I ran until every part of my body was on fire. Initially, Brayan was on my heels, but I didn’t slow down enough for him to catch up. I left him behind when, driven by sheer instinct, I attempted to draw a Stratagram—and this time, it worked. I was too relieved to question why. I leaped once, then again. The terrain shifted beneath me from the forest’s damp earth to the swampy shore and finally to the stone of deserted streets.
As I landed between two soldiers, swords already mid-swing, I was drawing my next Stratagram. I cursed and rolled away just in time to avoid their clashing blades. The maneuver nearly sent me tumbling into another skirmish, and I clawed at the dirt to stop myself.
I found myself in the heart of a chaotic battlefield, surrounded by a chaotic mix of flesh, steel, and magic—horses screaming, humans screaming, Fey screaming. The uniforms were so soaked in blood, red or violet, that I couldn’t distinguish friend from foe. Shadowy creatures I recognized as the Fey’s monstrosities tore through soldiers like rag dolls. Nura’s beasts, towering on stilted legs, roared across the battlefield, indiscriminately gutting anyone in their path, regardless of their uniform.
Fuck. I groped around the bloody cobblestones for my sword.
I didn’t have time to ruminate on how this mess had happened. I just needed to find—
BANG!
The ground shook. The sound rattled my skull. Ruins that had been stable for hundreds of years groaned warnings of imminent collapse.
The fighting paused only momentarily. Those who stopped too long to look around in confusion were cut down.
But none of these things earned my full attention. It was what lay under it—a sudden chasm that had opened in a world that I sensed deep beneath this one, a disruption that was just as tangible, just as real, as all of this.
I knew where I needed to go.
I grabbed my sword and drew one more Stratagram.
 |
I LANDED in an inch of black water. The sudden quiet was jarring. I could hear the battle happening not far from here—coming closer, as both armies tore through the ruins, alerted by the explosion—but it was oddly dampened, like my ears were stuffed with cotton. I struggled to see. Even the scent of the swamp seemed muted.
But where these senses had dulled, others were painfully sharp.
Something pulled me deep into the darkness, where collapsing arches of silver led into the dark water. Every shred of my body was allured and repelled by it at the same time. This, I thought, was what flies must feel like in the face of a carnivorous plant. I wondered if they, too, heard the voice that warned, This is dangerous. Turn away. Never come back.
That voice was screaming at me now: You don’t want to go there, Max.
You don’t want to open that door again.
But like the fly, I ignored it.
I ran into the tunnel and made it four steps before everything went dark.
