is you, Renaud,” Miranda hissed, clutching Gin’s fur. “Release that spirit!”
Renaud chuckled, and the water flowing across his shoulders roared even faster. “I don’t think you want me to do that. I see now why Gregorn was willing to die to keep this spirit. He’s barely awake, but just look what he can do.”
Renaud swung his arm, and the spike of water flew out in an arc, striking the wall like a cannon shot. The stones exploded outward, sailing into the night. Wind rushed in, and Miranda ducked as a shower of rubble flew toward her. When Renaud pulled back his hand, the entire northwest corner of the throne room was gone, leaving a gaping hole where the wall had been.
The stones in the roof squealed, but with one of their corner supports gone, it was a losing battle against gravity. One by one, they hurtled to the ground, cracking the floor where they hit. Renaud cackled, and the water’s light flashed wildly around him, shifting from blue to white to almost black in sickening confusion.
“Renaud!” Miranda shouted, putting her arms up in a desperate attempt to shield herself and Gin from the falling rocks. “Enough of this! You’re going to destroy everything if you keep this up!”
“And what do I care?” Renaud’s voice trembled with the force of the spirit he held back. “Mellinor is mine to do with what I like!” He held out his hand again, and the water rushed over it in a fountain of white spray. “This is the heart of Mellinor,” he shouted, raising the water high over his head. “Everything else is just an empty shell!”
As he clenched his fist, Miranda could hear the water’s own deep voice, warped by the enslavement, screaming in frustration as it fought Renaud’s hold. And as it screamed, the palace began to shake worse than ever.
“We have to get out of here!” Miranda turned frantically to Eli, trying to cover Gin’s head as ever-larger pieces of ornamental stonework crashed down around them. “That idiot won’t stop until he brings the whole place down!”
Eli looked up from where he was fixing the last of Nico’s restraints, but whatever he’d been about to say was interrupted as a large chunk of stone arch landed not half a foot away from Josef’s head, covering them all in a shower of grit.
“All right,” Eli growled. “That’s it.”
The naked fury in his voice shocked Miranda out of her protective crouch, and she looked up just in time to see another, fist-sized stone hurtling toward Nico’s unprotected shoulder. Eli caught it without looking and hurled it as hard as he could at Renaud’s grinning face.
“Do you think this is fun?” he shouted. “Do you think this is a game? Is beating us so important that you’ll bring down your own roof to do it?”
Renaud shattered Eli’s stone with a flick of his hand. “Don’t flatter yourself, Monpress. This was never about you. You and your collection of oddities were just in the wrong place at the wrong time when fate decided to hand me my birthright.” He grinned maniacally. “Consider this my thanks, a throne room for your tomb, my way of repaying the unknowing kindness you did me.”
The water hissed as he spoke, changing its flow as Renaud’s triumph rippled through his wide-open spirit, subtly altering the shape of the enslavement. Suddenly, Miranda had an idea.
“You might want to watch your captive before you speak of kindness,” she said, turning to face Renaud head on. “I don’t know what that spirit used to be, but Gregorn died trying to control it.” She smiled her most infuriating smile. “No matter what you say about birthrights, Renaud, you’re no Gregorn. I give you fifteen minutes before the water breaks your soul and eats you alive.”
“What would you know about control, girl?” Renaud thrust out his hand, and a wall of water surged down from the dais, rising over Miranda in a great wave. “You Spiritualists know nothing about control! You go on and on about balance, about our duty to the spirits, but we wizards are the ones with the power! The spirits obey my will, even one who bested Gregorn!” He was shouting now, his face scarlet. This close, Miranda could feel the chains of his enslavement vibrating with his rage, and the suspended wave he held over her head began to tremble. “Soon,” Renaud crowed, “even you will learn that this is the proper balance! With the wizard on top, and the