The Curse of the Blessed

Chapter Twenty-Six

"What do we do?" Bran whispered. He glanced at me, and I could tell that, even though he was too kind to say it, he was wondering how we were going to get out of here with me like this.

"Leave without me," I said.

Lark shook her head at me. "No. There are other ways. We can go into the tunnels."

"So that we can get lost and be hunted down by the Magician?" Bran said. "No thank you."

"Do you have a better idea?" Lark hissed.

Almost instinctively, all of us turned to Reed.

"What about you?" said Bran, a pleading note in his voice. "You've got to have an idea. Don't you? You always know what to do."

"We run," said Reed. "We go into the tunnels."

"But how are we going to get out again? How are we going to avoid the Magician if we don't know where we're going? How are-"

"I don't know!" Reed snapped. Quietly this time, he repeated, "I don't know. I thought it would be easier than this. I thought we'd be able to make the Magician see reason. At the very least, I thought we'd be powerful enough together to defeat him. But now..." He shook his head, as though shaking away the thoughts. "We need time. We're all stressed, now, freaked out by how much everything has gone wrong. Nothing's going to be accomplished when we're like this. We have to get out of here and regroup. For now, we head into the tunnels and avoid being captured by the Magician."

"Are you ready, Fyra?" Lark asked.

I shook my head, knowing that if we went too soon, I'd risk starting the attack all over again. I'd be a liability. "I just need another minute."

There was silence. The sound of my slow, steady breathing seemed to fill the air around us, until it seemed like the darkness itself was making the noise.

"I know you're there," said the Magician's voice. It echoed through the tunnels, coming from all around us, though the acoustics of it told that it came from much farther away. I jumped. "I know you're hiding somewhere around here. Let's play a game, shall we? If you make it out of these tunnels, you live to fight another day. I won't attack you, or shoot parting shots at your back as you flee. You'll have another chance. If you don't make it out, you have a choice—join me in my mission to destroy my old village, or be cursed. I'd choose the former. I know you, your fears, and everything about you. I've been watching you from the beginning. The curse I choose will be the perfect one to break you."

I shivered, resting my hand against the cold stone beneath my feet. Something about the texture or the temperature seemed to clarify things. My breathing finally steadied.

"I'm ready to go," I whispered.

"Good," said Reed. He stood, and the rest of us followed suit. "Stay close."

We wove through the tunnels, with Reed seeming to take turns at random, occasionally pausing to listen for any sign of the Magician nearing us.

"Can you sense him at all?" I asked Bran.

He shook his head, face pale and worried in the darkness. "I can't. There's too much magic everywhere; it's blocking my powers, making it impossible to differentiate between one thing and another."

Reed stopped suddenly and whirled back toward us. "Less talking, more walking."

He moved to continue forward again, but with a cry of warning, Lark grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. They fell to the ground.

"What was that?" Reed whispered furiously.

"Pit," gasped Lark.

Reed helped her up and scrambled to his feet. Indeed, there was a pit directly in front of them, nearly invisible against the darkness of the tunnel walls. Even when he held his lamp directly above it, it seemed like nothing more than a slight shifting in the reflectiveness of the floor—certainly not an actual hole.