“It’s entirely possible. I saw it. I went there.”
“Where?” Rynna leaned forward, dread creeping up her spine. She didn’t like where this was headed.
“Across the Great Ocean. To the other continents.”
Kaelith glanced at Rynna, disbelief flickering in his eyes. “Other continents? That can’t be right. People have been exploring for centuries. There’s nothing out there.”
“They didn’t use a Waygate,” Taren said, his tone deadly serious.
Kaelith scoffed, throwing up his hands. “All the gates have been mapped!”
“No,” Rynna whispered, her fingers unconsciously tightening in Kaelith’s hair. “No, they haven’t.” Her mind flashed back to those distant lights, the forgotten gates she’d glimpsed crossing the continent to reach the Third Regiment.
Kaelith stared up at her. “What?”
“I saw them,” she admitted. “When we traveled to meet Fenn. There were lights…more gates. Ones that don’t exist on any map.”
“Takara mentioned you used a gate.” Fenn pinched the bridge of his nose. “But how did you see them? That’s not how gates work.”
“We…took an alternate route.” Kaelith raised a hand to his mouth, swallowing as his face tinged green. “But other continents?”
“I don’t know. I just saw lights.”
“Exactly,” Taren cut in. “There’s nothing left on those continents. I went to each one that was still functioning, and there’s only glass and sand, no trace of the elements.”
Kaelith began to argue, but Fenn silenced him with a raised hand. “And you think whatever happened there is connected to the Source?”
“Yes. And whoever has been leading Skarn around plans to finish whatever the source of Source started, whether he knows it or not.”
Rynna froze, her mind spinning.
“Rynna,” Fenn’s voice was softer now, his eyes full of concern. “What are we up against? Anything you know from your other experiences?”
“Nothing good.” She gulped at the air, panic rising, though she had no idea why.
Her palm hovered, then landed gently against her core, fingers curling as if to hold something in place. She could feel it—a hollowness clawing up from the depths, a soundless shriek echoing through the locked chambers of her soul.
“What does that mean?” Fenn asked as his arms slipped around her waist.
He folded her against him, settling his chin gently on the top of her head.
“I don’t know.” The words rasped from her throat as recollection scratched at the back of her mind, slipping away every time she tried to grasp it. “I can’t…I can’t quite touch the memories, but something inside me is screaming. I’ve seen this before. Somewhere. But I can’t remember!”
The world seemed to pause—her heart too loud in her ears. Everything blurred as the sound of the others muted behind the acute pulse pounding in her skull.
“Rynna.” Taren’s voice broke through. “If you’ve seen something like this before, anything you can remember could help.”
A low, guttural sound rattled from Fenn’s throat, directed at the young man.
She shook her head, eyes unfocused. “I—I don’t know. It’s all fragments. Flashes. Symbols, shadows bleeding into each other…”
“Then focus.” Taren stepped closer, ignoring Fenn. “We need more.”
She flinched, panic tightening like a noose. “I can’t—”
“You need to try.”
But before she could answer, Fenn was moving.
