“Did you go over this plan with the Death King first?” Ryan asked. “Because he’ll be pissed with you if you gave him no warning before stranding us in the middle of Elements-know-where.”
I wasn’t a hundred percent sure whether they were talking to me or to Liv, to be honest. After all, if not for Liv, we never would have been here in the first place.
“Keep your hair on,” I said. “I bet we’re close to the city. The spirit mages didn’t build their citadels in the middle of nowhere.”
“And you’d know?” Ryan said.
“Okay, there’s no need for the attitude,” I said. “You told me to blow the bloody thing up. Not my fault we were on the wrong side of the transporter.”
Miles grinned. Shelley poked him in the arm. Hard. “This isn’t funny.”
“Absolutely not,” Miles said in solemn tones. “Terrible mistake coming here. Terrible.”
“Shut the fuck up, Miles,” said Shelley. “Where are we?”
I looked for Liv, only to find she’d disappeared through the door leading out of the room. I walked over, confirming another staircase led down into the lower level, the same as the other citadels. The grey walls and floor were covered with faint runes, dimly lit by the dawn light filtering through from somewhere outside.
I descended the stairs and found Liv had opened the front door, revealing an expanse of wasteland that extended in all directions. A wasteland that looked awfully familiar. We couldn’t be near the Family’s house, could we? There were no visible signs of life within sight, and the five of us spread out, surveying our odd surroundings.
“What’re the odds that we run into Hawker’s evil lair out here?” said Liv. “Actually, it kinda looks like the other end of the Court of the Dead, but his territory goes on for miles.”
“I can look for signs of civilisation,” I said. “I’m probably the fastest, unless any of you are up for astral projecting.”
In truth, I’d quite like to get away from their accusing stares, but if we were within sight of the Family’s house, I needed to track down a node, asap. I’d worry about the consequences of showing off my super-speed in front of witnesses later, so I walked across the barren ground and picked up speed, leaving the others in the dust.
“How are you doing that?” Liv called after me.
“Bria has skills,” I heard Miles say to her. “I could technically astral project, but I don’t quite trust you not to murder me while I’m standing here unprotected.”
“Me?” Liv said. “If I’m pissed off, it’s because I literally have less than a day to live. I don’t have time for a goddamned sleepover in the arse-end of nowhere.”
Less than a day to live? No wonder Liv had dragged us on a rescue mission straight after her confrontation with Hawker. I’d need to ask her about that later, once we’d reached safety. I scanned the wasteland, seeing no signs of anyone living among the carcasses of wrecked buildings, shattered piles of stone and brick and metal. Maybe it’d been a town once, but the sole landmark was the citadel, its dark spire piercing the otherwise unbroken horizon.
A sudden flare of white light flashed behind me. I spun around on the spot, seeing the Death King appear out of thin air next to the citadel. He then walked up to Liv, and the pair of them vanished in a second flash of light.
“Did he just ditch us?” Miles said incredulously.
Looked that way to me. I continued on through the ruins of the town. The horizon was low enough that I would have been able to see any nearby nodes, but I didn’t see a single bright torrent of energy in sight. The ground between the ruins was trampled earth, with shards of glass and metal sticking out at intervals. The flat horizon revealed no sign of the cliffs behind the Family’s house.
They aren’t here. It’s safe. Or as safe as an abandoned wasteland in the Parallel, at any rate. I strode back to the citadel, where Ryan and Shelley both watched me with their eyes wide.
“Are you secretly an air mage?” asked Shelley.
“No,” Ryan and I said at the same time.
“Hey, I’m not trying to steal your spotlight,” I said to Ryan. “There’s nothing or nobody alive out there.”
Miles caught my eye, and I wondered if he knew I was implying that we weren’t near the Family’s house. The slight problem was that I didn’t know where we were, and it didn’t look like the Death King had the slightest intention of coming back for the rest of us.
“I have a portable transporter spell but no way to use it without a node,” I admitted. “Also, it only works on one person at a time.”
“What use is that, then?” Shelley grumbled. “If we all get eaten by phantoms, I’m blaming you, Miles.”
“Hey!” he said indignantly. “It wasn’t my idea. Pretty sure it was Liv’s.”
“You opted to go along with it,” she said. “More because of Bria than anyone, but still.”
I cleared my throat before they started arguing. “What was Liv talking about then when she said she had a day to live?”
“A cursed cantrip, apparently,” Miles said, glancing at Ryan.
“Don’t look at me,” said the Air Element. “Hawker used it against her when she refused to join him. That’s why she had to run.”
“Wait, there are cantrips in there?” I walked towards the tower again. I hadn’t looked, but it was worth seeing if Hawker had left anything behind. Like a way of fixing the transporter and getting the hell out of here.
Only Miles followed me into the tower, our feet echoing on the polished floor.
“Am I in trouble with your second-in-command?” I asked. “Or is there a chance the Death King might swoop in to save the rest of us?”
“No.” He walked behind me as we climbed the spiralling staircase to the upper floor.
