Ged limped forward, using the wall as a crutch as he dragged his mangled left leg behind him. All that remained below the knee was a shredded, partially attached chunk of meat. Ysira and Saraida had to help him, letting him hop on his remaining foot with an arm slung over each of their shoulders. He must havebeen in agony, jaw clenched, sweat beading on his forehead, but he voiced no complaint. He seemed almost afraid to.
The next room was a vast circle, a shallow depression in the sandstone floor with a simple triangular altar at its center. A hewn stairway spiraled up along the perimeter. Wind seeped down into the chamber from above, silvery light limning the stone. Blood and scorch marks littered the floor, along with a dozen more bodies. Ysira counted seven—seven—Otavok militiamen.
They’d all anticipated some losses; they’d have been fools not to.
But they had not prepared for this.
“Gods,” Saraida whispered. “How many of us are left?” Neither Ged nor Ysira answered.
The stairs let out at the edge of the great obsidian disc, facing its center, recessed in the floor beneath a sloped outcropping. No sooner had Ysira glimpsed the spires jutting high above, dark shadows against the midday dusk, than Jacen appeared.
“That’s the last of them!” he shouted. “Barricade the door.”
Once Saraida and Ysira had let Ged down against the outcropping, Jacen seized Ysira by the arm.
“You made it. I thought I might have—” He couldn’t finish. His pale eyes were wide, hollow, and the wind had made a mess of his hair.
“The Cathedral,” Ysira said quietly. “That was you.”
Instead of replying, he said, “Transport’s almost here. We’ll make it to the space station and finish this.” He said it again, like a mantra, “Transport’s almost here. It’s almost here. It’s almost over.”
Ysira took a quick inventory of her allies. Thirty-six of them had crossed through the Gate from Otavok. Only a dozen had made it this far, to the platform between the spires:
Goran and Azaharo, struggling to bar the door shut.
Two unfamiliar militiamen, one weeping as the other comforted him. Saraida, obsessively checking over her weapons.
Jacen, manic and pacing.
Seth, unblinking, sitting cross-legged and still as a statue.
Nines, hovering over him and trembling like a sparrow in the wind. Teheda, praying on his knees.
Ged, slumped on the ground and bleeding.
Urien, squinting at the eclipse and searching for the transport that had to be comingany second now.
And Neri, staring out across the expanse of the canyon with no expression at all.
This was all that remained. Their world’s last, desperate hope. It had to be enough.
With little else to do but wait, Ysira took the medicinal pouch from her belt and knelt beside Ged. “Hold still.”
He regarded her with suspicion but let her tie a tourniquet above his knee. He swore when she pulled it tight, but when she touched the macerated muscle and bone below, he did not react. He felt nothing.
“Not good,” he bit out. “Is it?”
Ogden couldn’t have saved this leg. Ged would be a liability at best, no use to them in the fight ahead, and he must have known it. Ysira shook her head.
Ged took a long, deep breath. “This is delusional. Even if we make it to the station, we’ve taken too many losses. It wasn’t a bad plan, but it’s over. We failed.”
He might have been right. But, gods above, they’d fought so hard to get this far. So many of their own had died. Jacen had killedthousandsjust to give this plan a chance. And they were so close. It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be, because the alternative?—
Ysira shuddered and stopped the thought in its tracks. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because we understand each other.” Ged spoke so only she could hear. “And I need your help.”
He fell silent. She followed his gaze to where Neri stood alone. “We understand,” Ged said. “But he doesn’t. I know him.” For a moment, there was something like fatherly affection on his face. “He still has hope.” He paused. “We have to take it away.”
