Page 37 of Unleashed

“I cannot leave this moment, Nina. I must remain. If I go, I will convince my father, and we will be lost. I must stay. I must stop myself from going to him…”

The walls trembled, and the air rippled. This was not how it had happened. Nina had never been here. This place had ceased to exist long before she was ever born.

But she washere, she was with him now.

“What was done was done,” she said gently. “You cannot change it, but we can try to save those who are not yet lost.”

He lifted a hand to her face, cupping her cheek and weaving his fingers into the long, soft fur atop her head. “How are you here, Nina? How—”

She pulled back and turned her head suddenly, eyes widening. “Did you hear that, Aduun?”

“Hear what, Nina?”

She moved to stand. He clutched at her, keeping her there with him, unwilling to face this long night and what would follow it alone.

“Them. Do you hear them calling?” she asked.

The tent walls pulsed, and a chill wind blew in beneath them, creeping over his skin like the touch of icy hands. It was a familiar sensation, but he couldn’t place where he’d felt it.

Silence pressed in from all sides, a silence so complete it hurt.

He turned his head when he heard something from outside — whispers. Disembodied whispers, speaking in unison, their words indecipherable.

“I need to go to them,” Nina said, breaking free of his hold.

He reached for her, but his fingers slid off her, slidthroughher. “No! Do not go, do not follow!” His heart pounded in thunderous peals, making the tent quiver with its rhythm.

Nina didn’t slow. She dashed across the flames and disappeared through the tent flaps.

Aduun struggled to his feet. The air within the tent was so thick that he could feel it pressing down on him; when he stumbled forward, it was like moving through water, his limbs swinging sluggishly, his entire body weighed down like it was made of stone.

He fell as he passed between the flaps, catching himself on hands and knees. Everything in him stilled when he lifted his gaze.

There should have been other tents, should have been cooking fires, should have been a night sky of the deepest blue and violet, twinkling with countless stars.

But there wasnothing.

Blackness — impossible, impenetrable blackness — stretched on endlessly around him.

“Nina!” he shouted, but his throat produced no sound. He screamed, the cords of his neck straining, but it only seemed to enhance the silence.

When he looked back, his tent was gone.

His people were gone. He had doomed them already.

What was done was done.

He called for Nina again, though he knew she would not hear.

Aduun woke with a jolt when something touched his face. His quills flared as he sat up abruptly.

“Ow,” Vortok grunted.

Panting, Aduun assessed his surroundings. His awareness developed slowly. He’d been in a dark place, a black place…

No. He’d been asleep, and he was on the branch with his companions, waiting out the floodwater.

Nina!

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