Tate’s lips parted as the full impact of what he said registered. Now that she had her memories back, she knew the full magnitude of the salmon-colored gem she’d left with Ahnteela to safeguard. It was something from a bygone era. Much more powerful than its appearance would suggest.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to make a difference in this battle.” Tate’s hands clenched.
Ahnteela and the gem were too far away. Even if Tate transformed to Ilith and flew to where the Avertine were traveling, she would never make it back in time.
It was too bad. With that gem in her hand, even Nathan would think twice about testing her.
It would have been nice to fight with it again.
The ground trembled just then, cutting off the rest of their conversation. Fine tremors that were even more unsettling than the burst of energy had been.
“Sire, we need to get you to a secure place,” George urged.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Thaddeus waved her away. “William.”
Frustration broke the Lord Provost’s normally professional facade.
George stepped away from the wall. “If it’s as the dragon-ridden said, the city is no longer safe.”
“I won’t say it again. I’m not leaving my city, especially when we don’t know for sure what that was,” Thaddeus snapped.
“It was the Rift. I can feel it,” Ryu said.
Thaddeus turned on his heel and strode through the doorway, the rest of them following quickly behind until they arrived on the lawn. They joined the ranks of those nobles, Silva, and Kairi dismissed from the meeting who’d stopped to stare blankly in the direction of the Rift.
“I guess they know you weren’t lying anymore.” Dewdrop’s head craned back to take in the sky above the cliffside staircase.
A black pillar ascended to the heavens right over the Rift, its extreme darkness affecting the wavelengths of light around it in strange ways. Colors refracted in the sky like they had encountered a prism. Instead of the shades of a rainbow, these looked like something out of a nightmare, as if the color spectrum had shifted in a new and unexpected direction. They stained the sky with scarlet reds and vivid violets.
“Something tells me getting to the Rift isn’t going to be so easy,” Dewdrop said as a trio of people staggered into view.
Ben and Roslyn supported her father’s weight between them as they spotted Tate and the rest, changing directions to head toward them.
Roslyn’s skirt was ripped and missing some fabric, her hair coming out of its smooth chignon to pool around her shoulders and face. Soot and flecks of red dotted her cheeks.
Ben looked like he’d been in a battle, his uniform disheveled and dirty. There was a bruise blooming on his cheekbone and his hand was wrapped in a piece of Roslyn’s dress.
Of the three, the duke was the worst off. His mouth pressed into a flat line of pain, his clothes sporting similar rips as his daughter’s. Only, unlike her, red stained his previously immaculate jacket and pants. More blood marred his pants and a ribbon of fabric matching the remainder of Roslyn’s dress was wrapped around his upper thigh.
Gone was the nobility Tate was accustomed to seeing in the duke. They all looked like they’d been in a battle and lost.
Thaddeus and the rest of them crossed the lawn, meeting them where the gravel turned to grass.
“What happened?” Thaddeus barked.
“There was an attack at the Rift. We couldn’t hold it.” The duke gathered the last dregs of his dignity, despite his exhaustion and pain, and straightened. “We barely got out of there alive.”
Ben’s eyes were tinged red as he saluted William. “My lord, the rest of the men at the Rift didn’t make it out.”
The Lord Provost let out a soft hmm. Not betraying his emotions by even the flicker of an eyelash. If the loss of his men touched him at all, Tate couldn’t tell.
“Where are your cubs?” Tate asked Night.
They’re with the dragonlettes.
“You should get them and get as far from here as you can,” Tate said with a calm she didn’t feel.
She’d fucked up. She shouldn’t have left the safeguarding of the Rift to the duke and Roslyn, no matter what argument he’d made. Now, everyone would pay for her oversight unless she figured out how to stop this.
