He pointed past Ezer to the stone in the circle that had tendrils of black stretching across its surface.
Cracks in the stone that could have been shadows.
A stone that was impenetrable by any sort of weapon. Even Sacred magic.
And just beside it was an empty space. A gap, where the thirteenth stone used to be.
Realmbreak was suddenly too soon.
The wind shifted, cold and biting. And Six’s head turned, eyes narrowed as if she sensed something.
‘What is it, Six?’ Ezer asked.
The raphon huffed and scraped an impatient paw across the snow.
She turned so that now she was facing the exit, where the wardlight glowed a brilliant gold. One step beyond those tall obelisks, the Forest Gates that held them safely within a magical bubble of the gods’ protection … and they’d be helpless. As good as dead, if the enemy found them.
Six began to walk slowly toward those gates. Daringly close to the exit.
‘Six.Stop,before you get?—’
Her words trailed off as a vision filtered into her mind.
A raphon, bleeding and dying as it lay on the snow. It looked like Six, but Ezer knew it wasn’t, because her belly was swollen.
She was pregnant.
Sadness washed over Ezer as she saw the raphon trying to stand, screeching in agony. Her darksoul rider was dead, a creature with long, jagged claws that lay several yards away on the snow.
And her wings were broken, snapped in two.
Six’s mother.
It had to be.
Voices broke through the memory, and the raphon collapsed again, just as the wardlight shimmered, and a group of Sacred passed through the Gates.
‘Bind her up,’ said a voice. ‘She’s too far gone. We may get some research out of her, at least …’
Something whizzed past, sinking deep into the raphon’s back leg. A rune-marked arrow. The raphon yelped and went silent, pulled into deep sleep. Sacred converged upon her, with ropes and chains.
Just like that, the raphon became a prisoner.
… And inside of her belly, so did six others.
The vision ended.
Six kept walking towards the Gates.
‘What is she doing?’ Kinlear asked. ‘Turn her around.’
Go,said the wind. The whisper had arrived out of nowhere.Go, Ezer.
‘No,’ Ezer said. ‘She needs to see it.’
‘See what?’ Kinlear asked.
Ezer glanced over her shoulder, locking eyes with him. ‘The place where her mother was captured.’
