Chapter Ten

Between seven Elites, one captain, and one omnifinate, Asterin felt fairly confident that they could handle this.

Slight emphasis on fairly.

Silas lay frozen in a block of ice about a foot thick in every direction. The Elites encircled him in two tiers—Gino, Hayley, and Alicia took up the front line with their light affinities, and the others stood ready behind them.

Eadric finished his second jog around the training hall, double-­checking that all the doors were bolted shut. The three training halls were located in the basement, so luckily they had no windows to worry about. “Good to go, Your Majesty!”

“Good,” said Asterin. “Light-wielders, commence.”

Hayley, Alicia, and Gino raised their affinity stones, their palms facing Silas. “Volumnus,” they shouted as one.

Beams of glaring light radiated from their stones toward the center of the room, brightening exponentially and filling every inch of the hall. Asterin squeezed her eyes shut, but even then it flooded her head, setting her vision aglow like the sun. And still—still, the world grew brighter, until she had to rub tears from her clenched lids.

“Move in!” she heard Hayley order, and the light finally began to recede.

Asterin pried her eyes open and blinked away the spots dancing across her vision. The rays folded in on themselves, enclosing Silas in a coffin of pure white light, only the faintest glimmer of his silhouette visible.

“There!” yelled Alicia just as Asterin caught a glimpse of darkness amid the light, writhing just beneath the surface of Silas’s skin.

Chaos.

It shied away, trying to retreat—except that it had nowhere to go, no darkness to hide in.

Asterin leaned forward in horrified fascination as the Chaos spasmed, overflowing into the individual strands of Silas’s hair, decaying blond to black. It muddied his irises and lips, as though trying frantically to break out of any orifice possible. Bile rose in her throat when it burst past his irises, running beneath his skin and down his cheeks in rivulets of dark pus.

Eadric raised his arm. “Laurel, Casper, now!”

While Casper melted a tiny opening through the ice, Laurel conjured a dome of rock directly above it. Ice and stone melded as one, all gaps sealed save for the single hole leading straight into the dome.

Just as they had planned, the Chaos surged through the opening, vacating Silas’s body completely in favor of the shelter of Laurel’s dome.

The dome shuddered. Fractures raced down the sides, but Laurel simply gritted her teeth and repaired the cracks as fast as they appeared. Nicole stepped forth to aid her, but it was only a matter of time before the dome collapsed.

Asterin cursed internally and braced herself. Frost crackled overhead. “Eadric!”

He nodded, clasping his affinity stone between his palms. “Release, Laurel!”

With a gasp, Laurel fell to her knees and let the dome disintegrate.

The Chaos exploded forth, under the guise of finally escaping—only to find itself trapped yet again. Except this time, Asterin had forged it a prison of crystalline ice instead of rock, and the light shone through as brightly as before.

Like clockwork, Nicole raised her windstone and summoned a mighty squall to shove Silas’s block of ice to safety. Casper and Alicia placed their hands on the ice to thaw it with their fire affinities.

The air began to shake. Not the walls, or the ceiling, or even the floor. She could see the air itself in ripples around her, first in long waves that soon shortened and vibrated through space.

“Eadric—”

“That’s not me,” he said uneasily.

It took her a moment to realize that the Chaos was emitting the strange ripples. As a precaution, she conjured an energy shield, but the ripples passed right through. One ghosted her shoulder. Pain splintered from her collarbone and spread down her arm. Bruises unfurled in swirling blotches of blue and purple beneath her skin. But the only way those ripples could be passing through her shield was . . .

“It’s wielding pure energy,” Asterin hollered just as a huge wave surged from the Chaos and crashed into an unknowing Eadric.

She swore she could hear the cracking of his bones.

Asterin dodged a ripple and sprinted for him, catching him just as he crumpled forward and lowering him gently to the ground.

“Immortals,” he gasped, his voice wracked with agony.

“Look out!” Casper yelled, giving Asterin just enough time to duck beneath another ripple. The Elite brandished his affinity stone and attempted unsuccessfully to divert some of the ripples with his air-­affinity. The other Elites retreated as far as possible, to where the waves waned and decayed into nothing.

“We have to come up with a new plan,” Asterin informed Eadric, her heart hammering. By some miracle, the ice surrounding Chaos was still intact, but she knew it must be weakening. “You can’t even move on your own.”

“No,” Eadric hissed. “We need to finish this, now. Look at it. It’s unstable. Like it’s struggling to hold itself together.” He met her gaze, eyes bright with pain and resolve. “Just try and figure out a way to keep those waves away from me.”

Asterin bit her lip. “Fine. But we can’t do anything about the waves. The best we can do is heal on the go.” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “I need my three strongest healers on Eadric! Quickly! ”

The Elites helped Eadric sit upright, healing him all the while. “Here goes,” he groaned, his features twisted in pain. “Peneretrae.”

A peculiar buzz crept through the air, intensifying until her skull rattled with it. A piercing whine drilled the air. Several Elites clapped their hands over their ears, but no one could tear their eyes away from the Chaos. It began to split, every division revealing Eadric’s magic coursing and crackling within its being. One by one, like puddles of oil frying in a pan, each section vaporized.

Eadric swore through clenched teeth, every inch of his body so charged up with electricity that strands of Laurel’s ponytail stuck to his skin. “Asterin, now!”

A bang like a cannon blast ripped through the air as Asterin cleaved the ice prison in half to expose the last of the Chaos. Static bit her skin, crackling outward. The Chaos exploded, globules of slick black sludge splattering in every direction. Before it had the chance to re-form, the light-wielding Elites devoured every last speck in blistering effulgence worthy of the sun.

Eadric’s chest went rigid. He toppled forward, and it took the combined strength of three Elites plus Asterin to keep him from face-planting into the floor. They laid him out on the ground, wincing from the literal aftershocks of his magic.

The moment the coast was clear, the other Elites bundled Silas off to the infirmary.

Once they whisked him away, Asterin set to work on Eadric, running her hands along his body while muttering healing spells. She had just mended the last fractured rib when the main door opened and her mother slipped in.

Elyssa came to kneel beside her. She brushed Eadric’s forehead, only to recoil with a yelp when he gave her a nasty shock. “Will he be all right?” she asked, rubbing her fingers together.

Asterin nodded and suddenly noticed the letter in her mother’s lap. “What’s that?”

Her mother handed it to her. “See for yourself.”

Asterin took it, immediately zoning in on the Eradorian seal stamped on the envelope—a green serpent entwined around a winged trident. She ripped it open, only to realize that the message had been written on the inside of the envelope itself.

Two simple words.

It was a good thing that she was already on her knees. She read those two words again and again. Euphoric laughter bubbled from her lips, shaking her entire frame as she pressed the envelope into her chest like a piece of driftwood that had saved her from drowning at sea. Still laughing, she threw her arms around her mother. Elyssa smiled into her shoulder and hugged her tighter.

They parted when Eadric hacked out a few coughs. He squinted at Asterin and croaked, “What? What is it?”

She waved the envelope at him, all too aware of the enormous weight she had borne for months finally lifting from her shoulders. “Pack your bags. We’ve got a ship to catch.”

His eyes widened. “You mean . . . ?”

“Yes.” Asterin grinned at him. “To Eradore.” To Quinlan. “To Eradore, at last.”