Page 91 of Still the Sun

Rushing to my feet, I feel along the hot metal to the pipe. It’s split open. The projectile launched. But did it—

A second, distant rip of thunder echoes through the mountains, followed by a handful of faint screams from the Emgardians.

I’m too scared to hope. I wave the mists away. The machine can no longer produce them. Will not produce them ever again without extensive repairs. I climb higher up the peak as the fog-propellant clears, trying to see over the mist. The mountain soon gets too steep to climb without equipment. Steadying myself, I peer into the valley. The fog settles there like a blanket, but a line of it has thinned, since this machine no longer contributes. I can just make out the top of the tower. It hasn’t fallen. My bones go limp within me.

I stand there, staring, exhaustion leaking into my limbs. Rack my brain for another option. Arthen calls up to me, but I barely register his words. Machine five of six ... I could try again, there. It’s close enough to do some damage. I just don’t know if we’ll have enough time.

Serpent save me, I have to try. I don’t have another crescent piece, but ... I have to try.

Stumbling back down to the ruined machine, I snatch my tool bag and bark at Arthen to get back on the rover. “We missed. We have to make it to another machine.”Please let the rover’s power last,I pray to no one, yet in the back of my mind, I see Cas’s face.

Arthen doesn’t question me. He helps me turn the rover and hops on as we take the mountain path down, moving much more quickly with the help of gravity. There should be a narrow trail heading north up ahead. The fifth fog machine doesn’t have the same elevation, but—

“Pell.”

“What?” I snap over the roar of the rover.

“Pell,stop.”

Gritting my teeth, I pull the brake. “What, Art?”

He points into the valley.

I squint. The mist from this peak has dissipated even more. I can see the west edge of Emgarden. Just make out the tower ... and the great pile of rubble at its base, to the left of Moseus’s door-eating void.

“We ...,” I start, shivers coursing up my spine. “We hit it.”

The projectile struck right where the tower meets the ground. There’s rubble, red rock and white alike. And where there’s rubble, there’s a hole.

“We hit it!” I cry, suddenly full of air and energy and need. “Hurry, we have to hurry!”

We race back to the rover. Gravity propels the tired rover down, down, down the mountain, toward the cluster of people waiting to strike.

One hour, fifty-eight minutes ...

Chapter 29

The dust from the impact has cleared by the time Arthen and I return, leaving us with about two hours to find Moseus and stop him. The people of Emgarden have forgotten their pasts, but they aren’t stupid. In addition to having lamps and lanterns to pierce the mist, they’ve armed themselves with shovels, hoes, knives, and other tools, many of which, ironically, Moseus supplied the metal for. While the Ancients—us—had been trained in knife work, archery, and the like, none of us are soldiers. We never realized we’d need to be. To think how much more prepared we might have been, had Ruin not reached out its claws with its last free breath before the gods locked it in a prison kilometers away. One I’ve never had the opportunity to behold, but one the dwindled demon managed to escape.

I take my hammer and a wrench from my tool bag and hand them to Arthen. Pull his knife from my pocket and squeeze the hilt. “They look very similar,” I explain to everyone as we near, adding to the tale Salki has already shared in my absence, gleaned from my pages of notes. “Donothurt Heartwood. He’s our ally.” I detail the differences between the two gods, which seem so obvious to me now. “Do not hurt Heartwood,” I repeat, though only those closest to me hear it.If I haven’t hurt him already,I think, and my blood runs cold. I should have taken him with me. I’d been firm that Heartwood not leave me alone with Moseus. I hadn’t considered that I shouldn’t leave Moseus alone with him.

The projectile blew a great hole in the ground at the base of the tower, some seven meters across and, at its deepest, three meters down. Several of the farmers hurry forward to move away stone, giving the rippling void a wide berth. I hang back, sitting on my haunches, gathering my strength. Offering a silent thanks when Salki brings me a grain bar and water, with a whisper to stay calm. She’s right, but moving the stones is slow work, and we’ve so little time. She and the others marvel at the sky’s changing colors as the sun nears the mountain-edged horizon, looking larger and darker. It makes the amaranthine wall—Cas’raneah’s wall—glow. Beyond the wall, the heavens adopt a shade of periwinkle that no one else has ever seen. Or can remember seeing, at least.

“Pell,” Salki whispers.

I look up to see that the farmers have uncovered a hole, roughly two-thirds of a meter in diameter, blasted into the tower. “Let me go first.” I run to it, careful not to fall into the sandy gap in the earth where my cannon’s projectile sits half-buried. Accepting a lantern from Frantess, I peer inside, listen, then wriggle through.

This is not my tower.

It is, but the cause of this darkness is more than the setting of the sun, more than the absence of first-floor windows. It’s deep and thick like at the bottom of a well, tangible as the high mist. Across the way, Moseus’s door hangs open. I’ve blown a hole right beside Machine One, but I needn’t worry about damage. Moseus has already seen to that. My hard work lies, for the second time, strewn across the floor. I wonder if he tore into it before or after sucking the tower’s entrance into a pit of nonbeing. Before, I hope. If he had enough strength to do this much damageafterexerting his limited magic, then we’re in more trouble than I feared.

And yet, I’m glad. We can’t utilize the machine anyway. Not before nightfall.Waste your strength, you corrupted putrescence. I’m coming for you.

I squeeze my hands into fists to hide their trembling.

Maglon crawls through behind me, grunting as he struggles to fit through the hole. Barely above a whisper, I warn, “Be quiet. Bring in only a few, and leave the others outside. Leave Arthen. He’s tired.” I don’t think he’ll fit through the hole, besides.

Amlynn comes in next, followed by Frantess, Gethnen, and Balfid. Salki hovers nearby; Maglon puts out his hand to stay her, but I motion him aside and squat down, taking my little framed lantern from her, then grasping her hand to pull her through. To Gethnen, I whisper, “Stay at the bottom of the stairs. Send in others if we call for help.”

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