Fated

eagerly laying plans for everything I was going to do once I got outside. Before anything else, I’d visit Morden. I was going to enjoy our next meeting, though I didn’t think he would. After that, I had a score or two to settle with Levistus. Then there were the others …

I was so absorbed I hardly noticed once we reached the exit. ‘Hold up the cube,’ I told Luna.

Luna hesitated, looked around. We were in a small, featureless room. ‘This isn’t the way we came in.’

I felt a flash of annoyance that I had to explain things to her, then smoothed it over. ‘This is the back door. It’ll take us into the countryside.’

Luna hesitated a moment longer, then obeyed, speaking the command words I ordered her to use. The cube lit up and a gateway opened in the wall, carrying with it a breeze that smelt of leaves and grass and cool night air. I stepped before the portal, next to Luna, and looked upwards. For a moment I could see nothing, then I started to make out pinpoints of white light. Gradually the stars took shape before me, and as my eyes adjusted I could see the shape of a hillside, trees silhouetted against the night sky. I stood there for a long moment, drinking in the starlight, basking in the rush of triumph. I’d done it. I’d won.

‘Let’s go, Luna,’ I said. ‘We’ve got a world waiting for us.’

Then suddenly there was a whirlwind in front of me, pushing me away. I jumped back with a curse, bumping into Luna and making her cry out. The whirlwind solidified, taking the form of a waif-like girl with spiky hair. ‘Don’t!’ Starbreeze said urgently.

‘Starbreeze?’ I recovered my balance. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘Wrong! Don’t go!’

‘You’re in the way.’ I tried to walk forward and again found myself in the middle of a whirlwind of air, driving me back. I came to a stop and looked angrily at her. ‘Starbreeze!’

Starbreeze didn’t move. ‘Can’t go!’

Luna looked at me in puzzlement. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I have no idea,’ I said in exasperation. Starbreeze wasn’t intending any harm, else my precognition would have sensed her, but she wasn’t budging either. ‘You can’t go,’ Starbreeze insisted. ‘Wrong!’

‘Maybe it’s dangerous?’ Luna asked doubtfully.

‘Luna, there’s nothing out there within a hundred miles that’s a danger to me,’ I said impatiently. ‘Starbreeze, get out of the way!’

Starbreeze shook her head again. ‘Wrong.’

I took a threatening step forward. ‘You stupid little—’

‘Wait!’ Luna said urgently, looking between us. She was close enough to Starbreeze to be dangerous, but Starbreeze was focused so desperately on me she didn’t even notice. ‘What’s wrong?’ Luna asked Starbreeze. ‘Isn’t this the way out?’

Starbreeze shook her head again. ‘Can’t go.’ She stared at me anxiously. ‘He’s wrong.’

‘This is the way out,’ I said. ‘Starbreeze, move or I’ll make you move.’

‘Wait,’ Luna said. ‘What does she mean?’

‘Who cares?’

‘Wrong,’ Starbreeze said again, insistent.

‘She keeps saying that …’

‘Who cares?’ I wanted to get out of this place, walk outside the boundaries of the tomb and taste the night air, wanted it so badly I could taste it. Starbreeze was stopping me, and that was making me angry.

Luna hesitated. ‘Shouldn’t we listen to her?’

‘No!’ I said in frustration. ‘There’s nothing for us to go back for. We are done with this place!’

As I spoke, Luna started. ‘Wait!’

I was almost ready to kill Luna. ‘NOW what?’

‘There is someone we need to go back for. Sonder!’

I stared at her for a second. ‘Who?’

‘Sonder! Alex, you saw him, Griff hurt him, don’t you remember? He must be back in those corridors.’

‘He’s probably dead.’

Luna started as if I’d slapped her. ‘He’s not! He was breathing when Griff took me away. He could still be alive!’

I started to answer and suddenly came to a halt. Luna was right. When I’d last seen Sonder he’d been alive. Griff hadn’t killed the younger mage, he’d only stunned him. So why had I been so sure he was dead?

Luna was looking at me as if waiting for something. ‘What?’ I said at last.

‘Aren’t you going to …?’ Luna said. When I didn’t respond she trailed off.

‘We’ll go back for him later.’ I didn’t want to think about Sonder. I just wanted to get out.

‘He might be dead by then!’