FIFTY-ONE
More than five hundred masked men and women gathered in the ballroom, their rapt gazes turned toward the balcony, where Layla stood with Quin and the other competitors who’d defeated the gauntlet.
One by one, the lower level champions were introduced by Kyanna and honored with currency and medallions. Then Layla was presented the grand prize purse and a personalized plaque carved from the Maganthian mountainside and coated with locally sourced precious metal.
Once the clapping subsided, the center of the ballroom cleared for a dance spotlighting the winners and their escorts, and Layla fought a blush while trying to ignore the hundreds of people watching and waiting for her to stumble over Quin’s feet.
She made it to the end of the song without falling. Then onlookers voiced their approval before joining the winners on the dance floor.
“Glad that’s over,” Layla breathed. “Now they have no excuse to keep me out of the Dark Vault.”
Quin peered around while twirling her toward the edge of the crowd. “I need to tell Drexel about Timber.”
She flashed a teasing grin. “Are you already tired of dancing with me?”
“You know better. But Drexel might have better luck interpreting Timber’s ramblings. Once I get him thinking about it, you and I can pick up where we leave off. Deal?”
“Deal,” she agreed, urging him to spin her once more.
Abandoning the dance floor, they joined their family on the outskirts then looked around for Drexel, who stood on the balcony, maintaining a bird’s-eye view of the crowded room.
Quin made sure Tristan and Emrys were nearby. Then he raised his mask high enough to allow a kiss to Layla’s cheek. “Stick with our family. I’ll be right back to sweep you off your feet.”
She pulled him into one more kiss before letting him walk away, and her gaze stayed on him as he ascended the stairs and met up with Drexel, both of them leaning on the railing while they talked. Only then did Layla turn her attention on her family and join their lighthearted conversation.
“This isn’t so bad,” Brietta decided. “I could drool over these gowns all night and still get excited about them, but I bet everyone at the Diamond Ball is having more fun.”
“You’re probably right,” Layla agreed, trying not to laugh when she caught Weylin stealing a whiff of Skyla’s hair. “Now that the winner’s ceremony is over, we could ditch this place and go party with the people who know how to relax.”
They agreed that sounded like a great idea, but Layla told them they had to wait while she and Quin shared one more fancy dance.
When he returned, he made her jump by taking her hand from behind. Then he swung her out and around, fluffing the feathers of her skirt while twirling her onto the dance floor. She laughed as the colorful attire around her blurred, challenging her grace, but she managed to keep her balance through the rotation, ending up with one hip in Quin’s hand.
She took his shoulder while finding her equilibrium, struggling to keep up with his steps, and she giggled at herself while tallying how many glasses of champagne she’d ingested. Not that many.
He twirled her again, keeping her on her toes, and the next time his palm found her side, he pulled her nearer, flooding her airways with a scent she didn’t recognize. She blinked then looked up, beyond the silver lips and nose of his mask, and her stomach dropped when she found a pair of eyes that weren’t Quin’s.
She gasped and wrenched her hand away, stumbling back into other dancers. Then she shot her gaze to the balcony, but neither Quin nor Drexel were there.
Oh god… No.
She whipped a hand up, using magic to yank the mask off the man across from her, and it landed on the floor with a noisy clang. The music faltered to a halt as all eyes turned toward the disturbance. Then the man who caused it held up his hands while slowly backing away.
Ryker.
Layla shot forward, palm extended, and she caught her target by the throat, taking him off his feet before shoving him through the stunned crowd and slamming his back against a pillar. His gaze widened, reflecting her solid-black eyes, but she ignored the dangerous witch staring back at her and hissed in Ryker’s face. “Where is he?”
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A hush had fallen over the room, but she shattered it by shrieking Quin’s name. He didn’t answer, and reactions had set in. Crusaders scrambled to find him and their commander, and city guards rushed toward Layla, but she blocked them with a shield.
“Tell me where he is,” she simmered, “and I’ll kill you quickly.”
Ryker grasped her forearm, his face turning purplish-blue. “It… wasn’t… me…”
Time was of the essence, and she was a breath away from slaughtering a bonded child in front of Maganthia’s elite. Morality had flown, so she laid her empty palm on Ryker’s forehead and delved into his brain.
In a matter of seconds, she’d filtered out the information she needed, barely registering the rest. Ryker had been a pawn all along, from the moment the council began secretly testing him to determine if he could be one of the guardians from the prophesy. Once convinced, they trained him, all while filling his head with lies and his heart with false hope. By the time he realized he was being manipulated by the angel’s enemies, it was too late for him to get out gracefully, so when they discharged him from the infirmary with a black and silver masquerade outfit, demanding he wear it for a surprise dance with Layla, he agreed, his hopes set on changing her mind about him and eventually switching sides. He even envisioned himself leading the resistance against corruption, but at no point had he plotted to abduct Quin.
Pulling out of the memories, Layla released his throat and vanished her shield. Then she soared to the balcony, landing in the last place she’d seen her hero. How could he simply disappear? There were Crusaders everywhere.
She searched for his mind to no avail. “Where is he?” she screamed, and guests scampered away from the angel’s wrath.
“They were right here,” a Crusader insisted, motioning to the floor of the balcony. “They were here one second and gone the next.”
Layla spun around, her wild eyes peeled for anything out of place, and she noticed a wrinkle in the otherwise flawless runner. The anomaly led her to the wall, where she ripped down a long, silk banner, revealing a secret corridor.
“Here!”
She took off without waiting, rash in her desperate pursuit, but the rest of her allies weren’t far behind, their panicked shouts bouncing off the walls. She guided her way with glowing palms, unable to reach full-speed due to the curves and dips in the path. They all looked the same, as if she was going in circles, getting nowhere at all. She’d flown for nearly two minutes, every one of their seconds ripping away a piece of her frantic heart. What if she missed a turn? Oh god. She could be going in the wrong direction, but she could still hear the voices of those behind her.
Just as she began considering other courses of action, a fluttering sliver of light came into view, and she burst through another banner, ending up on the main level of the Buried Library.
Hands outstretched, she swept her gaze across the vast chamber, her nostrils accosted by acrid vapors. Then she spotted a pile of smoldering bodies.
Oh god.
Stomach flipping, she flew toward the carnage, finding remnants of the robes worn by the librarians and city guards. None of them were Drexel or Quin, but now she had no idea which way they’d been taken – out into the city or down into the Dark Vault.
Going with her gut, she soared toward the circular platform that lowered people into the library and knew she was on the right track. The desks and carts had been tossed aside, and the four sections of the movable floor had been replaced by a solid slab of marble.
Crusaders and family members burst into the room from the hidden passage, followed by city guards, and Layla threw a shield over the latter, blocking them from coming closer.
“What are you doing?” one of them shouted. “We want to help you.”
“Then tell me how to get through this,” she demanded, pointing at the floor.
The guard shook his head. “If all four sections have descended, the stone moves into place until one of them returns. It’s not controlled from up here. You can’t open it.”
“Watch me.”
She hovered from the platform, lifting her elbows at her sides while aiming her palms at the floor, and the guards’ objections went in one ear and out the other as she shot a wave of destructive energy downward. The propulsion pushed her higher as a thunderous boom shook the hall, and the stone busted, dropping huge chunks into the cavern below.
As the vibrations settled, deafening crashes echoed from the tunnel, along with screams, shouts and commands. Layla was close.
She dove headfirst into the library, zooming past level after level of settling dust and blurry books. Then a cloud of auras came into view, followed by a wave of masked faces peering up at her.
In that moment, she could have annihilated them all. Her hand was already out, and the magic was on her mind, but Quin and Drexel lay in an unconscious heap at their feet, right in the middle of the blast zone. They’d reached the bottom of the shaft and entered the elusive Dark Vault, and a thick stone floor, much like the one she’d already busted, scraped the walls as it closed over them.
No.
She pushed harder, aiming for the gap, unafraid to find herself locked in the vault with an enemy army. As long as Quin was with her, she didn’t care.
She was going to make it. She could tell by the fear widening their eyes. Then they disappeared as a cloud of black energy rushed from the right, splaying her out before slamming her back into a bookshelf. Her lungs flattened as she fell face first to the floor, but she caught herself on her palms, and her feathered dress softened the impact on her knees. She bounced up, searching for the assailant, and a quick scan revealed half a dozen enemies on the circular balcony with more in the extended chambers.
Several deadly spells flew at her, forcing her back down. Then she scrambled into the room behind her, ears buzzing with confined explosions. As she rounded the corner, her nose came within three inches of a wizard’s knees, and before she could look up, he had her by the hair.
She screamed as she lashed out, and he folded when her fist connected with his groin. Blindly reaching up, she clutched his throat, and in her rage and supernatural strength, she accidentally ripped out his larynx. She gasped as blood sprayed her face. Then the wizard fell to the floor in a gurgling and twitching heap.
She dropped his throat, staring in horror at her crimson hand, but a battle cry snapped her out of her trance. Her allies had caught up. Now explosions rocked the mountain as they fought the enemy and shouted her name.
She pressed her back to a bookshelf and took a few quick breaths, trying to tame her shaking. Then she concealed herself and flew from the room. Staying low, she dodged spells, ricochets and debris, slipping from chamber to chamber in search of strangers who had no idea she hovered behind them until she reached out to snap their necks.
Her family and a few Crusaders were in the maze of rooms on the other side of the shaft, which had flames roaring up it, forcing the rest of Layla’s army to seek refuge on higher levels. She’d taken out all the enemies on her side and was tempted to dive deeper into the flood of fire, but she could tell by the shouts that her family was overwhelmed.
She bypassed the blaze and headed for their voices, coming across several dead guild members along the way, but the three left standing had trapped her family in an outer annex, and one of them aimed his palms at the ceiling.
Layla dropped her concealment spells, her eyes connecting with Brietta’s. Then she shouted while throwing out her hands. “Shields!”
Fire flew from her palms the same instant the guild member cast his destructive spell, and the cavern quaked as he and his two allies burst into flames, their shrieks muffled by the busted stone and splitting wood crumbling around her family.
Ignoring the heat, Layla soared over the burning bodies and halted near the base of the cave in. “Brietta!”
Her eardrums rang, blocking out everything else, so she mind searched her cousin, quickly getting a response.
‘We’re okay. We’re shielded, but I don’t know how long they’ll last. We can’t tell whose is working and whose is cracking.’
“Shit,” Layla hissed. She needed the rest of her army.
She backtracked to the shaft. Then she drew a deep breath and cast a shield over the flames.
“Come on,” she demanded, signaling the Crusaders who were stuck above.
They poured over the broken railings. Then Layla lurched forward as the pressure on her shield ceased and the blaze fizzled out. Vanishing the barrier, she peered down the tunnel, finding the vault opened a few feet, and the wizard who’d been shooting fire was slipping through the gap.
Right before disappearing, he looked up, half of his face hidden by a one-eyed mask, and a single icy-blue iris focused on Layla as he reached out. For a moment, she thought he was reaching for help, but then a ripple of shimmers flowed from his palm, and the lowest level of the library collapsed, covering the entrance to the Dark Vault in debris.
Rage boiled from Layla toes, hitting the air with an earsplitting scream. Then she motioned to the crumbling room behind her. “Get them out.”
Leaping over the charred railing, she stopped short of the pile of boulders. Then she braced on the only pillar left standing and began magically hurling the rubble out of her way. By the time she reached the floor, her family had joined her, their clothes torn, their flesh bruised and burned, but they were well enough to help her with the last layer of rocks.
“Move back,” she ordered, hovering over the platform. Then she busted it as she had the one above.
She swept away the dust as everyone stared into the hole, but there was nothing to see, so she dove inside and soared down a connecting tunnel.
Once again charging into pitch-black nothingness, she projected a glow from her palms, illuminating the corridor, but the spell became useless when she emerged into a massive cavern. The walls extended beyond her view, swallowed by endless darkness, and the bookshelves to her right and left climbed higher than the eye could see.
The Dark Vault. She was finally there, in the stillness of infinite mystery, but all she cared about was the distant glow down the long, dark pathway ahead.
She flew forward, quickly followed by loyal allies willing to charge into certain death for her and Quin. Silence hung heavy in the cold air, accentuating the sound of their labored breaths and the swishing of cloaks and ball gowns. Then another noise found their ears – the rattling gasps of a dying man.
Layla flew faster, discerning the glow as an aura, but it was fading, obscuring the face beneath. She descended into a sprint, and her heart beat hard with relief when the man’s Maganthian robes came into view.
It wasn’t Quin. It was Mekhi. He lay at the base of a broken statue of Ava, her shattered face pieced together on his lap, and his white knuckles clutching a thick scroll to his chest, which was soaked in blood.
Layla knelt beside him as Skyla rushed forward, her medical bag already out, but Layla held up a hand, motioning for her to stop. “If he wants to live, he’ll tell me where they’re taking Quin.”
The priest trembled and flexed, his shiny gaze sweeping the air around Layla, but he didn’t beg for his life. Faced with death and punishment for his sins, he was searching for one thing – redemption. “Please… forgive me.”
Layla’s jaw tightened as her nostrils flared, and her chest ached as she leaned closer, withholding his dying wish. “Tell me where they’re taking him.”
“Lauren,” he breathed.
Layla glanced at her companions. “What is he talking about?”
One of the Crusaders stepped forward. “The Lauren family owns The Spire. They have an estate on the southeast edge of the city.”
“Yes,” Mekhi confirmed. “I’m… sorry.”
Layla scanned what was left of his aura then looked into his eyes. “May Ava have mercy on your soul.”
She started to rise, but he clutched her wrist with a bloody palm while fumbling to unroll the scroll. Then he moved Layla’s hand to the artifact.
The original text was in a language she couldn’t read, but English notes were scrawled along the outside edges. Mekhi’s breathing became shallow, and Layla pried the scroll from his hand, giving Skyla clearance to try to save him.
While she worked, he attempted to explain, his shaking hand fumbling through a pocket in the breast of his cloak. “I broke my vows… fell in love.” His palm emerged and opened to a severed finger. “They took her… used her… to manipulate me.” He choked, but he seemed desperate to tell his story while pointing toward the scroll. “It was in her statue… all this time.”
Layla glanced from the broken statue to Mekhi’s notes, which included the words the Mother’s blood will open the tomb.
“Tonight,” Mekhi continued. “Servants meet… tonight. In Avasummus. The guild… has everything. Location.” He pointed to a date and coordinates scrawled across his arm in blood. Then he motioned to a passage on the scroll. “Incantation. And the power… in Ava’s blood.”
“Ava’s blood?” Layla returned. “Where did they get that?”
Mekhi extended a finger. “Artrenity. They believe… your blood… holds the power.”
“Son of a bitch,” Layla hissed. Then she squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to panic.
The next time she looked at Mekhi, his lids were closed, and only a thin wisp of his aura remained, swirling near his wounded heart.
Grabbing him by the collar, she leaned close, and tears welled in her raging eyes as she shook his dying body. “If they have everything they need, why did they take Quin?”
Pain contorted his face as his lashes fluttered up. Then he drew his final breath and knocked her world off its axis. “You must choose. Pursue the servants… and your guardian will die.”
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