The walls warped around him as he slowed, but Beckett wasn’t
looking at them. He focused on the pile of rubble that blocked the stairs he
needed to get down to find Valrinda. The damn golems had pulled down so much of
the wall he couldn’t even get down.
Had that been their plan all along? Trap him up in the tower
and let the lightning kill him? He snorted. That wasn’t going to go their way.
Trapping him in the tower wasn’t going to go their way either. Beckett tucked
the softly glowing star into his pocket, then planted two hands on the biggest
stones. They began to vibrate. He pushed harder, not liking the muffled sounds
he could hear through the chinks in the rubble.
Valrinda needed him. His face heated, and he let loose a
primal roar, forcing the power inside him outside. The air throbbed and pulsed
with a wave of energy that rocked the world around him, removing the rock
barrier and everything in front of it.
He wasn’t going to feel bad about the golems who were
smoldering in clumps alongside the chunks of rock.
“Val!” There were three golems on top of him.
“Beckett! I thought you were dead.” One of the golems opened
its wide mouth and bit down on Valrinda’s spines along his back, the sound like
stone on metal. Valrinda roared, so it must have hurt.
“No, but those golems are about to be!” Beckett flung out
his hands and the heat coalesced inside him and shot through his palms.
Crackles of white hot heat blasted through the air and smacked into each golem,
piercing their thick stone hides and ripping them off Valrinda’s backs with a resounding
boom. “Oh, shit.” He shook out his hands, flexing his fingers.
They were still pink, totally intact. “Wow. Who knew I could
do that?”
“Not me.” Valrinda looked over his back. There was a chunk
taken out of a spike, but not a singed mark on him. “Nice control.”
“Control my ass. I didn’t control anything. I just saw them
on you and got mad. Just like I did when I blasted that wall open.” Beckett went
over to Valrinda. “Are you okay?”
“I will heal. Let’s get out of here. Climb on, I think we
should fly.”
“But you’re hurt.” Beckett didn’t want to do anything that
would make it worse. Valrinda had been out here protecting him while he’d been
getting some shiny gem thing. As soon as he’d grabbed it, the star had turned
out to be nothing more than a clear rock with pulsing colors that he’d shoved
in his pocket as he raced down the stairs.
It had better be worth all that it had cost him and
Valrinda.
“It’s not that bad. I don’t want to risk trying to get back
through the city. Someone’s going to object to the fact that we just demolished
a building and killed a pack of golems.”
“Some of them might still be alive, if they ran away,”
Beckett said.
“Golems don’t run away from the buildings they’re charged
with protecting.”
Which meant, since they’d been hiding when they first
arrived, it had definitely been a trap. For them specifically or just whoever might
try to steal the star from whoever stole the star… he wasn’t sure. “Well, I’m
not sorry. They were the enemy and don’t deserve any mercy.”
“You’re not getting any arguments from me, but we need to
go.” The urgency in Valrinda’s voice was stronger.
“Fine. But we stop as soon as its safe so you can rest and
heal.” It was already getting dark with the temperature dropping, and Beckett
wasn’t looking forward to the temperatures up in the sky even if flying was one
of the best things he’d ever done.
The wisps had done a lot to set up camp once they’d joined
up together, but as long as Beckett and Valrinda were together, he didn’t care.
All he needed was to curl up by his dragon’s side, and Beckett was happy.
“You found the star?” Valrinda asked. He curled tighter when
Beckett shivered, wrapping one wing around them both so his heat created a
pocket of warmth around them.
“I did.” It was stabbing Beckett from inside his pocket anyway,
so he pulled it out. The star was hard and pointy but not in any sort of
regular shape. Certainly not in an actual star. It didn’t look like a gem or a
rock, either. There were lights inside, dancing and glowing, and even in the
warmth of his pocket and Valrinda’s heat, the star itself held a heat of its
own that made Beckett’s hand tingle without burning.
“It was making lightning all over the room, and I wasn’t
sure how to get it. Then I heard you fighting, and I just… knew how to do it.
If I let my fire burn, I could flame just as bright as this star.” Beckett
shook his head. “That’s just insane.”
“Why?” Valrinda cocked his head.
“Stars are insanely hot. And huge. None of this makes sense.”
Valrinda snorted. “You are talking about magic. Of course it
makes sense. If you believe in it hard enough.”
Did that make sense? “So you’re saying because you believed
I’d find the path and the star, I did? And because I believed I could use fire
magic hot enough to match the lightning, I just could? No other reason
or logic?”
“What is magic but reason and logic that hasn’t been
explained yet?”
Beckett rubbed his forehead. “This is too existential for
me. I’m exhausted.”
“You used a lot of magic today. You need to rest. I will
watch and listen for any pursuit.”
“To heal you need to rest too. I can take a watch up on the
rocks tonight.” Valrinda had put them down near a jumbled set of jagged rocks
that rose up next to the road.
“I am resting.”
