The Gauntlet Read Free

was that the door was about to open and they were all
going to die. That was pretty damn clear. “I do not think they mean
for any of us to survive,” she said, her throat raw.
    The Great Mother’s grip became positively
painful, arthritic fingers digging into the flesh of Gillian’s arm.
“It matters not what they mean! Will you fight , girl, for
what is yours?”
    “Yes,” she said, confused. What did she
think? That Gillian planned to simply lie down and die? “But it is
not likely to be a long one. I have little power left, and the
Circle--”
    “You will find that you have all the power
you need.”
    Gillian didn’t understand what she meant, and
there was no time to ask. The door burst open, but she barely
noticed, because the frail body on the dirty boards had begun to
glow. Power radiated outward, shimmering beneath translucent skin
like sunlight through moth wings. It flooded the ugly room, gilding
the old bricks and causing even the guards to shield their
eyes.
    Elinor made a soft sound and hid her face,
but Gillian couldn’t seem to look away. For one brief moment, the
Old Mother looked like an exquisitely delicate statue, a fire-lit
radiance flowing under the pale crepe of her skin. And then
Gillian’s own skin began to heat, the flesh of her arm reddening
and then burning where the thin fingers gripped her.
    She cried out and tried to jerk away, but the
Old Mother stubbornly held on. Her skin was shining through
Gillian’s hand now, so bright that the edges of her flesh were
limned with it. But she couldn’t feel her anymore. She couldn’t
feel anything but the great and terrible power gathering in the
air, power that whispered to her, wordless and uncontrollable.
    It exploded the next moment in flash of
brilliant fire. Gillian threw her body over Elinor’s, trying to
shield her from the searing heat and deadly flames she expected.
But they didn’t come. And when she dared to look again, the old
woman’s body was gone—and so was half the floor.
    The thick oak boards had dissolved, crumbling
into nothingness like charred firewood, leaving a burnt, smoking
hole looking down into the room below. Gillian crouched beside it
for a moment, her heart pounding, knife-edged colors tearing at her
vision. Until a glance showed that the guards had fled in fear of
magic they didn’t understand.
    She didn’t, either, but she recognized an
opportunity when she saw one.
    Elinor was clinging to her neck, hard enough
to strangle. It was far from comfortable, but at least it meant she
didn’t have to try to hold her as she lowered them onto one of the
remaining rafters of the room below. It was the gatehouse, where a
contingent of mages usually stayed to watch the front of the castle
and to guard any prisoners in the room above. No one was there now,
everyone having run up the stairs to secure the door or having
scattered after the escapees.
    For a brief moment, they were alone.
    Gillian’s arm throbbed under the burnt edges
of her sleeve, but she ignored it and started making her way along
the beam to clear the pile of smoking shards below. Yellow sunlight
struggled through the haze, enough to let her see stone walls
spotted in a few places by narrow, arrow slit windows, a few stools
and a flat-topped storage trunk that was being used as a table. The
remains of someone’s lunch was still spread out over the top.
    There were no obvious ways out. The only door
let out onto the ramparts, which were heavily guarded. And even if
they had been able to fit through the tiny windows, the main gate
was protected by two towers filled with archers. Anyone trying to
leave that way would have to traverse a quarter mile of open
fields, the local forest having been cut back to give the archers a
clear shot.
    Gillian thought that she could just about
manage a weak shield, but not to cover two, and not to last the
whole way. And Elinor couldn’t help or even protect herself; she
was barely seven and her magic had yet to