Chương 17: 17 Loop 0, Part 17

At first, I thought it was aimed somewhere else, because I didn't die. Instead, a body hit me from behind, hard and low. My shoulders struck the marble, and my teeth clicked shut. It was Finn. He must have seen the dragon's head track toward me—though how he got from the side of the arena to me so fast, I didn't understand. Finn had terrible survival instincts whenever someone else was in danger. Whenever I was in danger. The dragon hit him. The breath attack opened over him and took him apart quietly.

The green light around his hands vanished. Finn folded at the knees and hit the marble on his side. I got up and rushed over to him.

"Finn?" My voice didn't sound like mine. His robes weren't burned or singed. There was no blood or wound or anything I could point at and fix. But his skin had pulled too tight across his face, and his eyes were open and empty, staring at nothing. I knew that look. I was eight again, standing in a hallway in pajamas, watching my mother carried down on a stretcher. Finn was dead. Because of me. Somewhere behind me, a [Fireball] hit the dragon. It wasn't Sara's.

The fireball that hit the dragon was twice the size of anything Sara had managed to throw at it. It struck the dragon in the side of the head and detonated in a blast of gold and white light. It was so bright my vision blinked out for a full second. When it came back, the dragon had staggered sideways, and standing in the wreckage of the Crucible was my uncle. Finn had done it. His last act had saved us all. And now, Corwen was on his feet, his clock talisman blazing with mana.

His robes torn and bloody, his face set with determination. But I couldn't do anything to help him. I couldn't move. Finn was in front of me. Dead. My knees hit the marble. I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. But [Wideview] wouldn't let me look away. It shows you everything, whether you want it or not. And right then, "everything" included Finn's hand, still curled around his wand, still faintly glowing with the residue of the last spell he'd ever cast. And then the mana faded. I heard my uncle shout."

[Light Ward]. [Expand]. [Jump]." And I watched, broken, as spell after spell came out of the talisman. The first wrapped him in a shimmering suit of golden armor. It swallowed his torn robes and made him look like something out of a war painting. The second expanded the ward until it blazed like a second sun. The third launched him forward so fast and so high that I almost lost sight of him. Three spells in under two seconds. His first, [Light Ward], cost north of 200 mana.

[Expand] at that level was another 150 minimum. And while [Jump] depended on the distance and the range he was going, it meant my uncle had just burned through more mana in a heartbeat than I had in my entire pool. I didn't want to do the math. I didn't want to think about what that meant for his mana channels. So I didn't. He grabbed the dragon's wing with his bare hands—well, armored hands—and dug into the shadow and held.

The dragon twisted, trying to shake him, but my uncle held on like the dragon owed him money. He cast again. [Light Blade]. A sword of light materialized in his free hand, and he sheared through the wing at the joint. The dragon reeled back, roaring, shadow spraying like blood from the wound. The severed wing dissolved before it hit the ground. I had never seen my uncle fight. Not like this. I had heard stories of what he was capable of. Everyone had heard the stories. But this wasn't a story.

This was my uncle, with his hands buried deep in a monster, pulling out its heart. My uncle landed in a warrior pose, one fist on the ground, the sword held high in the other. [Subtitle] caught something from the stands. Scattered voices from scattered people, overlapping each other as they screamed.

"Headmaster!"

"Hero!"

"We're saved!"

"Is that the headmaster?"

"Is that light magic?" Yeah, it was light magic. Congratulations, everyone, for noticing. But then billowing plumes of smoke flowed from the collapsed dragon and surrounded my uncle. The two forces clashed, black smoke and gold light, churning together until he couldn't be seen. Every impact sounded like it should have been the last. Each one was heavier, each one dumping more mana, each one faster and faster and faster. I didn't want to think about what that meant.

"Uncle, no!" I was on my feet before I knew I was moving. I couldn't let him die, too. I knew it was probably futile. I couldn't really help my uncle. I couldn't help Finn. I couldn't help anyone. But I could do something, right? I pulled up my mana. 47. I'd started the day at 320. I was down to 47, like a bank account after payday. [Gust] cost 22. That would leave me at 25, which was enough for practically nothing. Especially if the dragon decided to come back from the dead and kill me.

Which, given my track record, was practically guaranteed. I cast [Gust] anyway. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. 22 mana I couldn't afford, aimed at a fight I couldn't influence, for a man who probably didn't even know I was there. A thin ribbon of wind streaked across the arena floor. It vanished into the smoke like a seductive whisper against a screaming hurricane. The story of my life, honestly. It didn't matter.

My spell was completely outclassed as a literal bomb of wind and light exploded off my uncle. The smoke dispersed in an instant, blown outward in a shockwave that knocked me back on my ass. The sphere of white light expanded farther and farther until it reached the stands and pushed the dragon back. The light caused searing pain to the dragon as it practically screamed. Red little blisters appeared all along its shadowy body, each one hissing and smoking where the radiance had punched through.

But even as I watched, each blister sealed, the shadow floating back into place. The wounds closed as if they had never been there. Sara was beside me, tugging me away. Though she, too, was having trouble moving. Like me she was staring at the dragon, at my uncle, and the impossible scale of what was happening in front of us. She pulled me to the safety of the stairs near the exit, but I wouldn't leave. My uncle resummoned his sword. He must have put twice as much mana as before, because the sword was bigger.

It blazed white-gold in his hands, humming with enough power that the air shimmered like a mirage around it. The dragon's severed wing was already growing back. Shadows knitting together in long, dark threads. The dragon flexed, and the wing snapped open, fully reformed, as if my uncle had never cut it. What the fuck was this thing? I was expecting a look of shock on my uncle's face, or maybe even grim determination. I knew I'd be upset at having to expend more effort on this fucking thing.

But [Wideview] let me see something I wasn't sure anyone else was supposed to see. My uncle was smiling. A big, wild grin, like he was about to devour a large dessert. The sword in his hands grew even larger, stretching and stretching until the blade was taller than the dragon. And then he levitated off the ground. His feet left the marble. He rose quickly, until he was level with the dragon's head.

"Too bad. You only get to do that once," Corwen said. He flew forward in a flash, bringing the sword down in an arc that split the air. The blade connected with the dragon's skull and kept going. Through the neck. Through the chest. Through the body. The sword carved a line of blazing white from the top to the base of its tail. The two halves of the Devourer peeled apart like an apple, shadow boiling in thick plumes. Everything went silent.

My uncle hung in the air above the dissolving remains of the dragon, his sword still extended, his armor blazing gold. He looked like every story I'd ever been told about his efforts in the war. For one single moment, I let myself believe it was over. That he'd land, brush the dust off his shoulder, and tell me to stop staring with a stupid look on my face. That we'd all walk out of the Crucible, and he'd make me something to eat, and comfort me about Finn, and that everything else would be fine.

And then his mana gave out. The sword guttered and died. The golden light collapsed inward like a candle being snuffed out. One moment, he was in the sky, and the next, he plummeted to the earth. The dragon was dead. The man who'd killed it was dying on the ground. My hands were on the railing, and I was staring dumbfounded. Twice in less than an hour. I jumped the rail. Thankfully, it didn't hurt as much this time. And I rushed forward. Medical staff reached Corwen before I did.

Now that the danger was gone, they had come out of their hiding space. Because of course they'd rather let everybody die than risk dying themselves. I didn't blame them. It was logical. Green mana flared around his body as the healers dropped to their knees and cast every spell they knew. Every diagnostic spell, every trick in the book for keeping someone alive. I stood over them, useless, watching green light pulse across my uncle's body in waves that looked like they should be doing something.

His breathing was shallow. His talisman had gone dark. The clock face that had been blazing gold thirty seconds ago was just metal now, cracked down the middle from the fall. [Subtitle] picked up what they were saying immediately, and my heart dropped. Mana channel collapse. Likely be dead in twelve hours. Nothing we can do at this stage. Twelve hours. The number sat in my head and refused to leave. The world split in two, and it was like I was stuck on the wrong side.

Twelve hours until the only other person I cared about was gone. Creed's people moved before the healers were finished. Two of his lackeys stepped forward and placed my uncle under formal arrest. Because of course they did. The building was still smoking, people were dead, and the government had found the one part of the disaster it knew how to do. Punish the people that had actually saved everyone. One of them was reading charges while the other helped load him onto a stretcher.

My uncle was dying and couldn't understand, but yeah, sure, read him charges. [Subtitle] rendered them in crisp, officious-looking text at the edge of my vision.

"Destruction of government property." Sure. My uncle was the one who had destroyed everything.

"Obstruction of a ministerial investigation." We all would've been dead if he hadn't killed said dragon, but sure, obstruction.

"Suspicion of involvement in the disappearance of government agents." That didn't sound right. Plural? Was Vex multiple people or something? I stopped reading the subtitles. The charges kept coming, each one more absurd than the last. Sara had followed me, and she planted herself between the stretcher and the exit with her wand at her side.

"What are you doing? He just saved every person in the Crucible. Without him, we'd all be dead. Me, you, Minister Creed." She pointed at the destroyed stands where he was picking himself up.

"Look at this. Look at what he stopped, and you're arresting him?" One of the lackeys paused, but the other didn't.

"Ma'am, please step aside." Sara didn't budge.

"My mother is General Thera Voss. I'm asking you to reconsider this arrest on behalf of my family." The lackey who had paused looked at the one who hadn't. Something passed between them. And then he sighed.

"Ma'am, the Prime Minister has issued a direct order. Please step aside." Sara didn't move. She held her wand aloft. For a second, I thought she was going to cast something. But she lowered it, and then moved. Fuck this. I turned around. My ankle reminded me immediately that this was a terrible idea. And then my calf agreed. And then my knee joined in the vote. The motion was carried unanimously.

"Don't run." But I outvoted all of them. Each step sent a jolt up my leg, making me clench my teeth. But I didn't care. My uncle was dying on a stretcher with twelve hours left, and the only one who could save him, maybe, was me. And there was only one place I'd be able to figure out how. The Archives. I ran. I ran out of the Crucible on my damaged leg. I ran past the bench where I'd slept last night. I ran directly to the Archives.