“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” I snap.
The earth is screaming under my feet now, the slope one long, rising wail.
Time does that weird stretchy thing.
All the training, all the fieldwork, every diagram I’ve ever studied of slope failures and rockslides snaps into place in my head.
Undercut ledge there.
Natural catchment there.
Shear plane here.
I bolt down the ridge past Dagan, angling toward a narrow lip of rock that juts out from the hillside.
“Alina!” he roars. “No!”
Too late.
The air whips past my face as I skid to a stop at the edge of the ledge, boots digging for purchase in the loose scree.
The boulder is thundering toward us now, chewing up earth and smaller stones, angling straight toward the settlement.
“Come on, come on,” I mutter, shoving both hands down, fingers splayed in the dirt. “Talk to me. Tell me where to push.”
The rock under my palms is vibrating.
Not with ordinary tremors.
With power.
With him.
With us.
I close my eyes and push—not with muscles, but with that strange new sense that woke up the moment Dagan bit me.
It’s like grabbing the fault line itself and shoving.
The ground bucks.
The boulder jolts sideways.
Just enough.
It slams past the settlement, hitting the hollow below instead of the cluster of buildings, sending up a mountain of dust and a spray of smaller debris.
People scream and scatter—but they’re scattered, not crushed.
I sag forward, gasping.
Strong arms close around me from behind, hauling me back from the crumbling edge.
“What did I say about staying by my side?” Dagan snarls against my ear, voice shaking.
He cages me against the sheer stone wall, one hand braced beside my head, the other locked around my waist.
His wings flare wide, blocking out half the sky, feathers trembling with the leftover surge of power.
