised the danger they were truly in.
Robed figures stood all around the room in a circle, and in the centre, facing them, were her parents.
Her next breath stalled in her lungs at the sight of them, heart dropping.
Silas panted next to her, his grip on her arm punishing and desperate.
Her father stepped forwards, a bruise adorning the side of his face. He held out a hand, as though placating them. “Amelia, child, this will all be for the best.”
She shook her head, fear rooting her feet to the ground. “Father…”
“Do the spell,” her mother said in her cold, stern voice, commanding and even, “and bring her to me. Him you can have.”
Someone stepped forwards, drawing their hood back. They dragged someone along in their other hand.
It was Demetrius, and sprawling to the floor next to him, was Fabian Eros, bruised with a bloodied lip and bound with glowing silver cuffs.
The young mage, who they had last seen in Lunarian in his shamble of a shop, was staring at them with wide green eyes as though trying to convey something important, almost like an apology.
But his mouth was already moving, words, a spell, tumbling from his mouth.
Silas and Amelia had raised their hands at her mother’s command, but when she tried to find her magic, she found it trapped, hidden behind some locked door she could no longer access.
Amelia’s wide eyes locked on Fabian, who was muttering his chant nonstop, his words somehow blocking their magical access.
The robed figures drew closer, and it was Silas who first drew his blade from the sheath at his hip, holding it ready as they neared.
“Silas,” came a voice, Demetrius. They both glanced at the man. “That’s enough. You’ve taken too many chances, and we have to put an end to it. Time is running out.” His eyes flitted to the Midnight Blade in Silas’ hand, narrowing with a stark greed.
Amelia couldn’t hear Fabian’s low muttered words, but she could feel the sting of them, washing across her skin, dulling her bond and her connection to the Monoliths like a receding tide. Her knees buckled slightly at the feeling. Silas cursed under his breath as the Sanctum continued to near.
They were being caged and needed a plan. Fast.
Her eyes darted everywhere, mind spinning.
They couldn’t get to the door, and they couldn’t force their way out with their magic.
Trapped.
A touch on the back of her hand, the slightest brush. She looked at Silas, and he was giving her a meaningful look, his eyes shifting quickly to the spiralling shelf behind her and back to Amelia.
She glanced over her shoulder, spying the scrolls covered in different runes behind shiny glass. Amelia turned back to Silas, and his eyes widened as though trying to convey something important.
She pulled out her blade. The darkness of it absorbed the light in the room, gleaming proudly.
It was then that one of them attacked, robes flying as they flung a sword in Silas’ direction. He parried the blow with his blade, shifting his body to avoid the brunt of the force.
Amelia swallowed, heart pounding as she leapt out of the way, towards the glass-encased shelf teeming with magical, runed scrolls.
She raised her blade, the blunt end striking the side of the glass. It fractured with a screech, spiderwebs of cracks appearing. Amelia brought her blade down again, this time she gasped and jumped away as a cascade of broken glass flooded around her feet.
A shout from behind her, the sound of metal against metal, sending her pulse rocketing as her free hand shot to a scroll sealed in a black wax on the third shelf.
She didn’t know what it would be, but it looked dangerous enough.
Her bond, her magic, flickered within in her.
Dimmed but not dead, and she pulled on what little magic she could as she held the scroll.
Amelia didn’t know the activation word, but felt a pulse of heat, a ripple of magic flow from her and into the scroll.
It became warm in her hand, the paper heating until it almost began to sizzle. She choked out a small scream as she turned, and barely had time to aim before she threw the burning scroll away from her.
Amelia didn’t know if it she had meant to, but the scroll arced through the air and landed near her parents.
The moment it hit the floor of the archives, it exploded.
The fire that erupted wasn’t real, it was arcane.
Wild with illusion and sensory distortion, several people were blown backwards by a chaotic blast of wind as smoke filled the room instantly, curling into tendrils that confused those closest to it.
They all seemed to stop their advance to take in the swirls and whorls of smoke and flame, set into an entranced state.
Part of the magic, she realised.
Before she knew what was happening, Silas was there, taking her upper arm and pulling her into a run.
They leapt over someone unconscious on the ground and ran through the smoke. It didn’t burn in her lungs or make her wish to cough. Because it wasn’t real. It was an illusion.
They ran for the door, pushing through two robed figures who were staring up at the rising spirals of smoke with bewildered expressions on their faces.
“Wait!” Amelia said, turning back and casting her eyes over the people in the room.
“Winslow,” Silas said through gritted teeth, desperation in his tone, “we have to leave, now!”
Amelia spotted him and ran to the mage kneeling on the ground. He didn’t appear to be watching the smoke or the flame like the others. His strange green eyes watched her, no longer chanting.
She realised it then. Her magic, the bond, was back in full force.
Amelia grabbed at his shining cuffs and pulled all the magic from it, siphoning it into her veins instead. They shattered apart, and Fabian was free.
“Come on,” Amelia urged, and then Silas appeared, helping him to his feet as someone shouted in alarm from behind them. They were coming out of the daze.
“Go!” Silas growled.
Fabian stumbled at first, but then they were all sprinting towards the exit from the archives, pushing through the archway until Silas was grunting as he opened the door leading to the Spire’s grand library.
They fell through it.
Silas had the chip ready and reached for Amelia. She took his arm, heart pounding. He held his hand out for Fabian.
The mage just looked at them, a serene smile spreading across his face, even though there was blood dribbling down his chin and a blooming bruise around his right eye.
“We will see each other again soon,” Fabian said with a wink, and then he was running through the library with his robes billowing behind him.
“Wait—”
“No time,” Silas said hurriedly, and pulled Amelia into his side as he pressed at the Waystone chip just as the door before them burst open. She saw her mother’s enraged face, heard her name shrieked, before they tumbled through time and space.