The Select's Bodyguard (Children of the Wells - Bron & Calea Book 1) by Nick Hayden Page A

keeping them down, choking and compressing them, battering them. She tapped the stone in the brick, throwing aside all her years of technique, and buried the three beneath the rock, melting it into unbroken mounds, where they were trapped, but alive. Probably.
    The energy dissipated, emptying her. It had lasted less than a minute. She stood up straight, testing her limbs. A little stiff. She was covered in bruises and cuts. Blood trickled down her cheek, but she didn’t care. She felt barren, with a hint of sorrow and anger and joy somewhere beneath. Nothing else seemed necessary, no action, no thought. She felt she could stand there, frozen, for a long, long time, wanting nothing, needing nothing.
    She saw Bron rising to his knees.
    “I didn’t need you,” she said. “What use are you? I told you I didn’t need you.”
     

Chapter 7 - Discoveries in the Lab
    The final approach to the Academy is uneventful. The road is relatively clear, and the nearing goal has reinvigorated me. I know it is a momentary boost, but I will take what I can get.
    The Academy seems churned by giant hands, the walls mangled, but the damage seems largely superficial. It is built upon a stone pillar that rises out of the Well, a pillar erected by Select of several centuries past. They christened the well Curiosity’s Fount and set to work with their experiments. I wonder at their ambition, to create a residence in the center of the source of their power. Rumors say they attempted even greater things in their desire to live as near the magic as possible.
    As is well known, the laboratory and research center they established evolved into the hub of the Wheel and modern-day Jalseion; now, it is an isolated, empty edifice, stranded above a desolate canyon of no importance.
    And I am certain that the Academy is empty. Nothing moves in the exposed rooms. I remember the cars and generators in the city, blown to pieces by the blast, whatever it was. Did men who could feel magic and manipulate magic also fill up and overload on magic?
    “We’re almost there,” I say.
    “Save your breath,” Calea bites back. She is on the ragged edge of exhaustion.
    The entry arch held a vast wall of glass, in which had been set a number of doors. The ground is covered in shards now. I am glad for my shoes. It is as if we are entering some vast cave, dark and forbidding. The Academy is a pensive structure. Within, the rooms are close and cluttered, most cut off from sunlight and illuminated by the building’s generator, which is certainly destroyed. Luckily, Calea’s labs are on the basement floor, which is built into the rock, in the outer ring, since her experiments deal with the actual substance of magic. This places her both closer to the source and deeper into the rock of the pillar. This last is for protection if something were to go wrong with her experiments.
    I stop in the dark passage. Something is moving.
    “What are you doing?” Calea demands. “You’re not going to give out on me.”
    I squeeze her to quiet her, straining my ears. I hear it again, a rustling, but no voices. I thought I heard voices the first time. I turn aside, into the nearest room, one with walls taken off. Calea begins to protest, but I set her down in the corner with a firm command: “Don’t make a sound.” Her face is an entire diatribe, but she is silent.
    I wait. After a time, Calea begins to speak, but I cut her off. Ten minutes pass. The structure creaks. Wind whispers over the rooms. I am not satisfied.
    I have been examining the room. It is an office, with two walls lined with shelves. The books are oddly disordered. Whole sections are untouched, while others lie in disarray across the floor. I cannot see it from where I am, but some form waits behind the desk. I stand, holding one of my knives. I’m certain the pistol is worthless now, its magic charges overloaded. I approach.
    The form is a corpse. Another familiar face, a bookworm by the name of Julian. I used