Chapter 56
Chapter fifty-six
Warmth pressed against her cheek—Kaelith’s chest, slick with sweat, shifting beneath her as he adjusted his grip. Voices echoed around her, distorted, like she was underwater.
“…barrier’s down. The presence faded.” Fenn’s voice, low and hoarse.
Her lashes fluttered open. Stone arched overhead, but the once-blinding orb had guttered to a dull blue ember. Crystal strands hung slack like severed nerves, and Fenn moved ahead, his fangs still half-dropped, one arm braced against the tunnel wall.
One arm hooked behind her knees, the other beneath her back, Kaelith’s heart thudded steadily against her side.
She tried to speak. Only a rasp came out, the effort tugging at the ends of the dull, insistent throb radiating from her wrapped arm.
It wasn’t the searing agony from before, but every heartbeat pressed against the bandages like a reminder of what waited beneath.
Kaelith glanced down. “Welcome back, little martyr.”
“Shut…up,” she managed, though her lips barely moved.
Fenn glanced back. “You’re awake,” he said, relief flickering across his face before his usual focus snapped back into place as they emerged into the corridor.
Around them, the previous oppressive weight of the structure had been replaced by a stale chill through the passageways. And the low hum of power slowly faded into silence as fine gravel trickled from the seams overhead—the ancient machinery falling silent now that its long vigil was over.
Nearing the exit, the floor lurched beneath them, stone groaning as fractures split the chamber walls.
“Time to go,” Kaelith pulled her closer, picking up speed as they cleared the final door.
Rynna blinked against the sudden darkness, the cool air biting at her skin as her vision struggled to adjust. Shadows pressed in from all sides, the only light the weak, flickering blue that traced the gorge.
Not slowing, the men charged straight up the winding trail, feet light as the mountain trembled behind them.
They were only halfway up when another deep rumble shivered through the crevasse, and light sputtered out entirely on the lower stretches.
Over Kaelith’s shoulder, Rynna watched the earth drop away.
With a deafening crack, the ground beneath the structure split wide, stone plunging into darkness as the mountainside tore itself apart.
The roar chased them upward as a storm of dust and ruin swallowed the path behind them.
“Move!” Fenn barked, vaulting over a jagged break in the path.
Kaelith lunged after him, hauling Rynna with him as the ledge beneath their heels crumbled into the abyss.
They hit the slope hard, scrambling upward—feet slipping, rock breaking—until, with a final surge, they crested the rim and burst into open air, the gorge collapsing behind them in a thunder of stone.
Rynna twisted in Kaelith’s arms to look back, and the blast struck her full on.
The gorge convulsed, a sound like the world’s spine breaking echoing up from the depths.
Then, the walls slammed together, grinding the trail to nothing as a column of blue-white light detonated upward, hurling rock and hot wind in all directions.
Her hair whipped back across her face as debris stung her cheeks and sand scratched at her eyes.
She squeezed them shut against the onslaught, heart hammering while the night filled with the roar of a place dying.
Then, suddenly, silence. And darkness. Only their breathing filled the space where the structure’s pulse had been.
Fenn dragged a hand down his face, streaking away dirt as his shoulders rose and fell, before he stepped toward them, hand out. “Switch.”
Kaelith shifted without protest, and Fenn scooped her easily from his arms.
“I can walk,” she muttered, though her legs felt like they were made of water.
Kaelith rolled his eyes as he brushed sand from his cheek. “Sure you can.”
Fenn adjusted his grip, already scanning the path ahead. “The presence in the orb is failing,” he said. “Whatever held this place together—her pain—it’s unraveling.”
“Not unraveling,” Kaelith countered between heartbeats. “Ending. The barrier, the enemy’s prison, is coming down now that the jailer is gone.”
Rynna’s head lolled against Fenn’s shoulder, the pounding in her bandaged arm syncing with the rhythmic jolt of each stride as they moved across the desert back to the Waygate.
“Jailer?” she rasped. “What are you talking about?”
Fenn vaulted over a dead stepping stone, landing lightly on the next one. “The matriarch. Last of the old shifter bloodlines. She offered herself as bait for the enemy. Her agony fed it, but it also kept it locked here. As long as she screamed, the cage held.”
Kaelith danced across the path behind them. “She didn’t believe anyone could win. She was holding the line until the world ended.”
“And now?” Rynna coughed, heat burning her throat. Overhead, the desert’s stars cut against the dark.
“Now she’s passed that duty to us,” Fenn said, his gaze flicking briefly to where the pavilion stood in the distance like a jagged maw. “And she’s finally allowed herself to stop.”
The glowing stones marking the trail flickered violently, some winking out entirely.
“The path won’t hold long.” Rynna dug into Fenn’s shoulder.
Kaelith bared his teeth. “Then we run faster.”
They pounded across the desert, boots hammering, as the glowing stones winked out one by one behind them, swallowed by darkness and shifting sand. Ahead, the pavilion’s monoliths loomed through the haze—tall, jagged silhouettes against the night.
Almost there! Rynna watched as the final stone flared and dimmed beneath their feet.
But Fenn and Kaelith pushed harder, leaping clear just as it vanished.
Hitting the pavilion, grit skidded under their feet as they barreled between the standing stones. Around them, the sand surrounding the pavilion began a gradual churn, as if the desert itself were coming to life.
For a moment, they simply stood there, hearts hammering, lungs burning in the dry night air.
“Staying on the path was likely a very good thing.” Kaelith licked his lips, watching the sand churn harder, lapping at the outer ring of their small island.
Fenn set her on her feet, his arm immediately sliding around her back to keep her upright as Kaelith moved in on her other side, his hand gripping her good elbow.
“Can you manage?” Fenn asked, his voice calm. “I don’t think we have long here.”
“No.” She swallowed. “But I’ll do it anyway.”
The air around the pavilion vibrated with unstable Source power, the corrupted Waygate crackling like a live wire straining against its bonds.
Rynna forced her shoulders back, bracing for what waited on the other side, and the three of them moved toward the gate as one, their steps falling into sync, as if they’d always walked side by side.
Gathering her Will, she wrapped it around Fenn and Kaelith, holding them close in the way only she could, threading her power through their presence until they anchored inside her.
“Ok.” She gulped at the air, facing the gate, its foul energy raking her mind. “One more jump.”
Her heartbeat thudded in her ears as whispers of fractures and failure, and what would happen if the portal collapsed while they were inside.
No.
She pushed the fragments back, locking the fear behind her Will. One breath. Then another. And then, together, she pulled them through the gate’s crack in reality.