Page 91 of The Stone Survival
“Ubron?”
He shook his head. “We must move. The gray will be coming.”
Fuck. We’d failed. Failed to stop it.
Around me, the room fell into silence because everyone had realized the same thing.
But the sounds of battle still raged outside.
“Cameron.” Melanie appeared beside me. “You can stop it. There’s a way.” She held out her hand and opened it to offer me a ring. “This can close the rift, but you’re the only one that can wear it.”
“What is that?” Ubron demanded.
“What’s going on?” Romi asked.
“The shedim queen’s power, your grandmother’s power. It’s tied to the power of every fallen shedim since then,” Melanie said. “It should be enough to close the rift, but only a female shedim of the royal bloodline can wield it. If we get to the rift fast enough, you can use it without it harming you because you won’t have to channel it all.”
“What is fast enough?” Derek asked. “How will we know?”
“If the gray is seeping through, then…” Melanie shook her head. “I can’t…” She made to take back the ring, but I snatched it from her.
This was no time for second thoughts. “Derek, can you get me there?” He stared at me in horror. “Dammit, Derek, we’re wasting time!”
“Yes, I can get you there.”
“Cameron, what the fuck is going on?” Romi demanded. The other goyles, free of the infernals, looked just as confused.
“Orix will explain everything, but I have to go.”
“I’m coming too,” Ubron said.
“I can’t transport you both,” Derek said.
“Then I will meet you there.” He shot up through the hole in the ceiling and vanished.
I stepped into Derek’s arms. “I’ll be right back, guys.”
“You fucking better,” Shar said. “If that rift is too big, you get the fuck out of there. Derek, you bring her back. You hear me?”
I wrapped my arms around my shield. “Let’s go.”
Shar rushed forward. “Cameron! Cameron, promise me?—”
The world shifted, melting away and reforming a moment later as a deserted landscape painted purple and blue by the crackling aperture that split our world in two.
It rose so high into the sky I couldn’t see where it ended. Fifty feet wide and growing, gray matter churned beyond it, held back by an unseen force, but for how long, because already tendrilswere seeping out from the edges of the rift and spilling into our atmosphere.
Oh…Oh no…
I looked up at Derek seeing my realization echoed in his face.
“We go back,” Derek said. “It’s too late.”
I wanted to agree. Wanted to run, but… “If we go back, then everyone dies.”
He held me tighter. “My Cameron…I cannot let you do this.”
I didn’t want to do it. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to run away, but if I ran, then I’d doom my world. “This isn’t your decision, Derek, it’s mine. I need to do it now. Before Ubron or anyone else gets here.” Because seeing him, seeing Serath or any of my friends would weaken me. Would make me doubt and then…then everyone I loved would die. “Please…” I swallowed past the tightness in my throat. “I need you to tell me that it’s okay. That…that everything will be okay. I need you to make me strong.”
