Page 148 of The Princesses of Ruin
Her desperate gaze levels into my eyes. “Run.”
I shake my head. “I have to help you.”
She groans, pulling more of the power into herself.
It’s so hot…
It’sheat.
I thrust my hands over the spilled essence and activate my magic. The agony is white-hot, blindingly numbing, but I can feel it siphoning into me. It’s still not enough. My body is full to bursting in seconds.
I lift my head and scream, releasing a beam of heat to the heavens. I don’t know how long I can be her conduit. I don’t know if I can do enough to spare her. Tears evaporate from my eyes. My throat is seared raw. I can take no more.
I fall back against the wall and see the damage I’ve caused. The building is gone, vaporized from the strength of my attack. I hope it was evacuated when Scarlett fell through the roof…I can’t worry about the Spiders now.
Scarlett is scraping the molten magic into her chest and pressing it to herself as if she can seal the wound. She reaches out, her hands splayed, and pulls the essence back into her.
The pool is growing faster than she can contain it. A whirlwind of blistering hexcraft whips around her in a sphere from her attempts. The magic spills out of her again and again, creating a machine of blazing arcana.
I scoot back toward the stairs that lead to blackened rubble, trying to escape the lava that singes my feet. I yank them back and scramble harder. The torrid wind batters my hair, kicking ashes into my mouth.
Helplessness comes in the form of tears that evaporate straight out of my eyes. I can do nothing to stop this. I can do nothing to save myself, or her.
“Climb if you can. Help is coming.”Alyse’s words feel far away.
I grab at the rubble, my tender fingers bleeding on the charred stone. I haul myself out of the growing pit of fire.
Black moves in my periphery—a spider.
Not any spider, but Iksah.
He throws a white lasso of magic around my outstretched arm and reels me from danger. I look down on Scarlett from the decimated main floor. Teal and purple move across the rooftops to the north, but they’re still too far away to help. What could they do, anyway?
“I can help.”Iksah’s chittering voice fills my head.“I can do this for her.”
The giant spider leaps into the burning pit. I scream for him to stop, that there’s nothing he can do, but my voice is hoarse and quiet.
With insane speed, the spider leaps from stone to stone, creating a lattice of white silk that glows with power. It’s a net. The heat of Scarlett’s spilled magic batters the spider’s cover, ripping it at the edges until the whole thing collapses.
Iksah’s eyes rotate up to me and he touches the straps of the egg harness across his chest. It’s too late, and he knows it. Even if he left the egg in my care, how would we replicate more of the venom without Scarlett’s blood? We can’t…
They’re both damned.
He leaps into the pit with Scarlett and weaves from ground to wall, wrapping her in a shield thicker than before. Each pass of his silk glows faintly red, then green, blue, and finally gold. It shimmers with the essence of all our powers as it absorbs Scarlett’s.
She roars as the silk tightens, pulling all the spilled magic back into her until she’s cocooned with it. Iksah holds the wrap with all his might and I stare on helplessly.
Zane’s voice snaps me from the sight in the pit. I look over my shoulder to see Adrik landing with Kazimir, followed closely by Jasper in wolf form. Alastair lands with Lily and Alyse under his massive demon arms.
Zane vaults from Jasper’s back and approaches the edge of the pit.
“Scarlett!”
The agony of his scream throws my heart into my throat. I’m crying again, but these tears stay, running down my face and splattering the stones.
“You have to open the doorway,” Alyse says. “I can help open it to a new place. She’ll be able to spread the magic out there.”
Adrik limps forward, producing the final flask of what we thought was goddess-ending potion from his bag. He looks emaciated, ruined from the inside.
