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THE END
The first explosion hits far away, on the other end of the atrium, but the third’s right over us. I wince, keeping the immaterial force field strong as the rubble rains on top of us, aiming to crush us under the stone.
It works. I can feel hundreds, if not thousands of lives suddenly destroyed close.
“Are you okay?” I cough. I can’t see a thing, but I can feel Reiks’s frame over mine.
“I've been worse,” he grunts.
My attention’s on the pile of stone over us, but I frown. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s just a bump. Don’t sweat it. We need out of here.”
“No shit.”
I can feel, and hear, more explosions, close enough for the stones over us to vibrate and keep rolling down. How the hell are we supposed to get out? The slightest shift could bury us. My heart starts to thump hard in my chest. That would be an incredibly shitty way to die.
“Hey, hey, calm down, feather. We’ve got this. We’re not alone, you hear me? People are going to come looking for us. My guards, your family. It’s okay.”
So, that’s how he sounds when he’s lying.
Whatever guard he has would be running in the opposite direction, if they haven’t been killed. My family…
Valina would come for me if she knew where I was, that I need help. So would Mar. Assuming they’re both alive.
“Shhhh.” His hand runs soothingly over my back. “You’re fine. Just breathe.”
I know what he’s doing: if I lose it right now, we’ll die. The moment I let go, we’ll be two piles of bloody pancakes. I have to keep it together. I have to rely on the power I’ve never been able to control. I have to be enough.
“That’s it, feather. Keep breathing. You saved us. You’re keeping us safe.”
“I don’t know how long I can hold it,” I confess, hearing a sob in my voice.
“Long enough,” he tells me. “You’ll hold out long enough.”
I don’t know how Reiks can put that much trust in me. I certainly wouldn’t.
Over us, the debris lurches, and a stone the size of a dog rolls down under my shield, blocking half of the small space we have. I scream in surprise, and my shield drops for a mere second. That’s enough. The pile of rock descends on top of us. I only have time to wrap my arms around Reiks and close my eyes. He covers me as much as his gigantic frame can, holding me right back.
The pain I expect never comes. Instead of rocks, I’m covered in water.
I blink in surprise and dare glancing up. The stones are still toppling down over us, but mere inches over Reiks’s face, they hit a wall of ancient runes the likes of which I’ve never seen in real life. They’re the kind of runes we study in ancient history.
“Enochian.” Reiks’s hand reaches out to the protective cage around us. It’s a perfect cube. “This is the sign for water.” He points to a strange point that makes me think of a musical note, or a teardrop. “And this is the sign of light. Or shade, if it’s upside down. I can’t read the rest.”
I notice there’s only a few different signs, repeated all over. I know them. I’ve seen them before.
When I was found at sea, I was wearing a tattered gown, mostly in pieces, but on its ribbon, there had been those very same signs handstitched. Estelle showed it to me when I asked how she chose my name. “I didn’t choose it, sweetheart. It was written.” I watched as she patiently translated each symbol, and phonetically put them together.
“Alevixon,” I read. It’s a mouthful, so Estelle changed it to Alis. “Then, as you said, there’s water and light.” It might as well be my signature, but I haven’t crafted this spell. Not consciously.
The stones keep falling, and they all morph into streams of warm water. The liquid hits my hips by the time I can see a light on top of us.
We’re still stuck, but seeing the sky gives me hope.
“We can climb out,” Reiks say doubtfully. There’s a good thirty feet of unstable wreckage to get out of.
“Let me try something.” I might not have built the protective cage, but it’s still mine, according to its symbols.
