The Runecloaks scrambled away from the widening gap, their formation dissolving into chaos.
The warriors fought to control their mairen. The beasts screamed and reared, their skeletal faces vivid with terror. Torvin’s mount bolted. Elwen grabbed for her reins as hers tried to throw her.
A Runecloak faced the altar. “Your Majesty! Orders!”
Vaeris didn’t flinch. “Bring me the runebreaker.”
The Runecloaks glanced my way, clanking forward.
Uther’s axe swept up. “Like hell you will.”
Elwen and Torvin closed ranks around me, blades drawn. The others formed a wall of steel and snarling mairen.
Kairos sneered at them. “Touch her, and I’ll make you bleed from the inside out.”
At the altar, Rheya staggered back from the fissure.
“Rheya!” I screamed.
I kicked free of the saddle and sprinted. My boots slipped on stone slick with rain. Heat rippled the air as the fissure tore wider, glowing red.
Rheya turned, her eyes burning. She stepped toward me and the ground splintered.
“No!” I roared.
The stones gave way.
Rheya pitched forward, flailing, and fell into the gap. A net of light snapped over her, threads of rune-work crisscrossing like molten wire, and she slammed against the side, gasping.
“Rheya!”
She clawed at the broken stone.
I skidded to my knees. Kairos was already there, shoving past me, seizing her forearm.
I looked down and my stomach plummeted. There should have been the buried bones of the human city, not a black void strung with distant lights, yawning like a hungry mouth.
“Pull!” I screamed.
Kairos hauled, every muscle strained, veins standing out in his neck, his arms.
She didn’t move.
The red lattice pulsed, and Rheya swore fluently as the seal dragged her down another inch.
“It’s pulling me,” she gasped. “I can’t hold on!”
Kairos growled, yanking so hard his arms swelled.
Vaeris shoved through his Runecloaks and dropped tohis knees, shadows boiling from his hands. They shot toward Rheya, wrapping her torso and arms.
Together, they pulled. Mist and shadows, fighting the blood magic.
Rheya rose an inch. Two.
The seal flared with a pulse of light, searing my eyes. Vaeris’s shadows dissolved like smoke in a gale.
Rheya slipped deeper, the threads climbing her shoulders now, her chin, and her body jerked downward. Kairos snarled, hanging on to her wrist. His grip slid from wrist to palm, from palm to fingers.
