WINDS OF TAINIA (6)

Marshall's heart raced as he gaped at the fallen gear. Sharp-edged wooden planks jutted around it. His bones had nearly shared their fate. The scrape on his shoulder stung, reminding him of his own mortality.

"No..." Lou Yumei answered the question, lowering her shaky hands. "Everyone's alive."

A nervous chuckle left Marshall. "I almost high-fived death. Hah..."

Wyn's usually calm demeanor was strained as he picked himself up from the floor. His eyes flickered between anger and concern.

"What on earth were you thinking?" Wyn scolded him.

Marshall's brow furrowed. "The gear was going to fall on you."

"I would have stepped aside," the snow deity retorted, his voice colder than usual.

"It didn't look like it," Marshall replied, still catching his breath. He winced as he touched the scrape on his shoulder. It was already swollen, which left him hoping his shoulder wasn't broken.

Wyn shot a glare at the disciple before redirecting his spiritual energy back towards the sphere, his hands glowing faintly with effort.

Calla Akeya struggled to hold the split sphere together, the stressed lines on her face deepening.

"I do not think the vessel will...!" she began, but her voice was drowned out by the sudden surge of energy.

The chamber shook violently, accompanied by crackling sounds akin to an erupting lightning bolt.

"Everyone, take cover!" Calla Akeya stepped away from the sphere with an urgent command.

The colors blazed as the crystal split apart entirely with a low crack, releasing an intense wave of energy.

"Leave it, Chioni Wyn!" she tapped him on the shoulder as she ran to find cover.

Yet, the snow deity stayed behind, his hands trembling with the attempt to delay the disaster.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?!" Marshall shouted, his voice barely cutting through the roar of the energy. He scrambled up, grabbing Wyn by the arm and dragging him away from the sphere.

"I am trying to fix it!" Wyn snapped back, struggling against the disciple's grip.

Marshall pushed him behind the desk where Calla Kai was already hiding, his face pale and eyes wide with fear.

"You can't!" Marshall's tone bordered on despair. He ducked, pushing Wyn's stubborn head down as well.

The energy bolted out of the broken crystal, colliding with the castle's structure. The chamber shook violently, as if an earthquake was tearing it apart. Ancient stone and wood groaned under the strain, and dust filled the air, making it hard to see or breathe.

After a deafening jumble of sounds, everything went dead silent. The abrupt quiet was almost as jarring as the explosion itself.

Once the ringing in Marshall's ears subsided, he could hear pieces of rubble clicking softly against the floor.

He peeked above the desk, covering his mouth as he tried to see through the risen dust. Gradually, the sight cleared, and he found himself staring right at the cloudy sky.

The spiritual energy had taken down the outer wall and run away with it, leaving a gaping hole through which the distant, distraught chirping of birds echoed.

A harsh breeze flipped through the old pages on the desk, scattering them all around the chamber. The calm rustling of the paper was unsettlingly eerie after the chaos.

"Looks like we've added some natural ventilation..." Marshall commented dryly, standing up slowly.

"We're lucky it ran through that wall, not the others..." Lai Rylan was the second to emerge, assessing the situation with his brows knitted together in concern and relief. His eyes scanned the damage, squinting through the lingering pollution in the air.

Calla Akeya walked to the shattered sphere, her steps slow and heavy as she stared at the colorless shambles.

"We failed..." she declared, her shoulders slumping in defeat. The weight of her words hung in the air adding to the thick dust.

Her brother poked his head out from behind the desk with a worn-out frown. "Whatever. We survived."

Calla Kai was holding onto the desk with such a death-grip that Marshall wanted to joke that the breeze wasn't strong enough to blow him away, but the gravity of the situation silenced him.

"Wait. Where is Yumei?" Calla Kai asked suddenly, his eyes darting around the wreckage with growing alarm.

"Oh, no..." he let go of his mental support desk and dashed around the room, digging through the ruins while calling out for the missing disciple.

Calla Akeya paled as she joined in on the search, her movements clumsy and frightened as she lifted a fallen cabinet in fear it might have squished the girl, but only smashed plates were under it.

Marshall glanced at Wyn, who remained sitting on the floor by the desk. He had grabbed his head upon the declaration of failure, wearing a haunted expression.

"Uh, hey... are you alright?" Marshall reluctantly asked, preparing to hear a barrage of self-blaming comments to spill out.

Yet, the snow deity stared at one spot on the floor, his jaw clenched. Marshall couldn't decide whether his silence it was a good or a bad sign. Perhaps the criticisms has been internalized this time.

Marshall tried to sound reassuring as he tapped Wyn's shoulder. "It's not your fault. The mechanism was broken."

Calla Akeya, having overheard their conversation, paused the search to comment on it, "Shei Marshall is right. Once the mechanism began falling apart, we were set to fail... It was simply too old."

Marshall cast a doubtful glance at the door. "Come to think of it, the storage room wasn't locked," he began to speculate. "Was the mechanism truly too old, or had someone—"

"How is that important right now?!" Calla Kai exclaimed, his shout echoing in the distance. "We're missing a person!" His voice was desperate, his fear for Lou Yumei overriding all other concerns.

Calla Akeya resumed the search with renewed urgency, her movements frantic as she pushed aside overturned fallen furniture.

Marshall guiltily pressed his lips together, postponing his suspicions. He got up from his crouching position, but before he could leave the desk, came a whisper.

"You will not find her."

His head snapped back to Wyn, and he crouched back down, staring at the snow deity intently.

"What do you mean?" he whispered back, his voice tense but curious.

The snow deity's cool gaze met his, a hollow emptiness replacing the frosty guardedness. It wasn't hard to tell that his spiritual energy had been depleted by a dangerous amount, and that he wasn't feeling great.

But Marshall needed an elaboration, so he kept staring at Wyn until the latter broke the silence with a flat, matter-of-fact statement.

"She left. The mission was sabotaged from the start."