Mirefall

Chapter 23 - Tower

"No." Saffryn shakes her head. "No. This can't be right. They must have...I don't know, somehow broken the entire process by tampering with it."

Kaidin exhales briefly through his nose. "The Artifacts can't be tampered with. Thrall is the rightful Rhaj of Falrun now. It chose him."

Saffryn sputters. Howla says something flippant. Kaidin chides them, and the three begin to argue what we should do next. Pash rubs her temples. My attention wanders. The metal wolf circles us once, whining, before leaving the way we'd come. Thrall's eyes follow it, and mine his.

"Um," my blood goes cold. "Kaidin, everyone..."

Their attention snaps to me.

"Wha-oh," Saffryn's eyes widen when she sees the water pooling in a thin layer just outside the chamber's entrance. It slips past the threshold as we watch and begins to flow into the room, where the light dances across it-scattered by the Mire swirling over its surface.

There's a moment of silent, collective internal chaos before we all burst into action.

"One of you, get into my chair with me, quick!" Shouts Saffryn, looking from Kaidin to Howla. Thrall, already close to the former, closes the distance between them and swoops Kaidin into his arms. That leaves Howla to clamber up onto Saffryn's chair with her, both of them awkward as the much larger Howla lifts the Solrathi heir into her lap and takes her place. The chair locks into position the instant it loses contact with Saffryn's skin, returning to its animated state only once the two are settled and she grips its arms once more.

Thrall leads the charge out into the corridor and back the way we came. I'm right behind him, then Howla and Saffryn. Pash brings up the rear. Before long we all come to a stumbling halt as we run up against another group splashing down the hall from the opposite direction.

"Rhetrien!" Kai cries out to the Kolikai Heir at the head of the other group, voice rich with emotions I can only decipher thanks to my Other Sense. Relief. Joy. A few more I don't want to examine too closely right now.

I frown as my eyes skip past Rhetrien to those with them.

"Where's Prisha?" I ask, stepping up beside Thrall and trying to see further back.

Rhetrien's Ember goes cold, their eyebrows pulling together. "Some of the guards got to us and forced her into the water before we could stop them, and she didn't-"

My hands fly up to my mouth, tears springing immediately to the corners of my eyes. At a look from Thrall and Kaidin, they stop talking, taking a deep breath instead.

"You can't go back that way," they say as the water flows higher, nearing my ankles now. "The lift is locked, and the way we came from is blocked off too."

Howla and Saffryn both curse from just out of view.

Shaking his head, Thrall turns and leads us back towards the place where the corridor branches into three, charging down the central one. The water is rising quickly, and none of us seem to have a better idea-so we just keep following him.

Until he skids to a stop, edging backward as something large and metallic splashes down the hall in our direction.

The snake.

Thrall jumps sideways and back, pressing Kaidin and I both between himself and the wall, shielding us with his own back. But the enormous serpent shoots straight past us before coming to a coiling halt before Saffryn's walking chair. It raises its heart-shaped head to meet her eyes, wavering fluidly from side-to-side as Saffryn stares back, gape jawed.

Then it slithers past her too as Rhetrien and the others get out of its way. Turning on the spot, Saffryn follows after it with a hapless, protesting Howla in tow. I move to chase after them, but Pash grabs my arm. "Leave them, we need to get out."

I shake my head. "For all we know, that could be the way out." I try to pull away from her, but she holds tight.

"If Thrall's leading us this way, it's for a reason. He probably smells fresh air. The way out."

"I'm not letting them-"

But they're already gone. I keep struggling, knowing I could catch up if I run fast enough. Find them with my Other Sense. And then I consider that I could just reach out across the Web. Slow them down or stop them. Even make them return to us. I gnaw my lip, considering.

But in a heartbeat Pash sweeps me off my feet and starts charging after Thrall-snapping me back to myself. I'm suddenly grateful to be in her arms as waves of fear, disgust, and confusion crash over me one after the other, strong enough to have brought me to my knees.

I don't want to get into that habit, even if this is an emergency. I don't want to be a monster.

But what if it was the right thing to do? What if they die now because I didn't take control?

Pash was right about Thrall, though. After a series of twists and turns we come to a stair that spirals upward. And upward. And upward. Still in Pash's grasp and unable to do much else, I shift my focus to the Web, my attention drawn as I sense the nearing presence of that same mysterious, inhuman Ember I'd first noticed upon entering the Labyrinth.

At last we emerge onto the covered rooftop of a tower. Pash sets me down at last, a thin film of sweat on her brow but otherwise barely winded by the climb. The others spread out and hurry to the railings, every one of them searching for something. Someone. Kaidin goes immediately to the north side, which affords the most expansive view of the terrain below-and from which a narrow sort of bridge extends, ending abruptly in the open air.

I trail after him, noticing from the corner of my eye that Rhetrien's doing the same. But as my focus moves past them to take in the damage beyond, it catches on something unexpected. Another "tower"-this one more akin to a many-tiered pagoda-off to the west. There's something standing atop its flat roof, something big. My eyes focus at last. The thing turns its magnificent head to meet my gaze with one sky-blue, glinting eye.

My skin chills. The hairs on the back of my neck rise as a thrill bolts down my spine, through my veins. My heart pounds a war-beat against my ribs. The next thing I know my thoughts, my instincts, my very essence have all coalesced into one single, all-encompassing objective.

An instant later I'm shoving past Kai and Rhetrien both, dashing out onto the bridge. I come to a skidding halt just as something swoops down from behind me, cloaking me in its long-winged shadow. Kai shouts my name as the claws of the giant mechanical bat curl together around my body.

And then I'm flying.