“Fifty,” Torvin whispered from below. “That’s floor fifty. Ten to go.”
His voice was tight, stripped of its usual humour. We had been climbing for what felt like hours, though it had likely been less than fifteen minutes.
I paused on a narrow service landing, hooking my arm through a ladder rung to shake out my cramping hand. My chest heaved, the dry heat burning my lungs. Sweat slicked my back, plastering my combat shirt to my spine.
Suddenly, a violent shock hit me from the inside. It was a sympathetic detonation—a flare of heat in the centre of my chest that mirrored a colossal discharge of energy fifty floors beneath my boots.
I gasped, pressing my hand over my heart.
The sensation was unmistakable. My Light was surging, wild andblinding, but the command came from the lobby. Riven. He was igniting the charge we had built between us. The residual golden fire I had poured into his shadows last night had just found a target, and he was discharging it all at once.
“Selene?” Karys climbed up beside me, her eyes scanning the darkness. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I breathed, the vibration rattling my teeth. “It’s Riven. He’s unleashed the Light.”
Terror spiked in my chest. I didn’t need to see the lobby; I could feel the sudden, violent draw on my magic pulling from the floors below. He was burning his last resort.
I wanted to drop. I wanted to slide back down into the dark and fight beside him, but his order pinned me to the ladder. You are the payload.
I choked down the panic and turned the fear into fuel.
“We have to move,” I said, grabbing the next rung with desperate strength. “Now.”
We climbed past floor fifty-two. Fifty-three.
The air grew hotter the higher we went, rising from the machinery below. My vision blurred at the edges. I focused on the rhythm.
At floor fifty-eight, the shaft widened into a small junction platform where the main power conduits split. There was just enough room for the three of us to stand.
“Two floors,” Torvin breathed, hauling himself onto the grating. “We’re almost?—“
The door to Level 58 exploded inward with a kinetic blast. It sheared off its hinges and impacted the opposite wall of the shaft, missing Torvin’s head by inches.
Debris rained down, clattering against the metal grid.
“Contact!” Karys shouted.
Three figures burst through the opening. They wore the slick, black tactical armour of Varessia’s elite guard. Their eyes glowed with that milky, augmented haze.
One of the guards lunged for me without hesitation, a shock-baton crackling in his hand.
I forced the Light back down, saving the charge. I scrambled away, reaching for the iron dagger, but Karys was faster.
“Shields!” Torvin roared.
Barriers snapped into place instantly. Torvin threw up a wall of violet shadow, Karys summoned a silver arc, and my Light flared to seal my flank.
Karys dropped her guard to strike. She intercepted the nearest guard, ducking under his swing and driving a knife into the gap of his armour at the armpit. He roared, but she used his momentum to slam him against the railing.
“Go!” Karys screamed at me.
“Get up the ladder!” Torvin yelled.
He stepped in front of me, his shadow-shield absorbing a stray kinetic blast. He snatched a handful of silver spheres from his belt and threw them at the doorway.
Flash.
A blinding white light detonated in the confined space, followed by a cloud of choking grey smoke. The guards shouted in confusion, firing blindly into the shaft. Bullets sparked against the metal grating near my feet.
