The Fragile Tower - Book 1 of the No.1 magical fantasy series

The Fragile Tower Chapter 27 - The Spider

Grace put her toes to the ground and pushed herself upright, overwhelmingly relieved – and ashamed of it. This wasn't the over-protective, paranoid Ma that she had sometimes laughed about with Dad. In front of her was the Ma she hadn't quite believed in: the blazingly powerful riezehn who could destroy the fragile tower in an instant. It was awe-inspiring.

She shielded her eyes from the dazzling white light and walked shakily towards her, the relief making her unsteady. But she heard a tight laugh from the Queen, and Ma said, "Go, Grace."

She looked behind her instead, at where the Queen was rising to her feet, the beautiful drapery of her dress stained with mud and grass.

"You came!" she said, and Grace felt her relief wane. The Queen was supposed to be afraid of Ma, but she sounded delighted. More than that: she sounded as though she finally had what she wanted.

"Grace, go! Go and get Benjamin!"

She looked back at Ma and gritted her teeth. She wasn't going to leave her to fight the Queen on her own. She had all the power of the boys to wield as she wanted. Ma only had her own magic. She planted her feet more firmly and held the wand out towards the Queen.

There was a rush, and a feeling a little like falling upwards, and Grace found herself travelling backwards through the air. She saw the Queen and Ma dropping away beneath and in front of her, and she thought that the Queen must have cast some kind of magic on her until she saw the surprise on that lovely face.

Ma, she thought, with a bitter sense of defeat. She had shoved her out of the way, to safety. And to Benjamin, a small part of her mind added.

She dropped towards the floor with a sickening sensation, but instead of meeting the ground, she dropped below it, down the path of the intention wind. By the looks of it, Ma was sending her all the way to Benjamin herself.

But what could she do to free him? If she broke the bond, it would make the tower vulnerable. But if she didn't, the Queen would hurl as much power as she could at Ma, and she might die. And if Afi hadn't been freed along with Grace, there would be nobody to help her.

You should have told me what to do! she thought, frantically, as the tunnel opened out into a corridor she recognised.

Then the answer bloomed in her mind like a flower that was rotting even as it opened, and she wondered why it hadn't occurred to her earlier.

Take the bond yourself, and use it.

She was certain that it was what she needed to do, even though the idea made her feel ill. Draining those boys further of power and keeping them under the trance would make her no better than the Queen.

But she remembered the Captain, and how he had looked to her to save them all; she remembered Ruidic, and Aniela. She only hoped that Afi would forgive her for it.

The corridor grew dark around her, and she realised that she was nearly where Benjamin was. It made her flesh crawl to be flying through darkness, and it occurred to her only then that she could summon light with the wand. It was a simple enough symbol, wasn't it? An oval with two flaring lines.

She drew them onto the wand with her forefinger, and blinked as it became a glowing stick of light. It reminded her of the old neon bulbs her elementary school had had, and the lesson where her science teacher had made a light-sabre using a Van der Graaf generator and an unpowered bulb. But it also banished the darkness, and she travelled in a little sphere of light, thankful that there were no Nightmares to fight off.

She landed gently on the travelling disc, and then walked onwards with only a vague memory of where she was going. She thought about the bond as she went, and how it was formed.