Page 84 of Fortress of Ambrose
Jordan
While Zecky rests against a wall, turning the diadem in his hands, panic seizes in my chest. Ube works a Retentor brush over my body in circular motions. A warm sensation gusts through me as the stone slides along my body. I try to hinge at my waist again, but it’s no use.
“Hold still.”
“I can’t move. Why can’t I move?” I am stuck, flat on my back on a table, with only my neck and head able to rotate. Erla hasn’t returned. And Ube doesn’t make a sound as he works.
“He is nearly done,” Zecky says, watching from a distance.
“What’s the diadem for?” I ask, turning my head to look in his direction.
“Shh.” Zecky grabs me by the jaw tightly and urges my gaze straight up. He lays his free hand near the scar where the Sphere’s magic entered my body, and toushana lurches in my chest.
“It’s agitated,” Zecky says, and my body tremors with pain. A buckling sensation snaps between my ribs like a cement block shattered in half. Heat rushes through the crater in my chest.
“Therewe are.” Zecky brings the diadem closer.
The icy wave of my toushana slams into the bluster of heat prickling my body, drowning the proper magic’s heat. I try to speak, but Zecky smothers my mouth, clamping his grip tighter. Whatever this is, it isn’tan examination. Cold and hot wrestle in my bones. I try to pull myself up, but the table won’t let me move.
“There, right there,” Zecky hollers. “Put it in place now.”
The world sears of sound and color as a tear rips through me like being carved open with jagged teeth. Ube shoves the diadem, jeweled tips first, beneath my ribs. The cold refuses to budge.
“Out of my way.” Zecky shoves Ube aside. “Leave the dark one.The otheris the one that legitimizes us.”
They’re stealing the magic.
Weight shifts against my ribs as Zecky shoves the diadem deeper into me, away from my decaying ribs. It knocks the wind out of me and feels like I’ve swallowed a knife all at the same time.
Cold.
My body.
All over.
Everything issocold. A bluster of grainy heat rushes through me as Zecky pulls the diadem out. The metal glows. Pressure releases in every crevice of my body as piping hot magic gushes out of me and into the brightening stones of the diadem.
Zecky fumbles the diadem, now smoking in his hands. Ube scrambles for something to help him hold it, when a jewel pops out of the metal frame, exploding all over Zecky’s hands.
He shrieks.
Another jewel buckles at the intensity of the magic. Zecky crushes the diadem in his hands, holding it tightly against him, and I can hear thehissof the metal on his skin. He tries to shove it inside a metal box. But more stones spill between his fingers. I watch the horror of their plan backfiring, when I suddenly realize my pain is gone.
It feels like ice has replaced the marrow in my bones. But it doesn’t hurt.
I try to sit up, but a final gush of cold magic renders me flat on my back again.
Everything grows hazy.
And colder.
So much colder.
Zecky and Ube manage to get a handle on the diadem, locking it inside the box.
“Out!Before he wakes.” Something hard hits the floor.
“I don’t understand,” Ube says. “You want to—”
