Chapter 23 #2
That’s not funny. What is Stellan asking you to do?
Cade’s gaze flickered to his sister beside him. Use Cassia.
With a quick pop, he was gone. Bridget watched Cassia twist her hands.
They’d barely learned anything about her Druid abilities.
She barely knew anything. Except for the terrifying warning that her powers, if overused, could annihilate everything around her.
What did Stellan expect her to do? And what would the price be?
Blinding light flashed throughout the hallway, temporarily blinding Bridget and illuminating the west courtyard to their right.
Moments later, thunder rumbled, shaking the palace walls and rattling her bones.
The wind howled fiercely, shattering a pane in the glass doors that framed the golden-red and green tree she remembered from the first day of the tournament.
Thick, humid air drifted in, heavy with the scent of rain, as lightning struck again, illuminating the trembling timber outside.
Finn tensed, his gaze darting along the corridor. “A storm isn’t going to help us track anything.”
“Are we almost there?” Nylah asked, her voice trembling.
With a tilt of his head, Cade urged them forward. “It’s around the next corner.”
Tightening her grip on the sword, Bridget sped up her steps. Another roll of thunder made her jump. “I haven’t heard the Wraith since we made it downstairs.”
“Maybe it left,” Archer said.
Cassia rolled her eyes. “Unlikely.”
At the end of the hallway, Cade stopped in front of a gray metal door with no handles. “We still need to figure out how it made it to the palace in the first place,” he said, waving his hand over the hinges. “I can still feel the protection spell around Astraeus.”
“So can we.”
Stellan’s deep voice echoed from behind them. Bridget whirled around to meet his steady gaze. Beside him, Marin took a deep breath and shoved her trembling hands behind her back. Narrowing her eyes, Bridget opened her mouth to ask if she was okay, but Cade’s voice cut her off.
“Once I show Bridget the right way through the tunnels, you need to explain exactly how you plan to use Cass against this Wraith,” he said, kicking open the now unlocked safe room door with his heel.
Cassia paled. “Me? Absolutely not. I can’t. Not if it means I could hurt—”
At the end of the hall, the girl from Bridget’s dreams appeared between lightning strikes. With a taunting smile, she wiggled her fingers.
Bridget flung herself backward, colliding with Stellan’s chest. His hands closed around her shoulders, steadying her as her whole body shook. She squeezed her eyes shut. Thunder rolled overhead, low and menacing. When she opened them, the girl would be gone. She had to be.
“Are you okay?” Stellan asked.
Bridget’s hands trembled as she forced her eyes open. The space where the girl had stood was empty now—utterly, impossibly empty. She couldn’t bring herself to meet Cade and Nylah’s worried gazes. Her voice broke as she whispered, “I saw her. She was right there.”
Cade’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, eyes fixed on Bridget. “There’s no one there,” he said gently, his voice laced with worry.
Cassia’s gaze swept the hallway, sharp and tense. “What the hell is she talking about?” she hissed, her fingers twitching at her side.
Archer grabbed her arm. “Bridget, now is not the time for your little—”
“Watch out!”
Nylah’s scream tore through the hall.
A blur of shadow surged from the ceiling. Skeletal limbs and smoke trailed as the Wraith dove straight for Bridget. Stellan yanked her back just in time, his arm slamming across her chest as the creature’s claws scraped the air inches from her face.
Finn drew his sword in one fluid motion. “That thing can walk on the ceiling now?”
Before he could lunge, a second figure stepped from inside the safe room. Quinn’s eyes glowed like burning coals, and blood seeped from her palms, swirling into twisted, pulsing threads as she gripped the Bloodstone. “Oops, was this room supposed to be secured?”
“Move!” Cade shouted, shoving Bridget backwards. He dropped Nylah beside her and raised his palms. His eyes crackled with glowing silver as he turned to face Quinn.
The Wraith let out a piercing shriek, an inhuman wail that rattled the walls.
It launched again, this time at Stellan, who barely ducked, trying to knock Marin out of the way.
His blue tattoos glowed as he summoned an ember and launched it at the Wraith.
With a flick of his wrist, Cade did the same.
The Wraith shrieked as the fire collided with its form, staggering it midair.
But it didn’t fall. It crawled along the wall with spider-like limbs, eyes glowing like coals.
“Hello, friends,” Quinn said. Suddenly, the Witch raised her bleeding hands and sent a wave of magic down the hall. It slammed into them, knocking them all off their feet. Glass and torches shattered around them.
Again, Quinn raised a bleeding hand, the Bloodstone pulsing in her grip.
With a flick of her fingers, a jagged line of fire ripped down the hallway, splitting the floor between the group and sealing off their path to the safe room.
Bridget stumbled back, nearly falling into Nylah as Cade threw up a shield just in time to block the blaze.
Heat radiated from the wall of fire, forcing them into a tightening circle.
“Stay behind me!” Cade shouted, dragging Nylah behind him as the flames roared.
Quinn stepped through the smoke unfazed, the Bloodstone pulsing with dark light in her grip. With a sharp flick of her wrist, she drew a bleeding line down her forearm, feeding her power. Another line of fire erupted in a jagged streak across the hallway.
“She’s trying to box us in,” Stellan growled, sweat beading at his temple as he tried to reflect the heat from their bodies. Marin stepped forward, her own magic humming. She launched a swirl of icy wind and sharp shards that shattered against the Wraith’s form.
Through the flames, Quinn smirked and stepped through her own fire as if it were nothing. She moved inhumanly fast, darting past Cade and Stellan in a blur. Before Finn could react, she was in front of him, hand raised.
“Finn!” Bridget cried, lunging forward, but Cassia pulled her back.
Quinn reached him in a blink. Her jagged and black as obsidian nails sliced clean across Finn’s neck.
He stumbled, a strangled cry ripping from his throat as blood streamed through his fingers. “You—” he gasped.
Quinn tilted her head. “Still breathing? Pity.”
Archer charged her with a roar. “Get away from him!”
But Quinn turned and flicked her hand. A blast of energy slammed into Archer, throwing him across the hall. He hit the stone with a sickening crack and slumped to the ground, unmoving.
Bridget gasped and turned to Nylah. The girl trembled against her side, eyes wide with fear.
“It’s okay,” Bridget whispered, even though her voice shook. “I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Bridget—run!” Cade shouted, fire roaring from his palms as the Wraith launched toward him again. Stellan flanked him, casting another glowing barrier to hold it back.
The Wraith screamed, then dove at Cade and Stellan, its claws raking through the air as they countered with bursts of magic. Marin summoned a tempest of ice, swirling it around the Wraith to slow its deadly strike.
But Quinn’s magic surged again, slamming into the floor beneath their feet with a violent crack. The marble shattered, a chasm tearing open between Bridget and Cassia and the others.
Dust and rubble exploded as the ceiling groaned, then crashed down in a deafening roar, sealing off the side corridor.
“No!” Bridget screamed, pounding on the stone wall.
A sob tore through Nylah’s chest. “What happened to Archer?”
Gripping Bridget’s arm, Cassia urged, “That won’t do any good. We have to keep moving and find another way around to help them. Or we need to find my father. We can’t just stand here and idiotically pound at the rubble.”
Bridget’s heart hammered as she clutched Nylah tighter.
The flames flickered behind them, the Wraith’s shrieks echoing in the distance.
She was right. The stones were too heavy to move.
There had to be another way through the palace.
Gripping Nylah’s hand, Bridget grabbed the sword from the floor and chased after Cassia’s already retreating form.
Bridget stumbled through the narrow hallway, sword whooshing through the air as she led Nylah along the twisting, shadowed passage. Dust choked the air, and the distant roar of collapsing stone faded behind them, swallowed by the heavy silence.
“Where are we going?” Bridget breathed. “Stellan said he needed you. We’re moving further away from them.”
“The west courtyard,” Cassia said without hesitation. “I know this palace better than you. There’s another path we can take that will lead us back to them.”
Lightning cracked overhead as they pushed open the heavy iron doors, rain lashing like cold knives against their skin. Thunder rolled low and deep, vibrating through the stone beneath their feet.
Nylah whimpered, pressing herself against Bridget’s side. Bridget wrapped an arm around her protectively, shielding the girl from the biting wind. For a moment, the chaos of the fight seemed miles away. Only the storm’s wild howl and the pounding rain.
A cold, rattling shriek shattered the moment.
The Wraith dropped from the roof’s edge, landing between them and the broken wall that led back inside. Its hollow eyes burned like embers, limbs twisting unnaturally as it advanced.
Bridget’s breath caught in her throat. She moved to stand in front of Nylah, every muscle tense. “How the hell did it find us?”
Cassia didn’t answer, only stared up at the Wraith with wide, horrified eyes. The creature darted forward.
“Cassia, move!” Bridget shouted, shoving her and Nylah out of its path.