Raider jumped.“Don’t do that.”
“So sensitive.Do we need to revisit our immersion training?”
Raider gave the other man an unhappy frown.“Why did it have to be you that Wren sent?”
“Because I’m the only one he trusted to make sure neither you nor the heir die on this trip.I’m a papa bird guiding his chicks through their first flight.”
“I’m not a chick.And this isn’t our first dangerous mission.”
Maksym tousled his hair.“You kind of look like a chick though.”
Raider shoved Maksym’s hand away, smoothing down the locks that had grown slightly shaggy over the last few weeks.“I do not.”
“I always pictured atijit, personally,” Finn commented.
Maksym frowned thoughtfully.“I take your point.He does resemble one.”
Seeing Bez and his friend’s increasingly hostile stares, Kira thought now was as good a time as any to interrupt.“Children—let’s not give our companions any more reason to dislike us more than they already do.”
“They’ve already made their assumptions.You know how hard those are to change,” Raider dismissed with a shrug.
Jin nodded in agreement.“They’ll come around when she proves them wrong by doing something that is both breathtakingly heroic and horrifically stupid.”
“How long do you think that’ll take?”Raider asked.
“Depends on what’s on the other side.My guess—less than a day.”
Raider pursed his lips.“I say three.”
“A week,” Maksym interjected.“These Tuann are stubborn.”
“An hour.”Finn side-eyed Kira.“She has history.”
“You’re all ridiculous,” Kira muttered under her breath as Silas knelt in front of the gate.
Maksym poked Roderick’s arm.“What about you?What’s your guess?”
“I’m with her oshota.An hour sounds about right.”
Kira was no longer listening as Silas clasped his hands in front of his chest, closing his eyes like he was about to pray.The air around him warped.The pressure grew heavier and heavier until the hair on Kira’s arms stood up.
Silas’s clasped hands started to shake.
With a cry, he ripped them apart, coming to his feet in one smooth move as he forced his soul’s breath up and into the pillars.
He traced his hands in an oddly graceful obscure pattern.
A moment later, the tidal wave ofkihe’d created crashed into the circuits of the gate.Only to recede like the waves of the ocean below.
It repeated that cycle.Again.And again.Each wave a little faster.Cresting a little higher.Until finally, they came so fast that Kira could no longer distinguish between waves.
“I really hate this part,” Raider grumbled through clenched teeth.
There was a spark at the gate’s center.Then a flare.
The air wobbled before steadying to reveal a slice of a strange world.Every leaf, rock and tree captured in exquisite detail.
The gate on the other side looked like it was located at the bottom of a rocky ravine.The piles of rubble pointed to ruins of some kind.As did the stairs carved into the bedrock of the hill, leading upwards.
