“You’re right. But none of that matters now. We’re here, and the gods will be upon us soon if we don’t find an exit.” His voice was grave. “We cannot turn around and go back, so we can only plow forward. Choose the tunnel with the markings.”
“Will you tell us what they mean?” I asked.
He gave me a dark look. “You have questioned me once. Do not question me again.”
“Balfor,” Kalen warned. “You are a Druid and officially outside of the court, but you will show my wife respect.”
Druid Balfor stood a little taller, and his face tightened to reflect the fury roaring in his eyes. But then he looked at me and blinked, as if catching himself. “Yes, of course. I did not mean to upset you. I may be a Druid, but I am not above stress. This situation is quite intense.”
Kalen frowned but moved on. Turning to Toryn, he said, “Prepare our people to leave this cavern immediately. Tell them time is of the essence.”
* * *
The sky was a deep, endless blue free of mist. We walked from the mouth of the cave and into a valley filled with dead grass and baked white sand. I breathed in the fresh air, nearly sagging to my knees from relief. Druid Balfor had been right. We’d made it out of the tunnels before the gods had found us.
The lands beyond Endir looked different in the clear moonlight. Death and decay surrounded us. The sporadic rainfall and lack of sun had parched the fields that had once been lush with verdant grass. The dirt had once been rich enough to grow vegetables by the thousands. A part of me still yearned for the soft kiss of mist, though that part of me was duller now that I saw the destruction it had caused. I stepped forward as fae and humans spilled from the cave. Dead grass crunched beneath my boots. Wind snatched flecks of it, and it danced away like ash.
We had to keep moving. The gods would know we’d tricked them by now, and they’d be on the hunt. These fields were no safer for us than the caverns were. And so we carried on toward Albyria.
* * *
We reached the chasm almost a day later. Kalen now stood at the edge of the Bridge to Death, his cloak flapping around his legs. Boudica perched on his shoulder and cawed into his ear. His face transformed, lines bracketing his mouth. He motioned me closer.
“Boudica just returned from scouting. The gods are on their way, and Callisto marches with an army of beasts. They’ll be here by nightfall.”
“So it’s happening. Here and now. We don’t have time to rest from the journey or brace ourselves for what’s to come,” I said, watching the humans and fae trek wearily past us toward the burnt out husk of a city on the hill. Once, Albyria would have made for a fine fortress during a war. Its defensive structures were not as impressive as those in Dubnos, but they would have held strong for a time.
But the fires had damaged more than just Oberon’s golden shine. There were holes in the defensive wall. The battlements were still cluttered with charred debris. Weapons were limited, and arrows were nothing but ash.
Albyria was no better than Endir. If anything, it was far worse.
We could keep running, but there was nowhere to go. The mountains blocked our path, not that there was anything on the other side. Just a great expanse of sea and no ships to carry us across it.
As if reading my mind, Kalen took my hand and pressed it to his heart. “We will face this together.”
“How, Kalen?”
“I don’t know.” He turned to gaze at the distant city on the hill. “But we will take our final stand in the lands of our old enemy.”
Thirty-Two
Tessa
“Beasts!” a woman screamed from the back edge of our party. “Beasts!”
Her strangled yell descended into gurgling screams. More shouts exploded through the crowd. The pounding of feet followed. Chaos ripped through the field of people desperate to find a safe haven in Albyria.
Heart thundering, I drew my sword. Beside me, Kalen did the same. Together, we rushed away from the bridge and into the fray. The people parted for us, fear showing the whites of their eyes. Thick mist swarmed around us, blurring my vision.
I grabbed the arm of a brown-haired human woman as I passed by. With her faded dress and simple shoes, she reminded me so much of my mother. “Get everyone across the bridge.”
“Where do we go?” she whispered. “The fae city on the hill won’t—”
“Albyria or Teine, it doesn’t matter now. Just get our people across the bridge and inside where it’s safe.” I glanced up as Kalen roared ahead, swinging his sword at the first beast he reached. The humans and fae scattered, screaming and running toward us. From behind them, at least a hundred shadowfiends launched into the air, their claws outstretched and already soaked in blood.
My heart jumped into my throat. The woman beside me shuddered.
I exhaled. “There are so many.”
