“Do not move,” Dreven’s voice reaches me over my pathetic noise.
“Really?” I grit out. “That’s the best you’ve got?”
“Duck!” Dastian yells and comes skidding past me on his stomach as Voren goes to the left.
This thing is monstrous and enormous. Fragment my arse.
I resist the urge to close my eyes and wait it out until it has cleared the airspace over my head. “Unholy shit,” I grunt as Dreven crouches next to me.
“Are you okay? Did it touch you?”
“It brushed my face,” I say, reaching up.
His hand goes to my cheek, cupping it, warming it after the icy blast. I catch his wrist and push his hand away. “I’m fine,” I lie, and push to my feet. My face stings where the cold skimmed it, but I’ve got more important problems than freezer burn.
The void-thing tears across the sky and then disappears.
“Oh, that’s not good,” I mutter.
“Captain Obvious, ladies and gentlemen,” Dastian mutters.
I ignore his sarcasm and start running back towards the fissure. That thing is loose on the mortal realm, and I think it’sdone waiting for the appetiser before the Pantheon as the main course.
Chapter 30
Dastian
“Hmm.”
“Hmm?” Voren spits out. “Is that all you can say? Hmm?”
“It covers a lot of ground,” I reply, shrugging my shoulders as sparks of red energy dance across my knuckles. “For instance, ‘hmm, that’s a very big monster,’ or ‘hmm, we are definitely going to get blamed for this.’”
Voren doesn’t look amused. His jaw is tight enough to snap steel. “We failed.”
“Technicality,” I correct. “We succeeded. Then the realm decided to have an administrative temper tantrum and void the warranty.”
“Move,” Dreven commands, already surging forward.
I don’t need telling twice. I sprint after Nyssa, who tears across the obsidian floor like her heels are on fire. She wants to catch a cloud of sentient nothingness before it eats her world. Admirable, but stupid.
The air crackles with the residue of the Devourer’s passing. My skin prickles. It feels like static electricity and bad intentions.
“The seal didn’t hold because the Realm rejected her. The First Law cut the power cord.”
“Focus, Dastian!” Dreven roars from ahead.
“I am focused! I’m analysing the chaotic breakdown of our plan!”
We reach the fissure just as Nyssa throws herself at it. The rift is wide open, edges ragged where the void creature forced its way through.
“Hurry!” Nyssa yells, not breaking stride.
She jumps.
I dive through the rift after her. The sensation of travel hits me instantly—a cold, sharp yank behind the navel. No time for elegance. We land on the hard, dusty crypt floor. Nyssa is crawling towards the exit as Voren and Dreven land in heaps of complaint around me.
I’m on my feet in under a second and lunging for the crypt door.
