* * *
Sylph kept her senses open, keeping a link with her stone pyramidwhile the detector let her power flit before them. Though surrounded by stone,she felt freer than she ever had. Thana had been right. She couldn’t turn herback on this gift. That had likely never been an option, as much as she hadn’twanted to admit it.
And truly, there was no reason Thana had to know it now.
Sylph smiled, tempted to reach forward if only to touch Thana fora moment. But something caught her senses. “Stop.”
Everyone halted, and she focused. No traps glittered in thesewalls, but a tantalizing pull came from ahead.
“New crystal,” she said. When Thana turned with a look of panic,Sylph shook her head. “Unworked. I can…resist it.” And it was easier. The stoneat the academy had caught her attention, but she’d faced pyramids made from itsince, and her stone pyramid granted her somewhere to focus.
Thana’s presence didn’t hurt, either.
Prince Gunnar peered back at them. “Thana, is everything allright?”
“It’s okay,” Thana said. “Do you sense any other pyramids?”
Sylph handed over the detector. She could resist the new crystal,but it still made her want to touch every pyramid within reach. There was noreason to tempt herself needlessly.
Thana rattled off a few pyramids, mostly light, a few explosive,but no traps, no detectors, and no cancelation pyramids. They clearly weren’texpecting to have to defend themselves.
“But,” Thana said. “If they were actively using any of those justnow, there’s a chance they felt my detection.”
Prince Gunnar nodded with a grim look. Unless they wanted to buryeveryone, the pyradistés might not have a way to defend themselves. The ones inthe forest hadn’t been armed apart from their pyramids. Arms and armor wereexpensive, after all.
And pyradistés were peasants.
For the most part.
Thana’s people. And she wouldn’t want to see them hurt.
Sylph shook her head. No, Thana was with her people right now.Anyone on the right side of the law who needed her help was one of her people.These rebels, who hated her, who didn’t seem to care who got hurt, were no oneto her.
Still, Sylph caught the tension in Thana’s shoulders, the worriedlook on her face. “We capture, not kill, right?” Sylph asked.
Thana gave her a grateful look. Prince Gunnar tilted his head.“Of course.” He got a similar look from Thana, and Sylph hoped his assertionhad been sincere and not prompted by her. She’d hate to begin thinking poorlyof him now.
They came on slowly and soon heard voices coming from ahead. Asthey turned a corner, the tunnel opened into another cavern. Prince Gunnarwaved Sylph forward, and she squeezed past him to see light glinting from anumber of pyramids scattered about the floor. One person kneeled near a crate,sifting through it, and she didn’t need to cast her power out to sense what itwas. She tore her eyes away in case she fixated on the crystal and looked tothe others in the room. Two stood to the side, near another tunnel, theirvoices echoing in the small space, distorting their words into noise.
“Can you trap them all?” Prince Gunnar whispered.
“Easily.” The only problem would be to stop using her power onceshe started. The crystal pulled so strongly, she imagined she could hear it, apersistent hum that could only be banished by using her power. She could almostsee it as a shimmer in the air.
“Do it.”
She sighed as she used her power at last, wrapping the threepyradistés in stone, leaving only enough room for them to breathe and leavingtheir heads clear. When the shouting began, she almost reconsidered leavingthem room to speak.
She forced herself not to act, though the presence of the crystalargued vehemently, even when Thana and the others burst into the cavern,telling the pyradistés to be quiet or be robbed of consciousness. Whether thethreat was genuine or not, they complied.
Still, her power said it wasn’t enough. She could make a prisonfor them, a fortress for the prince, a mountain, a pit to the center of theearth. The itch to use the stone became an ache, and she stirred the rocks,listened to the cavern groan around her, singing of all she could do. In such aplace, with such abilities, she need never fear anything again.
A touch on her arm made her jump. She’d nearly forgotten therewas such a thing as flesh.
“Are you all right?” Thana’s brows were furrowed, worry etched inevery feature. “Maybe you should go back in the tunnel, away from temptation.”She looked to the open crate, to its glittering contents. The man who’d beenkneeling beside it glared. Sylph sent him away on a ripple of stone, and hecried out. When she brought him to a halt, he cursed them, not stopping untilDina stepped to his side and had a word in his ear.
Sylph didn’t realize she’d taken a step toward the crate untilThana grabbed her arm. “Sylph, listen to me. Go back to the tunnel.”
Sylph could move her away as easily as she’d moved the man, buteverything in her rebelled at that idea. She clenched her teeth, glaring at thecrate now. She would not let it harm Thana through her.
She turned, using all her will, and started for the tunnel, herlegs like lead, and the crystal crying out behind her. She buried herself inher stone pyramid, letting her senses fill the other parts of this cavern,finding the crevices and corners, the paths cut long ago by ancient rivers, thelong dead creatures entombed in the earth, little more than stone themselves.
The vibrations of the pyradisté she’d missed.
She turned, crying out, trapping the pyradisté in stone, but hispyramid was already falling and burst before she could form words.
A boom shook the cavern, stealing her hearing in a burst of painthat rattled through her skull. The stone betrayed her, throwing her to theground before tearing itself apart as if it was paper and swallowing one of thepyradistés she’d trapped. Bits of ceiling fell like rain, and dust clouded hereyes, her nose, the stone she’d come to love seeking to cut short her life. Shescreamed, or perhaps not, too deafened to hear, panicked and not just forherself.
Thana.
The
