Page 54 of The Shadowed Oracle
“Hey! Low blow.” Raidinn threw his arms up. “Bringing up uni at a time like this? You know I?—”
He was cut short.
The ear-shattering sound of crumbling metal echoed off the cavernous walls.Ingrid looked to the source. It was coming from the door to the basement. Even with Ealis iron enforcing it, it was only a matter of time before whatever was on the other side came through. The attacker knew exactly how to combat their otherworldly enforcements.
The three experienced world-walkers ran to the back of the cage without pause. Ingrid only watched as they filed in a straight line, quickly climbing a ladder welded onto the prison bars and leading to the top of the jail cell. Ingrid hadn’t even known it was there, yet she was all too happy to see it. She didn’t need any further reasons to fall in line, but the sudden crash of iron tumbling down the basement stairs acted as a physical push, forcing her to join her friends. She leaped onto the first step and hurriedly took her place next to the trio.
“They’re coming!” The Wrane cackled viciously from below. “My kin are here! Mother help me, they’ve come for your reckoning!”
Cuuu-lang, Cla-cuhhh-LANG.
A much closer, more urgent pounding began on the second door, the only thing now barricading them from whoever was on the other side. Scraping, bending, tearing. It was unending, desperate and animal, unlike anything Ingrid had heard. She did her best to ignore it by anxiously repeating a prayer-like mantra in her head.
Now. Now. Now we go.
She stared upward at the centermost point of the ceiling, at the strange symbol painted in black. It was lost on her to ask what exactly it was, or if it had anything to do with the portal at all. Was it some kind of catalyst? Or one of those hexes Dean had told her about?
She still had so many questions.
“What will it feel like?” Ingrid asked. “Going through? Will it hurt?”
Tyla answered first, short and sweet: “Yes.”
Raidinn forced a chuckle. “Hell yes it will hurt. We’re about to be squeezed through space and?—”
Complete darkness shrouded them, cutting him off. It was like all light had been sucked out by the portal, and the low hum of the computers disappeared along with it. Complete nothingness. Even the intruders stopped their barrage.
Then, just moments later, like the sound of some great beast coming back to life, the backup generator whirred and the computer screens flashed red and yellow lights so bright that they filled the entire room.
A numberless countdown began.
Beep… beep… beep beep beep…
Growing faster until there were no breaks in between.
The lights flashed strobe-like.
“Here it comes!” Raidinn called out.
Dean reached out gently and grabbed Ingrid’s hand. Her private, hopeful thoughts were now a low whisper.
“Now. Now. Now we go.”
But the room remained still. Whatever was supposed to happen wasn’t happening. Ingrid hadn’t been told what to expect, but she knew that much. She’d feel somethingif her body was being teleported to another realm.
The four of them could only wait.
And wait.
Standing there helplessly as the banging on the door became louder, harder, angrier.
Cuuu-lang, Cla-cuhhh.
With a deafening boom, the iron barricade burst open and flew across the room, turning stone to ash as it slammed against the wall.
From the ruinous hole that was once their last defense, a figure emerged, fading in and out of sight as the neon lights flashed above.
“My prince,” the Wrane whispered.
