Below, Lowe wrestled with Brint, whose hands blazed with his light… but in a haphazard, guttering way, like a candle on the verge of being snuffed out. He moved with desperation fueled by exhaustion, as if he knew death awaited the moment he let up.
Lowe looked worse for wear, too. Though the wind screamed around them, even from Calya’s vantage point it was clear that the element didn’t deal the same physical damage as Brint’s magic. Maybe if Lowe’s gifts had been more for storm-calling or wind-shaping than divining he could have used his magic for a direct kind of violence.
Those shortcomings aside, it didn’t seem like it particularly mattered. Where the wind lacked, knuckles made up the difference.
Lowe punched Brint, and he fell heavily, head cracking against the stone floor. His light magic flickered, a few weak sparks floating up from his fingers before they went out.
Staggering forward, Lowe dropped to a crouch, his knee slamming into Brint’s chest. The ranger grabbed Brint by the collar and raised his fist.
Calya flinched, forcing herself to stand. Glass shifted beneath her and scattered as she did. By averting her eyes, her gaze went back into the burning office—and landed on the lockbox. It was several strides away, partially buried in burning rubble, but maybe, just maybe, she could get to it. If she went now.
The sound of Lowe’s fist against Brint’s face reached her ears. It made her look down… and her eyes caught on the leather bag, the strap still clutched between her fingers.
The bag was already full to bursting with the block of poison. She could never fit both it and the lockbox.
Lowe drew his fist back for another strike.
Calya squeezed her eyes shut. She could reach the lockbox. She’d seen herself reaching for it.
She’d also seen that choice ending in flames.
But how could she turn away? The lockbox was what tied the site, the poison, all of it, to the Coalition. Yes, Brint had been willing to sacrifice Graelynd, and who knew how many lives had been ruined in the process—the only sentence befitting his crimes was death—but what did bringing him down matter compared to bringing down the Coalition?
Brint wasn’t enough. He’d carried on with the Coalition’s horrific plan out of fear of defying them. He’d as much as admitted it, right after trying to seal her into the same fate. He wasn’t evidence; he’d be the Coalition’s scapegoat. And even if Calya got out with the poison, there was no explicit link between it and the Coalition. Besides circumstantial evidence, all she’d have was Brint’s word, maybe the Sylveren mages’. She’d have witnesses, but witnesses lied. People could be bought, could be turned. People failed. The Coalition were the masters at finding the fractures in people and pressing until they broke.
The lockbox was her last—her only—chance at having incontrovertible proof of the Coalition’s involvement. She was certain of it. Hers would be a household name if she exposed their treason.
Her mark on the world.
All of it could be hers if she put her hand, her life, into the fire.
She forced herself to take a first step toward the door, wavering as a blast of heat hit her face.
Box. Lowe. Out. It could only ever be in that order.
Before she reached the doorway, her name rose above the blaze of the flames.
“Calya!”
She looked over the broken stairway to find Lowe standing at the bottom.
There was roaring in his ears. The fire, his wind, maybe just the adrenaline surging through his veins. Nocren didn’t care. Didn’t pay it any attention. His mind was too full of the many scenarios the wind had shown him. Avenor, with Calya as his captive. Avenor, escaping on a ship. Avenor, standing in front of a different wellspring as a ring of corruption spread across the ground.
Nocren would die before he let any of it come to pass. Before he’d let this piece-of-shit coward get away. Even as his skin erupted in agony beneath Avenor’s glowing hands, his resolve never wavered. No, it grew with every blow he landed, rejuvenated as Avenor weakened.
“Carram leave you gasping,” he snarled, casting Avenor to the ground.
As he knelt over the pathetic wannabe lightwrath, the wind tore at Nocren’s face, his clothes, howling in his ears.
His tunnel vision was such that the wind couldn’t penetrate. Not at first. He punched Avenor, vicious satisfaction flowing through him when the bigger man merely flopped like a ragdoll.
But the wind persisted—and as Nocren raised his fist to deliver his final blow, his hand faltered.
Calya’s face filled his mind. Change, the wind pressed upon him. The word carried hope and despair in equal measure.
Fear jolted him from his bloodthirsty vendetta. He dropped Avenor, letting the senseless man fall with a graceless thud, and spun around in search of Calya.
He found her at the top of the broken stairs. He didn’t remember moving, but somehow, he crossed the distance. Reached the bottom of the stairway as she faced the burning office. And was shocked momentarily speechless when she appeared to be readying to go in to the fiery room.
