by Deck Davis
“No!”
And then Harpalyce stepped into the ring of crimson light too, and the dark energies carried her away, the energy lashing over her and roaring like a forest fire, until she too was gone.
Not just Harpalyce, though. Glora was gone. A vessel carried to wherever the circle led.
The light was shrinking now. The roar turned back into a hiss. The light grew fainter.
I sprinted at the ring and I leapt up on to it, and I gripped the ropes and I pulled myself over and I dived toward the circle of light.
But I was too late. It was gone.
Alastor was gone. Harpalyce was gone. And Glora, too.
Chapter Fourteen
I kneeled on the ring, beside where the circle had been. I raised my fist and felt Melt burn on my flesh, and I pounded the canvas again and again. The ring melted away like a cobweb caught by fire. The melting spread too fast, and I fell.
When I landed, I didn’t land in the underworld. I didn’t find myself in the land of demons where the circle had taken Alastor and Harpalyce.
I landed with a grunt, and pain shocked my spine. I was on the cold hall floor, with the dissolved remnants of the ring canvas a few feet above me, and the Grandmaster above that, suspended in the air by red light. The light holding him failed now, and the Grandmaster fell from the air and landed on top of me.
I pushed him away. His body was limp, like a doll. I didn’t care if he was breathing. I didn’t bother to check. With Ruby safe, my only thoughts were of Glora.
Wren rushed over, and I heard him grunt as he climbed over the ringside and dropped into the hole, joining me.
I grabbed him. “You can do something,” I said. “A ward. Anything. You can take me wherever they went.”
I saw in his face that he couldn’t. He didn’t even need to say the words. I can’t remember whether he did, because my head was a thunder of worry and guilt and the sickening sense of sadness that wrapped my brain in a black cloak.
“Dad?” said a voice.
Ruby. I had to go to her.
I stood up. A hand grabbed my ankle, and I saw that it was the Grandmaster. He lay on his back. Blood seeped from a hole in his chest where Alastor had flung a metal rod across the hall.
“I’m dying,” he said.
I didn’t care. He could have died a thousand times and I wouldn’t care, because the man meant nothing to me. The only people who did were Glora and Ruby, and Glora was gone, and it was my fault again. I’d lost her once already, and I knew that was my fault, that I had pushed her away, but at least she’d still been there for Ruby. Now she was gone well and truly, and Ruby was left with me.
“Dad?”
I turned to go to her, when the hand gripped my ankle again. I kicked it away.
“Wait,” groaned the grandmaster.
Wren kneeled by the side of the Grandmaster’s head.
“The wards,” said Wren. “You have to transfer them to me.”
The Grandmaster shook his head. “You are…too weak.”
“If you die, the wards die with you. Molly always said something was in place for when a grandmaster dies. This is it, isn’t it? They transfer their wards to someone else.”
“You are too young. You aren’t ready.”
“The other chapters are gone,” said Wren. “It’s the only choice we have.”
The grandmaster coughed. Blood bubbled on his lips. Slicks of it dribbled from the wound on his chest.
“Go to your daughter,” said Wren.
“What about you?”
“He’ll transfer the wards to me.”
“And what then?”
“We’ll have to go into hiding. I don’t know where and I don’t know for how long, but for a while. Then we’ll try and find the other chapters. Maybe some of them survived. Maybe they’re in hiding, and Alastor didn’t send anyone after them. I don’t know. For now, I need the wards, before he dies. Go to your daughter.”
As I climbed out of the ring and stepped onto the hall, an overwhelming tiredness hit me. It was if years of exhaustion built into one blow, as if years of training and fighting had stored up and had chosen now to hit me with all their power.
But when I looked across the hall and saw Ruby running at me, and I opened my arms for her, I felt the tiredness retreat a little.
I took one last look at the halls. I saw the lights that used to shine on me. The lights that’d glow on my skin as I walked to the ring, with the crowd cheering my name.
The bulbs were smashed, and the spectator’s seats were empty. I didn’t need the chants now. I didn’t want them. I didn’t need the lights, either. Now, all I needed was Ruby, and a place in the shadows where we could be safe.
End of Book 1
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