The twisting and turning catacombs would have been impossible to navigate without the Spiritbound Stone guiding Lewis. At every juncture, he paused, allowing himself to connect with the stone so that it could guide him. Along the way, they stopped so that Hager could release half a dozen of the other prisoners that he knew. He had introduced them each, but if he were truthful, Lewis hadn't been listening. The stone within him seemed to be tugging at him to continue impatiently.

He heard the group behind him stop once more, and he bit his lip in frustration. 'This is Elvira Soulton,' Hager said. 'She was an incredibly talented alchemist and enchanter.'

'Was?' The old woman on the other side of the bars snapped. 'You say that like I'm dead in here.'

'We need to keep moving; if we stop at every other cell, we're not going to make it before Tristan completes the archway,' Lewis said before Hager could say anything else.

'You're going to leave me here for those soulless creatures? You might look like Arden, but you're far from him. He would have helped me, just like all these people who got captured fighting his fight.'

He rubbed his eyes in exasperation, feeling a headache coming on. 'Fine, Hager, help who you can; we need to get to the archway before Tristan. I feel like the Spiritbound Stone is getting more impatient,' Lewis said.

Hager nodded. 'We'll catch up with you; we can't be far from the palace now.'

'Don't take too long,' Lewis said firmly. Hager looked as though he was going to argue for a moment before thinking better of it. Satisfied that he had made his point, Lewis turned, continuing down the tunnel, which had slowly begun to rise. The other precursors they had freed hesitated for a moment before eventually splitting into two groups, with three remaining with Hager and the other two following behind him.

'We need all the help we can get,' Edward said. 'Even after we get to the archway and destroy it, we still have to get out of the city and there was a lot of activity before we left to come and find you.'

'I'm worried that it will all be over before we get there. Again,' Lewis said as he picked up his pace.

'There was nothing we could have done,' Edward said. 'We got there as fast as we could.'

'We should have, though. If we had been quicker, we might have been able to set a proper trap, and David and Louise would still be here,' he said. He had had more than enough time on the journey to the prison to relive their deaths over and over a thousand times, watching on helplessly. In an instant, without so much as a thought, they had been killed just for being there. They had only been there because of him.

He had known both of them for years and met their families a couple of times. How would he return to the city and tell them that they were gone and it was his fault? If he had gone alone, all of this could have been avoided. And then there was Russell, or Kannan; he wasn't sure exactly which. What was he supposed to make of him? One minute he was encasing Lewis in the sarcophagus for Tristan, and the next he was helping him escape from his prison.

'Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but sometimes just as awful,' Thomas said quietly. 'Everyone has regrets in their life, big or small. There are times to dwell on them but right now we need to finish the job they helped start.'

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Lewis wanted to shout at him and tell him that he was wrong. The words never came, though, as much as he wanted them to, and he stewed in his anger. He knew they came from grief, but he had felt that before, on more than one occasion. Here it seemed to fester, as though there was something here amplifying negative emotions. The sound of an explosion shook the tunnel, echoing past them and into the distance.

'It sounds like we're a little late to the party,' Captain Caldwell muttered, drawing his sword.

'Should we wait for the others to catch up?' Emily asked, looking back for Hager.

'No, we were too slow last time; we can't make the same mistake again,' Lewis said, pushing forward, the tunnel rising steeper before turning into stairs. 'Be careful,' he said, giving her hand a quick squeeze as he made his way up them as quietly as he could. Behind him, he heard sparks of the precursor's powers being ignited in preparation for whatever they might meet at the top of the stairs.

It was almost as gloomy over the precipice of the stairs as it had been in the catacombs. Stone walls stretched at least twenty-five feet up, and the vaulted ceiling was covered in flaking paint. What he was sure would have once been a masterpiece had been left to crumble like the rest of the city since it had been abandoned. They were at the end of a wide corridor with a faded golden carpet stretching out before them. The walls were lined with faded, dusty portraits in battered and decaying frames that hung lopsidedly.

'Quickly,' he called back, hearing the sound of loud voices ahead of them.

A handful of paces down the corridor, there was a metallic thud. Leaping from a plinth in an alcove was a suit of armour, a longsword drawn. With a clang that echoed down the hallway, Captain Caldwell's blade clashed with the armour, leaving a heavy dent in it. 'Get going; I can handle it,' he shouted as another dropped to one knee after jumping from another plinth.

Lewis hesitated; he could see him moving somewhat uneasily as he parried an incoming blow, weaving out of the way of another. 'Shadows, coming this way!' Thomas shouted, pointing in the direction they had been heading. He tried to focus his mind, drawing on thoughts of fire and daylight, but the smoke seemed to linger.

As Edward weaved his hands, ribbons of fire leapt forward, bouncing across the ground in burning arcs, leaving scorch marks in their wake. No matter which shadows they hit, burning it away in an explosion of sparks, another took its place. It was like the dark clouds that had rolled out from the temple after Tristan's resurrection. He stepped back, trying to put as much distance between him and the swelling wave as he could.

A hand found his, and he saw Emily at his side. He couldn't let them consume her the way they had consumed him. With a squeeze of her hand, he pushed back the smoke that tried to cloud his vision, a bright light burning at the edges of it. Inside himself, he felt the roar of a fire, just like he had when he had looked down into the Fires of Creation. It consumed him in that moment, the smoke before his eyes vanishing, and for what felt like the first time in forever, he could see clearly once more.

He felt an intense heat inside him as blinding light poured forth, illuminating the dimly lit corridor as though the sun itself was shining through the stone walls. Screams and screeches filled the air. In the daylight, the shadows leapt and bounced from the walls and ceiling as they tried to escape, but with no success. Like a tumbling house of cards, they each burst into a million blinding sparks, filling the corridor.

The light faded slowly, but his vision didn't return to the dark haze he had become accustomed to. 'Lewis, your eyes,' Emily whispered, staring at him with a look that he couldn't decide if was awe or fright. She grabbed a chunk of broken metal armour that lay on the floor, holding it up for him to see.

Instead of the eyes he recognised staring back at him in the metal, he saw intensely burning orbs of bright light. 'What's happening?' he said.

'It's awakening, your power,' Hager said as he strode up the final few stairs, half a dozen men and women behind him, all looking the worse for wear. 'There are more guards coming behind us; it's best not to delay any longer.'

'What did you do?' he demanded.

'We freed a few more of our brothers and sisters but might have alerted them in the process,' he said quickly, urging Lewis to move forward. 'How far do we have left to go?'

Lewis searched inside him for the Spiritbound Stone once more, hoping that it would be able to tell him. While it didn't give him a clear answer it tugged him in the direction they had been heading with much more force. 'I don't think it's far now.'