“Son of a bitch. I’m going to kill you.” I heard Tim shouting behind me, while I stood paralysed, watching as Idris was dragging Avianna away. He had trapped her in some kind of golden chain that she couldn’t get out of. She was crying for me. I sensed her pain throughout my body; it was terrifying. This couldn’t really be happening.

The elders had vanished, or maybe I was too shocked to care. In one moment, they were standing beside me, and in the next, the tunnel was filling with dark smoke. I couldn’t take Avianna’s screams; I rushed after Idris, but there was nothing but pitch-black darkness in front of me. Everything was happening so fast. Idris, my Idris. This was impossible. He couldn’t have betrayed me again. We loved each other, but was it real, or had he been lying to me all this time? The enormous pain of betrayal sliced through my chest, spreading to every nook and cranny of my body.

The ground beneath my feet began to shake, and large rocks were falling all around me. The tunnel was becoming unstable. Timothy went for him, but within a moment, he screamed out in agony, and suddenly, flames surrounded us. Idris must have already vanished, but how? There wasn’t another exit for him. The Dark Ones must have figured out how to move through the magical portals, or they were using the cracks of magic.

“Avianna!” I shouted after her. It was too hot in here; we needed to get out, but I had to save her. She was gone; I couldn’t hear her internal voice anymore. More rocks were falling, and the fire was spreading so fast. Our oxygen was diminishing by the second, and I could hardly breathe. I panicked, wondering if this was really the end, if I was destined to die in here.

“Fran, come on. We have to get out of here,” a voice reached me. I was too upset to react. The pain was distant, dull, because I was overwhelmed by Idris’s unexpected betrayal. Deep down, I wanted to believe that this was just a dream, a vision that couldn’t possibly be true. I was hit with something, maybe a rock or another object, because darkness suddenly obscured my vision for a moment. Part of me wished I could just die in here, but then the tiny voice inside my head reminded me that I wasn’t a quitter. If I gave up now, it would mean that I had let Dara die for nothing.

“We are getting out of here, now. Come on,” the voice was commanding, dragging me from behind. It was so hot; my skin was burning.

Someone else was shouting, or maybe the screams were just inside my head. This couldn’t have been a trap. No, no. I prayed to the God of the Lower World. I prayed that it was just a nightmare.

My heart jumped in my throat when I could finally breathe again. The same calming voice was talking to me as he poured water all over my face, and I started coughing. I rubbed my eyes until I could see what was going on around me. My father backed away to the wall, and then collapsed onto the ground. He was breathing heavily, and half of his face was burned. Other members of the League were around; some of them were burned, too. Where had the fire come from?

Gregory was standing very close to me, holding something that looked like a bucket.

“Are you all right?” he asked me.

I wasn’t all right. I just couldn’t stop going over what happened in there. The worst part was, I had been separated from Avianna, by a man who was supposed to be my rock. Maybe he was being controlled again, just like he had been during the meeting with the warlocks. Anything was possible in the tunnels controlled by the Dark Ones.

“Yeah, getting there, but I’ll find it hard to heal without Avianna,” I said, clenching my fists. “How could he have done this to me? He was supposed to be on our side!”

“You never should have trusted him in the first place,” Timothy shouted. “He probably sent the Dark Ones to our location, to Mangus’s property.” He looked like he was in pain, and in a way, maybe he was right. Idris had betrayed me once before, but back then, it was supposedly a misunderstanding.

“He caught your dragon; he knew what kind of spell to use in order to separate you. I’m not sure what to think—”

“Right now, we haven’t got time to dwell on it,” Cole said, appearing next to my brother. “We need to head over to the square to join the others before the Dark Ones show up.” He was right. I needed to pull myself together. There was no time to stop; we had to fight. Idris’s betrayal shook me to the core. He’d ripped me from the inside out for the second time, but I had to keep going. Avianna would have wanted it that way.

He promised; how many times had he promised me that he would always be standing by my side?

My breathing sped up. Gregory handed me some kind of potion. I didn’t even question it, just drunk it down in one go. I needed something, anything that could take my mind off of what had happened just a moment ago. How long could I go without Avianna? I had no idea. The burns slowly began to heal. I stood up and handed the rest of the potion to my father, feeling guilty that he had just been left there. The League didn’t really care about him.

“He won’t hurt your dragon,” Cole said, approaching us. “Maybe he was only trying to protect her.” He was probably trying to make me feel better.

“Well, he’s dead to me now. I’m going to kill him myself if anything happens to Avianna,” I said, pushing away any emotions that indicated Idris was on our side. There was always hope.

Everything hurt, but more than anything, it was my heart that was bleeding.

How did the Dark Ones know we were going to be there? This question kept coming up. I just wanted to know who set us up.

“My guys set a few more explosions in the tunnels in case the Dark Ones decide to come back,” Cole added. “I heard from upstairs that everything is going smoothly.”

At least we had some good news.

I helped Timothy to stand and we started moving. I couldn’t believe we were leaving the tunnel, and I was returning without Avianna. The silence around us started to bother me—until it didn’t. We walked for a long half an hour, hearing explosions, and the tunneled ceiling above our heads began shaking. The smoke was rising ahead of us when we came out of the tunnels. We hoped that some of the wardens were defeating the Dark Ones. Gaining control of the council buildings was crucial, and I couldn’t imagine that all this preparation had gone to dust. Next would be Dimond city, but that was another part of the plan. It was still early, only around eleven p.m. There were rumours that a lot of mages had escaped to the underground. Overall, the wardens had taken them by surprise.

We walked in silence until we got to more populated parts of the city. Cole was talking to his people, while Gregory was listening, and walking next to him. We were seeing devastation all around: wardens running and screaming patriotic slogans, seeming cheerful. The magic rose as we were getting closer to the centre. Was it possible that we were winning?

At some point we decided to split up, as some of the wardens were fighting with a group of mages who had been singled out. I caught a few with my magic, channeling my anger and energy against them. The streets were gloomy, filled with fallen bricks, and dead mages. There were many dead wardens, too, lying on the streets, along with the wounded. I was seeing families and even children sobbing. It was heartbreaking, and guilt soared through me. They shouldn’t have been forced to fight.