Mind of the Magic (Arhel Book 3) by Holly Lisle Page B

That’s what you told me.”
    “I can feel it. I’m going to die. It’s all going to end. Everything is going to end.” The emeshest whipped and rolled and flashed, growing more ragged and erratic with every pulse. And with every pulse of the wall of light, Witte grew more transparent, and his voice became thinner and harder to hear. “Save me, Faia!” he howled. “I want to live!”
    Faia clenched her teeth together until her jaws ached. The time she’d spent caring for Witte and liking him meant nothing to her, she told herself. He had killed every bit of compassion she might have managed. “I want my daughter back.”
    “Too late!” Witte’s scream faded, too, until it vanished into nothingness. The caverns around Faia shuddered, and from somewhere in the distance she heard thunder boom, and a sound very like that of lightning striking a tree—a terrible ripping, cracking sound.
    Then the light vanished.
    Faia stood in total darkness and complete silence, blind and lost. After the flash of light and the awful boom, her hearing returned first. Even then, she could hear nothing but the sounds of her pulse and her own rapid breathing. Then she heard a little cry. “Mama! Where are you!”
    She sagged against the rock wall, and fresh, hot tears streamed down her cheeks. Her daughter was all right, and free from Delmuirie s magic. “I’m right here, Kirtha!” She called a faeriefire to give them light, but none came. She reached into the earth for power, but felt nothing. Swallowed by darkness, blinded to the touch of magic, she felt more helpless than she ever had.
    “Mama! Where are you! I can’t find you!” Kirtha wailed.
    “Stay were you are and keep talking,” Faia told her daughter. “I’ll find you.”
    Kirtha talked while Faia fumbled her way forward through the dark, over the sand floor of the cavern. At last she reached her daughter. She wrapped the little girl in her arms and held her tightly. Kirtha hugged her, and her round cheek, soft as silk, damp with tears, pressed against Faia’s.
    Faia held her and whispered, “Everything is going to be all right now, Kirthchie. It’s going to be all right now. We’re going to go home.”

Chapter 8

    IT was not so simple as that, Faia realized.
    The light was gone and the faeriefires would not come. She tried other magic—tried difficult things and simple things, all without success, until she was forced to admit that her gift was gone.
    She had failed the Lady, she realized. She had been given her great gift of magic so that she could wake Delmuirie—but not so that she could anger him.
    I should have bargained with him. I should have asked him to free my daughter and my friends in exchange for my own freedom. He would have given me that; I suspect he would have given me anything I’d asked, if only I had stayed.
    She hadn’t been willing to make that sacrifice, and she was being punished for it. The Lady had taken away the one thing that had made Faia special—her magic.
    At least the Lady hadn’t taken Kirtha from her, too.
    Faia drew a deep, shaky breath. She had to get the two of them out of the maze of tunnels, into the main part of the ruins. Once there, she would be able to get help. She rummaged through her waist pack and found her emergency candle and quicklights. She used the flickering of the flame both for light and to determine the direction air moved through the tunnels.
    Wide straightaways led off in four directions, each straightaway lined with carved doorways and intersected at intervals by other wide corridors. She followed the one that gave her the most breeze, until she ran into an area where there were no straight passages left. Then she and Kirtha went through a series of domed rooms connected by twisting tunnels, testing every tunnel and following the leaning candle flame.
    She hoped the outside world wasn’t far.
    She and Kirtha stopped once to rest, and Faia blew out the candle. The dark swallowed them