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One of the men faced the imperator. “The Void, sir.”
Loren wasn’t sure why, but the statement made her blood run cold, her heart crackling, as if the same ice that coated the plants was spreading into her body. Her hand drifted toward the sensation in her chest—toward the amulet whose heat she could no longer feel.
“What’s the Void?” she asked, that strange metallic tone of her voice carrying far. The desolate land whispered her words back to her with a series of echoes.
Quinton stepped up to the pillar. Tilted his head back, peering all the way up to the top. The peak of the pillar was lost in a brewing storm. Teal light glowed within that storm, the color outlining the short silver hairs on the imperator’s head.
“What is the Void?” she said again.
There was movement beyond the Divide. A rippling of shadow.
Something was pacing on the other side of that wall.
Loren’s boot scraped as she stepped closer, squinting her eyes to see, a frozen tree branch snapping under her foot. The closer she got to the pillar, the more hollowed out she felt. A wind carried her hair back, and her teeth buzzed in her mouth, eyes watering. If she felt this terrible when she was still several feet away from it, she feared getting closer.
The men surrounding her readied their guns, pointing them at the misty wall, eyes peering through crosshairs.
One of those men glanced at Quinton, tossing his head in the direction of the Divide. “Shucca,” he said, voice hushed.
Loren stepped back. “What’s a Shucca?”
The man smiled at her. “You’ll do best to shut your eyes if you hear their howls, girl.”
Erasmus was watching her, eyes wide with fear. “Are you c-certain this is where we should go, Loren?”
Loren shook her head. “I don’t know, I— Can someone please tell me what the Void is? What are we looking at?”
“The V-void—,” Erasmus began.
Quinton interrupted. “The Void is just another of the many sections in Spirit Terra.” He faced her. “If this is where you say we will find the Well, then we need to lower this wall.”
“Are you crazy?” she hissed. “If I lower this Veil, we are all dead!” It didn’t matter if no one would tell her what a Shucca was. She could see them well enough through the rippling Divide, their silhouettes testing the perimeter. There had to be at least a dozen of them. They moved like wolves, but that was all she could see of them.
“You have nothing to fear, Calla,” Quinton said, gesturing for his men to form a line of defense. They did so without delay, ribbons of color threading through the transparent cartridges in their guns. “We have the appropriate weapons to kill these creatures.” As if that was supposed to make her feel any better.
“I don’t care,” she snapped. “Do you not see how many of them are in there? There’s no way you could take them all!”
“Use the Darkslayer,” Klay said. He came closer, his advancement causing Loren to back up, the magic coming off the pillar sending a chill up her spine. “Remember what I told you? She’s triggered whenever Darien Cassel is involved.”
Loren bristled. “Don’t.”
But it was too late.
With one hard blink that darkened his eyes, the imperator’s magic lashed into her mind.
Those same images were back. Those awful images of her family being tortured and killed. The one the imperator showed her the most was the one where Darien was strung up on the wall near the entrance to Spirit Terra, his blood pooling on the ground—
White heat and rainbow light erupted out of her with a scream. She thrust her hand out, aiming to impale the imperator with the raw power.
But he grabbed onto her wrist as her aura spread through her fingertips—
And slapped her palm onto the pillar.
Waves of color flowed from her body. It coursed into the pillar like water breaking through a dam, her blood vibrating with the blow of all that energy vacating her system, making her feel hollow, a mere husk of a woman. The pillar greedily sucked back her magic, the veins in the ground drinking it up, glowing brightly, every single branch lighting up with the various shades of her soul.
She felt her eyes turn solid white. Felt moisture dripping down her cheeks, but she swore she wasn’t crying.
It was color. Color dripping down her cheeks like paint.
