What the?—?
I’ve barely managed to gasp a breath before a storm of mist bursts around me, squeezing my chest so hard that I can’t move, let alone voice a protest.
The ground beneath my feet falls away and suddenly, I’m spiraling, jolting away from Emil. I leave his grasp entirely until his hand closes around mine at the last moment.
The process of translocation has never been this unpleasant, not even the first time he tried it.
A sense of dizzying weightlessness fills me and then?—
Smack!
My hand leaves Emil’s and I land hard on my hands and knees on a cold surface.
I can’t hold on to the book and it hits the ground beside me, sliding a few feet sideways. I’m too dizzy to reach for it, but I take comfort that its most ragged edge remains visible to me within the clearing mist.
Emil’s icy scent fills my chest—or at least, I think it’s his scent—until a rush of freezing air rages across me, coming from behind.
But worst of all, my family is no longer nearby and I can’t make out any hint of them within the remaining mist.
“Anarchy! Lucian! Riot!” I scream for each of my pack members, my heart pounding hard with the fear that Emil left them behind after all.
Panic billows within me, only growing worse until the savage wind finally whisks the remaining mist away.
I make out the shape of a large cave around me—a long one that stretches far into the distance. The walls are black and appear to consist of some kind of rock that glistens with silver flecks.
Then I see my pack members, each of them tumbling away from me across the cave floor, as if the volatile transportation magic was even more unkind to them than it was to me, propelling them across the space.
They come to ragged stops on the sparkly, black stone ground, all of them facing away from me, having traveled a solid thirty feet.
Cries of alarm rise up into my throat as I scramble toward them, trying to hear their heartbeats to know if they’re alive.
Nothing.
Then, their hearts all seem to kick into action at the same time, their heartbeats reaching me across the distance.
Thank the dark saints!
The dark elves, Anarchy, Riot, Rumble, and Strife, have landed to my left.
Lucian is closer to Jonah, both of whom are on my right.
Our immediate surroundings don’t hold any other visible threats yet, so I take comfort in the possibility that we won’t be immediately assailed by danger.
Lucian is nearest to me, and I reach him first. “Brother!”
His inky-black hair falls across the stone beneath his head, the dark strands nearly disappearing against the dark surface.His skin is fair and, like my father’s countenance, Lucian's features remind me of the brightness of the stars in a night sky. His eyes, if they were open, are the same golden color as mine.
The edge of a tattoo is visible from beneath the short sleeve of his tunic. In all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen what the tattoo depicts.
I drop to the stone beside him, conscious that Jonah is also stirring, groaning as he slowly sits up.
Even though I can hear Lucian’s heartbeat, he doesn’t immediately respond, and I find myself seeking the pulse at his neck.
A moment later, he opens his eyes. “Veda?”
Lucian squints up at me for a moment before he startles upright, quickly scanning our surroundings, catching sight of Jonah first. “Jonah!”
Then Lucian twists in the other direction, his focus falling on the lilac-haired woman lying several paces to our left. “Anarchy!”
