Page 120 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

This was for the good of the realm, and all those other realms that had been destroyed. For the Vanguard, the Sworn Exarchs, and the fallen ancestors who had not been allowed to rest. This was for his captain, who had broken something irreversible for this woman. For all of them, as their commander, he deserved to know: What are you?

The pressure grew.

The spiderweb of cracks spread to the brick wall, creating a sound like distant artillery. The witches were struggling now with their casting, their movements tighter, faster, the smoke from their incense gone. The herbs and flowers they held, along with every loose item, was sucked toward the center to form a spinning circle of debris that grew beneath the floating mattress.

The candles flared like flamethrowers, only to lean toward the center, as if being sucked into that growing tornado of debris, as the hum of the witches’ voices rose in pitch.

Angela’s back hit the mattress as if slapping against wood.

And then the words came.

Not from Angela.

It was something else that used her voice, filled with an authority to charge two words that filled their world like an explosion: “KATARRA—DIE.”

The glass windows detonated outward.

Every candle extinguished at once, and in the darkness that killed the sunshine came the wind. It came from that tiny spinning circle of debris forming under the dream mattress, expanding so hard and fast to tear into the room like a monstrous tornado of dark air and wind. It hit Gellar like a wall.

On instinct, he activated his shield, planted his feet, and felt the stone floor tremble beneath him.

Around him, the world came apart. The witches were lifted and carried away. The wizard was swept back against the far wall, which broke as if it were made of sticks and was gone. The windows—already fractured—were gone entirely, frames and all, as more stone crumbled along their edges and disintegrated from the force of the wind.

Condorr had one arm locked around Bellus, taking shelter behind the largest fallen section of wall.

Gellar pressed himself flat behind a stone pillar and held for cover. His magick pushed outward against the wind, in the same way Condorr’s strength was his power, keeping that block of wall in place to shield them.

It made no difference.

Gellar’s own refined and formidable magick pressed against that wind, but it was simply not enough against this different kind of power. It was as if he’d entered a conversation where he didn’t speak their language with a list of weaponry beyond this realm’s capabilities.

If this magick can do this to us…?

At the eye of the storm, Angela lay in the shredded remains of the Dream Circle. The chalk and feathers were gone, but the mattress floated in perfect stillness where she lay. Except her back was arched like a bow, with one hand locked in a white-knuckled grip around her medallion, her face tilted toward a ceiling that was cracking above her.

She was screaming, a raw and ancient sound that made his scalp prickle and skin crawl.

Gellar pressed against the fallen pillar as the cold settled into his bones. It had nothing to do with the wind but everything to do with her and that scream.

“What have we awakened?”

FORTY-ONE

The Bone & Whistle was quiet this time of the morning.

Good. Zarek didn’t need the music, the laughter, or the constant over-crowded current of other people’s thoughts pressing against him. He leaned against the bar, stared at his drink, and felt the whispers moving through the room like smoke, as thought after thought brushed the edges of his awareness. Those from the magical realm came to drink in the mortal realm and pretend, for a few hours, they were free from the Paradox Accords.

He hated being here. The distance was too far for his liking, and the Claiming paced inside him like a caged beast, mixed with his own anxiety over what was happening to Angela back in the Keep.

He’d chosen this particular Bone & Whistle for a reason. Yellowknife, Canada, was well under the Great Dark this time of year. It went for weeks without sun, where the aurora borealis shimmered and wove its way over the hidden magnetic fields that shifted or stilled old Father Time. Using the knowledge of the ancients, and with the Veyllgate humming quietly at the far end of the bar’s corridor, as long as they stayed inside behind the bar’s doors, they’d keep their timelines aligned as much as physics would allow, while dancing along the fringe of two realms.

Except the waiting was going to kill what little patience he had left.

Rocharde was chatting to someone at the tables, while Martar stood beside him at the bar, nursing his drink.

Zarek had known Martar long enough to know what was coming. As brothers of the Sworn Exarchs, they were fine-tuned to track traces of magick, especially here in the human realm, so there was no hiding a shift like this—not with Martar and Rocharde close enough to feel how deeply the Claiming had settled down.

“Go on, say it.”