76. Ahmina
AHMINA
Ahmina was desperate to find Rory. She searched the crowd frantically, bodies pushing past her on all sides. Her friend was there one moment, dancing and singing. The next, she had been swallowed by the crowd.
Behind her, a Firebringer let out a wave of scorching flame, its heat warming her back.
“RORY!!!” she cried out, but Rory was nowhere to be found.
“We have to go, NOW!” Lennox grabbed her hand and pulled her forward.
“But I can’t find Rory,'' she screamed over the noise. She glanced back at the Firebringer and it seemed disoriented, flapping around the room and crashing into the upper halls, its stone pillars crumbing down onto the crowd.
Ahmina and Lennox pushed into the hallway where they spotted Zeina. Smoke filled Ahmina’s lungs, and she coughed, trying to express to Zeina that Rory was missing. But her words were swallowed as Zeina pulled her and Lennox down a flight of stairs, just as a woosh of flame flew past them.
“I’ve never been down here,” Ahmina said, looking around.
The basement of the castle was dark, suffocatingly damp, and smelled like mildew.
The ceiling shook as the Firebringer continued on its warpath above.
Another crash and it started to crumble, chalky dust engulfing their hair, eyes, and lungs.
“Over here!” Lennox yelled and the three of them crammed into a corner while Lennox did his best to shield them.
When it stopped, Ahmina lifted her head, trying to get her bearings.
Dust clung to the air and she coughed, her eyes watering as they searched through the haze.
At first, she couldn’t make out what she was seeing, but as the room came into focus, she realized the damage had broken down a wall, revealing a vast second room.
Hundreds, no thousands, of shapes scattered the floor. Spread out in rows upon rows were small sleeping creatures.
“What the…?”
Zeina and Lennox were just as speechless. There was barely any light, darkness and dust clinging to every corner. Still, what lay in front of them was unmistakeable. They scrambled over fallen marble and stone to reach the creatures.
She examined the creature closest to her feet. It looked like the Slyfoxes she saw in the forest except it was much smaller, its limp ears barely poking out of its head. It’s paws too big for its body.
“Are these… babies?” Her stomach sank.
Lennox nodded, his brows furrowed.
Zeina just stood there, silent, her face dark.
Each creature’s feet were bound by vines and tree roots that stretched toward a single giant crystal in the middle of the room. It glowed and pulsed like a dying heartbeat—erratic and frantic. She was overcome with a sudden sense of intense doom.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” She held back the bile that climbed her throat. “This place feels…” She couldn’t say it out loud. Evil, dark, sinister, cruel. But she didn’t know why.
Lennox rubbed her back absent-mindedly.
“That gemstone,” Zeina said, eyes wide. “It’s a syphon. I can feel it.”
Ahmina could feel it too. It was like a shadow version of her magic that pulled in recognition, a tug on the end of a string.
“Why would the Academy need to syphon creature magic?” She frowned. “Unless—” Unless the Academy was working with Ash Veloria somehow. But that didn’t make sense. “We’re a defense school. We protect our city. This is—”
She was at a loss for words.
How could she even describe what this was?
Their mission as Defenders, and as an Academy, was to defend the city, not syphon magic.
It went against the natural order of things.
Capturing creatures for study, like the Hydras, sure, she could understand.
Their magic was dulled, not drained. But this?
These babies could barely walk, let alone kill a human.
“This whole time…” Eyes wide, Lennox shook his head. “They’ve been right here.”
“You knew about them?” Ahmina shot Lennox a look. How many things had he kept from her?
“That’s why creatures have been breaking in all year,” Zeina said, brows furrowed. “I knew they were looking for something—it was their babies.”
Another crash sounded above, shaking the whole room.
“Come on,” Lennox said to Zeina, grabbing Ahmina’s hand. “Let’s get out of here. It’s not safe.”
“What about the creatures?” Zeina said, feet planted.
“We’re not going to be able to do anything about it tonight.”
Zeina didn’t move.
“I promise, Zeina, we will deal with this. Now that we know where they are, we can make a plan to get them out of here. That syphoning crystal.” He nodded toward it.
“It’s tricky. Even if we untied them all right now, they wouldn’t make it.
That crystal is syphoning their magic, but it’s also keeping them alive. We need time to plan. To do it right.”
Zeina looked around quickly, debating silently before she relented. Then the three of them ran, Ahmina clutching her stomach as they went.