Page 101 of Ash and Feather

I didn’t chase him this time. While my fellow court members dealt with the remaining elven soldiers who dared to continue trying to challenge and distract us, my attention fixed in the direction of the grey building.

I couldn’t fight off the pull that carried me toward it, first at a slow, slightly dazed jog, then a full sprint.

I was halfway to it when an explosion unlike anything I’d ever witnessed rocked the ground all the way out to where I stood—and beyond.

Light flared. The sound of shattering glass and breaking stone pierced the night. Cracks zigzagged out from the building’s foundations, and in the next breath, the stone walls were crumbling upon that foundation, buckling precariously before collapsing completely.

The world continued to spin while I froze in place. The arrow’s poison flared in my veins.

Breathless, I stared as that distant building came crashing down, hoping with every ounce of my being that my brother was not inside of it.

Chapter 25

Dravyn

I ran,shoving my way through hordes of bodies, leaping over fallen debris, dodging fractured ground. It didn’t occur to me—not until I’d nearly reached the imploding building—that magic could have carried me to my destination much faster.

I did not feel like a god in that moment; I was merely a brother racing to save the only family he had left.

And this time, I would be quick enough.

The closer I came to the fallen building, the thicker the dust in the air became, until I could no longer see more than a few feet ahead. I summoned a fiery wind to push aside what haze I could, as well as to better light my way through what remained. The magic came alarmingly slowly. Between the poisoned arrows and my separation from Karys and her magic, I feared what might have been happening to my power—but I didn’t have time to think about it beyond that.

I pressed on until I found what looked like it might have been the main door to the fallen building. It lay on the ground, its metal shape crumpled as if it been made of mere paper.

Past it, there had clearly been a wide corridor; most of the debris seemed to have landed outside this hall, save for a few large slabs of the roof, so I was able to pick my way deeper into the mess with relative ease.

I heard shouting coming from my right. A frantic cry for help and—The king! The king is here!

I followed the noise, eventually stumbling upon a trio of distraught looking soldiers. One was injured, his leg bent at an odd angle. It appeared as though the three had been digging, trying to make their way into an adjacent room, and something had shifted free and landed on that leg.

The other two soldiers appeared torn between tending to their companion or continuing to dig.

“We think the king is inside this room here,” one of them explained to me, breathless, while the other eyed me warily.

I nodded, stepping toward the pile of splintered wood and dusty stone blocking the entrance.

The wary soldier started to follow—whether to aid me or protect his king from me, I didn’t know—but the sound of wood creaking, cracking, and shifting somewhere above stopped him in his tracks. His gaze shifted restlessly between me and the ceiling before finally settling on his injured companion.

“You should get him to safety,” I urged.

The man didn’t budge.

I didn’t say anything else. I merely looked back in the direction I’d arrived from and, with a stiff, somewhat painful wave of my hand, I summoned another gust of fiery wind. This time I poured some sentience into the spell, so that the embers within it turned into living creatures who would be able to find the path of least resistance into clearer air. A trail of them swept around the three soldiers before shooting away, winding through the wreckage and beckoning them to follow.

“Will o’ wisps,”I heard the one with the mangled leg whisper. “Following them leads to good luck.”

“Not always,” muttered the wary one, his eyes darting briefly to me once more, his expression dancing between skepticism and reluctant awe.

The third looked somewhat skeptical, too. All the same, they both helped their injured ally upright and dragged him along, following the lights and leaving me to the task of digging out my brother.

I wasted no time. My shoulder ached and itched to the point that I was beginning to lose the feeling in it. I had to move quickly, before it became entirely useless.

This time, I will be quick enough.

I found a spot that looked disturbed, as if the three soldiers had already started digging into it. I listened for movement and heard nothing. Scent was more helpful—I picked up the salt and metallic tang of human blood.

A large concentration of it.

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