Trynne rolled once more and the staff struck a decorative urn, shattering it. She rushed forward and grabbed for the end of the weapon. Rucrius tried to pull it away, but she managed to close her fingers around it. Raw power raged inside of it—a supply that far outstripped her own. The two of them careened, wrestling for control of the staff. As they lurched, the end of it struck one of the supporting pillars of the room and shattered it.

“Rucrius!” the other Wizr shouted in panic. “She’s an Urdubegis! We must flee!”

Rucrius kicked her leg, swinging the staff around to shake her off, but she would not yield. She brought her knee up into his stomach. His teeth were bared with rage and pain, and his long hair whipped around, slapping her face. He was stronger than her and swung the staff up and over, trying to force her onto her back. Clinging to it, she put her weight on it and kicked him with both feet.

He lost his grip on the staff as he fell backward. Trynne landed on the broken ground on her shoulder—a painful fall—but she had what she needed.

The other Wizr blanched when he saw Trynne holding the staff of power. She sensed him untangling the ley lines hurriedly, and she rolled on her feet and swung the staff around in a full circle, trying to hit his head. The Wizr vanished along the ley line just before the end of the staff made contact with his skull.

It left Rucrius alone to face her. Trynne whirled and brought the staff up behind her, locked against her arm and her shoulder blade, preparing to swing it around to attack him.

“That is mine,” he snarled.

The magic of the staff had revealed the hidden layers of the world around her. She could sense the fissures in the mountain on which the castle stood. Feel the ridges and clefts of stone far beneath it that opened into the harbor of Ploemeur and a vast underground chasm full of the ocean. This was an ancient weapon of destruction, as powerful as any she had ever seen. It was of the Deep Fathoms. In her mind, she felt the rifts in the land beneath the water. She could jar them loose, causing an earthquake.

“No,” Rucrius uttered in horror as he stared into her eyes.

Trynne twirled the staff overhead and struck the ground with it. She directed the magic to the underwater rifts.

And the earth moved.

Rucrius’s eyes widened with utter fear before the first tremor even struck. He reached to his waist and grabbed a brass cylinder, the twin of the one Trynne had seen at Chandleer Oasis.

Then he vanished.