An abandoned boy, a grieving prince, and a reclusive sorcerer find themselves caught in a web of peril and mystery...
Domi, a young thief abandoned on the street at birth, just wants to save his dying foster mother. But first, he must survive the m...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The siblings screamed as they fell. Gemma wondered for an instant if she had been wrong about her older brother's skills. Then the silvery whine of promenia surrounded her, and the air gathered around her limbs, stalling her fall.
Beneath them, the ground teemed with clivias, which shifted to and fro around the receding waystation like tides washing up against a rock. Only this ocean teemed with vicious pearl-white and crystal-blue waves, which began to swell as the creatures took to the air.
"Here they come," Gemma said, her voice choking with fear.
This was not what she had imagined her first assignment as a fully-trained forgeholder would be like. Repair some aqueducts on the border, Cerasus said. Not that close to the night-side and its vicious bestias, he assured her. Protected by the Trellis, which her own foster brother held in his capable hands, her Praetor claimed.
And Epileus, strutting about like he thought he was a seasoned worldholder after only a year out in the field, had told her the assignment would be a breeze. "Our Praetor values Empowered like us," he had said. "We won't be put in any more danger than a Trueborn would be. This will be easy. Some other slaves receive way worse work than this. The dirtiest, dreariest, or most dangerous jobs."
"Any other 'D' words you can think of there, Leus?" she had asked with a teasing smirk.
"Sure. Demeaning, detestable..."
If they lived through this, she would make Epileus eat his earlier words. Afterward, she would exchange a few words of her own with Daedalus about his horrendous job maintaining the Trellis.
"Now what?" she asked Epileus, shouting to be heard over the song of the promenia holding them both aloft. The magical particles were not audible, but their vibration through the mind resembled sound enough to confuse a person's sense of hearing.
He glared at her but reached out a hand, and she found herself speeding through the air until she flew at his side. Growling under his breath, Epileus looped his arm around her waist and tugged her close, and their speed increased again. "This is easier."
"Can we outrun them?" she asked, gulping as she peered down below.
The clivias floated up into the air after them, slow for now, but that would soon change. The creatures were far deadlier in flight than they were on land and gained speed after a few seconds of spreading their wing-like appendages to the sky.
"I'm not sure why the Trellis is damaged here," Epileus said. "But I sense its intact edge a few miles from here. If we get back under its light fast enough, I don't think they will be able to bypass the protections there."
"Yes, but can we get there fast enough?"
A moment later, as her older brother cast her an uncertain glance, she wished she had kept her mouth shut. "I'll try," he said, but his voice sounded grim and doubtful.
