*LORD OF DESTINY: Chapter 22: The Temple Fight
The temple doors blew inward.
Eight threads hit first.
Then seven more from inside.
Kael stepped through the dust. Jorin behind him. Mira, Toven, Selin and the other two Menders.
Lyra was already standing in front of Ella and Nira, sword out. Six men in black armor were around the salt circle. And in the back, a woman with a spindle. A Mender.
She saw Kael and smiled. “You brought me more. Thank you.”
“Get behind me,” Kael told the kids. Eight threads lifted. Lyra’s seven lifted too.
Fifteen against six. Plus one Mender.
The armored men moved first.
Kael didn’t fight them. He pulled.
One man remembered his daughter. He dropped his spear.
Another remembered being small and scared. He stepped back.
Consequence burned up Kael’s arm, but he didn’t stop.
“Small pulls,” he called. “Keep them alive.”
The kids got it.
Mira and Toven tangled two men’s feet so they tripped.
Selin walked straight to the Mender with the spindle. “It’s not worth it,” she said. “I tried.”
The Mender hesitated. Just for a second.
That was enough. Lyra disarmed her.
Nira grabbed Ella’s hand. “Pull,” she whispered.
Ella closed her eyes. The salt circle around her flickered. For the first time in who knows how long, a thread appeared. Thin. Black. _Hers._
It reached out and touched Nira’s. Then Lyra’s. Then, through the rope, Kael’s.
The temple shook.
The last two armored men dropped their weapons. “What is this?” one of them said. “I don’t... I don’t want to do this anymore.”
The Mender with the spindle fell to her knees. “I can see it. All the choices I took. From all of them.” She started crying.
It was over in under a minute.
Silence.
Ella stood in the middle of the circle. Her thread was still thin, but it was growing. She looked at Kael.
“Teacher,” she said. “You’re late.”
Kael exhaled. He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath. “I know.”
Fifteen threads spun above them now. Twelve black, one white, one black with gold, one thin black.
Jorin ran to Ella and hugged her. “We’re a school,” he said. “You’re with us.”
Lyra sheathed her sword. “Casualties?”
“None,” Kael said. “That’s lesson five.”
Mara, who’d been quiet this whole time, spoke up. “The one to the east. The collector. He has at least four more. Maybe five.”
Kael looked at the rope on his wrist. It was heavier now. Fifteen threads pulling on it.
“We go,” he said. “All of us. No more splitting.”
He looked at the former Menders, the former soldiers, the fifteen kids.
“Time to go get our students back.”