The demonic, bull-like parabeast lapped up what was left of Matthew on a long, black tongue.
Cold sweat on my brow, I fought the concussive dizziness left from Colter's strike, trying to get
on my feet. The beast shook its horned head, its ember eyes finding Arnold as he turned tail
toward the relative safety of the group. Raden spread down his legs to jumpstart him into a
superhuman sprint that would lead the beast right to us. The realization powered me onto hands
and knees, the world tilting.
Arnold's hand reached across his body to grab for his weapon, but it didn't even come halfway
out of its scabbard before the beast charged, head down, horns squealing across the marble. A
toss of its head, and Arnold flipped through the air over the creature's dark back. The nine-foot,
rock-ridged tail bashed him midair, sending him into the wall beside the archway with enough
force to leave a man-sized hole in solid rock. He fell forward, his raden protection flickering like
a firefly, tumbling out onto the hard ground.
The beast never stopped, forelegs pounding holes in the ground with each long bound. In three
strides, it was on us, and I couldn't do anything but try to cover my head and roll.
A crack like lightning split the air, and I came out of my nauseating roll on hands and knees
behind the cluster of ardents to see the beast stagger sideways. Leon stood at the forefront,
upper body still following through with the mighty swing of his hammer that had created a crack
through one horn. Rhea charged the angered beast before it could right itself, leaping ten feet in
the air to bring her axes down on its face. The impact rocked the creature's head, but the blades
drew no blood, only spat sparks off the igneous armor. A backhanded sweep of the creature's
giant forearm sent Rhea flying into a metal information desk.
Colter rolled his shoulders and clenched his fists, a steely concentration hardening his features.
A halo of golden light began to glow around his irises, just like Seth's had. A rough, indigo
casing formed over the back of his hand, enveloping his wrist and forearm like a vambrace that
pulsed with threads of golden raden.
So this is his rune aspect, I thought darkly. Just like the dragon creature.
A vein throbbed in Colter's forehead as the armor tried to form over his elbow. It wouldn't grow
higher than his mid-forearm, crumbling away like loose mineral soil each time it tried. Colter
curled his lip at it as he drew his spear and charged into the fray with his recovering team.
Taj pulled himself up from behind the nearby brochure kiosk he'd dove behind, grimacing at the
pain in his swollen leg. He screamed and ducked back down as the beast turned to chase
Colter, its tail whizzing over his head and mine. My fear-stricken mind screamed, Too close! But
terror clogged my throat.
I rushed back to Seth and heaved him onto my back, standing with a loud protest from my
spine. Taj was already hobbling toward the exit as fast as his dragging leg would allow. I moved
to follow, trembling with every hard-earned step over the slick moss and debris.
With another trumpeting roar, the beast leaped over my head, its tail swinging straight for me as
it landed. I dove to the side. The deadly appendage whistled over my head and swatted Seth off
my back as I came down hard on my elbow and hip. A desperate cry leaked through my gritted
teeth as my brother's body rolled over the filthy ground, suffering more desecration. Eyes
stinging, I cursed myself for not holding on and scrambled to him on hands and knees, broken
bits of the marble floor digging sharp cuts into my skin.
Useless, unheard apologies slipped through my lips as I grabbed his wrists and wrapped his
arms around my neck from behind, keeping an eye on the beast now bucking and twisting as it
ran.
Fintan rode astride its neck, his glaive a blur of raden, slashing and stabbing incessantly at the
plating just behind its head. The beast rammed its own shoulder against the station wall, rattling
the once-grand entry doors. Taj diverted from his course with a scream, but Fintan had already
flipped off the beast's back. He landed in a lunge, a hand bracing him on the ground as he slid
through the damp moss.
Gavin sprinted out of nowhere and used Fintan's bent back as a stepping stone to launch
himself into the air, sword slashing for the creature's face as it turned toward the brothers. Its
oversized foreleg shifted to shield its head, and Gavin smacked into the unyielding wall of rock,
falling onto his back and barely rolling clear of the giant fist that tried to shatter his ribcage.
As I got back to my feet, hunched like an old man beneath Seth's weight draped over my back,
Colter and Priscilla fanned to either side of the beast, testing the strength of the plating on its
sides and underbelly with spear and dagger. Leon and Rhea tried to tip the beast, concentrating
their blows on its legs.
With the main way out blocked, I turned toward the nearest storefronts, thinking there might be
loading docks in the back. But that meant going up a set of stairs and through heaping piles of
rubble.
A loud thwack fired adrenaline through my head. The beast's tail battered several of the doors,
making them bang open and closed, as it twisted around trying to mash Colter into the wall.
I had no choice.
Teeth grinding with the effort of just staying upright, I kept the fight in my sights so I wouldn't get
caught in it and angled toward the steps, thighs screaming at me, curved spine throbbing, Seth's
dangling legs knocking against mine.
Colter feinted back, dodged around the beast's lethal arms, and hurled one of his spears. It
shuddered, splintering just behind the tip as it stuck in the neck's porous, igneous plating. Colter
used it as a handhold to pull himself toward the beast's face, his raden reinforcing the damaged
shaft, and drew his spare spear from his back. A perfect thrust left a gouge across the ember
eye, spilling amber fluid and black blood, but a jerk of the head hooked a horn on his spear and
snapped it. Colter swung up his legs and kicked off the neck to wrench his other spear free, but
the blade tip didn't come with it, breaking into a jagged end.
Colter's eyes prowled the space, and I tensed with a hand on the stair railing as they drifted
toward me… then hitched on something closer to the front of the station. "Forger!" he called,
tossing the spear to Taj, who'd been crouching behind the kiosk closest to the doors, waiting for
an opportunity to sprint through them.
Taj's hand snapped out and caught the spear on instinct. He looked at it, at the doors, then at
Colter, his chest moving with rapid, shallow breaths. Whether out of fear or habitual impulse, Taj
obeyed, sprinting back into the heart of the station toward several bodies of other boneforgers,
some with their kits still on their backs. Arnold, battered but conscious, passed Taj going the
other direction, a sword gripped in both hands as he rejoined the team.
The ground shook from the parabeast's ferocious punches as I put my foot on the first stair.
Using the railing as a lifeline, eyes forever darting back to the tangle of wicked horns, fangs, and
blades that could all be my death, I hauled myself up two, then three steps. I looked at the four
still to go, every muscle in spasm, and let out the despondent groan building in my chest. But I
plowed on, sweat dripping into my eyes, each breath a chore. Hanna's name thrummed through
my head, an image of her behind my eyes, sneaking another brownie on the couch, a hand on
her rounded belly, her gaze flitting toward the door that was supposed to open. I had to get Seth
back to her. She deserved a proper goodbye.
I mounted the last cracked stair and brought my foot down on the level above, only for the
damaged marble to break apart and jerk my leg out from under me. My standing leg pulled, and
a horrific tearing in my stitched calf made my vision go white at the edges. I tipped forward and
barely caught myself with the hand that wasn't holding Seth's crossed arms against my chest,
but my chin smacked the tiles, sending fresh agony through my battered jaw and head.
The beast… Where was the beast?
Its booming footfalls sounded close, then closer, but my own breathing was too loud in my ears
to know. Someone screamed.
A peek over my shoulder showed Priscilla rising slowly, the beast's horns carving up more tile
as it tried to gore Rhea. Its tail bashed the dividing wall between the two floors, and the
shockwave sent tremors through the stairs and up my arm.
Warm blood trickling down my neck, I got the knee of my good leg under me and crawled off the
steps, arching my back to tip Seth safely onto the floor. Certain that I'd popped several stitches
but with no time to check, I got to my feet, hobbled behind Seth, and lifted him under the
armpits.
Abandoning the bubble tea storefront I'd been aiming for, I angled toward its indistinguishable
neighbor. The whole frame of the entry had caved in, leaving only a narrow nook in the rubble
just big enough for a person. There was no way I could carry Seth now. If I couldn't bring him
out with me, I had to make sure his body stayed safe.
The crevice left by the collapse was a tight squeeze for Seth's shoulders, forcing me to roll him
onto his side. I pushed and pulled his body until I'd tucked him as far back inside as he would
go, then paused to breathe, my back scraping against the rubble above me, hands braced on
either side of his ribs. His eyes stared up at me, and I swallowed the knot of grief expanding in
my throat as I reached out to shut his lids and spread his dark cloak over him like a shroud,
hoping it might further conceal him.
"I'll be back." My voice trembled. "I promise."
I backed out on hands and knees and looked around for something to barricade the nook. The
fallen bubble tea sign lay nearby. A backward glance showed the battle still raging in front of the
exit. One of the doors had been torn clean off its hinges.
Across the room, at a storefront on the opposite wall, Taj had spread out kit supplies and was
just finishing Colter's spear. Colter had made due with the spear snapped by the horn, its shaft
half the usual length. The earthen vambrace the dragon rune had created on his other arm was
giving off golden steam as his raden surged through it.
I tore my eyes away and lifted one end of the heavy sign, paint and rust flaking off as I dragged
it across the floor. The slick mildew helped, but I was still panting by the time I braced the sign
diagonally across the alcove, hiding my brother.
With a final look at the shadowed form inside, I limped toward the drink store, mind still set on
an employee entrance as my ticket out of here. Beyond the boulder-like debris of the collapsed
ceiling, I could still see a counter and the top of a metal machine.
A dark shape flew across my path and smacked into the counter, then another crunched against
the wall not ten feet from me. I jumped back with a yell as it slid down and an arm flopped into
the moss. The dead face of an ardent looked up at me, her slashed throat a bloody smile. One
of Darrel's allies, dead before the rift collapsed. I looked back to the corpse that hit the counter
and saw his red beard. Someone had thrown them…
I almost noticed the beast's pounding footfalls too late. Its horn ripped a strap on my jacket as I
turned and dove to the ground, yanking me sideways so my shoulder slammed the wall as I slid across the damp floor, debris nicking my abs. The creature hit the storefront with a thunderous
crack. I pushed to my feet and staggered back as drywall and support beams crashed on the
parabeast's head in a cloud of dust. Shaking off the rubble, it pulled Darrell's body out in its
teeth, tossed its head back, and swallowed him in a few bites.
"Now!" Colter cried, dropping a third body, which he must have meant to toss as more bait.
My hands clapped over my ears as Gavin's shard gun went off with a firework crack. The bullet
hit the scar that Fintan's glaive had left on the beast's neck, and the igneous plate broke clean
off, leaving a raw wound of exposed flesh. I limped to the low wall that ran along the storefront
level, watching Priscilla sprint up the creature's back in a streak of amber raden. Before her
daggers could find their home in the wound, its tail swatted her like a fly. Leon's hammer
smashed the back right leg, knocking it beneath the body so the beast tipped sideways, body
stretched over the lower and upper floors, shaking the ground beneath me so violently my
injured leg buckled, and I crashed against the low wall.
Colter vaulted the stairs and charged for the monster's open, roaring mouth. He thrust his spear
for the soft palate, but the teeth snapped down, nearly taking off his hand. The beast's neck
lunged forward, trying to clamp him in its jaws, but Colter flared raden down his arm and into the
indigo coating on his hand. A bright flash of raden pulsed through his fist as it collided with the
oncoming muzzle, and the giant beast's head rocked back with an agonized roar.
I shook off the shock, rose to my feet, and threw one leg over the dividing wall, then the other. I
held on and lowered myself as far as I could before I dropped the last foot and a half to the
lobby floor, careful to land on my good leg first.
Colter's team was swarming to the upper level to reach the beast's head, but the creature shook
its horns in a threat, snorting like a bull, and golden smoke curled from its nostrils. Heat mirages
blurred the air around its body, and the veins of thick raden resin woven through its plates
liquified, spilling free of their channels in boiling rivulets that coated the black armor. As it
stomped its huge forelimbs down and got back to its feet, the textured segments across its body
began to shift, layers of plates using the scalding hot resin to slide free of one another. With a
roar that stabbed through my eardrums, the parabeast pushed its plates to their full expanse,
growing its already hulking frame until it had almost doubled the reach of its horns, tail, and
crushing forelimbs. Colter's team staggered back with frightened shouts and blanched faces.
"Retreat!" Colter cried.
Heart pounding, I dropped below the wall and hurried in a crouch along it, moving between the
staircase I'd carried Seth up and the last short set of steps before the fallen door. Colter's team
flooded the lobby, all sprinting for the exit. Rhea looked back, eyes widening, and dove into
Colter, knocking him clear as the parabeast came smashing down in the lobby. Rhea popped to
her feet first, teeth bared in a war cry as she slashed an axe across her body, carving off the tip
of the oncoming horn. The other axe, blunted by a shield of raden, bashed the beast's jaw, redirecting its charge just enough to save both her and Colter from getting crushed. But a glob
of the hot resin on the beast's face fell on Rhea's right sleeve, and the cry she let out raised the
hairs on my neck. The team swarmed to her aid, assaulting the creature from all sides with
thrown bits of debris and dead ardents' weapons—afraid to touch it directly—confusing it with
their zagging raden paths.
Colter rose, growling, "Forger!"
A spear was lobbed over the low wall opposite me. Colter caught it and pushed Rhea behind
him, eyes tracking the beast as it thrashed about in a frenzy. It threw its massive body into
chaotic death rolls and came up punching. Its blows cracked walls, decimated railings, and
powdered cement and marble. With its increased bulk, every thrashing turn of its body
dislodged information desks, tossed hunks of debris, and left trails of viscous, burning resin fluid
behind on the quaking floor.
I hunkered in the corner where the stairs met the wall, knowing I couldn't stay here, knowing the
longer I waited, the more fiery obstacles I'd have to dodge, but unable to make my legs obey.
As the parabeast's enraged attacks tore a destructive path that drove the ardents back toward
the train tunnel, I saw my chance. Ignoring the stabs of agony in my calf as best I could, I took
off at an awkward, crooked run.
Every move the parabeast made with its forelegs set shockwaves through the ground. The heat
coming off the resin trails singed the tips of my hair and burned my airways like a sweltering
forge. The fiery splatter turned the straight shot to the door into a maze of twists and turns.
Cacophonous thuds, growls, and shouts filled my head, coming ever closer in my mind, but I
was almost free. The open doorway was a few yards ahead. I was going to make it.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
I pumped everything into my legs, too afraid to look back and see my death coming.
A scream chilled my blood, and a figure hit the ground to my left, rolling out of control through a
line of searing resin. A massive wall of dripping rock cut me off, and I dug in my heels, skidding
and twisting back the other way, keeping my feet thanks to Seth's training as boiling raden
rained down where I'd been standing. Arnold's shriek as his hair ignited was cut short when the
beast's horn punched through his chest, withdrew, and punctured him again. Trembling, joints
locking in shock's icy chill, I felt scalding heat, like direct summer sunlight, warm my neck and
looked up to see the creature's craggy side above me, a rivulet of the blistering resin ready to
drip.
I cut a hard right, running full tilt now, panic numbing the pain, and got well clear of the beast's
shadow before angling back toward the fallen front door. I ran across its wide surface, out of the building, then cut sideways along the station's outer wall, wanting a barricade between myself
and the monster inside.
My foot caught on something. I staggered but didn't stop, looking back to see a root poking out
of the sidewalk.
What the hell?
Keeping my head down, I saw all kinds of grass and weeds growing out of cracks. The sidewalk
was more vegetation than cement.
My run slowed as I looked around.
The laundromat next to the station was… green. The building had half collapsed, and the
remaining walls looked like the only thing keeping them up was the tangled blanket of vines
crawling all over the brick.
A massive tree had sprouted right out of the street, and around its trunk was the shell of a car,
the base growing up through its missing front windshield. The asphalt was a crumbled ruin just
like the sidewalk, and spiderwebbed lines of hardened raden resin threaded through parts of it
like nonsensical traffic lines.
Some cars were still parked at the curb, but they were all covered in thick blankets of yellow
pollen or glowing golden moss. Not a single one appeared to have all its windows intact, and the
wheels were flat or shredded. Even the paint looked like it was being eaten away by the foreign
vegetation.
My eyes traveled up the road toward Lightbridge, and my heart faltered. The street, torn up
though it was, carried on as it should for about a block, but then ended in a sheer drop-off.
Lightbridge was gone. Swallowed up into a massive crater. I could barely make out the blurred
edge of its opposite side in the distance.
Hanna.