Kastor actually chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "Indeed. Brother Tavis," he indicated the monk Dorian held, "and Brother Ghor," the one nursing his wrist, "have faced sufficient trials and temptations for one day. Give our guests your robes."

  Emily didn't particurly care to be called a temptation—it wasn't as though she was deliberately naked—but she held her tongue.

  "I will if he lets me go," came a meek, slightly strangled voice from behind Emily.

  Dorian released Tavis, who reluctantly shed his robe and handed it over. Ghor approached Emily cautiously, eyes downcast, holding out his robe with his good hand after squirming out of it. Emily took it gratefully, quickly pulling it over her body.

  Seeing Ghor's blood-slick wrist up close pricked up her sense of guilt. "Let me see your hand," she said gently.

  The monk, pale and gangly in his wrapped loincloth, hesitated at first, but finally held out his hand after repeated assurances from Emily. She gently held it in her own hands. The cool green fme of healing Stoneshell magic flicked around the bloody wound, cleaning it and knitting together the skin until the monk's wrist was quite whole again. "Sorry about that," Emily said.

  Speechless in his astonishment, the monk bowed low to Emily before returning to Kastor's side.

  "I did not know the Stoneshell held that power," said Kastor.

  Emily managed a small smile. "It's a very powerful artifact. And it has bestowed a mission of great importance upon me. I hope that the Council of Elders will consider that."

  "All factors will be duly weighed," Kastor said curtly. "Now come. The Council will shortly convene."

  The monks led Emily and Dorian to a round sandstone tower a short distance from the cliff's edge. They entered through a wooden door, so low that Dorian had to stoop to enter it. Immediately past the door began a tightly wound spiral staircase, its steps worn smooth with age and use. The air grew heavy and cool, the resonant hum of the sea echoing within the stone confines. Emily gnced back at Dorian; his expression was guarded, his eyes scanning the worn steps and curved walls.

  At the bottom of the staircase was another wooden door, which opened out into a wide courtyard, dotted with squat sandstone buildings carved with intricate wave patterns. Unlike the windswept clifftop, the air here was still, almost unnaturally so. A few other monks hurried past, their faces tight with an anxiety that seemed unreted to the newcomers. Emily noticed one stop and press his hand to the wall of a building, head bowed, as if listening for something.

  Kastor beckoned them towards the rgest building, an enormous dome in the center of the courtyard, painted a deep sea blue and decorated all over with wave motifs that seemed to shimmer faintly, even in the ft light. As they approached, Emily felt a peculiar vibration underfoot, a low thrumming dissonance, like a string pulled too tight, almost painful in her teeth. Just as they approached, the heavy wooden door burst open, nearly fttening Ghor who leaped aside. An old man with a wild white beard stumbled out, his eyes wide with panic.

  "Kastor!" he wailed. "Disaster! A catastrophe!"

  Kastor's face went taut. "What is it, Elder Blevik?"

  "The Essence! The Great Azure Sphere... it's gone!"

  "Gone?" Kastor echoed, disbelief warring with horror. "Impossible! The wards..."

  "Gone! Vanished!" Blevik wrung his hands. "Just moments ago! There was a strange vibration, a discordant sound, like someone abusing a violin... and then it was gone!"

  "Show me!" Kastor commanded, pushing past Blevik into the dome.

  The other monks followed, their earlier discipline dissolving into anxious haste. Emily and Dorian trailed behind them, stepping into the vast, echoing space.

  The space inside the dome was divided up by blue columns, which held up multiple levels of stone walkways, crisscrossing the vast space, all the way up to the curved ceiling. But the building's main attraction appeared to be in its center, where the columns and walkways thinned out to reveal... nothing.

  Around this empty center, small groups of old men and women clustered around each other, speaking in hushed tones and looking up every now and then with worried eyes.

  "It truly is gone," Kastor said. He had taken no more than a few steps into the dome before stopping, his gaze fixed on an empty spot in the air. Then he hurried forward, to speak to a group in the middle of the room.

  The others followed, walking swiftly to the center of the dome. No one seemed to notice or care about the two outsiders.

  "What's gone?" asked Dorian.

  "The Azure Essence," one of the monks told him in a low voice. Emily leaned in to listen as well. "There was an enormous, spinning blue sphere of it hanging high up, in the middle of the dome. I've never seen it so much as shrink before, let alone disappear. This pce is unrecognizable without it."

  "This, uh, spinning sphere," asked Emily. "Was it by any chance the only supply of Azure Essence?"

  The monk nodded gravely.

  Emily's shoulders slumped. "I suppose you won't be able to give us a vial of it then."

  "It's far worse than that!" Kastor excimed, whirling around, his face ashen. "The Essence powered everything! The protection wards, the coastal defenses, the farming spells! It is the center of our spiritual practise—Tiedavon Abbey was built around the Essence. Without it, we are nothing!"

  As if on cue, a deep, groaning rumble resonated from beneath their feet. The sandstone floor trembled violently.

  "The dome!" someone screamed. "It's losing integrity!"

  Cracks snaked across the floor and shot up the support columns like lightning. Dust rained down. High above, a section of walkway groaned, sagged, then detached with a sickening crunch.

  "Everyone out!" Kastor roared. "The Essence powered this very building!"

  Screams rang all around Emily as monks and elders dashed around madly. Falling debris sent plumes of choking dust into the air. Emily coughed, her eyes stinging.

  To her right, a massive column, already fractured, buckled visibly, leaning precariously towards a frail old woman struggling with a walking stick. With a final, agonizing crack, the top section sheared off and began to slide.

  As Emily's fingers brushed the Elder's thin shoulder, she poured her will into the Bronzeband, not to lift, but to disintegrate. The huge chunk of stone didn't just fall—it exploded outwards and upwards in a shower of harmless pebbles and dust.

  "Thank you, child!" the Elder gasped, before Brother Ghor appeared, guiding her swiftly towards the exit, motioning for Emily to follow.

  The Bronzeband pulsed warmly against Emily's ankle. She had inadvertently used its powers to save the old dy and herself from the falling ceiling. And she could do it again. "Don't worry about me," she said to the monk. "Get the Elders to safety."

  She scanned the chaos. Dorian was near the far wall with his arms outstretched over the shoulders of two wizened Elders, hurrying them to safety.

  Emily dashed towards another cluster of Elders trapped by a colpsing scaffold. She focused and felt the stone respond to her. She slowed the fall of a massive lintel and shattered a buckling pilr into small chunks before it could crush anyone. It was harder than summoning fire from the Stoneshell, which now came as naturally as breathing, but she was getting better at it.

  All the while, more stone was falling. She cleared paths and deflected blows, her world narrowed to the immediate danger, the groan of stressed stone, the terrified cries.

  Finally, the space seemed clear. She watched the st Elder she'd helped disappear through the main entrance, then turned to follow.

  With a ground-shattering boom, an entire support column, immense and ancient, fell right in front of her, cutting off the direct path to safety. Rubble rained down. There was no time to go around. Scrambling over the newly formed barrier of broken stone, rocks skittering around her, Emily felt a sharp tug. Her borrowed robe was snagged fast on a jagged piece of debris.

  Annoyed, she yanked, then tried lifting the trapping rock with the Bronzeband, but her focus wavered as another deafening rumble echoed from above. Dust choked her. She looked up.

  An entire section of the upper walkway, dozens of feet long, thick as a bridge, had detached and was grinding its way down, mere yards above her head. Slow, inevitable, unstoppable.

  Too big. Too heavy. Even the Bronzeband couldn't shatter that much mass, not instantly. And she couldn't move while trapped.

  Her eyes found the exit. Dorian stood there, having just shoved a monk to safety. Their eyes locked, and then his widened with horror as he looked up at the descending sb. He took a step forward, preparing to dash back in.

  No. He wouldn't make it. They would both be crushed.

  "Stay back!" Emily screamed, pouring every ounce of remaining will into the Bronzeband, trying to slow the inevitable colpse. She didn't have enough power. It wouldn't hold.

  The walkway fell another foot, and Dorian sprang forward.

  She had to get out.

  "Tiedavon Abbey," Emily whispered to the Stoneshell.

  She was engulfed instantly, hearing a distant crash as everything turned to darkness.