Briony wanted him to know that he’d made a good decision. That she would do everything in her power to help him end all of this before anyone else got hurt. The words that came to her were not that promise—but they were the right words, all the same.
“I never could have killed you,” she whispered.
“I know.” His voice felt like a spell of its own, a Compass Rose thrumming between them like a lifeline. “I’ve always known. I’m just not so sure that you did.”
The island was a lot smaller than Briony remembered when she hauled herself back onto the rocky shoreline. The blood or water or whatever it truly was had begun to rise. If they didn’t hurry, the whole cavern would flood. She crawled over to the pillar, kicking Swords out of the way, then reached for her Mirror Image spellring. The same spell that had hurt Carbry and Innes. She took a deep breath, the stench of copper nearly making her gag, and cast it.
A moment later, a dome of white light appeared above her and Finley’s head. Blades fell from the ceiling, but where they hit the light, they rebounded, windmilling across the cavern. Briony felt the force of each of the Swords, but she held the shield steady, kneeling at the shoreline, her arms outstretched and eyes watering from the effort.
“I can see it,” Finley gasped, a spell of his own shimmering around him. “I know which one is real.”
“Go!” Briony urged. “I’ll cover you.”
He clawed his way up onto the island, stumbling through a pile of Swords, and emerged a few moments later with one that looked like all the others. Above them, the ceiling quaked yet again. But now, instead of Swords, rocks began to fall.
“Hurry!” she screamed.
He nodded, panting, then turned and buried the Sword deep within one of the glowing red veins in the pillar.
Immediately, the Swords on the ground vanished. The smell of blood disappeared. Briony stared at the water, gaping as the color bled away until it was an ordinary lake again. Finley had been right. It had all been an illusion. But her relief was short-lived as the cavern ceiling shook again, rocks raining down as the magick failed.
“Come on!” Briony shouted to Finley. “The whole thing’s coming down!”
High magick thrummed through the cavern, red light bouncing off the walls; Briony dove into the water and clawed against the current back toward shore. Finley was only half a stroke behind her as they swam to the lake’s edge. They scrambled back to the shoreline, panting and soaking wet, but there was no time to stop. Briony rose to her feet to the backdrop of deep rumbling emanating from the Cave around them, the walls, the floor, the ceiling.
On what remained of the island, water lapped at the halfway point of the pillar, the entire Sword glowing the same deep red as the crevice Finley had plunged it into. Briony took one last look at those three spellstones winking in the darkness, then turned to follow Finley as he bolted toward the passageway.
She was grateful for all the time she’d spent on the rugby field and the volleyball court as the walls of the passageway shook around them. She could narrow her focus, keep her footing, think only of getting through this as fast as possible. Briony rushed back into the main part of the Cave a moment before the passageway collapsed, sprinting past the four-poster bed. Light had appeared up ahead at the mouth of the tunnel that led outside, but the ground shuddered below her, then quaked, sending her sprawling onto the floor.
“Shit!” Briony rolled over and pressed her palms flat on the ground, struggling to get her bearings. She could hear rocks smashing into the cavern floor behind her.
“Briony!” Finley grabbed her hand and yanked her upward. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”
They half ran, half scrambled their way out of the Cave together, until at last the light of day flooded around them and they were standing at the peak of the mountain.
Behind them, the mouth of the cavern quivered—then collapsed in a small avalanche, rocks piling over the entrance.
The two of them sat on the ground, soaking wet and utterly exhausted.
“The Landmark,” Briony croaked out at last. “It’s destroyed. Do you still feel a connection to the Relic?”
“No. The Sword’s power is gone,” Finley said. “They canceled each other out. Just like you said they would.”
She turned toward him, and adrenaline surged through her at seeing the hope on his face. She hadn’t known what would happen when they united the Landmark and the Relic. Now she knew for certain they could break each piece of the septogram, one by one, until the tournament was destroyed just as the Cave and the Sword had been.