Page 87 of The Stone Survival
“She was never truly alive,” he said softly. “She served a purpose, but now…” He tipped his head back to the sky. “Now I will bring the real Flora back.”
The moon hit the center of the dome, and the chamber flared with silvery light from all the arcane symbols. The graynites jolted and stood ramrod straight as power washed over them in a shimmer of blue, then with awhooshenergy shot out of each graynite and lanced across the chamber to smash into Yarrow. He cried out in triumph, his body shivering and shuddering in the grip of such immense power.
“The bloodlines that closed the way will now open it,” Yarrow cried. “The blood of this world melded with the blood of the other will open the way. The cycle is complete.” He threw out his arms, and a thick jet of silver power rushed up toward the dome and smashed through the glass and into the night as if reaching for the moon itself.
“Yes!” Yarrow cried. “Yes, it’s finally happening.”
I’d seen movies like this. Where the bad guy laughed manically as he hurtled closer to completing his evil plan. How cheesy. How fucking pathetic. But now, trapped in the real-world version of that scenario, with dark magic swirling around the room and slicing at my skin, my lungs were gripped with ice, and my insides trembled with horror.
Thunder rolled toward us, and the world above flashed bright with lightning.
“It’s done!” Yarrow cried.
In the movies, the hero always saved the day. Bursting in at the last minute or breaking out of their bonds to stop the ancient ritual. But there would be no heroic save here. No last-minute reprieve for our world.
Yarrow had done it.
He’d opened the rift.
And we were all doomed.
CHAPTER 42
MELANIE
Time is ticking. My daughter is trapped behind an illusion that I can’t breach no matter how hard I try.
“It will be fine,” Ivor says with a confidence that I don’t feel. “They’re setting up the machine now. We’ll be through in a moment.”
But he’s just as nervous as I am. I know him well enough to read him even while he’s in his graynite form. He thought I’d be frightened. Disgusted, but I’m in awe of him. Of the power he exudes and the strength he commands. But right now, he’s just as afraid as I am. Afraid of losing the daughter we’ve only just found.
A small group of guardian technicians are gathered on a path several feet below us fiddling with a boxy machine that they say will bring down the illusion and allow us all in.
I should be able to pass through, and the fact I can’t makes no sense. “If the wards are like those around your camp, then I should be able to get through.”
“They’re saying a friend of theirs, a witch, is working with the faction. He must be aware of your existence.”
“Yarrow? No…Oh god. Yes, he knows about me. You think he deliberately added something to the barrier to keep me out?”
“He had the foresight to disable Cameron’s shield, so it stands to reason he’d consider you also. But it won’t be long. We’ll storm their base and crush them all.”
The mountain range that stretches as far as the eye can see to my left and right is littered with gargoyles, graynites, and halfbloods ready to fight the faction, but the sense of foreboding inside me won’t shift.
Something is wrong. Terribly wrong.
Derek materializes to my left. “Any luck?” he asks me.
“No. I can’t get through.”
“Neither can I,” he says. “But I think I can feel her.”
My heart leaps. “That’s good. It means she’s alive.”
“Yes, it does, and we’re going to keep it that way.”
Someone bellows a warning far below, and then all sound is sucked from the world. Ivor exhales suddenly, hand going to his chest. The world shimmers like the wavering of the air in a heatwave, then buildings materialize on the barren land. Tiny, whitewashed structures gleam in the starlight, but it’s the central, larger building that catches my eye. It’s bathed in moonlight, the tip of the tower glowing brighter and brighter.
“What—”
