Page 120 of Only Cold Depths
For several seconds, the world spun around in crazy loops, as though I was on a blitzer that was spiraling through the air, and I lost my balance. My hands and knees smacked into the ground, and my brain rattled around inside my skull at the hard, vicious impact.
The entire cavern bucked and heaved, and enormous chunks of stone broke off from the ceiling and crashed down onto this level, crushing several mercenaries. I had to roll to the side to keep from getting impaled by a falling stalactite, but Esmina kept up her graceful dance, smoothly moving from left to right, as though she was skating on ice instead of careening across solid stone.
Pollux let out another roar and slammed his hammers into the ground again.
BOOM!
The previous cracks he’d created zipped outward and then merged into one enormous chasm that widened and deepened with every passing second and each bit of ground it chewed up. One merc after another dropped into the growing, gaping chasm, all flailing and screaming as they fell to their deaths.
Pollux roared and hit the ground a third time with his hammers.
For an instant, everything slowed down, as though I was watching a video one frame at a time. I couldseethe magic moving through Pollux’s body and down into the hammers and then the lunarium weapons amplifying his power ten, a hundred, a thousand times over and turning it into something truly devastating—
BOOM!
Pollux’s blow ripped through the cavern, stronger and louder than the others. No one was fighting anyone anymore, and all I could do was hunker down on my hands and knees and try not to get tossed into the chasm by the rapidly splitting ground . . .
Sometime later, the quaking and shaking finally stopped.
A cold wind whistled into the cavern, bringing with it a misty kiss of the waterfall spray and clearing out the thick, billowing clouds of dust. Tears streamed down my face, and my chest spasmed with coughs, but I tightened my grip on my stormsword and slowly climbed to my feet. Moans and groans rang out through the cavern, but they were soft sounds compared with the roaring in my ears.
I crept forward and peered down.
Pollux had used his hammers to punch all the way through the cavern floor, revealing a honeycomb of chambers underneath. Despite its sturdy appearance, this whole place was made of pockets of air, and Pollux had cracked it all open like it was as fragile as an eggshell.
Even now, the psionic echoes of his power scraped across my skin like someone was rubbing my face in a bed of broken glass. I shuddered in revulsion. No one should have that much power. In his own way, Pollux was even more dangerous than Esmina. She was a laser, narrow and focused, but Pollux was, well, a hammer, a broad, blunt instrument with only one purpose: destruction.
Pollux climbed to his feet, clutching his weapons. The lunarium hammers were still burning with that bright, intense, eerie green light, and another shudder rippled down my spine. A blow like that should have depleted even the strongest psion’s magic, but Pollux was as powerful as ever, thanks to his stolen truebond.
Kyrion and Zane also got to their feet. They had both managed to hang on to their stormswords, but they were swaying back and forth, trying to shake off the shock of Pollux’s blows. Me too. I felt as though I’d developed a sudden, severe case of vertigo, and everything was just a little off-balance.
“Excellent,” a voice purred. “Pollux caused even more damage than I expected.”
I turned around. Esmina was standing several feet away, and she stalked toward me. One of the mercenaries reached up and tried to grab her ankle. She didn’t even look down as she sidestepped him, then drew her foot back and kicked him in the head. Esmina put some of her magic into the blow, just as Pollux had done, and the merc’s skull caved in with a sickeningcrunch.
I whirled around and stepped forward, but instead of solid stone, my boot sliced through empty air, and I had to windmill my arms to propel myself backward. Pollux had broken the floor wide open, and a thirty-foot chasm now separated the two halves of the chamber.
My head snapped up. Kyrion and Zane were on one side of the chasm, along with Asterin, Pollux, and several mercenaries, and I was on the other side with Esmina, who was wading through and killing the remaining mercenaries, drawing closer to me all the while.
I was trapped—and on my own.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
KYRION
Iscrambledtomyfeet. Beside me, Zane groaned and did the same thing.
“An earthquake?” he muttered. “No one told me there would be a bloody earthquake!”
I ignored his complaints and rushed over to the edge of the chasm Pollux had created. He was strong—much, much stronger than I’d realized—and he’d cracked open the floor like it was a child’s toy and he wanted all the candy inside. So much dust clouded the chasm I couldn’t even see the bottom—or all the bodies lying down there.
My gaze lifted. On the opposite side of the chasm, Vesper stopped short, waved her arms to regain her balance, and lurched back from the jagged edge. She looked at Pollux, then Zane, then me, her worry pulsing through the bond. In the distance, Esmina drew a long lunarium dagger off her belt and moved forward, going from one injured mercenary to the next and quickly, ruthlessly cutting their throats.
I backed up, trying to give myself as much of a running start as possible. I had to reach Vesper before Esmina did—
Zane grabbed my arm, stopping me. “Don’t be a fool! You’ll never make it!”
He was right. Even if I used my telekinesis to propel myself up and out, I doubted I could leap across a thirty-foot chasm. And if—when—I missed, I would fall to my death.
