Page 80 of Fading Sun

“Well?” Morgan asks.

“Nothing,” he says, and then he drives the blade into the stone, crying out in pain as the force of the strike makes its way through his arm.

Morgan hurries over to him to inspect his arm, but he pushes her away, the air around him crackling with the intensity of his anger.

“The dagger is enspelled to defeat any opponent,” Damien says calmly. “A stone statue, apparently, is not viewed as an ‘opponent.’”

The low, grinding sound around us stays as steady as ever.

Morgan looks around at the encroaching walls, steps back, and shoots a concentrated blast of fire out of her palms. She throws so much into it that the flames turn blue and purple, their heat filling the chamber.

Blaze joins her, his fire meeting hers, heating the chamber even more.

The fire spreads out around the Buddha, engulfing him completely.

The walls around us continue their eerie grind as they move closer.

My chest tightens, the air feeling thinner. It’s impossible to get in a full breath. The chamber is suffocating me, threatening to bury me alive, and this Buddha is more indestructible than the crystals after Blaze enspelled them with his magic.

“Release your flames,” Damien calls out to Morgan and Blaze, and they do.

The stone is darker, but only by a bit. Hardly enough to call it scorched.

Blaze reaches into his pack and pulls out the book. “Next plan,” he says, flipping through it, ignoring the rumbling walls.

They’ve closed in so much that there must only be ten feet of space between them, at the most.

“Do you know any words that might work?” I ask Damien, because he seems to have a complete Latin dictionary in his mind.

“Explodere,” Blaze says before Damien has a chance, darkness in his eyes as he slams the book shut. “Explode.”

Amber

Morgan motions to the Buddha. “Go ahead,” she says, although Blaze is already there, Crimson Quill in hand, slicing its tip through his palm to draw blood.

He writes the word—explodere—on the same place he struck the Buddha earlier: the part of his robe that drapes around his ankles.

Once finished, he pulls back the quill.

The word doesn’t glow. The blood simply slides off the smooth stone, leaving a faint smear in its wake.

“It’s not sticking,” Blaze says, and he tries again, pressing harder.

It remains stubbornly resistant.

“The stone’s too smooth.” He turns to face us, his grip around the quill so tight that I fear he might break it. “My blood’s sliding right off.”

I curse under my breath, panic rising as the walls make their way closer. So close that the four of us would barely be able to stand in a line shoulder to shoulder without touching the walls on either end.

We need another plan, now.

I rack my brain for solutions, my eyes drifting to my pack.

The crystals.

My magic might be weakened by how much I used it in the previous chamber, but the crystals amplify the strength of the light. And I have four of them.

“I have an idea,” I say, and I unzip the pack, pulling out two of the crystals. My hands aren’t big enough to hold all four at once. At least not without help…

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