Page 41 of Tethered Thrones

“She is playing with us,” Bracken spat. “With Clem in particular.”

He was pacing, occasionally leaping into the air to scout our location but never venturing far from me and Clem. His eyes sought us out more than they searched the area. He was more worried now than I had ever seen him.

At some point the monstrous batbeast had become our warm protector and that fact still surprised me.

“We cannot remain here long,” Hadi whispered. “There is something whispering beneath the earth.”

My eyes flew to his face, searching in the strange glow of light for whatever that could mean.

Neither Bracken, nor Kiar looked remotely surprised and suddenly I understood their agitation on a whole new level. There was something happening. Something that could not be felt by humans. Something that only animals could feel. Noc senses were attuned in the way that an animal’s would be. They were half made of the creatures of the night after all.

“What is it?” I asked, foreboding filling me, but none of them seemed to have an answer.

I looked down at the ground I was sitting on. Clem's shoulders and head were cradled in my lap, but the rest of him stretched out on the beaten earth.

Nothing good remained beneath these soils. There had been too many battles fought and lost here.

The worst of which had seen every steed wiped from our army at the hands of the nocs in a particularly cruel strategic move. My beloved Haru had been lost that day after so manyyears riding together. And over the years the casualties had grown. Humans and nocs alike falling right in this very spot.

“We must leave this place,” I said with sudden urgency, struggling to lift Clem's stiff body.

He moaned and his eyes flew open, still unseeing. He did not rise, still taken by the visions that Tsuki was sending to him.

“Where will we go?” Bracken demanded. “The very earth is angry.”

I shook my head.

“We can fly–”

“Bracken is right,” Kiar said, softly. “Whatever it is, it stretches long and far.”

“There is no escaping,” Hadi added.

“So, we wait?” I demanded. “We wait for a legion of fallen nocs to rise from the earth once more to finish us all?”

The three of them watched me, stricken.

I forced myself to my feet, leaving Clem sprawled across the ground, chest heaving.

“After all this, after how far we've come... No. We must act now before it is too late.”

But the earth suddenly quaked beneath my feet. Not a moment later, a loud moan, like air escaping from deep underground filled the air and I realized that it already was too late.

“No!” Bracken shouted and he dove toward me, suddenly hoisting me into the air and catching Clem by the arm just as the ground split open beneath us.

I cried out, reaching for Clem to pull him in closer as Bracken leaped into the air with each of us held tight.

I glanced around frantically, finding Hadi and Kiar both at the top of a tree. Shouts from the battle rang through the night. Clearly, we weren't alone in having the ground moved from beneath us.

For a moment, we all watched each other, breathing hard, but silence rang until Clem suddenly gasped, his eyes shooting open.

“Wh–what happened?” he asked breathlessly.

Relieved, I looked at his confused face and shook my head. I was glad to see that his visions had passed but there was no time to address what he had seen.

Looking out over the trees and the battle grounds beyond, as far as the eye could see, cracks ran through the land.

“Fissures,” I whispered. “The earth... It's releasing something.”

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