Smoke Rising: Book III

Chapter Sixteen

I take it and pop the top off with my thumb, still holding flames in the other hand. Inside the tiny glass bottle blue liquid shakes. Liquid energy, like the stuff he had a pool of. The first time I saw her was bathing in that pool. It was smart for him to bring this. Nicholi is like that though, calculating, always scheming.

"Place a few drops on your forehead and your chest." Just like the binding potion.

I raise the bottle above my head and let a few drop fall onto my head, and then I take a finger and smear the liquid parallel to my eyebrows, picking some of the liquid up to mark my chest. I draw a blue X over my heart and close my eyes, hoping this will be enough.

But it's more than enough. Images flood through my mind. The tunnel entrance, the journey down into the earth, the bones below, the tomb hidden deep inside. She's here. But she's not talking anymore.

I open my eyes and find Mateo's big brown gaze watching me like I might be lost.

"It's not too much farther."

The words find my lips as the walls begin to shake. Stones around us begin to fall, and I was right—the whole building is going to come crumbling down on us. Now my mom will have died for nothing. The Chancellor will continuing killing and destroying everything and anything he wants in the name of safety, and people will keep on suffering. The world never truly changes. It's like the very energy coursing through my veins. Nothing new ever comes. It's only transformed. But this world just keeps getting worse and worse. At least I won't be alive to find out what it will look like.

"The stone—" Mateo's voice cracks, and my eyes snap to find what he's looking at. When I do, I freeze like the both of them. Something moves underneath the wall like the solid rock is a bedsheet. Then it shifts, looking almost like a wave in the ocean. But the wave doesn't stop. Something pushes under it, and a solid figure made of the wall steps in front of us.

"Enchanted stone?" Mateo asks, and I can sense Nicholi stepping closer to me.

"Maybe, or maybe it's cursed stone."

The figure stands at least seven feet tall, with shoulders bigger than the largest soldier I've ever seen. It's faceless, but somehow I know that it's looking at me as its head turns my way.

"Run," the word slips from Nicholi's lips, and I don't think twice as the figure lunges towards us. I dodge it quickly, slipping under its abnormally long arms, and I dart past the creature down the tunnel.

Only once I'm sure it's a good distance from me do I turn to look over my shoulder to see what's become of them.

Mateo and Nicholi hold him off, using flame and swords to fend for themselves.

"Go!" Nicholi shouts, his voice echoing down the tunnel. The sound waves breathe life into the walls,
causing the stones to stir. More creatures begin to push their way out of the wall, and I think as fast as I can. Protection spell.

The spell dances off my tongue as my hands fly towards the walls, and I hold the creatures back with a forcefield made of heat, energy, and shadows. Claws break through the barrier in one spot, and soon, several claws are ripping open the forcefield like its thin as paper. I glance at Mateo and Nicholi, hoping that they'll be okay, then I sprint down the tunnel deeper into the earth.

The enchanter—or cursed—stone disappear behind me, and I stop to catch my breath. It isn't until I begin to hear a whisper that I realize I can see something in the dark. But I can't make out what the whisper is saying.

I approach slowly, carefully making my way closer to the origin of the sound. But something wraps around my throat and I can't breathe. I claw at my neck—at whatever is trying to strangle me, and find nothing my own skin.