Page 53 of The Night Burning
“We think it’s the poison from the crystals,” Raika said, going directly for the jugular.
Lavinia gasped.
“Oh, no,” Almae said.
“Could you make sure it is the same poison?” I asked.
Lavinia nodded. “Of course.”
“If it is, what else can you do?” Raika asked.
“We can try making a potion to delay the spread,” Almae answered. “Maybe something for pain too, if it hurts.”
“These damn crystals.” Lavinia tsked. “If only we could take them out.”
“We can try taking them out again,” Almae suggested. “But if we can’t, we can try using them to make an antidote right where they are.”
Lavinia’s eyes widened. “Right. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because I’m older, wiser, and I’ve seen my share of problems.” Almae turned her kind eyes to me. “But Shane, if this is really caused by the crystals and we can’t stop it, you might have to consider moving the pack to a safe location.”
A growl started deep in my chest. This was my fucking home. I had been born and raised here. We all had. And we had fought for it and saved it from Conri. We were fixing it, making it better.
The idea of abandoning this town hurt almost as much as not being able to use the crystals anymore. As letting the barrier go.
As disappointing my people.
“No,” I said through gritted teeth. “I won’t think about that yet. We’ll find some other way. We have to.”
I marched out of the infirmary’s back room and almost ran into Dom. Vallin was outside, waiting for orders.
“What is it?” Dom asked.
“Come on,” I told him.
We walked out the infirmary. Vallin didn’t even ask what was going on, he just walked with me as I headed toward the main square.
Roman walked out of the school and I pointed at him. “You. Come help.”
“What is it?” Roman asked as he jogged toward us.
I halted in front of a trap door. Underneath it, one of the depleted crystals lay, quietly spreading its poison.
“We need to take these crystals out,” I said.
Dom frowned. “But … we just got them back.”
He didn’t know about the land, about Hamill, but I couldn’t help my anger. I glared at him. “We are taking them out.”
His frown deepened, but he nodded.
I opened the trap door and knelt before the crystal. I looked at it. At first glance, it seemed the exact same from before, but now that I knew it wasn’t, I could see it. A black sliver swirling inside it, so faint, it seemed to disappear every few seconds. And then I found it again.
A fist clutched my chest, making it hard to breathe.
It had been so easy to find Dixon, to kill him, to get the crystals back. I should have known there was a plan behind all of this, a plan I didn’t understand, a plan I was too busy to consider.
Didn’t Nortrix say Conri was an errand boy? Someone was behind all of this, someone else, someone more powerful, crueler. Because if a powerful person wanted to destroy us, why not come and face us while our numbers were low and we were practically defenseless?