Page 49 of Starside

No use being quiet. I pull the chain, clumsily unsheathe my sword—drop it—then begin slamming my blade down against the metal with all my might. The chain is sparkling Starside steel. But so is my sword.

I start banging and banging at it, watching the metal slowly chip away. Too slowly. Fuck, this sword is heavy. I’m already panting. My arms burn.

The scholars are on Level 3. Then they’re on Level 4.

They’re yelling for help. I bang my blade over and over and over, but then they’re on my level.

There’s no time. I rip the map out of the book, stick it in my pocket, and run.

Pelas is right behind me. The rest of the scholars block the stairs. I feel the magic all around, humming, thrashing.

Pelas might not be muscular, but he’s fast. He’s on my heels in a moment. I turn around and raise my blade high.

His eyes widen in fear.

Not for his own life, apparently. “Put that away, you simpleton,” he cries out. “You’ll harm the books. Some of them are fragile. Some are filled with things you won’t want to unleash.”

I should kill him for what he planned to do to us.

Instead, I slice my blade along the spines of books closest to us, the ones boiling with magic.

And the world explodes.

I get thrown back and nearly fall over the railing as black, sparkling smoke erupts, each text bursting apart in quick succession. My ears ring. A metal taste coats my tongue. My knees nearly buckle as I stand, then I’m off again, using both arms to slice my sword across another row of texts.

Some books break off their chains, some howl like beasts, others burst into flames. I hear screaming somewhere.

Then Pelas’s voice: “Stop! Stop!” I do no such thing.

The tower is filled with different colors of smoke, and I use its cover to run down the stairs, past coughing scholars who have spent their lives holed up in this place.

Chaos meets me in the hallway, but the yelling immortals press themselves to the walls when they see my weapon. I turn a corner, and someone grips my wrist—I lift my blade.

Kira and Zane.

“What did you do?” Kira asks, eyes wide.

I wince. “Far too much.”

We race down the steps toward the front door. There, in front of the towering oak stands Ellis, wielding a thin sparkling sword of metal slightly different from my own. It has an intricately carved hilt and a pearl in its pommel.

I lift my blade, ready to fight. Kira and Zane raise their weapons too.

The immortal glances at my metal and pales. “Where did you get that?”

My chest is burning, lungs filled with the mysterious smoke from the tower and constricting from all the running. “I think we’ve had enough questions, don’t you agree?”

I wait for him to advance. I plant my feet, readying myself, blinking quickly so as not to miss any sharp movement.

But he only lowers his sword. “I underestimated you, human,” he says. Then he steps away from the door.

It doesn’t make sense. There’s no time to question it. The sounds of yells and running surge behind us. The scholars might have scurried away at the first sign of a weapon, but all together, who knows what they’re capable of?

Zane inches toward the door, eyes fixed on the immortal, and opens it. “It’s clear,” he yells back at us.

He steps through. So does Kira.

The immortal pays them no mind. No. He’s staring at me—at my hand. I lower my gaze, and my chest goes cold. While I was flipping the pages, I folded my sleeve up and never lowered it.