In the distance, I hear Stark’s booming yell as he does the same. I hold on to that sound, even as the crashing gets too loud and I can no longer make out the sound of his voice.
Anassa adds a bracing howl to the chaos, and more and more people stream out of homes, stumbling in their nightclothes, carrying babies and valuables, blinking and crying and swearing.
“To the gates!” Anassa and I point ourselves along the most direct route to the main gates. Families and guards and barmaids and everyone in between race in terror toward the narrow exits spaced out along Linsfall’s outer walls.
The foot traffic clogs the roads like a bottle with a stopper, panicked pushing and shouting creating utter pandemonium.
“Keep fucking moving!” I yell, my voice cracking.
Anassa and I reach the gates, and this time, my shadebending does what I need it to do, slamming into the broad doors and smashing them off their hinges.
People stream out to the valley beyond, sobbing and yelling.
But it’s not enough—even with the gates wide open, people are jamming the way out. They’re not moving fast enough.
“Stark!” I call for help.
A dark streak hurtles toward us from the other side of the crowd, and I watch in astonishment as Stark and Cratos approach faster than I’ve ever seen them move before. It’s only a heartbeat before they reach the crowded gateway.
Cratos gathers himself on his hind legs for a jump, and then the two of them bound clearoverthe press of people, the Mother Priestess still slumped on Cratos’s back. They land deftly by my side.
“The gates are creating a bottleneck!” I yell to Stark. “We need to open up the walls!”
It’s instinctive between us now: this mental pull andsnapuntil we are sharing a single mind. My power balloons between us like a dark cloud of lightning.
My brute force and Stark’s skillful focus weave together as shadows race from all around us. More and more of them pull over a spot in the walls without a guard tower, until a whole section of the stone wall is completely wreathed in darkness.
Stark and I both scream with effort as we push the entire chunk of wall up in the air.
We can’t simply drop it—too many would lose their lives. Instead, our shadebending power lifts it higher, higher, and then swings it out over the land beyond until we’re confident we can let it go without crushing anyone.
After a stunned beat, people start streaming through the hole, the city emptying out much faster than before.
Trickles of sweat run down my forehead and into my eyes, and I swipe at them with gritty hands.
Noemi and Venna arrive just then, and Stark hands off the Mother Priestess to Noemi to guard while we get back to work. The two of them are going to stay stationed at the gates to make sure people get out safely.
“What now?”Stark looks to me, and I take a deep breath, thinking.
“Stay linked—I need your precision,” I say decisively. I can feel his intake of breath, the twitch of his muscles as he nods.“But let’s split up again and save as many as we can. Anassa, while I’m seeing double, can you guide us?”
Anassa takes off.
There’s no sting of parting this time; our minds are so close, weareeach other—seeing what the other sees, feeling what they feel.
Anassa and I race along side streets toward the edge of the destruction. More and more people emerge—from taverns, and brothels, and tenements, and a long row of stately homes with shaded garden beds.
We stop short, throwing our weight backward, as the walls of a run-down pub start to collapse outward. I throw up my hands, and at my thought, Stark is there; together we manipulate the shadows around me until they’re supporting the building, keeping it from falling.
The walls groan but stay up. The tavern’s faded sign leaves its hinges, splintering as it crashes into the street. I grunt, the weight of the wall pressing against our magic. Frantic people stream out the doors and race away.
After nobody new emerges, we let go, and the building collapses into the street with a deafening sound.
Stark’s vision eclipses mine, and I see the scene before him as clear as it’s through my own eyes: flames licking at houses as the collapsing streets create a mess of timber and torch fires, cooking stoves and furniture.
A bearded man with bloodshot eyes lurches toward Stark, words slurred but urgent all the same. “My s-s-s-son, please, p-p-please, he’s at home in bed alone, and he’s on the third story of our—our—our house,” he begs, clutching at Cratos’s fur.
Stark’s arm snakes down to grab the man and haul him bodily onto Cratos.
