Chapter 53 #2
Stark and I both scream with effort as we push the entire chunk of wall up in the air.
We can’t simply drop it—too many would lose their lives. Instead, our shadebending power lifts it higher, higher, and then swings it out over the land beyond until we’re confident we can let it go without crushing anyone.
After a stunned beat, people start streaming through the hole, the city emptying out much faster than before.
Trickles of sweat run down my forehead and into my eyes, and I swipe at them with gritty hands.
Noemi and Venna arrive just then, and Stark hands off the Mother Priestess to Noemi to guard while we get back to work. The two of them are going to stay stationed at the gates to make sure people get out safely.
“What now?” Stark looks to me, and I take a deep breath, thinking.
“Stay linked—I need your precision,” I say decisively. I can feel his intake of breath, the twitch of his muscles as he nods. “But let’s split up again and save as many as we can. Anassa, while I’m seeing double, can you guide us?”
Anassa takes off.
There’s no sting of parting this time; our minds are so close, we are each other—seeing what the other sees, feeling what they feel.
Anassa and I race along side streets toward the edge of the destruction. More and more people emerge—from taverns, and brothels, and tenements, and a long row of stately homes with shaded garden beds.
We stop short, throwing our weight backward, as the walls of a run-down pub start to collapse outward. I throw up my hands, and at my thought, Stark is there; together we manipulate the shadows around me until they’re supporting the building, keeping it from falling.
The walls groan but stay up. The tavern’s faded sign leaves its hinges, splintering as it crashes into the street. I grunt, the weight of the wall pressing against our magic. Frantic people stream out the doors and race away.
After nobody new emerges, we let go, and the building collapses into the street with a deafening sound.
Stark’s vision eclipses mine, and I see the scene before him as clear as it’s through my own eyes: flames licking at houses as the collapsing streets create a mess of timber and torch fires, cooking stoves and furniture.
A bearded man with bloodshot eyes lurches toward Stark, words slurred but urgent all the same. “My s-s-s-son, please, p-p-please, he’s at home in bed alone, and he’s on the third story of our—our—our house,” he begs, clutching at Cratos’s fur.
Stark’s arm snakes down to grab the man and haul him bodily onto Cratos.
“I’ll help him. Can you go south, help the people there?” Stark says, nodding toward the far side of the city, where the other city gates sit.
“I’m on it.”
Anassa and I sprint toward the city’s southern limits.
Stark was right to send me here—a frantic mass of people are gathered at the smaller southern city gates, but an overturned cart is blocking the doors from opening wider than the span of two people shoulder to shoulder.
“Make way!” I scream, and heads whip around to look at me. The sight of Anassa barreling toward them gets everyone’s attention, and people scramble out of my way.
Without the mental link with Stark, I reach for Daemos impelling instead of my shadows, going for power instead of precision. With a shout and a swipe of my arm, I blast the cart away from the doors.
Right away, guards and citizens are back at the doors, pulling them wide so that the escape route is clear.
It feels like hours later when the shaking finally stops. We get as many people out as we can. My mind is so tired from magic use and exertion that I can barely form words.
Outside the city, Anassa trudges up a short slope, weariness clear in her every movement, so that we can get a vantage point on the ridge of a hill.
I project an image of our view to Stark so that he knows where to find us, and then I drop our connection again, slumping over Anassa’s back and letting myself half jump, half fall to the ground.
Anassa curls her body around me, her panting breaths making her sides quake even as they warm me against the cold.
I gaze down the hill blearily.
Linsfall is a wreck.
The collapsing buildings are like a jumble of broken teeth, painful and ugly.
Some of the timbered buildings are still on fire.
Flames lick over the piles of rubble as we gaze at the ruins.
And there at the city’s center, at least five city blocks wide, sits the massive hole that erupted where the goddess statue once stood.
Up until now, it’s been possible to focus only on what the people around me need immediately. On injuries and rescues and calming panic.
I almost let myself forget about the event that started all this.
I reach for my pack, slip my hand inside. For better or worse, the new Tear is still there.
The Tear for destruction, I think to myself and shiver.
Fucking hell.
“The priestess?” I send through the bond to Stark now.
“I’ve retrieved her from Noemi. We’re coming to you.” His response washes through me, and with it a flash of his location: I glance up to see him coming out of what’s left of the city gates, the old woman’s frail figure still in front of him on Cratos.
They streak across the landscape until they reach us, and Stark dismounts with far more grace than I could muster.
The old woman comes down next, still bound by tendrils of Stark’s shadow magic.
My voice is steely as I step up to look her in the eye.
“Mother Priestess. Time to start fucking talking.”