Normally, I wouldn’t want him to. In fact, it would be in my Fury nature to hold him to his word in most circumstances. But right now…
What is this feeling rising up within me?
It’s a sensation I haven’t felt since I became a full Fury.
My palms are suddenly sweating, and my heart thumps far faster than it should be.
Is this panic?
Am I panicking?
A cold, horrible fear settles within my stomach and invades my senses against my will.
But… why?
There’s nothing here right now that should frighten me this much. The roses have parted. The air is clear. No threat is coming at me.
Maybe the malevolent power that’s soaked into the ground beneath my feet is causing me to feel this way, but I don’t think that’s it…
Whatever might be causing this panic, I face the feeling head-on, stepping forward and slipping past Jonah, trying not to kick up any dust as I go.
Reaching Striker, I refuse to release him from my gaze. “I respect your decision. But whatever Vanguard left behind, it can’t be worth losing your life.”
Striker’s blank expression fades, and I suddenly recognize how carefully he was controlling his features, the little telltale signs of his emotions that he used to reveal in the press of his lips or the tension around his eyes, the blaze of his beast in his irises.
“Or yours,” he says softly.
“Or mine,” Jonah grumbles, edging up behind me. “We need to keep moving.”
Vanguard stirs across Jonah’s shoulder at that moment, giving a groan that indicates he’s waking up. His body must have processed the poison as quickly as he thought it would.
Even so, Jonah keeps hold of him as we hurry along the path Striker created.
Striker himself moves quickly, but he keeps glancing back, making sure we’re with him until we reach the other side, where there’s another stone platform and a single opening.
This one is obscured by what looks like falling mist.
Vanguard regains his feet and straightens the scabbard across his back. “Thank you, friend,” he murmurs to Jonah before stepping up to the misty entrance.
“Remember that once we step into this next realm, time will be even more precious,” he says, casting a firm look back at Striker and me. “This final realm is designed to latch onto any living thing. It won’t want to let us pass, and it certainly won’t want to let us leave. We’ll need to work together.”
At our nods, Vanguard takes a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
We’re only two steps behind Vanguard, and Jonah is one step behind us, but the time difference is horribly clear as soon as we move through the misty entrance.
Within the few seconds it takes us to step through, Vanguard has already made it twenty paces ahead.
I nearly stop still at the horrific landscape I’m now facing.
Bones jut up through the ground, which appears to be covered in pure, gray ash. The air is dank and completely still, its gravity somehow heavier, so weighty that I find myself struggling to stay upright.
Ahead of us, Vanguard is hunched over, pushing himself forward, his muscles visibly straining as he heads toward the only structure in this seemingly endless wasteland.
A mound of rock rests fifty paces away. It’s easily fifteen feet high, and its surface is shining and black as if streams of lava wound around each other before they cooled.
In the center front of the mound is a splash of color.
Fine streaks of gold stretch across the rock.
