Thirteen
Cyrus’s light was brighter than I’d ever seen before, and I was pushing power like a true god. No restrictions; finally embracing the pure strength of my power. I kept waiting for the wall to crack, because there was so much shaking and rumbling and power.
But it remained whole.
“Half a click,” Coen bellowed, and I only just heard him.
We aren’t going to make it.
We had screwed up somehow. Maybe the images had nothing to do with the old times. Maybe we had been completely wrong.
I missed the first fissuring of the ground because I was stressed and focussed on the wall. If you’d asked me how I imagined this “freeing” going, I’d have said the wall would shatter, water would rush through, and all of us would be swept away.
I never in a million life-cycles thought that the ground would crumble beneath us, falling away in huge chunks. The wall might have followed soon after; I couldn’t know for sure because someone snatched me up, and in a click we’d stepped through a pocket.
When the pressure eased and I smelled the fresh air, I knew I’d been taken from the cave. My eyes shot open and I swung my head around to make sure everyone had made it to safety.
Five Abcurses were there—including Coen with an unconscious waxy-faced dweller over his shoulder. Cyrus and Emmy were also in the clearing with us. We’d landed in a place that was surrounded by tall trees. The grass was green as well, and lots of bushy plants littered the ground.
“If the souls had still been trapped in the cave,” Coen said, looking around, “we’d never have been able to take the pocket from there.”
A rumble rocked the ground around us.
“We need to move,” Cyrus added, his gaze darting toward the cave mouth.
In that moment, I recognised the place we’d landed. We were standing on the Minatsol side of the banishment cave. “This is part of the great river too?” Emmy clicked on faster than me to what Cyrus was saying.
Aros answered. “I’d say yes, judging by the valley we’re in. It’s been many life-cycles, so nature pushed itself into the place the river once stood, but—”
Another rumble cut him off, and a huge hand was pressed into my back, urging me to run. I wasn’t sure why we didn’t just take a pocket to higher ground, but I wasn’t about to argue. I was too busy running.
We weren’t the only ones; animals of all kinds were flying and dashing along with us. Their senses were as strong and developed as the gods’. Dwellers, on the other hand, would have been there right until the water washed them away.
As we moved under some low-lying branches, something with weight to it dropped on my head. I wrenched myself away from Yael—the one pushing me along.
I started slapping at my head and back, shrieking and dancing on the spot.
“What in gods’ name are you doing?” Cyrus had ground to a halt at my side, the others backtracking to us. “Have you finally lost your tiny mind?”
“She thinks there’s a sleeper on her,” Siret said, and it was clear he was trying to keep the amusement from his voice. “We’ve been through this before.”
He reached out then, rummaging through my hair before plucking something up from the strands near the base of my neck. “Only this time there actually was a bug on her, so she kind of has an excuse.”
I stared at the weirdly shaped brown insect he held. It looked like a branch broken off from the trees above, but it had eyes, and the legs and arms moved. “I don’t have time to ask what that is,” I said breathlessly. “Just get rid of it so we can run again.”
With a smirk, Siret dropped it on a nearby branch, and it blended in almost instantly.
“Should we be running or taking another pocket?” Emmy suggested drily. “I mean, I know which one is faster.”
A few drops of water sprinkled my forehead, and when I turned to look between the trees, I let out a low gasp. A huge wall of water was heading for us, so insane in its torrent that it tore massive trees right up out of the ground. I wasn’t sure that even gods could survive that force.
“A pocket sounds good,” I agreed, already diving toward Rome.
“I don’t have the power for a pocket in Minatsol,” Rome bit out, but then he let out a low exclamation. “Actually, it looks like I can access the power again.”
“Take Willa now!” Coen demanded, rushing to add, “We’ll take the long way around and meet you at the top of Champion’s Peak.”
I opened my mouth to protest, because I was not cool with leaving them behind in the midst of the Great River release, but before I could say anything, Rome had pulled me through a pocket.
