floor shook, and the hysterical screams coming from the world above were scarcely loud enough to carry through the thundering roar down here of crashing stone and groaning rock face.
A raging burst of red-and-orange heat roared across the chamber. It flowed over Chandra, mingling with the fire that sparked along her skin and the flames that raged in her hair.
Walbert screamed as the fire that engulfed the two of them consumed him. He tried to fight it off with his power, but Chandra could see that none came to him now when he called on it. The white mana that had spared her had also, it seemed, abandoned the high priest of the Temple. Chandra watched dispassionately as Walbert died like any common man.
“Chandra? Chandra?”
The sound of her named brought Chandra to her senses. She opened her eyes and wondered why she was lying on the hard stone ground.
The blood that trickled down her face when she sat up, as well as the sharp, blood-smeared rock lying nearby, answered her question. Now she remembered something falling onto her head-hard-only moments after she watched Walbert die.
She looked up and saw Gideon stepping through rubble and rock fragments as he approached her. Moonlight shone down on the far end of the cavern, but this portion still relied mainly on the glowing spires of rock for illumination. Chandra looked around and noticed that some of those spires had been destroyed in the cataclysm.
The Purifying Fire, however, glowed white and strong, enduring, as it always had.
“What happened?” Gideon’s voice was hoarse.
Chandra touched her bloody forehead. “Falling rocks from overhead. I got knocked out.”
“No, I meant…” He leaned down, seized her shoulders, hauled her roughly to her feet, and gave her a hard shake. Her neck snapped back and her aching head protested as he shouted into her face, “What did you do?”
When she didn’t say anything, he shook her again. “Chandra! What did you do here?”
“You can see what I did,” she said, feeling worn out now. “It was a boom spell.”
He shoved her away so violently that she bounced off the wall behind her and nearly fell back down.
“I didn’t tell you how to save yourself so that you could do this!” His face was white with anger, pale and stark against the coal black of his hair.
Chandra looked around at the devastation she had wrought. The fire had been so hot, it had turned bodies to ashes, so it was hard to tell how many members of the Order had died here. She knew it must be at least a dozen. Perhaps more. There might also have been people in the portion of the Temple that had caved in and fallen when part of the cavern ceiling collapsed.
“The temple is ruined,” she guessed. “And the Order…” She took a breath and thought it over. “Well, in disarray, certainly. Destroyed?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. The mana flow is still strong here. They’ll regroup in time. But perhaps they’ll remember what happened here when their reach exceeded their grasp.”
Gideon grabbed her again, and he looked so enraged, she thought he was going to strike her. She didn’t resist or try to stop him. She knew he felt betrayed. In his position, she’d want to lash out, too.
But he let her go and turned away, breathing hard. “How could you do it?” he asked in a low voice.
“In a way, I think Walbert was right,” she said. “I was meant to come here.”
He gave her an incredulous look. When he saw that she was serious, he said, “You don’t believe in destiny. Neither do I.”
“I don’t really believe in visions, either, and yet Walbert had them, and I was in them.” She shrugged. “And even if none of that is true… it is true that someone had to stop him, and I was the one who could.”
“I shouldn’t have helped you.” Gideon wasn’t looking at her. He almost seemed to be talking to himself.
“Why did you help?”
For a moment, she didn’t think he would answer. Then he said wearily, “Because I learned on Diraden what it was like to be without my power, and to think I might be stuck on one plane for the rest of my life.” He met her gaze. “And because I saw there what that was like for you.” He looked away again. “I couldn’t see you like that permanently. I… couldn’t.”
“What Walbert wanted to do was wrong, Gideon,” she said.
“No.” He shook his head. “What you’ve done is wrong. And I…” He sighed and closed his eyes. “I helped you.” After a moment, he said heavily, “You planned this. It’s why you asked me to leave.” It wasn’t a question.
“I knew what I would do if I came out of the Fire with my power intact,” she said. “And I didn’t want to kill you.”
He was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “I almost wish you had.”
“No,” she said. “I… can’t.”
He let out a long, slow, shaky breath. “You’d better go. No one else was willing to come down here so soon after the… after that. But they’ll come soon. They’ll attack if you’re still here. And I don’t want any more deaths here tonight.”
She looked in the direction of the steep tunnel of stairs that led out of here, knowing that soldiers would probably be waiting at the top. “I can’t leave that way.”
And it was the only exit-unless she grew wings and flew out of the gaping hole in the ceiling, high over the far end of the cavern.
“Were you planning to stay on Regatha?” he asked skeptically. “After this?”
“No,” she realized, “I suppose not. If the remnants of the Order think I’m alive and at the monastery, there’ll just be more trouble.”
It would be better if everyone on Regatha thought she had died in the incinerating blaze that had swept through the cavern.
“You should leave now,” Gideon said.
“You mean planeswalk?” she guessed.
“Start preparing,” he corrected. “After you’re gone, I’ll convince them you died here and your body is ashes.”
Chandra hadn’t thought this far ahead and, for a moment, she had no idea where to go.
Then she realized which plane she most wanted to find now. And, despite her weary, bloody, head-spinning, thirsty condition, she suddenly looked forward to the journey.
“Gideon…”
“I know where you’re going,” he said. “I know what you want.” He shook his head. “You won’t find it. But that won’t stop you from trying, will it?” He gazed at her without warmth. “You’re a fool.”
Anger flashed through her. She welcomed its simple, familiar heat. “There’s something I didn’t tell you about the night my family were burned alive in front of me.”
“I’m not interested.” He turned away from her.
She grabbed his arm. “The soldiers who killed them belonged to an order of mages that vowed to bring harmony, protection, and law to the land.”
He froze.
“Does that sound familiar, Gideon?” she prodded in a venomous voice.
He turned his head to look at her. His expression was a mixture of suspicion, shock, and revelation.
“I have faced what I did,” Chandra said, “and laid my ghosts to rest. But I will never forgive those men for what they did that night. And anyone who believes in the things they believed in is my enemy. Now and forever.”
His breathing was faster as he stared at her, taking in what she was telling him.
“I acted on that here, and I will act on it wherever I go. Do you understand me?” she said through gritted teeth.
“I understand,” he said at last, “what you’re telling me.”
“Then don’t get in my way.” She let go of his arm and turned away, eager to leave this place. Eager to leave him.
“Chandra.”
“What?” she snapped over her shoulder, afraid she would weaken if she looked at him again.
“We will meet again.”
She couldn’t tell if it was a threat or a promise. Either way, and against her will, she held it to her heart.
