Aleira Brightleaf's Arc

Chapter 14 of 18

The tomb was quiet now. The necromancers were gone, tricked into losing the trail. But the silence pressed on Aleira like a hand. She stood before the black wall of hardened lava, thick and cold. It sealed the only way out. She pushed at it. Solid. She struck it with her fist. Nothing moved. Beside her, Hazel sat with her wand across her knees, and Morwenna slumped near the throne, her gray skull staff dead in her lap. No magic left. No door. Just three of them and a shrinking pool of air. Aleira tilted her head back. Far above, through the broken peak, she saw a thin strip of red sky. Smoke curled up through the gap. Air came in there. But the hole was too high to climb to, and too small to crawl through. She breathed slow. The heat was rising again. Soon the air would go foul. "We can't dig out," Morwenna said flatly. "The stone is thick. My magic is gone. Gone. We suffocate. Slow. First the young witch. Then you. Then me." She hugged her knees. "I always knew a tower would be my grave." Aleira knelt beside Hazel. The witch flinched, leaves shaking in her hair. "Your magic," Aleira said. "You've never hit what you aimed at once. Not one time." Hazel's mouth twisted. "That's not helping." "It is." Aleira gripped her shoulders. "Every time you miss, you break stone. You brought down this whole wall by accident. So aim at the floor. Aim at the ground under our feet." Morwenna's white eyes went wide. "The floor. If she misses upward, she hits the wall. The sealed wall." "That's the plan," Aleira said. "She never hits where she points. Point down. The spell flies wide and cracks the seal open." Hazel stood on shaking legs. She raised her wand and pointed it straight at the stone floor. Her hand trembled. "What if this is the one time I aim right?" "You won't," Aleira said. "Trust that you'll fail. Fail loud." Hazel squeezed her eyes shut and cast. The spell tore from her wand, curved wild, and slammed into the sealed lava wall. The blast threw all three of them back. Rock shattered. When the dust cleared, a jagged hole gaped in the black stone. Cool air rushed through it. Beyond the gap, Aleira saw the burning wastes stretching out under a red sky. Hazel coughed and laughed at once. "I missed. I missed!" Aleira climbed to her feet. The tomb was open. They could breathe. They could leave. But she stepped to the breach and stopped cold. Across the wastes, tiny robed figures had turned toward the noise. The blast had carried. A cluster of necromancers stood in the far heat, staring at the fresh hole in the tower. They began to move. Toward her.