“She carries it differently than you do. Cleaner. Stronger.” Her smile deepened.
“Don’t talk about my daughter like she’s an object,” I warned.
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t dream of it. In fact, she’s a weapon.” Her gaze fell onto mine.
Magic surged through the room before I even realized I’d moved.
Hedge vines exploded from the floor beneath the Priestess, bursting through the stone in thick green waves threaded withgold light. They wrapped around her wrists and ankles, thorns digging deep enough that she yelped in pain.
Keegan moved immediately, joining the attack with Gideon as the room became more chaotic.
Shadows collided with silver light, warlock fire, and mage light.
Hedge vines climbed the ceiling while the Priestess tore through them with black magic hot enough to leave scorch marks in the stone.
Twobble dove behind a broken pillar with a bag of glowing goblin powder clutched against his chest.
“Don’t come close,” Twobble warned.
He threw the powder straight at the shadows circling behind the Priestess.
The explosion that followed filled the room with blinding green light and an odor that smelled alarmingly like gunpowder.
The shadows shrieked.
Twobble blinked in surprise. “Well, that worked better than expected.”
The Priestess spun toward him with murder in her eyes.
“Twobble,” I said quickly. “Run.”
“Excellent suggestion.”
He vanished behind another pillar just as black magic slammed into the spot where he’d been standing.
The shadows rose around her in a towering spiral, and the room shook violently as the symbols underneath her feet brightened, but this time the magic didn’t feel like destruction.
Gideon saw it first, and his face drained of color as he stared at the circle spreading across the floor. It wasn’t destruction. It was an opening.
“No,” he said quietly.
The Priestess smiled as the sound of stone grinding against stone rolled through the chamber. The walls shifted outward rather than inward, and cracks spread across the ceiling, while the floor beneath the symbols split inch by inch.
Cold air that was laced with shadow magic rushed upward from below, and my birthmark seared painfully on my hip.
Keegan grabbed my arm immediately as the floor trembled again.
“What is she doing?” I whispered.
Gideon’s gaze remained fixed on the widening cracks. “She’s opening the foundation chamber.”
The shadows whipped harder around the Priestess now, her gown and hair moving wildly as the black magic circled faster and faster.
The floor split wider, and a pulse of blue-black magic erupted upward through the opening, and every candle in the room exploded at once.
Celeste stumbled backward into me as the pendant flared instantly, wrapping around both of us.
Below the cracking floor, something moved just enough to make my stomach drop.
