Page 83 of Us in Ruins

Checking over her shoulder, Margot confirmed that Van was still sparring with Mors, but by the looks of it, he wasn’t winning. His white shirt had been stained in russet stripes with dried blood, and his skin wore a coat of sweat and grime. They couldn’t fend them off much longer.

She had to do something.

God, she hoped this worked. On the ground, Aura traced Margot’s path with a nocked arrow. Perfect. Margot ran faster, her backpack bouncing with each step and her knuckles aching around the hilt of her borrowed shovel. She only had one chance.

She heard the snap of Aura’s bowstring first, then the zip of his arrow as she tucked and rolled. The arrow sank into Astrid’s linen bag, splitting the fabric, and the shards scattered against the stone floors. A necessary casualty.

“No!” Astrid hollered, which was a weird way to pronounce, Thank you so much for making sure I didn’t get impaled!

Pushing Astrid behind her, Margot wedged herself between her dig partner and Ignis, holding her tool like a sword.

Astrid scowled. “You think a spade is going to stop him?”

“Actually,” Margot yelled, “it’s a trowel!”

Putting all her force into her swing, the trowel-that-was-maybe-a-spade smacked into Ignis’s chest. The hit threw her off-balance, and Margot skidded backward across the floor. Her head slammed against the ground. Black swam through her vision. Each breath came heavy, hurting.

Ignis wasn’t in much better shape. Her shovel had lodged itself in his chest, and now hairline fractures etched over his marble skin. He staggered backward into a pillar, and the impact cracked the stone column. All the way through. It severed in the middle, the top half sliding off the bottom. The pillar toppled over the balcony edge and landed with a crash over Aura.

Margot watched, flat on her back, as the rubble scattered into the far reaches of the temple. That was four guardians down. The only one left was Mors.

She twisted her head back to center. Blinking. Was that...

The ceiling splintered. Cracks webbed across its surface. Evidently, the pillar had been pivotal to the structural integrity of the temple. Load bearing.

“Oh no,” she whispered.

Fissures spread, and a chunk of stone shook itself loose. Margot rolled, barely avoiding blunt force trauma as the ceiling rained down around her. A dig site collapse. That was what they said had killed Van. Suddenly, she seriously hoped it hadn’t been a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Next to her, Astrid coughed and sputtered. She’d not been as quick on her feet, and a coat of white dust painted her from head to toe. On hands and knees, she searched the wreckage for the shards.

“Where are they?” Astrid asked as she dug through the rubble.

With the temple in this condition, they couldn’t stay down here much longer, and Margot wasn’t about to let Astrid eeny-meeny-miny-mo to see which one of them would become the sacrifice.

Margot stood, straightening the straps of her backpack. Her head throbbed where she’d smacked it against the limestone tiles, but she helped Astrid parse through the debris. Five gloss-black slivers of clay, that was all they needed, and she’d find a way for her and Van to survive this.

The ground beneath her feet quivered—the whole foundation of the temple had been jeopardized, struggling to withstand the pressure from thousands of years of compacted dirt over their heads. Margot dug faster. When her hand clasped around a black fragment, she couldn’t stop herself from gasping.

Astrid rushed to her side and forced the shard from Margot’s fingers. “Give me that.” She gathered the rest of the shards into her arms, half-feral like a raccoon hoarding grapes. Then Astrid sped back downstairs, leaping over Ignis’s fallen body.

Margot weaved between Aura and Terra as she chased after Astrid and the shards. “Astrid,” she warned, “whatever you’re doing, you’re going to have to live with it for the rest of your life.”

Astrid barked out a cold laugh, still hurtling down the stairs like she wasn’t about to curse someone to an eternal purgatory by way of metamorphic rock. Or not caring that she was. “I don’t need advice from you. Believe me.”

On the balcony, Van let out a warrior’s shout. Margot looked up in time to see him sever Mors’s skull from his skeletal frame with a chisel. He dropped the makeshift blade and fell to his knees, catching Margot’s eye.

They did it. They defeated the guardians.

Van’s lips curled into a smile, grin gleaming in the temple’s tawny light. He leaned over the balcony ledge and let out a triumphant holler. With his hair disheveled and his shirt blood-stained, the sight left Margot breathless. An invisible string drew her toward him.

But it wasn’t over.

Two hands shoved Margot sideways. Astrid pushed her onto the spot where she’d found Van that first night, encircled by wilted myrtles. It all happened too fast. Margot, stunned, stood paralyzed as Astrid slid all five shards onto the alabaster altar.

Their broken edges aligned. Reunited at last.

A strangled cry left Van’s mouth—a wounded sound Margot was certain she’d never be able to forget. She closed her eyes, wondering what it had felt like for him all those years ago as the stone crawled up his legs, through his chest, and into his heart.

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