Wraiths and Raiders, page 21
She takes the shield. A wave of safety, like a plush comforter, is tossed over everyone in the room. The line straightens up, and the people square their shoulders, arm themselves, and march out. The flow of Loamin keeps up as Ara leads us out of the room, Mom practically dragging my dad over the stone.
A boy with long dark hair and thick eyebrows marches up to Ara. Something about him reminds me of Rugnus, and I find myself staring at him as he says, “Are they here in the tunnels?”
“No,” Ara responds. “Not yet. The shield is working. When he arrives, the objects will cancel each other out. But I’ll know the second he’s in Geum Ide.” Then her face furrows in concern, and she reaches for the wall.
We steady her because that’s all we can do. She holds the shield, so we hold her. And for some strange reason, I breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t have craft, and no one is expecting anything from me. I wash the thought from my mind. Craft does not equal who I am or who I’m not.
Ara speaks. “There’s a challenge at the entrance by the ravine. It’s Kel. She has everyone pinned down.” She knows this without looking. She’s using the shield to extend some type of protection to them.
“Do you know anything specific?” Jeiah asks, her beholder gathering information.
“I feel Kel’s intentions, and I’m blocking them. It’s some type of attack. People are fleeing across the river as fast as they can.”
“Let’s get to the exit,” I say. “Can you—”
Jeiah grabs my arm. “Wait. Someone else budged down here. A few tunnels away. They’re scrambling their data.”
Mom finally turns from my dad. “Where?”
Jeiah points behind us, away from the direction we’re heading. “If Kel is outside the cave and Vor isn’t here yet, then who did he send?”
Koglim sniffs the air. “It’s definitely a trap.”
“It’s coming toward us,” Jeiah warns.
Ara moves around us to the back of the party and levels the shield. Koglim scrambles in his pockets, producing a small cast iron coin, swearing softly and repeatedly, and gathering a ball of ice in his hand. The second someone emerges from the adjoining cavern, Koglim growls and hurls the shimmering sphere. Ara sends a wave of shieldcraft out to block it, and Koglim’s attack evaporates. The emerging figure stumbles back into the others behind them.
But the man that emerges is holding something. No, someone. A child. No, that’s still not right.
It’s Tas, the Dura who once lived in Geum Ide. The heart of his dungeon was Icho, and when we had him touch the relic months ago, he, along with Kel, had helped Vor defeat us. Now he’s standing in front of us carrying... Sira. Her head and limbs dangle over his arms.
She’s hurt. My hands and mind reach out instinctually, but so do Koglim’s. I find a wary look as he grabs my fist. We’ve been burned by Sira too many times. Still, if there were mercy at my fingertips, and if I still had craft, I would have already healed her. Her body doesn’t twitch.
Jeiah’s beholder is wild with blue light, and she stands like a sentinel near Ara.
Tas recovers from almost falling backward. “Be careful, Koglim Felsight. You could hurt one of us.”
Another figure emerges from the tunnel behind them.
“Yinzar?” Jeiah says.
My mother’s father, Yinzar Copperoath, Mithriumbane, strides forward, his brawny hands grasping a familiar object. The wolfstaff—a relic of deep gray metal. We gave this to Kel the last time we were here in Geum Ide. Though she couldn’t use it, one touch of this staff drew in her wandering soul. How does Yinzar have it?
Mom gasps. “Dad?” She darts forward and pulls him in.
I need no other evidence than Yinzar’s presence to know that Sira has traded sides again. She’s with us for the time being. “Ara, can you—”
Ara passes a wave of healing from the shield, and Sira sputters awake, nearly choking until Tas stands her up. She retches, but nothing comes out. That’s when I realize they must’ve just budged here. My mom lets her father go, and he steadies Sira.
Sira stares at me with a sad smile. “We have to leave.”
“With you?” Koglim gestures at both Sira and Tas. “Never.”
Sira blinks at Koglim, takes another breath, and says, “Koglim, don’t. We just got free of him. I’m trying to help.”
Koglim scoffs. He prepared another ball of ice but drops it to the ground. He rolls his eyes so hard that he almost falls over.
Yinzar steps around them. “We need to leave.” He squints at Ara, perhaps predicting our intentions. “Whatever the plan, I don’t think you can win.”
“Maybe not, but if Tas is here to help...”
Tas lifts his chin upward. “I’m sorry about the bridge. I followed Kel. I should have followed you.”
How do I know if I can trust Tas, let alone Sira? The fact they’ve seemed to convince Yinzar is beside the point. “And you and Sira... you’re coming to us only now. If you both felt so bad—”
Sira opens her mouth, I’m assuming to defend herself, but instead takes a breath and closes her eyes.
Yinzar steps in for her. “Vor left Tungsten City moments ago. I came out from under his influence, and they were ready. Now come on. We don’t want another draw between the shield and the crown like we had on the bridge.”
He’s right. Even if my dad’s plan could work, and the conjurers can stop the darksmiths with good old-fashioned bullets, the cost is too high. And we have a better option: the path to the protodungeons is open.
“Ara, we have to go. Now!”
She shakes her head. “I’m blocking Kel’s attacks for now. But when Vor gets here...”
“We kill him.” All eyes turn to my dad. He doesn’t use craft, or I would say there was an actual fire in his determined gaze. His face has soured. His body tenses. I know what this is. I know because the same rage boils in my blood, rising to match my dad’s.
“This ends now.” That’s when the orders tumble from his mouth, a knee-jerk reaction grown from his years as the king of Rimduum. “Ara, Koglim: triangulate Kel’s position. Then budge everyone possible up to the ruined settlement and attack. Don’t take her alive. Tas: if you’re here to help, follow Ara’s orders. But first, absorb Sira’s craftprint—the one from her silver knife. Sira: you’re staying out of this. Clayson: you and—”
“No.” I force the rage and frustration out of my thoughts. “You’re trying to lead your people into battle. And you’re doing it from a place of pure anger. I know because I just got back from that place. But more death and destruction aren’t going to fix this, Dad.”
“And this key will? You don’t know that, Clayson.”
“Key?” Yinzar asks.
A wave of protective craft starting from Ara reinforces the whole room. It must be her way of warning me. “Stop, Clayson. If I went with you... Vor will hurt these people. He’s expecting you to be here. He’s doing everything possible to find you. And if he doesn’t get what he wants...”
I look to Jeiah and Koglim for support.
“Even with Icho,” Koglim says, “we can’t budge enough of these people. There’s nowhere for them to go.”
And just like that, the whole world slips through my fingers. All my hopes spill out onto the stone. I don’t know if I’m wrong or right. I don’t know if my dad’s plan will work or fail. I don’t know if there’s anything in the protodungeons that would help us stop Vor.
Jeiah speaks. “Clayson. It’s okay. Don’t get lost in there. We had a plan. It won’t work. These people need us. We can’t let Vor take them all.”
My teeth grind together, making it impossible for me to speak, so I nod.
“Good,” my dad says. “Jeiah: stay close by me. I need you to calculate the balance of the craft between our side and Vor’s, like the great arithmetists of the Mithrium Wars. We must end this. Everyone is depending on us.”
Immediately Jeiah takes out her beholder, taps Ara’s shield, and begins scanning through a maze of multipliers and exponents. Brick. The type of math they did during the Mithrium Wars held people's lives in balance and left behind the ruins of a hundred cities.
I’m going to be sick. Still, my voice reaches out to my dad. “Then, what do I do?”
“You have no craft. I’d say take up a rifle and join us, but that’s what Vor wants. You’re the tool he’ll use to crack open the rest of the dungeons. We’ll hide you. Yinzar can stay with Sira and Clayson.” Satisfied, my father turns to his wife. “Azbena: stay by my side. Keep the darksmiths away from Jeiah and me.” He takes her hands and stares long and hard at the gold ring on her finger. “I don’t know how you found that, but... I’ll take my ring.”
My mind reels. Is he going to use craft?
“Therias...” Mom says. “This all feels wrong.”
“Bena, the ring. Please.”
She gives it to him and follows him out of the hallway.
Jeiah’s words seem hollow as she leaves. “We’ve got this.”
By the time they disappear from sight, Sira wraps her arms around my neck. She pulls me in for a tight hug. No matter how I feel about what she did, I know it comes from a life of pain. I know what she needs is a feeling that she’s safe. So, though my back and arms stiffen at first, I hug her back.
There’s a warmth and security about being able to take care of her. Something inside me thrills at her need for me. I’ve sensed it in Jeiah too, but her feelings are not so desperate, grasping and lonely.
“That was nice,” Sira says, dabbing her eyes. Her face is still gaunt, but she tries to smile through her obvious discomfort at having recently budged.
When I face Yinzar again, he raises his wild white-orange eyebrows. “Two things: what’s the key, and why don’t you have craft?”
I clear my throat. “The key opens some type of gateway in Edium Fiarie. It should lead us to the protodungeons. Exralt hid it in Brightstorm Dungeon. We think he used it to get Ergal, Onrix, and Icho. But there may be a way to defeat Vor hidden there too. Exralt got the key from the wraiths at Gamgim. That’s who took my craft.”
Yinzar looks me up and down. “Interesting. They took all of it?”
“They’re not like wraiths in the dungeons. They’re Dura. Killed long ago when some great destruction brought about the Foundation. I’m not sure I understand what happened, but...”
“So, you’re powerless?” Sira says. She has somehow grown paler.
“I can use the shield. I suspect I can use the crown as well.”
“Strange indeed,” Yinzar says. “There’s always been a connection between mithrium and the creation of the brightstorms. They say that mithrium could even be made of all of the crafts put together. I wonder if Exralt’s discovery of mithrium came before or after Erikzin forged the cradle and made the first brightstorm.”
“I—” Harsh voices lance through my skull.
Gather.
I squeeze my temples. I gave Ara the mithrium shield. Why is this still happening? “Gather. Gather what?” Whatever the wraiths did to me must be connected to the brightstorms and the mithrium.
Yinzar grips my arm to steady me. “Clayson?”
I don’t have time to respond. Something clinks against the stone at our feet, and Yinzar reacts with a wild kick. The thing hurls back the way it came and bursts, filling the tunnel floor-to-ceiling with sand.
“Husk!” He pushes me in the opposite direction and grabs Sira. “Run! Now!”
We sprint down the corridor. Grimflail has found us. I try not to think about what would have happened if Yinzar hadn’t kicked the husk, but it’s impossible not to. I’d be buried inside a wall of sand with no craft to protect me. We have to find a way out of here.
Sira lags behind. I turn briefly to see two things: Yinzar desperately urging Sira forward, and the glimmer of golden masks rushing at us from down the tunnel. Hardkeeper comes into clear focus. The former member of the council is a deadly enemy even when he’s not being controlled by some darksmith hellbent on revenge.
“I can’t,” Sira pants. “Just leave me.” She drops to her knees.
Yinzar stops dead, whirling around in the tiny space and cracking his black staff on the stone. The reverberating clang almost shatters my teeth, but it stops Hardkeeper in his tracks. Grimflail appears behind him and whispers something.
The same moment Hardkeeper hurls another husk in our direction, Yinzar transforms into a beast. His arms and hands become furry and clawed. His orange hair grows into a coarse shock of a mane. A thick tail drops from his lower back to the floor, and his face grows a wolfish snout. In one deft movement, he swipes the husk from the air and peels it open like an orange.
A blast of sand shoots back toward Hardkeeper. Yinzar charges forward and grabs Sira like a doll. He depresses some switch on the husk, and Sira turns into a pillar of glimmering particles. Yinzar presses the husk to her form and vacuums her in. He hands it to me.
“Go,” he barks. “Find Therias. You’ll be safer around more people.”
I stare at the husk in my hands, shocked.
“Go!” he growls. A pale-yellow ring forms around his irises, and he bares his teeth at me. “I can only give you so much time.”
I leave him. For all my hope to protect those I love, for all the power that came from being peerless of shieldcraft, I can only run away. What am I supposed to do? Vor didn’t come. He left everyone in Tungsten City—every Loamin under granite—he let them go. Why? And why isn’t he here? Would I sense it if he were?
The brightstorm responds with more indistinct whispers.
Focus. I stumble through the darkness. Think. Which tunnel did we come down? There! No, there. I see a flash of gold. Brick. Run, Clayson. Run.
With another blind turn, a slant of stark light appears at the end of the tunnel. Gasping for breath, with a lance of pain extending from the scar in my back through the center of my body, I push myself forward with everything I have.
The brightstorm is a searing light high in the citybarrel above, leaving spots on my vision. But I’m out of the cavern and into the ravine. When the spots clear, I shudder at the sight in front of me. Kel had been blocking the exit of the cave, trapping people inside. Several dozen bodies encumber the floor of the ravine. The arrows sticking from their bodies glow with the rust-colored light of ironcraft.
I grit my teeth. This has to stop.
The current is slow, but one body breaks loose from the shore and starts floating away. Instinct takes over, and I grab the woman’s hand, pulling her back to shore. But I can’t wait here. I don’t know how long Yinzar can hold Grimflail and the others in the caverns, but it won’t be long, even with the Wolfstaff.
I cross the ravine, winding up the stairs. The distant report of faraway gunfire hastens my footsteps. I crawl back up to the surface of Geum Ide where the brightstorm sheds light against the massive piles of rubble left in the wake of the settlement’s destruction.
It’s so bright that it steals away all shadows. Too bright. It was never crystalline. I risk looking straight at it. It’s smaller and dense with power. Suddenly, it flickers. A single whispered word shoots through my mind—gather.
The word shakes my bones. It came from the brightstorm. How?
In response, the brightstorm blinks again. I stop walking and squint up at the giant orb.
“Clayson Brightstorm,” Vor’s sing-song voice, reaches me from around the next pile of rubble. “I know you’re out there!”
My pulse quickens. I stop walking.
“Do you like what we’ve done to the city!” Vor calls out.
Where’s my dad and the others? If Vor is out in the open, they must be planning something. I need to give them time. Without any way to protect myself, without backup, I march into Vor’s view.
He has my friends. My heart sinks.
Rusela is there, furious. Winta and Hemdi stand close together, Echel in their unified arms. Lagnar and Brig both look ready to spring into action, but their bodies are frozen in place, facing Vor with snarls like a deadly game of red light, green light.
The darksmiths have captured Yinzar somehow, probably by forcibly budging him from the caverns. Wolfstaff is in the hands of some grinning darksmith. Next to him stands a tearful young man I recognize—Quilgist Brightkeeper, my distant cousin and keeper of Brightstorm Dungeon. He helped us find our way to the cradle last year. Of course, Vor would exploit that.
Grimflail crouches in the rubble behind him, surrounded by his team of gold-masked slaves. Hardkeeper stares at the ground, a husk in his hands. Koglim’s friend Brude watches the horizon. The other two figures are still a mystery.
Vor smiles, producing the cube of mithrium. “You know, six hundred years ago, this place—what was it called? Gythanstyan! That’s right—it was a lot nicer. I can’t even remember how I found a way to destroy it. Someone helped, of course. Someone always helps.”
He sighs deeply, tossing the remaining piece of mithrium in the air and catching it over and over. “Opportunity comes knocking at the threshold, and my patience is rewarded. You’re going to tell me what you’re doing to the brightstorms and why, or—just like Gythanstyan—someone will help me kill your friends one by one.”
CHANGE THEM GOLD
Vor doesn’t know.
Above us, the brightstorm bursts with a tongue of energy. A wave of indistinct voices explodes in my mind. I glance at Vor. Sweat gleams on his creased brow. My dad said the growing brightstorm in Tungsten City was connected to Vor’s construction of the Everfalls, but it’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than all of us, Vor included.
“It’s not us, Vor. Whatever is happening to the brightstorms, we didn’t do it.”
But even that rings somewhat wrong in my mind. Maybe this is something that the Dura wraiths did. Some punishment. They hold a connection to the dungeons, so why not the brightstorms? For some reason, my mind catches hold of the word destroyer.
Vor’s eyes widen. “Of course, you think that. But you obviously did something. I wish I could dig it out of your mind myself, but”—he shrugs— “I can’t read your thoughts with Ara roaming around here. And probably Tas.” He mutters this last sentence but stops and stares at the husk in my hand.
A boy with long dark hair and thick eyebrows marches up to Ara. Something about him reminds me of Rugnus, and I find myself staring at him as he says, “Are they here in the tunnels?”
“No,” Ara responds. “Not yet. The shield is working. When he arrives, the objects will cancel each other out. But I’ll know the second he’s in Geum Ide.” Then her face furrows in concern, and she reaches for the wall.
We steady her because that’s all we can do. She holds the shield, so we hold her. And for some strange reason, I breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t have craft, and no one is expecting anything from me. I wash the thought from my mind. Craft does not equal who I am or who I’m not.
Ara speaks. “There’s a challenge at the entrance by the ravine. It’s Kel. She has everyone pinned down.” She knows this without looking. She’s using the shield to extend some type of protection to them.
“Do you know anything specific?” Jeiah asks, her beholder gathering information.
“I feel Kel’s intentions, and I’m blocking them. It’s some type of attack. People are fleeing across the river as fast as they can.”
“Let’s get to the exit,” I say. “Can you—”
Jeiah grabs my arm. “Wait. Someone else budged down here. A few tunnels away. They’re scrambling their data.”
Mom finally turns from my dad. “Where?”
Jeiah points behind us, away from the direction we’re heading. “If Kel is outside the cave and Vor isn’t here yet, then who did he send?”
Koglim sniffs the air. “It’s definitely a trap.”
“It’s coming toward us,” Jeiah warns.
Ara moves around us to the back of the party and levels the shield. Koglim scrambles in his pockets, producing a small cast iron coin, swearing softly and repeatedly, and gathering a ball of ice in his hand. The second someone emerges from the adjoining cavern, Koglim growls and hurls the shimmering sphere. Ara sends a wave of shieldcraft out to block it, and Koglim’s attack evaporates. The emerging figure stumbles back into the others behind them.
But the man that emerges is holding something. No, someone. A child. No, that’s still not right.
It’s Tas, the Dura who once lived in Geum Ide. The heart of his dungeon was Icho, and when we had him touch the relic months ago, he, along with Kel, had helped Vor defeat us. Now he’s standing in front of us carrying... Sira. Her head and limbs dangle over his arms.
She’s hurt. My hands and mind reach out instinctually, but so do Koglim’s. I find a wary look as he grabs my fist. We’ve been burned by Sira too many times. Still, if there were mercy at my fingertips, and if I still had craft, I would have already healed her. Her body doesn’t twitch.
Jeiah’s beholder is wild with blue light, and she stands like a sentinel near Ara.
Tas recovers from almost falling backward. “Be careful, Koglim Felsight. You could hurt one of us.”
Another figure emerges from the tunnel behind them.
“Yinzar?” Jeiah says.
My mother’s father, Yinzar Copperoath, Mithriumbane, strides forward, his brawny hands grasping a familiar object. The wolfstaff—a relic of deep gray metal. We gave this to Kel the last time we were here in Geum Ide. Though she couldn’t use it, one touch of this staff drew in her wandering soul. How does Yinzar have it?
Mom gasps. “Dad?” She darts forward and pulls him in.
I need no other evidence than Yinzar’s presence to know that Sira has traded sides again. She’s with us for the time being. “Ara, can you—”
Ara passes a wave of healing from the shield, and Sira sputters awake, nearly choking until Tas stands her up. She retches, but nothing comes out. That’s when I realize they must’ve just budged here. My mom lets her father go, and he steadies Sira.
Sira stares at me with a sad smile. “We have to leave.”
“With you?” Koglim gestures at both Sira and Tas. “Never.”
Sira blinks at Koglim, takes another breath, and says, “Koglim, don’t. We just got free of him. I’m trying to help.”
Koglim scoffs. He prepared another ball of ice but drops it to the ground. He rolls his eyes so hard that he almost falls over.
Yinzar steps around them. “We need to leave.” He squints at Ara, perhaps predicting our intentions. “Whatever the plan, I don’t think you can win.”
“Maybe not, but if Tas is here to help...”
Tas lifts his chin upward. “I’m sorry about the bridge. I followed Kel. I should have followed you.”
How do I know if I can trust Tas, let alone Sira? The fact they’ve seemed to convince Yinzar is beside the point. “And you and Sira... you’re coming to us only now. If you both felt so bad—”
Sira opens her mouth, I’m assuming to defend herself, but instead takes a breath and closes her eyes.
Yinzar steps in for her. “Vor left Tungsten City moments ago. I came out from under his influence, and they were ready. Now come on. We don’t want another draw between the shield and the crown like we had on the bridge.”
He’s right. Even if my dad’s plan could work, and the conjurers can stop the darksmiths with good old-fashioned bullets, the cost is too high. And we have a better option: the path to the protodungeons is open.
“Ara, we have to go. Now!”
She shakes her head. “I’m blocking Kel’s attacks for now. But when Vor gets here...”
“We kill him.” All eyes turn to my dad. He doesn’t use craft, or I would say there was an actual fire in his determined gaze. His face has soured. His body tenses. I know what this is. I know because the same rage boils in my blood, rising to match my dad’s.
“This ends now.” That’s when the orders tumble from his mouth, a knee-jerk reaction grown from his years as the king of Rimduum. “Ara, Koglim: triangulate Kel’s position. Then budge everyone possible up to the ruined settlement and attack. Don’t take her alive. Tas: if you’re here to help, follow Ara’s orders. But first, absorb Sira’s craftprint—the one from her silver knife. Sira: you’re staying out of this. Clayson: you and—”
“No.” I force the rage and frustration out of my thoughts. “You’re trying to lead your people into battle. And you’re doing it from a place of pure anger. I know because I just got back from that place. But more death and destruction aren’t going to fix this, Dad.”
“And this key will? You don’t know that, Clayson.”
“Key?” Yinzar asks.
A wave of protective craft starting from Ara reinforces the whole room. It must be her way of warning me. “Stop, Clayson. If I went with you... Vor will hurt these people. He’s expecting you to be here. He’s doing everything possible to find you. And if he doesn’t get what he wants...”
I look to Jeiah and Koglim for support.
“Even with Icho,” Koglim says, “we can’t budge enough of these people. There’s nowhere for them to go.”
And just like that, the whole world slips through my fingers. All my hopes spill out onto the stone. I don’t know if I’m wrong or right. I don’t know if my dad’s plan will work or fail. I don’t know if there’s anything in the protodungeons that would help us stop Vor.
Jeiah speaks. “Clayson. It’s okay. Don’t get lost in there. We had a plan. It won’t work. These people need us. We can’t let Vor take them all.”
My teeth grind together, making it impossible for me to speak, so I nod.
“Good,” my dad says. “Jeiah: stay close by me. I need you to calculate the balance of the craft between our side and Vor’s, like the great arithmetists of the Mithrium Wars. We must end this. Everyone is depending on us.”
Immediately Jeiah takes out her beholder, taps Ara’s shield, and begins scanning through a maze of multipliers and exponents. Brick. The type of math they did during the Mithrium Wars held people's lives in balance and left behind the ruins of a hundred cities.
I’m going to be sick. Still, my voice reaches out to my dad. “Then, what do I do?”
“You have no craft. I’d say take up a rifle and join us, but that’s what Vor wants. You’re the tool he’ll use to crack open the rest of the dungeons. We’ll hide you. Yinzar can stay with Sira and Clayson.” Satisfied, my father turns to his wife. “Azbena: stay by my side. Keep the darksmiths away from Jeiah and me.” He takes her hands and stares long and hard at the gold ring on her finger. “I don’t know how you found that, but... I’ll take my ring.”
My mind reels. Is he going to use craft?
“Therias...” Mom says. “This all feels wrong.”
“Bena, the ring. Please.”
She gives it to him and follows him out of the hallway.
Jeiah’s words seem hollow as she leaves. “We’ve got this.”
By the time they disappear from sight, Sira wraps her arms around my neck. She pulls me in for a tight hug. No matter how I feel about what she did, I know it comes from a life of pain. I know what she needs is a feeling that she’s safe. So, though my back and arms stiffen at first, I hug her back.
There’s a warmth and security about being able to take care of her. Something inside me thrills at her need for me. I’ve sensed it in Jeiah too, but her feelings are not so desperate, grasping and lonely.
“That was nice,” Sira says, dabbing her eyes. Her face is still gaunt, but she tries to smile through her obvious discomfort at having recently budged.
When I face Yinzar again, he raises his wild white-orange eyebrows. “Two things: what’s the key, and why don’t you have craft?”
I clear my throat. “The key opens some type of gateway in Edium Fiarie. It should lead us to the protodungeons. Exralt hid it in Brightstorm Dungeon. We think he used it to get Ergal, Onrix, and Icho. But there may be a way to defeat Vor hidden there too. Exralt got the key from the wraiths at Gamgim. That’s who took my craft.”
Yinzar looks me up and down. “Interesting. They took all of it?”
“They’re not like wraiths in the dungeons. They’re Dura. Killed long ago when some great destruction brought about the Foundation. I’m not sure I understand what happened, but...”
“So, you’re powerless?” Sira says. She has somehow grown paler.
“I can use the shield. I suspect I can use the crown as well.”
“Strange indeed,” Yinzar says. “There’s always been a connection between mithrium and the creation of the brightstorms. They say that mithrium could even be made of all of the crafts put together. I wonder if Exralt’s discovery of mithrium came before or after Erikzin forged the cradle and made the first brightstorm.”
“I—” Harsh voices lance through my skull.
Gather.
I squeeze my temples. I gave Ara the mithrium shield. Why is this still happening? “Gather. Gather what?” Whatever the wraiths did to me must be connected to the brightstorms and the mithrium.
Yinzar grips my arm to steady me. “Clayson?”
I don’t have time to respond. Something clinks against the stone at our feet, and Yinzar reacts with a wild kick. The thing hurls back the way it came and bursts, filling the tunnel floor-to-ceiling with sand.
“Husk!” He pushes me in the opposite direction and grabs Sira. “Run! Now!”
We sprint down the corridor. Grimflail has found us. I try not to think about what would have happened if Yinzar hadn’t kicked the husk, but it’s impossible not to. I’d be buried inside a wall of sand with no craft to protect me. We have to find a way out of here.
Sira lags behind. I turn briefly to see two things: Yinzar desperately urging Sira forward, and the glimmer of golden masks rushing at us from down the tunnel. Hardkeeper comes into clear focus. The former member of the council is a deadly enemy even when he’s not being controlled by some darksmith hellbent on revenge.
“I can’t,” Sira pants. “Just leave me.” She drops to her knees.
Yinzar stops dead, whirling around in the tiny space and cracking his black staff on the stone. The reverberating clang almost shatters my teeth, but it stops Hardkeeper in his tracks. Grimflail appears behind him and whispers something.
The same moment Hardkeeper hurls another husk in our direction, Yinzar transforms into a beast. His arms and hands become furry and clawed. His orange hair grows into a coarse shock of a mane. A thick tail drops from his lower back to the floor, and his face grows a wolfish snout. In one deft movement, he swipes the husk from the air and peels it open like an orange.
A blast of sand shoots back toward Hardkeeper. Yinzar charges forward and grabs Sira like a doll. He depresses some switch on the husk, and Sira turns into a pillar of glimmering particles. Yinzar presses the husk to her form and vacuums her in. He hands it to me.
“Go,” he barks. “Find Therias. You’ll be safer around more people.”
I stare at the husk in my hands, shocked.
“Go!” he growls. A pale-yellow ring forms around his irises, and he bares his teeth at me. “I can only give you so much time.”
I leave him. For all my hope to protect those I love, for all the power that came from being peerless of shieldcraft, I can only run away. What am I supposed to do? Vor didn’t come. He left everyone in Tungsten City—every Loamin under granite—he let them go. Why? And why isn’t he here? Would I sense it if he were?
The brightstorm responds with more indistinct whispers.
Focus. I stumble through the darkness. Think. Which tunnel did we come down? There! No, there. I see a flash of gold. Brick. Run, Clayson. Run.
With another blind turn, a slant of stark light appears at the end of the tunnel. Gasping for breath, with a lance of pain extending from the scar in my back through the center of my body, I push myself forward with everything I have.
The brightstorm is a searing light high in the citybarrel above, leaving spots on my vision. But I’m out of the cavern and into the ravine. When the spots clear, I shudder at the sight in front of me. Kel had been blocking the exit of the cave, trapping people inside. Several dozen bodies encumber the floor of the ravine. The arrows sticking from their bodies glow with the rust-colored light of ironcraft.
I grit my teeth. This has to stop.
The current is slow, but one body breaks loose from the shore and starts floating away. Instinct takes over, and I grab the woman’s hand, pulling her back to shore. But I can’t wait here. I don’t know how long Yinzar can hold Grimflail and the others in the caverns, but it won’t be long, even with the Wolfstaff.
I cross the ravine, winding up the stairs. The distant report of faraway gunfire hastens my footsteps. I crawl back up to the surface of Geum Ide where the brightstorm sheds light against the massive piles of rubble left in the wake of the settlement’s destruction.
It’s so bright that it steals away all shadows. Too bright. It was never crystalline. I risk looking straight at it. It’s smaller and dense with power. Suddenly, it flickers. A single whispered word shoots through my mind—gather.
The word shakes my bones. It came from the brightstorm. How?
In response, the brightstorm blinks again. I stop walking and squint up at the giant orb.
“Clayson Brightstorm,” Vor’s sing-song voice, reaches me from around the next pile of rubble. “I know you’re out there!”
My pulse quickens. I stop walking.
“Do you like what we’ve done to the city!” Vor calls out.
Where’s my dad and the others? If Vor is out in the open, they must be planning something. I need to give them time. Without any way to protect myself, without backup, I march into Vor’s view.
He has my friends. My heart sinks.
Rusela is there, furious. Winta and Hemdi stand close together, Echel in their unified arms. Lagnar and Brig both look ready to spring into action, but their bodies are frozen in place, facing Vor with snarls like a deadly game of red light, green light.
The darksmiths have captured Yinzar somehow, probably by forcibly budging him from the caverns. Wolfstaff is in the hands of some grinning darksmith. Next to him stands a tearful young man I recognize—Quilgist Brightkeeper, my distant cousin and keeper of Brightstorm Dungeon. He helped us find our way to the cradle last year. Of course, Vor would exploit that.
Grimflail crouches in the rubble behind him, surrounded by his team of gold-masked slaves. Hardkeeper stares at the ground, a husk in his hands. Koglim’s friend Brude watches the horizon. The other two figures are still a mystery.
Vor smiles, producing the cube of mithrium. “You know, six hundred years ago, this place—what was it called? Gythanstyan! That’s right—it was a lot nicer. I can’t even remember how I found a way to destroy it. Someone helped, of course. Someone always helps.”
He sighs deeply, tossing the remaining piece of mithrium in the air and catching it over and over. “Opportunity comes knocking at the threshold, and my patience is rewarded. You’re going to tell me what you’re doing to the brightstorms and why, or—just like Gythanstyan—someone will help me kill your friends one by one.”
CHANGE THEM GOLD
Vor doesn’t know.
Above us, the brightstorm bursts with a tongue of energy. A wave of indistinct voices explodes in my mind. I glance at Vor. Sweat gleams on his creased brow. My dad said the growing brightstorm in Tungsten City was connected to Vor’s construction of the Everfalls, but it’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than all of us, Vor included.
“It’s not us, Vor. Whatever is happening to the brightstorms, we didn’t do it.”
But even that rings somewhat wrong in my mind. Maybe this is something that the Dura wraiths did. Some punishment. They hold a connection to the dungeons, so why not the brightstorms? For some reason, my mind catches hold of the word destroyer.
Vor’s eyes widen. “Of course, you think that. But you obviously did something. I wish I could dig it out of your mind myself, but”—he shrugs— “I can’t read your thoughts with Ara roaming around here. And probably Tas.” He mutters this last sentence but stops and stares at the husk in my hand.
