The raindrops hitting the rusty yacht at the İçmeler Shipyard made the deadly silence inside even heavier. The lower deck of the boat now resembled a field hospital of a lost war rather than an operations center. There was a heavy smell of iodine, rust, and burnt flesh in the air. While Alaz dripped the mixture of tincture of iodine and Dittany essence onto the volcanic burns on Meltem’s arm, Meltem hissed and clenched her teeth. The bruises and contusions on her body were a ruthless memory of the moment they were hurled by that single snap of Nazir’s fingers. Lidya sat in the darkest corner of the deck, her knees pulled to her chest. The shadows that normally played with her like a cat were now uncontrollably trembling, taking on twisted and eerie shapes on the wall. Nazir’s pure, primal will had shaken the dark bond in Lidya’s mind, making her doubt even the shadows within herself. But the heaviest wreckage in the room lay in Kuzey’s hands. Kuzey, sitting on the edge of the table, was looking at the bisected pieces of his magnificent ebony wand that once pierced shields from miles away. For a wizard, the breaking of his wand was no different from having his arm torn off. There was neither anger nor tears in his eyes; only a massive, consuming void. “It was my fault,” Darius whispered. His voice echoed off the rusty walls of the deck. Darius had taken off his robes to bind his broken ribs. His body was covered in bruises, but the place that truly bled was his pride. He spoke without taking his eyes off the map on the table. “Sectumsempra... I thought I was going to kill him. Yet, I merely handed him the final key he needed to break the stone with my own hands. He used us like pawns.” Meltem pushed Alaz’s hand away roughly and stood up. The anger in her eyes was more searing than the lava of Kara Ada. “Yes, he used us! That man is not a monster, Darius, he is a catastrophe! We thought we could go there and defeat him in his own dump. We succumbed to our arrogance. The man pinned us all to the wall with just his mind, without even using his wand. Kuzey’s wand...” Meltem swallowed hard, unable to look at the broken pieces of wood on the table. “...We cannot face him with ordinary Auror tactics.” “We won’t,” came Efsun’s tired voice from the radio. The old woman had been listening to everything from the beginning. “The Ministry just declared a state of emergency. They’ve massed all the Aurors there to suppress the volcanic eruption on Kara Ada. It is now being whispered in the corridors that the Ninth Port legend is real. However, everyone is paralyzed with fear. They’ve also declared you traitors and issued an arrest warrant.” Darius smiled bitterly. Despite the ache of his broken ribs, he straightened up and rested his hands on the table. “Great. We are being hunted by our own Ministry and fighting an unbeatable demi-god at the same time.” Kuzey slowly placed the broken ebony pieces in his hand onto the table. The silence was heavy enough to freeze the blood of everyone in the room. “My wand is dead,” he said in a flat voice. “The magical core is completely extinguished. I can’t go into the field unarmed.” As the air in the room grew heavier, Alaz threw the bloody rags in his hand into the trash and walked toward the table. For the first time, there was no mocking smile or level of irritability on the abrasive technician’s face; there was only pure seriousness. “You said we can’t fight with standard Auror tactics, Meltem,” said Alaz, picking up and examining the broken ebony pieces. “You’re right. That bastard uses ancient Carian magic. The will of the earth, blood, and magma. Then we will drop the standard Ministry toys, too.” Alaz raised his head and looked at Darius. “There is a core Minister Haldun gave me, but ordered me not to mention to anyone. Found while excavating the foundations of Bodrum Castle, the remains of a thousands-of-years-old creature of unknown origin. If we fuse that with this ebony, I will give Kuzey not just a wand... but an artillery battery. But this means breaking all the laws of magic set by the Ministry.” The gray, dead light in Darius’s eyes slowly gave way back to that dangerous, dark fire. “The Ministry is done, Alaz. The rules are done.” Lidya stood up from within the shadows in her corner. The trembling shadows suddenly calmed and laid at her feet again like her obedient dogs. “There are five Ports left,” Lidya said, her voice a whisper as before but like steel. “If we cannot stop him at the Ports... We will find out what the Ports are, and if necessary, we will destroy that stone ourselves.” Darius looked at the broken but unextinguished will in his team’s eyes. Nazir might have crushed them, but the CORE team knew very well how to feed on pain. “We start again,” Darius said, pressing his hand onto the Bodrum silhouette on the map like a bloody seal. “Alaz, make that wand. And we will find the location of the Fifth Port before Nazir does. And this time, we will use him as a pawn.” 33Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡruIjmyn5R7
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