Dizzy, Nikk opened his eyes, and grimaced as he felt a sharp piece of marble poked into his side. The first second, the ringing in his ears seemed to be the echoing of the ongoing battle, but then an unnatural silence crept over the hall.
Nikk groaned, pushing himself away from the stones, and struggling to his feet.
"Morning," an icy blade rested on his shoulder.
Slowly, Nikk turned around to see Tane holding a sword pointed directly at Nikk's chest. "Are you going to kill me now?"
Tane's eyes flickered, a rakish grin touched his lips. "Naw," he sneered. "Dead, you're no use to us."
A heartbreaking cry swept over the hall, startling them both. Tane cocked his head toward the sound, and Nikk, wasting no time, darted away and hid behind the column.
"You aren't even curious?" Tane called, his footsteps approaching. "Why we want you alive?"
Nikk looked around, his thoughts racing, his eyes desperately searching for his blade. At last, his gaze caught the glimpse of the shinning hilt of his sword wedged in the pile of rocks. He was about to run, but realized Tane was too close now. Ariy may aid me. Nikk grasped the closest pebble and jumped out from his shelter, facing Tane.
"Alive, because..." Knocked unconscious, Tane dropped to the floor like a sack of gourds.
Nikk smirked, "Tell me later."
Closing his hand around his sword and yanking it free, Nikk climbed up the heap of stones and surveyed the hall. He saw Anya and her father by the opened portal, the book gleaming in Anya's hands. Nikk drew a lungful of air and was about to release a relieved breath, but his throat knotted. No. Leir appeared next to Anya, grasping her by her arm.
"No!" Nikk shouted at the top of his lungs and rushed toward them.
Too late. The three of them vanished through the glimmering arch.
Hopping from stone to stone, making his way over the hall, Nikk saw Choraun croak angrily with the realization that he'd lost the book, a flicker his black cloak, and he dematerialized in thin air.
And now—only now!—Nikk saw Amarillis lying motionless on the floor, her eyes glassy. Crimson blood trickling down the tip of her blade, Charna stood over Rill's body for a few more second, then sprinted into the portal, and was gone too.
"Rill!" From across the hall, Daphne was running toward her. "Rill!" She kneeled beside her a mere second before Nikk leaped to her side.
"Alive?" Nikk asked, horrified at the trembling of his voice. He saw the wound on Rill's scarlet chest. He knew the answer.
"Nagal escaped," Eirn halted near them, panting. He stared at Rill's lifeless body for a moment, his eyes flashing with grief. "And Tane is nowhere to be found."
"I knocked him out less than a minute ago," Nikk said through his clutched teeth. Maybe, I should go and finish him now.
"I saw," Eirn breathed. "He's gone. Once the portal was opened, the crystals began working again."
Daphne rose to her feet and looked at Eirn, then at Nikk, her lips white as she bit them. Anger flared in her eyes. "We have to find Anya and Alexander. We can still save them and... the book from Leir."
Anger and pain well up in Nikk. His sister thought he would have still be standing here if that had been possible? As if he wanted to leave Anya in gruesome hand of that forsaken fomoire! As if...
"We don't know where they went, Daph," Nikk said, strangling the temper in his tone. "They can be anywhere in the entire universe right now. And..." He stalled off, glancing at Rill's passionless, blank expression.
"Go," Eirn echoed. "I'll take her... her body to Kelas."
Nikk nodded, sullen. One last time, he looked at Amarillis, whose face was fogged with tranquility for eternity now, and started toward the sparling dimensional door.
"Where would you go," Daph said next to him, her voice quiet as though she was afraid to awake some disaster. "If you wanted to run away from the world?"
Nikk's forehead creased. "In the middle of nowhere. In the wilderness? Woods, mountains..."
"You have a mere second to think. You're scared, you're desperate. What pops up in your mind?"
Anya. "Home. They went home." Determined, Nikk took his sister's hands and stepped inside the sparkling arch.
The world spun in circles, changing shapes and forms, beaming with colors and rays of shadows. The glimmer of the moon flickered, the night sky, an empty street illuminated with a row of pale streetlights... The cold midnight wind gusted at Nikk's face as his feet landed back on the solid ground.