I could see parts of buildings still standing, and other parts collapsed into themselves. There were a few fires around here and there, and the bushes on fire were the source of the stink in the area.
Everything came together in the next moment.
The building had been bombed.
I was sitting in the rubble and breathing in the dust of the collapse.
“Elex!” His name was the first one off my lips. “Elex!”
“Kimber!”
The voice, not Elex’s, came from my right and under some bricks. I scrambled over some of the rubble and started throwing bricks off the piles
Just a few dozen bricks revealed Tymon’s face, cut and bloodied, but alive and relieved.
“Thank you,” he gasped.
Pulling more bricks back, I freed his arm, and with that, he was able to help me start to free him as well.
“What happened?”
Tymon tried to shrug. “Building was bombed. We’ll have to figure out by who.”
The next brick I pulled off revealed a very distinct lock of hair.
I froze.
Tymon rose from the brick tomb he was in and saw me standing with the brick in my hand. He looked down and nearly leapt to his feet, yanking me away.
“Go find Elex. Go.”
I wasn’t about to disobey. Not when I was almost sure that Danai was lying there dead below the remains of the Rotunda.
Picking my way carefully but quickly over the rubble, I kept calling for Elex.
Fear gripped me as I did.
I didn’t want to find him in the same position as I had just seen Danai.
I needed him in my life.
I wanted him there.
He might not have been my soul mate, but I loved him.
I loved Elex.
“Elex!”
I saw a little firework of magic pop above a brick, and I rubbed my eyes. I had to be hallucinating.
Another one popped up.
“Elex?”
Another.
My feet carried me to the source of the magical pops. I fell to my knees on the rough cement in the area. I dug through, heaving pieces of concrete and plaster out of the way, physically and with my magic.
