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

The Fragile Tower Chapter 36 - Ruidic's Fire

"Gregori!" the Queen said, and drew him into a fierce cuddle over her chest. Roschan drew back and watched, with the water pouring down his cheeks and leaving clean patches amidst all the dirt and the blood. "You came back to me."

"Mommy," the spell child said. "I'm back now, Mommy."

"I missed you so much," the Queen said, and she kissed him, and kissed him, the kisses growing slower and further apart until with a last kiss on his forehead, she sagged back, the rapid movement of her chest stilling.

Grace expected Ori to vanish again at once, but instead he stayed wrapped in the Queen's lifeless arms. His body jerked and she realised with a shock that he was sobbing.

Roschan seemed as amazed as she was, but after a little while he held a hand out and stroked Ori's dark hair, that was so much like the Queen's in colour. Ori lifted his head, and then threw himself towards the Captain, who opened his arms and hugged him.

Grace watched the grieving Captain rock Ori, and the strangeness of the soldier comforting a spell he had feared was almost negated by the simplicity of a man hushing a child. The effect of it was to make her want, quite fiercely, to be held. But it was a confused want, because she wanted to be at home, with Dad giving her one of his bear-hugs; and at the same time she wanted Afi to wrap his arms around her and never let go.

She looked away from the man and the boy towards Afi, then, and she saw that he wanted to hold her just as much as she wanted to be held by him. It made her smile, with the tears still standing in her eyes.

Edin chose his moment well, while Afi's attention was on her. He drove his hands down into the snow and the ash and the charred earth, through to the stone of the tower beneath. She saw blue-white light course out from him like vines through the stone, with a tearing, cracking noise.

The floor beneath him gave way, and Edin disappeared from sight. Grace saw Afi topple as if he would fall, but his hand found the edge of the hole, and he hung on, swinging in the air.

She ran to him, and started to drag him upwards, astonished by how heavy he was. She heaved backwards, and then felt a tremor through her feet.  For a sickening moment she thought that the ground she stood on was falling too. But then she realised that it was a shaking in the whole fabric of the tower.

"Grace! Lena!" she heard Ruidic shout, urgently.

Afi hooked a leg over the edge of the floor and rolled onto it, and Grace was able to look up at Ruidic as he pushed his way through the screening vines.

"He's torn apart every spell holding the place together," he said, and she knew that he was seeing more than just her or Afi or even Ma and Benjamin. "I have power enough to hold the garden together and keep the spell alive, but I can't hold the tower up." He shook his head in frustration. "The place is impossibly fragile and illogical. There's too much to do to repair it."

Grace saw Ma's face as she looked at him, and some kind of understanding seemed to pass between them, but whatever it was, it was beyond her.

"We have to get everyone out," Ma said. But instead of leaving, she took five quick steps over to Ruidic and kissed him fiercely, her mouth on his.

Grace looked away, dizzy and furious and humiliated all at once. She found herself looking at Benjamin instead, who was staring at them both with his mouth open.

"Ma!" he said, and it seemed to break through to their mother. She let go of Ruidic, her cheeks burning with colour, and put her hand out to help Roschan to his feet. As he put his hand down to Ori, the little child smiled at him, and then with a rush like the wind he became just a cluster of lights again, that floated upwards and out of the open top of the tower.

Grace saw the confused desolation on the Captain's face as he looked after the retreating lights, and she wondered whether it was his connection to the Queen he missed, or whether he had loved little Ori more than he had let on. Ma tugged at his hand, and then reached for Benjamin, and the three of them began to hurry towards the intention wind disc.

"Grace!" Ma called after her, but Grace saw Ruidic hold his hand up to her, and she stayed where she was to listen to him.

"I have to stay, Grace," he said, and she could only stare at him for a moment.

"What do you mean, you have to stay?"

"The spell needs its riezehn," he said, and there was a strange little smile on his mouth. "I saw it the moment you explained it all to me. I'm woven into the spell, and it's woven into me too. I'm the centre of it, here where I created it, and it's all right. I'll stay, and I'll be just fine."

Grace looked around at the charred, snow-covered garden, and asked, "But what will you eat? What will you do?"

"I'll bring the garden back," he said, and the way he said it as he looked around showed Grace that he was seeing how it would be instead of how it was now.

There was a booming rumble below their feet. Grace felt Afi take hold of her wrist.

"We have to go," he said, quietly.

"But I was supposed to be the one who saved everyone," Grace said, humiliated to find hot, bitter tears running down her cheeks. "I was supposed to be the hero, and now you're sacrificing yourself instead and I'm just... I'm ashamed."

Ruidic seemed to understand more of what she meant than she was willing to admit. He smiled at her, and took her free hand.

"Grace," he said, "this will be the only truly great thing I've ever created in my life. Except for you."

She looked back at him, and then let go of Afi's hand to fling her arms around his neck.

"I'll come back and see you," she said. "I'll come and even if this place is out of reach, I'll get here so you aren't on your own."

"All right," he said into her ear, and she could tell from the way he said it that he didn't believe her.

"I will," she said, fiercely, and let him go to hold his gaze. "I promise I will."

Ruidic smiled at her, his age-old crooked smile. "I'll hold you to it. But you need to promise to do something else first."

"What?" Grace asked, almost relieved to feel like there was something else she could do, in spite of how tired she felt and how much she just wanted to lie down somewhere warm.

"Heal the boys," he said, quietly. "The ones who have lost their minds. I think you can do it... The healer comes..." he said, and there was a distant look in his eyes again.

"I – I haven't healed anyone," Grace said, as full of doubt as she had ever been.

"And you hadn't cast a spell until three days ago," he said, with a wry grin, "and now look at you."

She wanted to say more, but with a booming crack, the garden came free of the rest of the tower and tilted over dizzyingly. Grace's feet slipped from under her, and she was falling towards the hole in the floor that Edin had made, her feet and hands finding nothing to grip on the snowy ground.

"Afi!" she shouted, but as she tried to grab for him, her hands closed on empty air.