The Fragile Tower - Book 1 of the No.1 magical fantasy series

The Fragile Tower Chapter 34 - The Crumbling Tower

Grace was transfixed. Magpie-like, she was dazzled by the runs and flashes of light along the spire as it began to twist in the yellow-orange light of the sun. And the vast size of it was captivating too. She wondered how tall it was as a section of crystal supporting it gave up and fell away; and how much it weighed.

And then as the slow twist became a rushing fall, she started to scramble along the ground, frantic to be out from underneath it. She put weight on her injured leg and sobbed as it gave way with another lance of pain, but she kept trying to move anyway. A mere two seconds as it plunged towards her, raining more of the molten crystal as it went, spread out into an endless expectation of feeling the pointed spire spear her through the back.

She couldn't make sense of the sensation that came instead. Someone seemed to grasp hold of her, and then she was rushing through the garden at a pace faster than she could ever have travelled herself.

Her backside crashed into the grass and a weight crunched into her. She felt her broken ribs grate against each other, but she wasn't sure if she screamed. The noise around her was too huge and endless.

When the weight lifted, she found herself looking past Ruidic's shoulder at a mountain of shattered crystal. At its centre, upside-down but absurdly almost upright, stood the spire. Grace realised that it must have dug through the earth until it came to a rest, what had once been its base now a jagged mass of broken crystal. Its top reached almost to the height of the remains of the dome.

Snow had already begun to cover it all, whirling down in the icy blast from the cold mage's storm though some of them, picked out in vivid orange by the sun, looked more like sparks than snow.

She realised that Ruidic was staring at the devastation too, and she said urgently, "Ruidic. The spell."

"I know," he told her, and when he gave her a glance out of his moving eyes, she saw that they were still glowing with magic. "I have part of it already."

"Then hide somewhere, and cast it," she said. "You have to go, before he finds us-"

But she saw the way his eyes latched onto something behind her, and narrowed. She knew that when she turned it would be the mage she saw, and he had seen Ruidic, now, too.

She twisted, moving her body as little as she could. She didn't want to feel her ribs grating across each other again.

He steamed as he walked through the snow. His huge form was blackened from the fire, and across his face there was a livid red blister.

If I made him angry before... she thought, and tensed in expectation of another attack. Would it be Ruidic he went for? Or her?

She had told him that Ruidic was the only one who could release the weapon, she realised, her heart thumping painfully in her bruised and fractured chest. But I didn't know it was actually true! she thought, desperately.

But the mage walked warily, and he held power fizzing a gentle green in his hands without making any move to release it. As he came closer, she realised that he was looking at her.

"You have it, don't you?" he said. His voice was soft this time, but full of an intense and distasteful greed.

She shook her head, without knowing what she was denying.

He gave a short laugh. "You can't deny it when the evidence is all around us. You have the power of fire, and it's too great a power to be yours."

She blinked at him, and then understood.

He thinks I have Cartheno's Fire, she thought. And he doesn't know what it is, or he'd just kill me and take it...

He stopped his approach, and stood watching her, with a wariness that seemed bizarre when she was lying on the floor feeling as though she was falling apart.