Page 160 of Of Nine So Bold

“You fucking…” Clay snarled, but his attention was on the tunnel, his eyes wide with horror.

Dex didn’t waste a second. “Ozias, support the stone. Clay, do what you can to control the water. The rest of you, help any way you can.”

Ignatius, Byron, and Casimir moved to obey immediately, while Ruhl’s smoky form spread out against the wall as if to hold it in place. Brock looked between them all and then rushed to help.

“The dwarves did this!” Norbert cried. “They set us up!”

The words were so ridiculous, they left me too dumbstruck to argue. Gods help us, we were going to die here because my cousin was an idiot.

No. No, I wouldn’t let that happen.

Forcing myself not to freeze in despair and horror, I raced to the wall to help my brother. I didn’t have magic like Ozias or Clay, but by the gods, I was still a giant. I could help them control the rock enough to keep us all from getting crushed.

Hopefully.

“Ugh, get out of the way, runts!” Norbert shoved Byron away from the wall, sending him stumbling. “You’re going to screw this up too.”

“You mean like you just did?” Clay snapped back. “Keep your fucking hands off my friends, asshole, or I’ll let you drown.”

Like a bull with the attention span of a gnat, Norbert abandoned the wall and stalked toward my brother.

Fear gripped me for Clay. I knew that look.

“I should’ve crushed you when you were a kid,” Norbert snarled. “You fucking?—”

Before I could reach him, Brock was suddenly there, stepping between them both. “Leave him,” he said to Norbert.

Norbert’s eyes widened. “Did you just give me an order, you piece of?—”

The tunnel shuddered around us.

“We need your help to save everyone,” Brock pressed, a calmness in his voice I’d never heard before. It wasn’t the disinterested tone he’d taken when our parents lashed out at me or Clay. It was… controlled. Level and yet pointed.

Dust rained down stronger than before.

Spinning away from Brock like he didn’t exist, Norbert shouted at the giants, “Get to work, you lazy asses!”

Brock’s eyes twitched to me. I couldn’t read his expression at all.

But there was no time.

Shoving my concerns aside, I put my hands to the stone again. The mysteries of my blood relatives could wait. Right now, I needed to help myfamily.

My magic merged into the stone. I wasn’t as skilled as some in this regard. Thanks to our parents, Clay and I hadn’t started school for our magic until years after most Erenlian kids. But even with my middling powers over the earth, the problem started becoming clearer after only a few moments.

This decaying magic wasn’t just some smeared blur of random spells. No, these were the protective spells cast by the long-dead members of the Order to guard this place. The magic had sunk into the bedrock beneath the temple, and without the monks to maintain it, the spells had merged and twisted and made a bigger problem. But they were still trying to fulfill their purpose.

Protect the temple, whether that was from invaders or—now—the very waters this place was originally built to enshrine.

But after all these years, they’d gone feral.

I felt the magic condense a split second before a blast erupted from the wall. It lashed out like a tangled crackle of lightning to strike the giant closest to the collapsed section of tunnel farther ahead. A charred hole in his chest, he flew back, crashing into the opposite wall and making it start to crumble.

“Holy shit!” a giant beside Norbert shouted, frantically retreating as another blast built up in the wall.

He was too slow. The magic struck, ripping through him like a thunderbolt.

Another tangle of magic rushed from the wall straight at Norbert. Ignatius raised a hand to intervene, but Byron got there first.

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