Page 78 of Wicked Prince of Shadows
“We have to get the vines to the portal side of the chasm!” I pressed back with my good hand as it all came together. Too great a task for anyone to do alone. “The land on the palace side is going to give way. We just have to get the vines and then pull them over to the other side and take down this column.”
“Easy enough,” Vetle said through gritted teeth.
“Fahlda!” Osric’s pierced the stormy winds.
I twisted in Vetle's arms, my heart lurching. My eyes widened. Vetle's people were gathering near the chasm's edge. Everyone who had survived. They moved with purpose despite their weariness, their torn clothing and bloodied hands a testament to the night's horrors. As they reached the edge, they clustered together, staring across at us with wide, terrified eyes, but some were already drawing near with Osric leading the way.
"Get to the other side!" I screamed, my voice raw and barely audible over the wind. "Get to the portal side! Now! The vines on the palace side will kill you!"
Vetle's voice thundered beside me. "Cross to the portal side immediately! That's an order! Gehn, Baza, get four guards and gather all the rope you can find." But the wind over the chasm made it impossible to tell if they could hear.
Maltric signaled for the others to hold back and then spread his wings and flew to us. He did not land. “Your Majesties.” Hismonocle glinted in the low light. “What is happening?” The wind buffeted him as he struggled to not land and yet listen.
We explained as quickly as we could. He scowled but listened, then flew back, fighting against the violent winds. The group of survivors at once sprang into motion. Those with wings began flying those without over. A small group raced back into the palace to get rope.
The vines constricted again, and I gasped as another wave of draining energy pulsed through me. Bleeding hemlock! This eidon was hungry. Vetle's arms tightened around me, his breath coming harder against my hair.
A low rumble shook through the column beneath us, and I felt rather than heard Aerithyn's anguished cry vibrating through the stone. The vines writhed more frantically now, pulling us to the edge. My feet slipped another inch.
Cracks formed in the earth as the rock on the palace-facing side popped. A chunk of stone sheared off the edge and plummeted into the chasm below, vanishing into the depths without a sound. My breath hitched.
More cracks splintered outward from the bridge like veins under a bruise—hairline at first, then widening. Dust billowed up from the ruptures in short bursts as stones shifted, dislodged. The palace itself groaned behind us, an eerie, low sound like some ancient creature beginning to stir after a long slumber.
The vines around my waist tugged tighter, and the skin along my ribs prickled as if something beneath it had begun to unravel. Vetle’s wings pressed back against the vines, his shadows surging up, weaker than before and more charcoal than black.
The air howled between us, tearing sideways across the chasm and dragging at my hair. The wind was growing sharper, crueler—angled like a blade now, stripping warmth and forcing the flyers to dip lower or bank wildly to avoid being hurled into the stone. Osric kept trying to get to us, but Baza had him tight.The steady shelf of land on the portal side offered little shelter from the whipping wind, but the survivors clustered there.
My legs had numbed, and my vision stuttered, momentarily freezing in place like a painting. The world juddered back into motion just as something cracked beneath our feet.
Vetle gasped as well, his arm around me tighter as his wings flexed. If not for his arm around me, I would have fallen. Two of the eels pressed against our feet.
Another tremor shook the earth. More than half the people had gotten over now.
The column groaned again—louder this time. A long vertical seam split down its center with a sudden, sharp pop. The jolt threw us both to our knees. My elbow struck stone. Pain exploded up my arm, white and cold. The vines wrapped higher. “Aerithyn!” I screamed. “We’ll help you! Just let us go!”
Flailing out, the vines grasped, desperate for purchase. The survivors fled farther along the chasm’s edge, nearing the tablet. As the flyers had nearly finished carrying over the others, the last few risked jumping.
My eyes squeezed shut against the burn and the strain. It was getting harder to breathe. I buried my face in his chest.
A guttural, grinding crack shook through the earth as the interior of the palace crumpled inward. The remaining survivors were sprinting. Flying. Leaping where they could. The children were over, pressed as far back from the edge as the black forest and immovable mist would allow. The chasm cracked wider—feet, then yards. A house-sized chunk fell away on the palace side.
“No—” My breath strangled in my throat. The vines pulsed again. I searched for Osric. Then I spotted him on the far side, physically restrained by Rasoul, his teeth bared as he tried to get to us. I shook my head at him, willing him to understand, pleading.
The earth heaved again with a low, guttural roar. A fresh crack split the palace-facing ledge, sending another slab of stone shearing away into the depths. The sound of its fall was lost in the rising wind.
I clutched at Vetle’s arm, barely upright, heart hammering. The column beneath us groaned once more, the seam down its center widening with a sharp, splinteringsnap.
Four guards burst from the courtyard, wings straining hard against the bloodied wind. Rope coiled around their torsos and shoulders, thick bundles of it weighing them down. They struggled upward, fighting the downdrafts and the crosswinds that threatened to slam them into the palace walls or send them careening over the chasm's edge.
Gehn was in the lead, his grey wings straining. Lou followed close behind, his smaller frame fighting harder against the gusts. Between them, they carried large triple-thick loops of winch rope, ready to slip over the column. Two other guards I didn't recognize flanked them, all four battling their way toward us.
Stone shattered behind them. A portion of one of the final towers crumbled, vanishing into the abyss below. The entire world jolted as more otherworldly screams shook the land. A hand appeared once more in the clouds, highlighted in red and then fading almost as fast as it appeared.
Vetle leaned forward, supporting me with one arm and reaching the other out as the guards neared.
“Here!” he roared. “Here—hover past the column. The wind will carry it no matter what you do. Don’t get too low.”
The guards strained through the air and flew past us near the column, dodging vines that whipped up from below, snapping near their ankles.
