Page 65 of A Promise of Peridot
kane
The darkness closed in around me, sediment and dust showering down, the ground rumbling and cresting beneath my feet, the sound of stone on stone blaring in my ears.
Arwen’s scream pierced the tumult like a fang through skin.
My hand slammed into the stone that separated us, hard enough to send a crack rippling through the trembling rock. “Arwen!”
They were calling to me, she and Mari both, voices faint through the stone.
Muffled further by the absoluteroaringof the cave collapsing on itself.
I pressed my ear to the wall, its shaking plane cold against my face, but I couldn’t make out words.
The reverberations below my feet had become almost too strong for me to keep myself upright. I locked my knees and steadied my palms against the rock.
Solid, suffocating rock—
Power menaced at my fists as I readied them against the barrier between us.
But I didn’t get the chance to strike.
My instincts sent me to the left, barreling into a spiky cluster of fallen crystals just as a boulder the size of a carriage dropped directly where I had been standing.
“Kane!” Griffin’s voice.
I whirled. He and Fedrik were trying to make their way to me, dodging falling sheets of rock and crumbling, jagged stalactites.
“You have to go back,” I yelled over to them.
Another angry layer of rock broke loose and plummeted from above, right over their heads. I raced for them, but I wouldn’t make it—
In the split second before impact, Fedrik shoved Griffin out of the way.
And the sheet landed on the prince with a sickeningcrunch.
My gut clenched at the sight.
Fedrik screamed in agony, his leg pinned underneath the slabs of rock.
“Go!” I roared to Griffin once I had made it to them. “Get Arwen and Mari.”
Griffin was way ahead of me, sprinting through the hail of boulders. I couldn’t hear the women anymore. Panic thrummed through every inch of me, the lighte under my skin demanding that I crush, break,teareverything apart until I reached them. Until I reachedher.So fierce I nearly had to brace myself against the rocks atop Fedrik.
I assessed the damage: even with my strength, I couldn’t lift the heaviest stone clean off him. I’d have to slide the largest one, likely mangling his leg.
The prince seized my shin. “Kane, leave me,” he gritted out. “We both know. There’s nothing...”
“Don’t be a martyr. Can you imagine how much your parents would hate methen?” I shoved with as much strength as I had, drawing the lighte from the soil deep beneath the cavern floor. Fedrik choked on anguish as the mass slid along his leg, shattering his bones.
Finally, the thing heaved off him. The ground continued to shake.
“Can you move?” I didn’t have time for anything else. I needed to get Arwen.
“Yes,” he said. “Run.”
Fedrik heaved onto his stomach in an attempt to drag himself toward—
Toward what?
