CHAPTER 33
A bloodcurdling scream alerted me that I was on the right path.
Instead of slowing, I ran faster. Racing toward danger was definitely a first for me, but the adrenaline pumping hotly through my veins didn’t let me dwell on it.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, it demanded, and I obeyed, using that scream to guide me forward.
Another scream bounced toward me, and I raised my orb higher, trying to find the source.
The chamber I’d selected had been open and uneventful up until this point, but just ahead, I could see that it abruptly narrowed.
The cave walls smoothed as if someone had sanded them down, the passage appearing manmade instead of natural.
As I neared the narrow entrance, a familiar chill crept up my spine.
Death was near. Or had been. My intuition went haywire, and I forced myself to slow, heeding the warning.
With the orb still lighting my way, I silently slid into the corridor.
The air immediately felt different inside the tight quarters.
Still. Aware. Like a predator about to pounce.
I braced myself for an attack, uncertain if it would come from a student or some kind of magical trap.
Thorne had warned me that every trial I’d face would be rigged with dangerous spells meant to challenge me. He hadn’t known what sort of spells would be awaiting me in the Labyrinth Trial, though. Each trial was handcrafted with care, and they were different every year.
Whatever challenges I was about to face, I had to rely on my own wits and intuition to get me through them. Thorne couldn’t help me, and if I was in danger, he wouldn't be coming to save me.
With that sobering fact in mind, I crept down the eerie passage with caution. Only a few yards later, another tight passage opened up to my left. I paused for a moment, then continued straight, not wanting to get stuck in another dead-end loop. A few more yards, and a passage opened up to my right.
Nope. Not falling for it.
I kept straight as an arrow, even when death’s presence grew stronger, an unseen breeze carrying its pungent scent to me.
This waaay, it urged me forward, making goosebumps skitter over my flesh. But my senses didn’t dull like I expected them to, and I found out why a second later.
A scream pounded into my eardrums, so loud, so close that I jumped, my heart lodging in my throat.
“Help me!”
The cry came from directly ahead, and I broke into a run, certain I was going to beat death to its victim this time. But as I neared, a scent hit me. Sharp. Metallic. Not death’s scent.
Blood.
I glimpsed the carnage before I could brace myself, and the sight was too much for my stomach. I bent over and lost my breakfast, splattering it all over the cave floor. My orb flickered, and I frantically willed more light into it, not wanting to be in the dark with what I’d just seen.
“Help!” the cry came again, weaker this time.
I straightened, my hand and orb shaking as I forced myself to face the carnage again. A crushed body lay on the floor, the limbs all angled wrong and the head missing.
Oh. There it was. Lodged in a corner.
Blood saturated the ground and soaked the walls, pooling beneath the neck where the head used to be. The face was pointed away from me, but I could tell that the body was male.
“Please,” a male voice croaked, and I looked up past the headless body to see a warlock with dark auburn hair standing there at an odd angle.
His face was splattered with blood, but I recognized him as Levi Pierce, the Earth Elemental who’d pricked my leg with a thorny vine during Conjuring class.
Careful, my intuition hissed in warning. It could be a trap.
No, I didn’t think so. It was Levi who was trapped, pinned to the passage wall somehow. My heart sank when I noticed the passage had come to an abrupt dead end.
“Please, help me,” he said, sounding so desperate, so vulnerable that I couldn’t help but respond. Doing my best to keep my eyes off the carnage below, I carefully stepped over the body and approached Levi.
The second he saw that it was me, his expression changed. He didn’t look mad, per se, or even disgusted, but he wasn’t particularly pleased either.
I paused, and his expression morphed into panic.
“No, please! Don’t leave me here. You’re all I have!”
Wow. No one had ever said that to me before. Taking in his pale sweaty face, I hesitated another moment before giving in with a sigh. At this rate, there was no way I’d finish the trial first, but I couldn’t ignore someone in need.
So much for being cutthroat.
“What happened?” I asked, raising my orb higher so I could see where he was pinned.
“We weren’t . . . fast enough,” he panted, his breaths shallow and uneven. “The walls started to move, and everyone panicked, and Simon just . . . Oh God, he’s dead. I can’t believe he’s dead.”
Trying not to panic at the thought of the walls moving, crushing anyone who stood in their way, I reached around Levi and gingerly touched his shoulder. I expected him to cry out in pain, but he didn’t even flinch. “Does that hurt?”
“What? No. I didn’t even feel it.”
He must be in shock then, and no wonder.
His right shoulder was butted up against the wall, but his connected arm .
. . It was trapped. Crushed. Wedged between two huge slabs of limestone.
He must have been leading the way with an orb when the spelled walls had slammed shut on his extended arm, while another set had crushed Simon.
Well, except for his head. It had been chopped off, but the skull was still wholly intact.
Focusing on the smooth walls, I finally noticed the seams separating the gigantic slabs that allowed them to move independently. Great. Just great. This was a deadly underground maze, all right, one that wanted to crush us into oblivion.
“We need to get you out of there,” I needlessly told Levi, urgency filling my body once more. Those walls could start moving again at any time, and I didn’t want to be standing here when they did.
I dug my fingers into the crack holding Levi’s arm captive, but it only took me a second to realize that he wasn’t getting out of there without magic. A lot of magic. Worry shivered through me, not because expending so much magic would weaken me, but because I could hurt him.
Then again, he was already hurt and could lose that arm if he didn’t get medical attention soon. Not to mention the walls, which could start moving again at any moment.
Clenching my jaw, I set aside my worry and said, “I’m not an Earth Elemental, so I can’t push stone this heavy. But you can.”
He made a weak scoffing sound as if I was dense. “Don’t you think I would have already done that if I could? I can’t feel my hand, let alone conjure magic to it.”
“But you still have your left hand. I need you to use it.”
Pursing his bloodless lips, Levi raised his trembling free hand and rested it on the wall. “Fine. And what will you be doing?”
I let the orb fade out, then dug both sets of fingers into the crack on either side of Levi’s shoulder before replying, “I’m going to destroy the stone.”
I was a Darken, after all. Destroying was what I did best.
Not waiting for a reply, I shut my eyes against the darkness and focused on the darkness brewing inside of me. The second my attention locked onto it, it sprang awake, beyond eager to be used.
Easy, I warned the chaotic force as if it was a sentient being.
Far too often, it felt like my magic was sentient instead of an extension of me.
I knew that wasn’t possible, but ever since Juliana had died, I couldn’t get the notion out of my head.
Something was definitely wrong with my magic, but I needed it right now.
So, despite my misgivings, I called on it anyway, willing the dark destructive mass to my fingertips.
It snaked through my veins like an undulating serpent, beelining for the target I’d chosen for it.
Without hesitation, the magic raced from my body and struck the stone.
Cool light flared behind my closed eyelids as the stone cracked.
Levi sucked in a startled breath, but I dug deeper and ordered the darkness to attack the stone again.
Strike. Crack.
Dust and pebbles pelted my face and head as the slabs started to break under the magical assault.
“Push!” I shouted at Levi, directing another attack at the stones.
Just as I released another wave into the stone and more splintering cracks echoed through the corridor, a green glow joined my dark violet. Levi grunted beside me as he pushed his own magic into the stone, so forcefully that I felt it shudder beneath my hands.
It was working.
“Keep going!” I yelled, pumping another round into the limestone. It cracked and groaned and shuddered. Dust choked the air, but I refused to cough, all of my attention on breaking apart the rock.
I’d never attempted to destroy anything this dense, this massive before, and it took an immediate toll on my body. Sweat slid down my spine, every inch of me beginning to shake from the strain. I sent another wave into the rock, and the crack that followed was almost deafening.
“Aahhh!” I belted, striking the weakening stone one final time.
It exploded.
The two smooth slabs buckled, transforming into huge deadly chunks. Before they could rain down on us, Levi released a guttural cry of his own and pushed them forward. The avalanche of stone tumbled and clattered down the dark passage, and his crushed arm dropped to his side.
As Levi stumbled, I grabbed his good arm to keep him upright and conjured another orb into existence. One glance confirmed that we’d broken through to the other side, where the passage stretched on into the darkness.
“We have to go,” I said, firming my grip on his arm. I took a step forward, careful not to trip over loose rock, but he didn’t budge. “Levi, come on.”
“I can’t,” he weakly groaned, casting a look behind us. “Simon.”
I faced him to sharply say, “He’s dead. And we’re next if we don’t leave right now, so move!”
I would apologize to him later once we got out of here, if we did, but this wasn’t the time for empathy.
I pulled on his arm, and he stumbled forward with a pained grunt, no doubt getting sensation back into his crushed limb.
He needed medical attention fast, but the only thing I cared about right now was exiting this passage before the walls started moving again.
Picking our way past the stone rubble, we’d only made it a handful of yards when a loud scraping noise filled the corridor. Levi stopped dead, and we glanced at each other at the same time. The pure terror on his face told me everything I needed to know.
The walls were about to move again.
“RUN!” I bellowed. Sinking my nails into his arm, I took off, relieved when I felt him lurch forward with me.
The scraping grew louder and louder, a deep rumble vibrating the ground beneath us. One swift glance behind me confirmed that the walls were indeed moving.
Wham!
A set of stone slabs slammed together, and I jerked my head around again, horror climbing up my throat. This was not the way I wanted to die.
Apparently, Levi felt the same way, because he jerked away from me and all-out sprinted down the passage, cradling his crushed arm to his chest. Even with his injury, he passed by me, his legs much longer than mine.
I lit his path as best I could, my orb’s light casting crazy beams through the darkness.
Wham!
The slabs were shutting faster, closer. They were only feet behind me now, and I had no idea how long this corridor was.
I ran for all I was worth, keeping my eyes straight ahead in case the walls ahead of us decided to move as well. If that happened, we were screwed.
Wham, wham!
Air violently whooshed directly behind me, letting me know just how close the walls had been to crushing me. My heart thundered wildly, every inch of me alive with terror.
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
Levi shouted something, but the words were lost to a deafening screech as another pair of stone slabs activated. Ones that I could see, because they were on either side of me. About to squish me like a pancake.
I wasn’t going to make it.
Like hell I wasn’t.
My survival instincts kicked into overdrive, and just as the slabs screamed toward me, I pushed off the ground with all my strength and dove forward.