I whip around to look at him, drinking in the sight of his face—streaked with blood from a wound at his temple, covered in dust, dotted with sweat. The shadows under his eyes look like bruises. The sword in his hand is caked in gore and glowing red. I have less than a heartbeat to appreciate the fact that he is stillbreathing before his hand envelops mine and he starts tugging me along.
“Penn, they’re attacking the palace—”
“I know.” He sounds grim. “I need to get you clear, then I’ll go back and help.”
“Carys and Farley are in there!”
“No, they aren’t.” He pulls me up three wooden steps, onto the pier that runs the length of the lake. “There’s a root cellar beneath the barracks. I brought them there myself.”
“They’re safe?”
“They’re safe.”
The warmth that floods me at this news is snatched away before it can take proper form. I dig in my heels, dragging Penn to a stop.
“Rhya, we can’t stop here—”
“Uther.”
His dark eyes narrow. “What?”
“Uther!” I dart a glance back at the palace. Thousands who fled there are now reversing course, streaming into the bloodstained ruins of their city as fast as their feet can carry them. I search in vain for a head of gray hair among them. “He’s on the bridge. He went to find Carys in the keep.Isent him in there, Penn. We have to—”
My words splutter into useless silence. Because, as I watch, the tallest tower gives one last shudder as a boulder clips it in the middle, and it topples sideways. It collides with the middle tower, the crack of stone so loud it cleaves the atmosphere like thunder. Both turrets wobble for a moment, then fall as one from that impossible height all the way down onto the palace below. They crack the domed roof of the Great Hall like the shell of an egg, cave in the outer wall of the courtyard, then pitch forward onto the lake.
Onto the bridge.
Time seems to slow in the seconds before impact. From the safety of the shore, I watch as those stuck halfway across look up and see the sky falling down upon them. There is no time to move. No time to even scream. There is no escaping it. No outrunning it. No air shield to save them from their fate. The impact shakes the whole city, a bone-rattling reverberation that echoes throughout the crater.
Hundreds of Caelderans are still on the bridge when it is buried under tons of rock and stone. Nearly all of them innocent civilians.
At least one of them a soldier.
A decorated lieutenant of the Ember Guild.
A man of stalwart spirit and fierce loyalty and unflagging kindness.
A leader of men.
A loving husband.
A new father.
A friend.
My friend.
I’ll be right back, he said to me.
The last words he spoke.
The last words he would ever speak.
In the silence that follows the fall, watching the teal waters of the lake swallow the mangled mess of stone, I feel my heart shatter into irreparable pieces.
“I sent him in there,” I whisper brokenly. In the distance, screams rise to a crescendo. “I sent him in there.”
Chapter