They turn as we draw close. It’s easy to forget how young my Mom looks. We’re the same age here, despite our different pasts.
I stop in front of her. “You ready?”
She smiles, but her gaze is distant, like part of her has already left this place. “Yes, Paul,” she says, stepping forward and embracing me. Her voice drops to a whisper by my ear. “It’s almost time. Thank you for all you’ve done.”
“You’re going to the White Tower, aren’t you?” I whisper.
She nods, and squeezes me tighter.
I close my eyes and imagine her as I remember—grown into an adult, with wrinkles and flecks of gray in her hair, with the smell of roses and mint and cigarette. “Can’t you take me with you?” I ask. “I want to go.”
“Not yet,” she says. “Your time will come. I love you, Paul. Keep going. It will be worth it. I promise.”
The iron gate begins to open. Metal grates loudly as draw chains rise.
“To victory!” Rahab says, with her flames flickering above her hands.
My Mom gives me a final squeeze, then steps away. It seems like so long ago that I left Blue for Red, hoping to find her, to help her. We found each other. We shared our memories and our lives. She was wiped but then had her mind restored, seeing how her life on earth ended. Now she could leave the five towers, forever. I am leading Red, with Emma by my side. My time will come. My Mom’s time is now. I have to do everything I can to get her to the center.
Our group says the battle cry together: “Let passion burn.”
The twelve of us move forward into the Scouring in pairs. Emma stays close to me. We stay alert for attacks from the side, but none come. Black moves along the wall to Blue. Green and Yellow are inching forward slowly. We reach the middle of the Scouring before any other team is close. My feet stop at the line where the grey stone turns to white. The rest of our team positions around the circle’s edge, facing out, ready to defend against any attacks.
My Mom takes my hand. She reaches her other arm forward, crossing over the edge of the white circle. Instantly, a shaft of pure white light beams up from the circle, basking her arm in brightness. The column of light stretches infinitely high, penetrating the gray sky above.
The sound of fighting is closer now, but I don’t bother to look. Nothing could pull my eyes away.
My Mom squeezes my hand tightly. She still faces the light. My skin under her palm suddenly burns. I wince in pain, jerking back. But her grip holds firm. It feels like a red-hot iron brand pressed against my flesh, searing and sizzling. She lets go as she steps forward. The pain is instantly gone. She glances back and gives me a final smile before stepping all the way into the column of light. It covers her completely. Her skin glows.
“Whoa,” Emma whispers by my side. She lifts the hand that burned. It has a criss-cross scar, matching the one on my other hand. “It’s another one,” Emma says, turning back toward the light. “Look at her now.”
The light in front of us grows brighter and brighter. There’s only a faint shadow of my Mom left, fading, fading, until I can’t see anything through the light. Will the column of light take her away? What if we enter it? Would the light take us up?
I reach forward, breathing fast, heart thumping. My freshly scarred skin looks flat and lifeless as my hand hesitates at the edge of the dazzling pillar of light.
“Cipher! No!” someone shouts from behind.
But Emma is still with me, holding my other hand. “Let’s go,” she says, because she understands how I feel. “We’ll try it together.”
We both reach into the light. It enfolds my fingers, my hand, pulling me gently in and up and up.
The pull becomes faster and stronger. A rush of air and light and force draws my entire body up, feet lifting off the ground, like an ant sucked up into a vacuum cleaner. Emma clutches my hand, with her head tilted back and gazing up into the light. Inside the column, we can see my Mom above. She rises farther and farther above us, becoming smaller and smaller in the distance. She does not look down. Our ascent begins to slow. We will not catch her.
Something firm grabs me from below.
I try to ignore it, but it yanks at me. Reluctantly, I look away from my Mom and back down toward the Scouring.
A rope coils around my ankle, tethering me to the ground. Another rope has caught Emma beside me. As the rope tugs me down, the column of light continues to pull me up. Tension builds, like I’m being torn apart by the opposite forces. I writhe and fight to get free, but another rope slings onto my arm and tightens, like a lasso, entangling me more. I grab for the air, to blow the ropes free, but in my panic, awash in the pure white light, I cannot see any color. There’s no blue or red. There’s no thread to weave.
With a final yank, the ropes slam Emma and me to the ground. We land with a crash. My head hits the Scouring’s stone, hard.
In a daze, with everything spinning, my thoughts drift away as if in a dream, and in the dream all that I can see is green, vibrant and alive and consuming.
End of Book Two
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The Red Tower (The Five Towers Book 2) Page 22
