Page 66 of Daughter of No Worlds

Now, I watched the vestiges of those gates come down and prayed I would not have to use them. Still, I mentally rehearsed the movements. Just in case.

“I suppose this didn’t scare him out of his tantrum after all,” Max muttered. Sammerin shook his head, silent.

I closed my eyes, thought of Serel, and reminded myself why I was here.

And then we began to move.

The cold metal of the bridge was replaced with slippery cobblestones beneath my feet. The sun beating down on my face gave way to damp shadows, courtesy of the tall townhomes that crowded narrow, winding streets.

I peered back at the bridge over my shoulder, soon blocked from view by the soldiers behind me. I noted in a distant, matter-of-fact thought that we were now trapped on this island.

Max nudged my shoulder, as if he too shared my realization. “Stay alert,” he whispered, voice taut with caution, beads of nervous sweat dotting his nose. “And stay right here.”

The streets of Tairn were so narrow and twisted, tight turns bathed in the shadows of the surrounding buildings. Max, Sammerin and I were packed nearly shoulder-to-shoulder. We were near the front of the group, only just behind Nura and the Syrizen, but even then, the city itself seemed to bear down on us.

To make it worse, every step brought us into a thicker and thicker fog, so dense every breath felt as if I was inhaling liquid. The bodies in front of us became little more than silhouettes. Ahead, Nura would lift her arms to push the swampy mist away like a swimmer parting water, only to have more arise steps later.

The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood, cold nausea turning in my stomach.

Something wasn’t right.

“Something isn’t right,” Max murmured.

The city was completely silent. Shop booths stood empty — some even had fruit in them, flies buzzing around softened berries and oranges. I looked at the darkened windows, obscured through the fog, and my brow furrowed.

The silence extended beyond my ears, seeping into my mind. An unnatural stillness for a city of this size. A dangerous stillness.

I leaned towards Max. “Look at the blank windows.”

“I noticed.”

“I hear no one.” I pressed a finger to my temple, shaking my head. “Nothing.”

Then I raised my eyes to that central tower, perched at the top of the hill, silver spire poised to pierce the hazy circle of the sun obscured through fog. And when I looked at it, my mind erupted into a wordless mass of light and activity and ironfear.

I saw the back of Nura’s head pause, turn, as if she too were noticing what I did.

“They’re allthere,” I started to say—

But then, where there had been nothing, there was suddenlysomething. The fog shifted, moved, changed, thickened and thinned at once, sculpting.

And I could see them, feel them — people everywhere, surrounding us, figures unfurling from the mist.

Nura let out a wordless shout of warning. She raised her hands and shadows roiled around her, aroundus, shielding us beneath a cover of darkness. The last thing I saw before darkness overtook my vision was the Syrizen’s spears lighting up with warm, orange light, their bodies leaping into the air and flickering into nothing. Simply disappearing.

A deafening crash. Blue sparks barely penetrated Nura’s blanket of shadows. I felt the cobblestones under my boots shift.

Smoke filled my lungs. My eyes groped frantically in the darkness, finding nothing but black.

But then something beyond sight — deeper than sight — sensed a presence beside us, sensed a blade lifting and swinging toward Max—

I didn’t think before I grabbed his shoulders and pushed, sliding my body in front of his, grabbing onto the presence and twisting and pulling and snapping as hard as I could. A sharp pain sliced my hands, raised in front of my face—

Then I felt myself being yanked backwards, felt the ground shake, felt a sharp impact at the back of my head.

And then the darkness melted into something deeper.

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