The Catalyst raged.

  How could these puny mortals challenge his power? He drew even greater quantities of magic from the stone that served him, and thrust fingers of power down the length of the building. He drove his senses to the very foundation, intent on ripping the palace up by the roots and sending the entire structure crashing to the ground.

  He could not. The foundation of the building was connected to the broader structure of the nearby palaces by the same magic that defied him. In fact, the entire inner city stood locked together, welded into an unbreakable whole.

  Reaching farther, he called upon even more magic until his body began to swell, with blinding blue light blazing from every pore. He swayed, on the verge of complete disintegration.

  The Catalyst was pleased. He struck at the nexus of the magic, at the heart of the matrix where the magic converged.

  At Harafin and the sphere that contained him.

  # # #

  Indira paused for breath. Her throat burned from shouting at Kevlin, vainly trying to get his attention and reason with him. She tried to extend her shield of Faith over him like everyone else in the room, but couldn't reach him.

  Adalia clung to her like a child, the normally fearless little archer terrified into speechless immobility. Even had Indira been able to tear herself from Adalia's grip, she couldn't climb the empty shell of the tower to reach Kevlin.

  He might as well be in a different world. She stared up at him, her eyes filled with tears of disbelief, her soul aching with confusion and guilt. She had done this.

  Ceren had warned her to stay away and she'd spurned that advice out of anger. She'd thought trusting Kevlin and following her heart could prevail.

  She was so wrong. He had tried to kill her. The thought tore at her like a living dagger in her heart. She didn't know what to do. Everything had seemed so simple. She had been so filled with purpose, with conviction.

  Now he had tried to kill her and threatened the entire city. She had triggered the Tai Pari. She, who worked so hard all her life to heal, would bear responsibility for every death that resulted.

  Kevlin would probably die, and it was her fault. She might as well have slit his throat herself. The thought burned through her and gorge rose in her throat while tears stung her eyes.

  She stared up at Kevlin, or what had been Kevlin, and couldn't recognize him. His body now burned with incandescent fire, and he seemed more a primal force of nature, than a man. This was not the man she knew, the man she loved.

  It was Kevlin who had sparked a fire in her soul, who had opened the door to learning new aspects to her gift. Without her Faith, everyone in the tower would now be dead. Even his own swordbrothers who huddled with Marjani at the base of the wall, would have been killed by now had she not protected them.

  They might not last long. The strain on her Faith was growing, a tangible weight that dragged her down with its unfamiliar burden. Always before, her Faith had been weightless, protecting her and granting the glorious gift of healing to ease the suffering of so many. Now her Faith was strained to the limits.

  The ability to extend that Faith to others proactively was so new she had never tested the limits of her strength. Until now she hadn't even been sure it would work. With the shockingly destructive magic being unleashed against them all, those limits were being taxed.

  For the first time in her life, her Faith was beginning to waver. A new feeling began to grow, chill and unfamiliar in the pit of her stomach.

  Indira was afraid. How long until she began to doubt?

  # # #

  Harafin, Master of Light, wielded the power crackling in the air around him, and through him, with absolute precision. His hands and feet moved along the lines of magic forming the sphere, from one symbol of power to another, reinforcing and strengthening the spells strained to the uttermost limits by the new onslaught.

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  Constantly moving, he stepped to a dance that he alone could tread. One misstep, one incorrect movement, one split second loss of concentration, and the spell would shatter. With it, the entire palace would be destroyed.

  Harafin locked his will into complete concentration, refusing to acknowledge the cold dread that threatened to drain his resolve and sap his strength.

  That fear made the task of holding the shields against the staggering waves of magic hammering at them almost impossible. He could not recognize it, couldn't admit the unfathomable truth.

  Despite his efforts, the fear continued to grow, a dread that whispered of the fast-approaching doom that he refused to acknowledge. He could not hold out for long.

  He only needed a few more minutes.

  He would not get them.

  Despite the growing certainty of defeat, he fought on, mastering and controlling the wild magic that shredded the palace's defenses. He siphoned the power away from his enemy, and discharged it back through the defensive grid, and into the ground beneath.

  He chose not to consider what would happen when the plateau could hold no more.

  # # #

  Indira dropped to her knees, unable to remain standing beneath the strain of holding her Faith in place.

  Kevlin's focus had turned elsewhere, but the tower room was still filled with deadly magic that tore at her shield like a living thing. Adalia crouched next to her and buried her head in the folds of Indira's dress.

  Tears of frustration and fear streamed down Indira's face. Doubt clouded her mind with its unfamiliar confusion. How could she have done this? Could she really say with complete honesty that she hadn't secretly feared this would happen? Yet she chose to ignore those fears, chose the selfish path.

  An ominous groaning from far below rumbled up through the stones upon which she knelt. For the first time in her life, she realized that she was not strong enough.

  They were all going to die.

  # # #

  Inside the Great Dome, flashes of lightning began arcing between the lines of power connecting Harafin's sphere to the walls, crackling in the air and hinting at the growing danger.

  Duke Kescog stepped between the emperor and the edge of the balcony in an attempt to shield him from whatever magic might be discharged in their direction. He faced likely destruction with bleak determination. If only he could strike back.

  Ambassador Janezeko, his face white with fear, turned to the emperor. "Your Excellency, should we evacuate the palace?"

  "There is nowhere to go," whispered Leander from his position at the edge of the balcony, still holding to the node of power. "You couldn't run far enough."

  The indomitable old Stalwart's face was lined with strain, and his shoulders were beginning to shake, but he held fast to the node of power, his strength flowing still to support Harafin.

  # # #

  The Catalyst laughed in triumph. The enemy had repulsed his latest attack, but now he knew the enemy's secret. He had followed the tendrils of magic discharged from the enemy's stronghold down deep into the earth beneath the palace.

  The earth was nearly saturated. Cracks were beginning to form far underground, undermining the integrity of the bedrock upon which the mountain rose. The entire mountain groaned, on the verge of cataclysmic destruction.

  Deeper still, at the very root of the mountain, where a well of molten lava had lain dormant for centuries, the magic had pooled. The energy had seeped into the living rock, heating and stirring it until it began to boil.

  The Catalyst was pleased. All events now moved for his good. He would not only destroy the palace, but would bring down the entire plateau in a moment of destruction like the world had never known.

  The enemy was helping him do it.

  # # #

  On the grounds throughout the inner city, the initial startled amazement felt by the populace was turning to fear. The air now felt charged, ominously heavy, like just before a terrible storm. Only moments ago an actual tornado had touched down atop the Keisara's Tower out of the clear sky. Now lightning and blazing fire burned high atop the shattered tower.

  Something terribly wrong was happening. Then every beautiful fountain in all of the renowned sunken gardens exploded simultaneously. The BOOM shattered every window in the inner city, rocked ships in both harbors, and shredded the tops of waves far out to sea.

  The water in the fountains evaporated in clouds of steam that floated across the palace, scalding clouds that sent people scurrying away. The steam dissipated and geysers of fire sprayed high into the air, visible to those in the city below as it shot higher than the inner city wall.

  Lightning began arcing between the tops of towers and palaces all though the inner city. Thunderclaps merged together into one rolling peal that deafened those trapped in the inner city. Roof timbers burned and buildings began to crumble.

  Even as people fled for the dubious safety inside of the palaces, trees lining the broad boulevards and parks exploded into deadly showers of splinters as the water within them vaporized into steam. A terrifying groaning began deep in the ground, and many walkways slowly began buckling upward. The ground started to steam, and in some places to actively bubble from the heat rising from the depths. Some statues began slowly sinking into the ground.

  Screams echoed through the doomed inner city, and panic swept the populace. Some people raced down the Spokes for the gates under the thick inner-city wall in an attempt to flee the growing catastrophe. Others rushed into palaces or foolishly fled down to the lower levels in hopes that the bedrock of the plateau would provide safety.

  Deep beneath the mountain the magma, now boiling, began forcing its way up through the newly formed cracks in the rocks, driven forward by an unstoppable force. That force would only be sated when the entire plateau exploded in a cataclysmic disaster of unprecedented proportions and destroyed the entire city that sprawled out across the nearby plain.