Connor realized with sudden dread that he could not complete the construct. Worse, if he lost control, thousands of tons of ice could collapse upon those spectators, crushing them and sealing his fate. Sweat broke out on his brow, and immersed as he was in the element, he felt every drop and whisked them away to join the growing wall.

  The ice wall began to wobble, and spectators screamed in fear.

  Sentries attempted to buttress the wall, raising earthen pillars to support it, but their efforts helped but little. Connor strained to hold the half-formed dome in place, and tried to draw even deeper upon soapstone. For a moment he felt greater control, as if barely a hair’s breadth out of reach, like catching a glimpse of a mountain peak through roiling fog, but then the feeling passed and he again felt maxed out, unequal to the burden. His growing fear sapped his strength and he stumbled in his walk with water. A long crack tore down the southern flank of his dome with an explosive report that sent people under that area scattering. They couldn’t escape, though, since his icy dome sealed the entire Rhidorroch.

  As Connor’s fear grew and threatened to turn into panic, which would seal his doom, another will joined his, reinforcing his control over the icy dome.

  Ivor.

  The Dawnus stood at the eastern edge of the earthen embankment overlooking the Rhidorroch, hands extended, with waters flowing up from him in twin pillars to the half-formed dome. His will assumed ownership of that section and Connor gladly relinquished control of that piece to him. The aid granted him the ability to shore up his control over the rest of the dome and it stopped shaking.

  The hurricane increased in intensity. Connor wasn’t sure if the Pathfinders were really stupid enough to attempt to shatter his construct, or if the out-of-control air was just feeding upon itself somehow. It didn’t matter. The heightened wind threatened even his and Ivor’s joint control.

  Then the other Spitters joined them. First Amalia, then each of the others added their wills to the contest of elements, supporting sections of the ice dome. Connor sensed a little about each of them as their wills joined the work. He sensed fear, awe, and determination. He picked up flickers of dislike directed against him, but those were overshadowed by determination to help him save the Rhidorroch and complete the ambitious project.

  Buoyed by the support, Connor focused his attention on completing the dome. The iceberg shrank to a puddle, then disappeared altogether as Connor drained every last ounce of water from the Rhidorroch to fuel his construct. Ice expanded all along the dome, creeping inward and upward, driving the howling air before it, until he sealed the center of the dome, severing the air’s connection with the raging expanse above the Carraig.

  Silence fell over the compound as the winds, robbed of their fuel, died away. Groans of pain from injured spectators punctuated the silence. Sunlight filtered through the icy dome, illuminating the area in a bluish-gray twilight. Even though the wind had died, Connor still smelled dust and wood in the air, but it was a clean smell, like the quarry after an autumn rain.

  “Wow,” Lorcc breathed, craning his neck up at the completed dome. “You sure know how to put on a show, Kilian.”

  A single voice cried out, echoing across the Rhidorroch.

  “Kilian! The masked Dawnus!”

  The cry was taken up by another, then another, then a dozen. Within seconds, thousands began chanting his false identity.

  Connor rose and raised his hand in victory. Then he turned to face the distant Ivor and saluted.

  Ivor returned the salute, a roguish grin on his face. Connor repeated the gesture in the direction of each of the other Spitters scattered around the Rhidorroch. They had made the dome possible.

  The Pathfinder who had started the accidental hurricane shouted above the chanting cries, “Don’t cheer for him, you idiots! He’s going to win.”

  She raised her hands again, as if planning to repeat her mistake a second time.

  Catriona reached her first.

  The princess had continued working through the challenging Boulder section and reached the rope lattice beside where the Pathfinder stood. She’d crossed the ropes and, as the Pathfinder spoke, had pulled herself onto the platform beside the other woman.

  “Excuse me,” Catriona said, sounding offended. “We are going to win, not just him.”

  The Pathfinder turned with a shriek of surprise and Catriona, showing remarkable restraint, pushed her with a single finger. The woman toppled from the tower, into the mud pit, which Connor had drained of all water a moment ago. She thudded into the bone-dry sands with a groan.

  Catriona waved. Connor saluted her and tapped a bit of marble. After the flowing strength of water, it felt abrupt and dangerous. He formed a lattice of fiery bars over the mud pit where the Pathfinder lay, trapping her inside.

  Then he turned toward the huge wheel that now listed over at a sharp angle. Its central bearing had seized up from the heat of its spinning, and it huddled over the battered course, as if ashamed of its failure. Amalia had climbed down and faced Connor, her expression unreadable.

  Connor jogged up to her. “Will you let me pass?”

  She surprised him by throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever been a part of. Thank you, Kilian!”

  “I always say, the best way to defeat a girl is to make her wildest dreams come true,” he said, happy that his mask covered his surprise.

  She laughed, kissed his cheek, and released him.

  Connor purged basalt and absorbed a bit of granite. When he tapped it, expanding his bulk, the colored designs appeared behind the shifting plates on his chest.

  “Nice touch,” Lorcc said.

  “Thanks. Get ready.” Connor cupped his hands and Lorcc stepped into them and jumped just as Connor heaved. The Strider flew into the air, touching down at the very apex. Laughing, he raced down its sloping back.

  Connor turned to Declan to repeat the procedure and the young Sentry gripped his hand. “Kilian, I may not be very good at walking with the earth yet, but I could sense how difficult that dome was to build. You couldn’t have done it on your own, could you?”

  “No,” Connor admitted. He gripped Amalia’s shoulder. “But I knew I’d have help.”

  “How did you know we’d join you?” she asked. “We were supposed to fight you.”

  “Because I know you better than you think,” he said. “This is a game. It’s important, but life always takes priority, and I trusted that you would all recognize that it was more important to save the people. If you’d stayed the course and won the game, you would have lost everything.”

  He threw a thoughtful Declan to the top of the wheel, then followed, driving himself into the air with a column of fire. Amalia stumbled back from the heat with a cry of surprise, and he smiled and waved.

  Lorcc and Declan waited for him on the far side. He had consumed almost all of the little granite he’d absorbed. He was getting better at managing his absorption rate. He purged the remaining granite, absorbed a bit of basalt, and raced through the shattered remnants of the center of the course. They met Catriona on the far side, at the entrance to the final open field where Mactail awaited them.

  “Two down,” Connor said, gripping Catriona’s hand in thanks. “Now for the fun part. Declan, are you ready?”

  The chubby Sentry looked nervous, but determined. That seemed to be his default expression, and Connor was glad the surprising events of the run hadn’t robbed him of his courage.

  Declan nodded, so Connor clapped him on the shoulder. “All right. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 80

  Mactail stood at the far end of the final open field where Boulders usually had to run the gauntlet of slinger pits. He was a large man, about twenty, his bearing already that of an experienced Sentry. Everything Connor knew about him suggested he was an adept student.

  He wasn’t a battle-hardened veteran, though. That would make all the difference.

  Behind Mactail beckoned the finish line, but crossing that last hundred yards would likely prove as hard as anything they’d yet encountered.

  Shona’s voice echoed across the Rhidorroch, enhanced by a Pathfinder. “Thirty seconds!”

  Connor’s team shared nervous looks. They’d wasted a lot of time shuttering that wind.

  “We’ve got this,” Connor assured them. “Stick to the plan and we’ll make it.”

  Mactail rose atop a ten-foot tower of earth and called out to them. “The greatest defeat chases the heels of victory, and robs glory of its luster.”

  Connor stepped onto the edge of the field, but his cryptic reply was cut short when the ground liquefied under his feet. He wobbled and nearly fell, but Catriona and Lorcc grabbed his arms and pulled him back.

  Declan stepped up beside him, his expression determined. “You will allow me to pass!”

  Mactail laughed, as did many of the spectators ringing the compound. Declan’s lack of earth mastery was even better known than Mactail’s proficiency.

  “I warned him.” Declan stepped onto the patch of liquefied earth.

  And began to sink.

  More laughter echoed through the ice-capped dome. Declan ignored it and glanced back at Connor as he slid past his waist in the mud. “Eyes!”

  He didn’t wait to make sure they shielded, but released his limestone Solas gift. Declan’s head blazed with such intense light that Connor turned away and slapped hands over his eyes, even though he’d already closed the lids. Shouts of alarm rippled through the crowds, and Connor clearly heard Mactail curse across the field.

  Then the light winked out.

  Connor glanced at the muddy spot where Declan had been sinking. The young man was gone, disappeared below the surface.

  He saluted the spot.

  “Now it’s my turn,” Connor growled, sucking on the much smaller piece of marble in his mouth. He embraced the battle lust that swept through him with the burning element, and fire coalesced out of thin air all around him, ringing him with white-hot tendrils of flame. Catriona and Lorcc stepped away, but Connor ignored them, focused only on Mactail across the final barrier.

  He brought his hands together, splattering liquid fire in every direction, and cast a blazing stream of fire at the distant Sentry. The flames rippled across the distance, reaching out with deadly fingers toward Mactail.

  Earth flowed up the front of his tower, forming a screen to block the flames.

  Perfect.

  Connor gathered the splattered fire and sent it after Mactail, again and again, forcing the Sentry to focus his attention on defending from the flames. At the same time, Lorcc began firing arrows. The distance was great, but on his third attempt, he managed to strike the front of the tower, right in front of Mactail, and the arrow drove through the slender barrier protecting him from the flames. The only evidence the arrow might have found its mark was that the earth on that part of the shield hardened into brick.

  “Keep at it,” Connor said. “It’s working. Catriona, go.”

  The princess leaped the liquefied area and charged into the field, zig-zagging as she raced for the tower.

  Despite Connor’s and Lorcc’s efforts to keep Mactail distracted, the earth grabbed Catriona’s feet, tripping her, and binding her. She struggled mightily, but even a distracted Sentry was far stronger than the most determined Boulder.

  Connor smiled. It was really a great performance.

  Then he reached through the pulsing flow of soapstone to the center of the ice dome high overhead and melted a ten-foot section near the center. Water fell in a glittering, brief waterfall.

  Spectators shouted a warning and Mactail’s tower formed a sloping roof.

  “That’s not really fair,” Lorcc pointed out.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Connor said. “Keep firing.”

  The water thundered down upon the tower, shaking it to the roots, but Connor allowed it to be deflected away to pool just behind the tower, as if discarded. He made sure to leave a small, dry section in the center of the puddle.

  “Lorcc, go!”

  The Strider leaped forward, fracking, and tore across the field at top speed. He flashed past the immobile Catriona in a blink and made a long, banking turn to the right, as if planning to rush right past the tower along the outer edge of the field and make a run for the finish line.

  Connor redoubled his efforts with the fire, ringing the entire top of the tower with it and drilling into the earth, trying to rip sections away to reach the troublesome Sentry.

  Mactail defeated them both. The tower’s protective curtain hardened against Connor’s onslaught, and fingers of earth reached out to trip Lorcc. He tumbled thirty feet, tried to start running again, and ran right into a barrier that reared in front of him, wrapping him in its earthen embrace when he collided with it.

  The crowds were cheering wildly, sensing victory. Only seconds remained, and Mactail held every advantage on the field.

  He should have paid more attention to what was under the field.

  Declan rose upon a tiny pedestal of earth, right in the center of the wide puddle Connor had formed behind the tower. The water would shield his movement from Mactail’s earth senses, just as Connor’s and the other team members’ ineffectual efforts had distracted him from Declan’s long run through one of the underground maintenance hallways that ran below the field.

  As soon as Declan reached the surface, Connor drew the waters into a ramp, aimed at the back of Mactail’s tower. Declan tapped basalt and raced up the ramp, launching himself into the air, fists together in front of him, turning himself into a battering ram. He struck the hardened, but thin, screening protecting Mactail from Connor’s fires, and burst through.

  Half a heartbeat later, Mactail tumbled through the front screen, shouting with outrage from the surprise attack.

  Connor caught him in a sphere of water, preventing him from reconnecting with earth. He sent that sphere rolling back toward the distant entry slide below the observation platform, and he could feel Mactail tumbling about wildly the entire length of the ride.

  Connor released fire and tapped basalt, racing into the field. The earthen bonds holding Catriona and Lorcc dissolved, but Declan had overstepped his abilities, and the tower he’d usurped from Mactail wobbled, then collapsed. He’d gotten to feel what it was like to stand atop a high tower, though, and he leaped from the top, laughing.

  Connor scooped Catriona off her feet, grateful that she maintained the presence of mind to release her hold on granite so he didn’t bounce off. With her cradled in his arms, he fracked and shot across the field, rounding the broken tower, and sped across the finish line, with Lorcc and Declan close on his heels.

  Shona, who had run around the top of the wall, met them there. Connor dropped Catriona and Shona threw herself into his arms, laughing with joy. “You did it, C … Kilian! Two seconds still on the clock.”

  Connor cheered and joined his team in a group hug. Shona reluctantly ceded room to the group. Connor didn’t care if she might be disgruntled about being supplanted, but that moment of victory was for him and his team to share.

  “We did it!” Declan shouted, laughing.

  Lorcc brushed dirt from his face. “I can hardly believe it.”

  “Many ants may devour an ox,” Connor quipped. “Where a single lion alone would collapse, beyond sated.”

  “We’re more than a bunch of ants,” Catriona laughed. “Please stop with the Sentry-speak.”

  Connor led the team back along the Rhidorroch wall, waving to cheering spectators, most of whom decided to embrace the moment of victory rather than sulk about the fact he hadn’t failed. When they reached the observation platform, Connor bowed before Lord Dail and the other leaders. More than thrilled with the victory, he enjoyed a surging relief to know he’d won, and with that victory, had secured patronage again. Few understood the import of that race, but it didn’t matter.

  He knew. Shona knew. There would be no going back.

  “I think next time we should limit the Rhidorroch to primary affinities only,” Connor said.

  “You think?” Frazier shouted. The angry maze lord was being restrained by Tomas and Cameron, while a number of overall-clad workers hovered around the fringes of the noble group, looking ready to storm the platform.

  “I’m sorry for the destruction we caused today,” Connor said to him. “And I commit all the resources of the families of my patron and those of the students set to oppose us in assisting with rebuilding.”

  That mollified Frazier a little, but triggered a wave of objections from several of the high lord representatives. Lord Nevan stepped in, not hiding his satisfaction. “Lord Dail, I agree with those who claim Kilian’s proposal is not fair.”

  “Really?” Lord Dail looked as surprised as the other representatives.

  “Of course. Since Kilian and his team won, it’s the families of the losers who should pay all the repair costs.”

  Chapter 81

  Connor listened to the arguing representatives with a deep sense of satisfaction, even though he kept his expression neutral. Lord Nevan, supported by Lady Una and the representatives for the families of Connor’s team, convinced Lord Dail to decide in their favor. The families of Daly, Mactail, and especially the Pathfinder who had unleashed the deadly winds were tasked with paying for repairs of the Rhidorroch. Amalia was excused because she helped create the protective dome.

  Frazier, once more composed, approached Connor, with Tomas hovering nearby, just in case.

  “You twisted the moment to your favor,” Frazier said. “I commend that, but don’t think I haven’t forgotten what you caused here today.”

 

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