Page 53 of Ashes of Gold
I pull myself up into the crevice, my arms screeching as my cuff scratches the rock. I shove my upper body through first and the hole is more like a short tunnel. Whoever or whatever is on the other side knows I’m coming. If they didn’t hear our whispers, they definitely hear the hammer in my chest.
I lug my body forward until I reach the end of the tunnel. Footsteps echo in the distance. I scurry to my feet and conjure a ball of energy, tightening my grip on the tracker. There’s no one here. I close my eyes to open my ears, like Z said, but the footsteps are gone.
I scan the ground, careful where I put each foot. No marks or anything obvious. I walk a little farther and spot a glowing box. It’s small and metal. I step closer and am warmed in a gust of heat radiating off it. I stuff the tracker away and squat, an odd sensation wrapping around me. Something isn’t right.
I fire streams of magic at the box to see if it’s armed. But it just glows brighter.
“Perdch yee’me.” The destroy spell shoots from my fingertips and I brace for the shatter, but the box doesn’t even crack. What kind of sorcery is this? My arms are boiling, but I lock my elbows and saythe spell again, more forcefully this time. My magic, a string of light, fizzes between me and the curious box like a tether.
“Rue?” Bri’s voice is muffled, and I tell myself to turn around, but the orange box captivates. I can’t tear my eyes away.
“Go back,” I say in my head, but my lips don’t move. I’m drawn to it like a magnet. Everything is heavy and thick, and sounds are dull. I blink, but my body moves in a wave like I’m underwater.
Look away.My neck stiffens. I can’t.Look away!
The light.
The box.
It’s all I see.
Closer. I step or am pulled or something. Light crackles from my fingertips, streaming to its metal edge. I’m close, so close. Warmer than before.Touch it.I lick my lips in anticipation.
Take it.
Hold it.
Desire whispers to me and my fingers brush its lid and tingle. Words are a haze. A muffled voice behind me speaks.
A tickling sensation coats my hand and skitters up my arm. Sound reason breaks through the spell.Move away, Rue!My feet don’t answer.
I’m fixated, stuck, frozen, when a gush of something washes over me. My wrists teeter from hot to cold, like my magic is short-circuiting. Everything’s woozy and panic flutters through me, my knees feeling wobbly. I try to shout but my lips won’t open, like I’m in a nightmare I’m desperately trying to wake from.
I try to tug my magic away, but it’s leashed to the box, siphoning inside it in a funnel. My knees buckle completely. I hit the groundhard, pain shooting up my legs. I try to lift my arm, to scurry myself away, but everything is heavy, so heavy. I burn all over and spot the edge of my cuff peeling away from my skin.
This box is sucking the… life… no, themagic…out of me.
I summon whatever fragment of strength I find to pull away, but the box’s power lies on me like a blanket of steel. Breathing is a fight. I dig. I can’t die here. I can’t, not like this. My parents, they… My throat tightens. What will happen to the rest of them? Everything I did for East Row, would the Chancellor retaliate, go wreak havoc there? I can’t.
“You’ve fought bigger battles before,” a voice whispers to me, and I go cold all over, the hair on my neck standing. “…And you won.”
Something shifts. My cuffs surge with intense heat, the coldness completely gone. My magic… it’s answering, overpowering… winning. I cling to that feeling and pull at any and everything I feel until the spell breaks. A shudder rolls through me, then a crack, like a mountain of pressure breaking through a dam.
I stumble backward as far away as I can from the magic-sucking box. Someone helps me up and I pant for my breath. Bri is beside me, her gadget suctioning a vortex of matter from the box. She taps the light on top and yanks. The swirl of matter shudders and a final gush of magic slips into Bri’s device. She closes a door on it with a triumphant smile.
“Rue, are you okay?” she asks.
I steady myself on my feet and my fingers instinctively reach for the edge of my cuff that was peeling away. It lies flat, flush with my skin, and I sigh in relief. “I’m okay, I think. Something, someone… whispered to me. I—”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know. But that thing wanted my magic!”
“It wanted more than your magic,” Zora says. “But Bri was quick to recognize how it worked and her Ingostro thing was able to overpower it.” They share a look. “Good work, Bri.” Zora helps her get the gadget into her bag, and I glare at the spot I was just pinned to, trying to make sense of what just happened. I thought the fire arrows were trying to kill me back there… maybe they wanted to injure me, maim me, so I couldn’t move. The box in the alleyway we deactivated before we saw what it could really do. But it had a homing device to notify them. Maybe—I gasp. The realization slaps.
“These traps aren’t trying to kill me.” The hole in the concrete so only one person could go through. The fact that no one is out here trying to challenge me one-on-one. I pull the hostage up on his feet. The fear of death is in his eyes.
“That’s not his plan, is it?”
