Page 49 of The City Of Fractured Memory

The darkness falls like a living thing. Dense, heavy, and absolute. For a heartbeat, neither of us move. I hear my pulse thudding in my ears, a drumbeat against the suffocating silence of the Archives. I instinctively reach my hand out, locking fingers tightly with Stryx’s hand and pulling her close.

Then, footsteps.

Rapid, deliberate, closing in fast.

“Run. Now,” I hiss.

We bolt, our boots skidding on the polished marble as we dart between the looming shelves. Tomes crash to the ground as I misjudge the distance between the stacks and smack my shoulder into a shelf, parchment fluttering like frightened birds in our wake. Keeping a tight grip on Stryx’s hand, I use my other hand to brush my fingers along the spines of books I know by heart, counting the turns in the dark. Left at the stairwell. Right past the restricted aisle. The map of the place unfolds in my mind having spent so much time here, even as panic claws at my ribs.

“Stay close!” I call. “Don’t let go!” Stryx’s grip is trembling, but firm, her other hand sparking faint gold as if her magic is instinctively flaring in warning.

A sudden crack splits the air beside us, followed by a flare of blue-white light that sizzles past my ear and strikes a nearby shelf. The wood splinters and a dozen ancient volumes explode into a cloud of burning paper.

“What in the damn Voyd–?” I gasp, ducking as another burst of light shoots overhead.

Stryx turns her head sharply, her eyes glowing faintly as her mortal illusion drops completely. “It’s not mortal magic,” she shouts over the chaos. “It’s—Gods, I haven’t felt this in decades. It feels ancient. It’s wrong.”

Another flash, this one closer. A blast of heat rolls through the stacks, toppling a case of scrolls. Even I can feel the weight of the magic now, pressing against my skin, sharp and cold, like shards of glass beneath the surface of reality itself.

“They’re throwing it,” I realise aloud, breath catching as I try to gulp down air. “Like—it’s like projectiles.”

Stryx yanks me forward as she sprints ahead of me. “Then stop thinking and move!”

We sprint through the maze, weaving between collapsing shelves as the Archives erupt around us. Each detonation echoes like thunder, the light brief and blinding before sinking us back into black. My lungs burn, my thoughts a wild blur, just the rhythm of my feet and the clutch of Stryx’s hand, desperately racing from the invisible whisper of whatever is pursuing us in the dark.

By the time we reach the gilded doors of the main hall, I risk a glance back, long enough to see a shape move in the gloom, robed and silent, eyes like dying stars.

The next blast shatters the floor where I’d been standing.

“Go!” Stryx screams.

But another ball of blue writhing energy comes at me before I can move, heading straight for my chest. I throw my hands in front of my face like a pathetic shield, bracing myself for impact, but it’s not the magic that hits me. Stryx’s body collides heavily with mine as she jumps in front of me at the last second, the magic hitting her square in the chest and throwing us off our feet.

We burst backwards through the Archive doors, landing in a heap on the gilded floor. I heave Stryx off me and she falls limply to my side, a huge hole singed through her clothes where the magic hit, leaving a great red mark across her chest.

“Stryx?” I whimper, shaking her roughly but she doesn’t wake. “Stryx, please–”

I look down at my knees, a strange sticky wetness drawing my attention, and I realise we are lying in a huge pool of blood. The Archive guards lie dead around us, their eyes wide and unseeing, each of their throats slit. Behind me there’s another bang, and our looming deaths press in on me like an inevitability, momentarily paralysing me.

No. Not today. I refuse to die today.

Fuelled purely by adrenaline, I bundle Stryx into my arms, my shoulders and elbows protesting painfully as they start to grind in their sockets from the weight, threatening to dislocate. I tense my muscles as hard as I can to keep them in place and I run. I run like I’ve never run before. The fading life in my arms is too precious for me to stop, no matter the agony coursing through my joints. My bones will heal with time, but never will I heal from losing my friend.

I slide dangerously round corners as my bloodied feet slip on the polished floor, gripping tight onto Stryx so I don’t drop her. I finally reach the doors and burst through them, half-dragging, half-carrying Stryx, gasping in the cold afternoon air as the doors slam shut behind me, leaving the echoes of the dark still raging within.

I continue to run down the long road that leads to the Memosyne, only coming to a stop once I get us safely to the other side of the gates. I collapse into the street, Stryx falling to the floor with me as I frantically check behind us, but whoever attacked us clearly didn’t risk following me out here. The two guards at the gate run to my side, shouting over each other as they try to work out what happened.

“Help her!” It’s the only thing I can think to say, but thankfully they listen, falling to their knees to examine her. But from the nonplussed looks that cross their faces, my heart sinks.

“No, no, no, please–”

I search frantically around us for any clue, when my eyes catch on a familiar face across the street. Suspicion claws at the edge of my mind at his once again all-to-convenient appearance, but it’s quickly drowned out by the sheer, overwhelming terror that starts to consume me.

“Riven!” I scream as loud as I can, and his eyes instantly snap to mine. Within a heartbeat he’s kneeling by my side, ordering the guards away as his hand presses against Stryx’s pulse.

“I don’t know what this magic is,” I cry as I uselessly paw at her too still body. “Please help me save her, I’m begging you.”

“I thought you didn’t like being indebted,” he says seriously, his voice a low growl as his hand moves to her temple, pressing lightly.