Chapter Seventy-Six
“Mayah!” Zev’s voice is urgent in my ear, his arms locked tight around me. There’s a low, violent rumbling.
The room trembles. The lantern on the dresser crashes to the floor and shatters.
Zev sits up and brings me along with him.
“Earthquake?” I clutch his bicep as another powerful rumble shakes the bed.
“Earthwielder.”
Zev rises smoothly despite the literal vibrating floor and yanks on a shirt before tossing me one to wear over my nightgown. He frantically rummages in the dresser before turning back to me. “Let’s go.”
Hands intertwined, we exit into the hallway. Torches rattle in their holders. Zev bangs on every door we pass. Sura’s door doesn’t open, and I unlace my hand from his and slam my fists against the door.
“Sura!” I shout. “Tumaas!”
The floor shakes violently beneath my bare feet.
“There’s no time,” Zev growls. He reaches for me, but the building rocks again, and I stagger to the floor.
Sura’s door flings open, revealing a wide-eyed and bare-chested Tumaas. Behind him is a tiny woman with disheveled chin-length blonde hair. Mona.
“Where is Sura?” Panic seeps into my voice.
“She said she was with you!”
Tides drown me. Sura was with me—she’d planned to spend the night in my room. Where had she gone after leaving me with Zev?
“We need to go. Now,” Zev bites out. He reaches for me again when—
The building rattles, an earth-shattering crack freezing the blood in my veins. I crash backwards. Tumaas topples onto me, crushing my lungs. Vaguely, Mona’s sharp yelp echoes through the din.
The floor splits open in a jagged chasm as giant roots erupt from the ground like massive snakes.
Wood shudders beneath me as it splinters. I can’t see Zev anymore.
The ghost of my name is on his lips, shouted again and again, growing fainter and fainter, through the rumbling around us.
Wooden beams groan and crack overhead.
Dust shakes from the ceiling.
And people scream.
I don’t hear my name anymore.
“Zev!” I shout. He was on the other side of the crack that rent the floor in half. “Ze—”
We plummet.
My stomach jumps into my throat.
Tides save us.
The building is splitting in two.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Tumaas mutters in my ear. He slings his arm around my waist, the other arm hooked into the doorway. “Mona!” he shouts over his shoulder, but the sound is lost in the destruction.
My arms tighten around Tumaas.
I brace for death.
Time slows. We fall for hours, though it must be only seconds before there’s a loud, bone-rattling boom.
The air rushes from my lungs.
My head rears up and slams back into the crumbling floor.
The building crushes us in a shower of broken stones and cracked beams. Tumaas takes the brunt of it, shielding me with his massive body, though we’re lucky we’re near the door frame.
An eternity passes before the shaking stops. Tumaas staggers to his knees, knocking away debris. “Mona!” he shouts. “MONA!”
It’s dark and suffocating. With my every breath, dust invades my throat, until it feels like I’m breathing through sandpaper.
“…in here…” Mona’s voice is faint, but close.
Tumaas hefts jagged pieces of wood and broken furniture, each movement sending fresh dust floating through the air. He manages to crawl through the chaos around us.
I cast out my powers, searching for moisture, but there’s not enough to summon. Eyes clenched, I try again and again, but it’s fruitless.
Rocks scrape together nearby. It’s pitch black.
“Stand back, Mayah.” Tumaas’s muffled voice calls through the stone. Loud thuds, more scraping, and then he pulls free.
“Come on, love,” he says, climbing through the remains of his room, Mona’s arms slung around his neck. “I’ve got you.”
“Are you hurt?” I rasp, coughing through the dust coating my throat as I crawl closer. My knees and palms are shredded.
“I think my leg is broken.” Her voice is steady. A good sign.
My hands glow, the light glinting off the faint sheen of sweat coating Mona’s forehead. I set my palms to her leg, and swiftly heal the break.
“Better?”
She nods, breathless. “You’re awfully handy in a crisis, Mayah.”
I don’t respond. My stomach is twisted in knots.
“Did you see anyone else?” I ask Tumaas.
“No. I’m sorry,” is his soft reply.
My heart twists in my chest. No, no, no.
“Zev!” I shout into the crumbling darkness.
There’s no answer.
“ZEV!” Again and again, I call out his name.
“Enough, Mayah,” Tumaas says, his voice hoarse from the dust that’s likely invaded his lungs. “He might already be digging his way out. We need to do the same.”
I repeat his words in my mind, holding onto them like a promise as Tumaas digs out a path through broken stone.
I lose sense of how long it takes. Just a mindless loop of climbing, hefting, shoving.
My hands are scraped raw, knees aching and bloody, every step sending pain lancing up my calves.
When we stop at brief intervals to rest, I alternate healing myself, Mona, and Tumaas, but not extensively.
I need to save my reserves—we don’t know what awaits us at the surface.
We finally emerge, atop a mountain of rubble, the camp sprawled below.
Or what remains of it.
It’s pure, utter chaos. We’re under attack.
Buildings leveled, screaming people, thick coils of smoke.
Roots clawing through the ground, electricity crackling in the air.
The stench of burned bodies.
The sky tears open. Rain pelts my face, turns pink as it mixes with the blood weeping from my open cuts.
I swivel my head, searching every horizon.
Thunder rumbles across the sky, but for once, I ignore it.
“Zev!” I shout, cupping my hands around my mouth. “ZEV!”
Tides, is he still under the rubble?
I don’t see him anywhere. Tides damn me, I don’t see him.
“We need to find Zev.” I don’t recognize my voice.
Tumaas’s face is grim as he exchanges a brief glance with Mona. “We need to find Sura,” he says gently. “And we need to defend the camp. He’ll make it out, Mayah. Maybe he already has. Please.”
I don’t have time to cry. I don’t have time to hope. Tides, he’s right. Zev is a strong, capable wielder. He doesn’t need me to save him.
Focus. Focus, Mayah.
Sura needs you. These people need you.
Tumaas and Mona climb down the mountain of stone. I spare one more glance around me, waiting for Zev’s hand to push through the stone.
“Mayah!” Tumaas shouts from below, and I startle. With a deep breath, I follow them.
“I need food,” I say at the bottom. My hands and feet are scraped raw, but I don’t waste my reserves.
“The armory is closer. We’ll hit that first. Then the kitchens, yeah?”
I nod. Mud squelches beneath our bare feet as we dart through the rain. Everywhere around us, people are running, taking cover, helping dig out leveled buildings. We turn a corner—an earthwielder stands wedged between two buildings, summoning thick roots through the splintering stone.
I don’t think. Just react.
Around me, everything blurs. But my arms are steady.
My hands rise into the air. Raindrops converge into a glistening spear, then freeze into lethal ice. With a wave of my hand, it plunges into his heart. A sickening squelch. He falls to the ground.
We keep going.
Lightning flashes across the sky. Tumaas’s gaze flicks to me, but for once I’m not afraid—I’m desperate.
Every boom of thunder, every bolt of lightning, gives me hope that maybe Zev is alive. Maybe that it’s his wrath raining down around us.
That, maybe, he’s searching for me, too.
Mayhem reigns at the armory.
Rebels scramble to grab weapons, shields, anything that might give them an advantage in battle. But the attackers seem to have deduced the armory is a prime spot to find converged rebels.
Through the sluicing rain, my eyes narrow on the glinting chestplate of one of the attackers—a tree with a lightning bolt cut through it.
Tides. The attackers are Arbinji soldiers.
They form a line, launching a concerted attack. Earthwielders tear mounds of dirt from the ground, catapulting it toward our heads. There’s one stormwielder among them. He raises both hands. A flash of lightning shoots down, incinerating two rebels toward the front of the throng.
I cage my yelp inside my chest and join the fighters while Tumaas and Mona rush into the armory. Another boom of thunder rumbles through the night air. My eyes alight on the stormwielder. I focus on the rainwater clinging to his body, coaxing it into his nostrils.
Into his lungs.
Hacking coughs erupt from his chest as he tries to expel the water, but it’s useless. I hold it inside him, pooling it until his airways are submerged.
His knees buckle.
The light dies from his eyes.
Around him, his companions drop dead, roots piercing abdomens, arrows lodged into chests.
But there are still too many.
I block their attacks again and again, sweat and rain running down my forehead. One of the soldiers raises a hand—roots erupt from the earth, coiling around my legs. He hauls his hand back, face drawn tight with focus, and—
—an arrow lodges into his throat.
I whirl as best I can with the thick roots entrapping my legs, shoving away the memory of the last time an earthwielder held me captive.
Tumaas stands behind me, three swords in his grasp. It’s Mona that holds the crossbow. I dip my chin in thanks, accepting a sword from Tumaas, quickly slicing through the roots.
Together, we fight.
Men and women fall to the ground.
Screams grow louder.
My shoulder brushes against the earthwielder beside me.
Rain and blood soak the ground.
And then, in the distance, I see him bolting toward me.