Fated

‘Did you know death bracelets work on a signal?’ I said to Khazad. The bracelet was still discharging, pouring out lethal energy as Khazad writhed and screamed. I walked back towards Khazad and stopped, my voice absent. ‘They’re old magic, these things. Not many people study them any more. If you understand how they work, you can change the signal. Make it respond to your command, instead of someone else’s.’

Khazad’s head snapped up. He glared at me, but all he could do was twist in agony as the negative energy crackled into his body, his limbs, his heart. ‘You—’ he managed to gasp. ‘You—’

I looked down at Khazad without expression. ‘I warned you. At the ball. I gave you a chance. But you could never believe it, could you? That someone like me could ever be a threat to someone like you.’ I paused. ‘Tobruk was the same, you know. Right to the end.’

Khazad couldn’t speak any more, but he stared hate at me even as he clawed at the stone. I looked down and I watched the black lightning play over his body, and I waited for him to die.

I didn’t wait long.

When Starbreeze arrived I was slumped against one of the pillars. Starbreeze whisked in and hovered over Khazad’s body, looking down with wrinkled nose. She was in her elfin form, short sticking-up hair and skinny arms. ‘Dead man,’ she announced.

‘Dead man,’ I agreed. I pulled myself to my feet, wincing at the pain in my muscles. ‘Starbreeze, I need to get to the heart of this place. The centre. Can you take me there?’

‘Middle?’ Starbreeze said in interest.

‘Middle.’

‘Middle!’ Starbreeze swept around me and turned my body to air. I had one last glimpse of Khazad’s corpse, then Starbreeze whisked me forward, through the gaps in the stonework, carrying me the last stretch of the way.

The heart of the facility was a huge circular room. Columns rose around the edge, supporting a high-domed roof. There were inscriptions of some kind on the walls, but the light was too dim to make them out clearly. On the columns were magelights, weak and widely spaced, leaving the room just bright enough to see in, yet dark enough to cast shadows. The middle of the room was bare except for a dais at the exact centre. Upon the dais was a pedestal. Two figures stood before it.

Starbreeze set me down behind one of the columns, hidden in the darkness. As I scanned the area I felt other presences. We weren’t alone.

‘Alex,’ Starbreeze whispered.

‘I know,’ I said quietly. I peered around the column. Griff and Luna were on the dais at the centre, just visible in the gloom. Luna was standing stiffly upright, as if she was being held, and Griff was close. Too close. There was a small cage of force over the pedestal’s surface, and something was inside it.

‘Men,’ Starbreeze whispered.

‘I know,’ I said again. Griff and Luna weren’t the only ones here. I could sense three more: two hiding in the columns to the left, and one opposite. A moment later, I knew who they were. Cinder and Rachel to the left, and Onyx up ahead. From where they were standing, they could see Griff and Luna, but they couldn’t see each other.

‘Three more,’ I whispered to Starbreeze.

Starbreeze shook her head vigorously. ‘No!’

‘What?’

‘Another.’ Starbreeze pointed towards the ceiling.

I looked up and saw nothing. I scanned the area and again found nothing … and then had a sinking feeling as I realised who it was. ‘Oh. Right. Her.’

‘She’s wrong.’

‘You can feel her?’

Starbreeze shivered. ‘Wrong.’ She swept in a tight circle, looking distressed. I looked into the futures in which I moved forward towards the dais, getting a closer look.

The pedestal on the dais was three feet high, and resting on it was a plain, slim, ivory-coloured wand. A cube of unbreakable force topped the pedestal, just barely visible against the darkness. A moment later, I saw why Griff hadn’t opened it. On the rim of the pedestal, just outside the force barrier, were square holders exactly the right size and shape to place Luna’s cube into, just like the one at the entrance. Three of them.

Griff was up on the dais. He was holding Luna’s arm twisted up behind her back, forcing her onto tiptoes. ‘Think harder,’ he was saying.

‘I don’t know!’

I focused on Griff with my mage’s sight and saw that the silvery mist of Luna’s curse was crammed in so brightly around him that he looked like a searchlight, the glow so intense that it actually made it hard to see. I’d never seen the curse so concentrated, and more and more was pouring in. Griff twisted Luna’s arm a little higher, and she gasped; the silvery mist flowing from her into Griff seemed to intensify. ‘Think harder,’ Griff said again.

‘I don’t know!’ Luna’s voice was high, laced with pain. ‘How could I know? I’ve never been here!’

Griff pushed Luna sprawling to the floor. He lifted a hand, and pale brown energy glowed. The stone of the dais flowed and reshaped itself into chains, locking around Luna’s ankles and binding her to the foot of the pedestal. ‘Well, then,’ he said calmly. ‘We’ve got a problem.’