![]() ![]() I stare at the dark circle of space and the stairs that lead downward. Now I need to find out what’s hidden beneath it. I shut my eyes for a moment and ball my hands into fists, but there’s no point in regretting what I’ve done. It escapes me all at once, leaving nothing behind. I should have concentrated harder, but I was so caught up in the terrifying rush of doing the right thing that I completely forgot to rein in my Griffin magic. With a subdued grinding sound, the trapdoor slowly swings opens. “Open,” I gasp before the horrible, selfish person that I am at my core can make me change my mind. Then I feel the tingling, the magic crawling up my spine, my voice preparing to change. I picture myself focusing intently on them as I give my one-word command. The tiniest sliver-so thin I can barely see it-still needs to be filled. I push my guilt aside and look at the ruby once more. If it turns out that Dash never made it home, I’ll tell the Griffin rebels that he’s probably here, and they can come and rescue him.Īnd you’ll be putting even more lives in danger, which is exactly what you were trying to avoid when you came here. She’s always been my priority, and I need to find another way to help her now that the Unseelie plan has fallen through. ![]() ![]() I turn my back on the trapdoor as I sense my Griffin magic simmering beneath the surface of my control. That’s what I’ve always been, and Dash knows it. I have no way of knowing where he is, and now I’m about to risk imprisoning myself beneath the ground. Dash might be back at home, completely fine. Failure to deliver aid or recover from the quake could further stoke public discontent.And leave Dash behind, my conscience whispers.īut I don’t know that for sure. Rising frustration has sparked rare protests and critical voices against Assad in government-held territory for the first time in a decade. Many were already struggling to afford food and fuel for heating. Major fighting in the 12-year-old civil war eased years ago, but Syrians have only seen conditions get worse. Now as many as 5.3 million people may have been left homeless in Syria by the disaster, the U.N. ![]() The country has been crippled by an economic crisis that has pulled 90% of its population into poverty. The tragedy presents a danger for Assad from the sheer weight of new misery the quake brings to Syrians. “It’s natural that they politicize the situation, but there is no humanitarianism, neither now nor in the past.”Īssad’s carefully choreographed tour came five days after the quake hit, a contrast to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been visiting devastated parts of Turkey for several days. “The West prioritized politics over the humanitarian situation,” Assad told a group of reporters while visiting the Aleppo neighborhood of Masharqa, devastated by Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake. The embattled president may see the disaster, which shattered much of northern Syria, as an opportunity to push for an easing of his country’s isolation - if not from the United States and the European Union, which have enforced sanctions for years over the long, brutal civil war, then from Arab nations. BEIRUT (AP) - On his first public visit touring the destruction wreaked by this week’s deadly earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, Syrian President Bashar Assad on Friday pointedly shamed the West for shunning his country. ![]()
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