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He just wanted to go home, but home meant he would have to face Kora and...
It would be necessary for him to face her.
He couldn’t hope to avoid her forever. And after the way she recoiled from him the night before...his heart clenched, and his mouth pulled down hard at the corners.
He wouldn’t put himself in such a vulnerable position again.
“Um, Jael?”
Something in Math’s voice sounded wrong. Jael twisted from his work and followed the direction the lad was pointing.
The large crack down the middle of the floor glowed with renewed intensity. Flashing lights and tiny sparks sputtered from deep within the chasm. He darted across the chamber with Math at his heels.
An explosion sent them staggering backwards. Tiny shards of rock blew from the chasm, slicing his exposed skin and shredding his robes.
“The runestone blew!” he shouted as he dove toward the chasm. “Get me another one!”
Icy mist poured from the Bifrost, so cold it burned his hands as he scrabbled on all fours to get into position. Math shoved a fresh runestone at him to replace the temporary one that had blown.
But at the exact moment Jael pressed forward to shove the runestone into the chasm, a writhing shadow lashed out of the brightness and knocked the stone from his hand. Fiery pain raced through his fingers, and the stone clattered out of reach. Like a ribbon of pure darkness, the shadow launched at him again.
“What is that?” someone shouted.
Math hooked his arms under Jael’s shoulders and helped pull him away from the writhing shadow.
“Bind it! Bind the Bifrost!” Jael bellowed as he tore free of his apprentice and heaved himself across the ground to reclaim his runestone.
A piercing, horrible shriek all but shattered his eardrums. Even as the shadow struck him so hard on the left temple his vision blurred, he kept hold of his stone and crawled toward the chasm. His fingers shook as he traced the binding spell.
Math skidded across the ground and bellied his way alongside Jael. The shadow struck the lad, too, leaving a jagged red line on Math’s jaw that oozed blood.
Jael shoved his fist into the raging Bifrost and cried out from the icy pain that enveloped his arm. “Now!” he screamed. “Bind it, bind it!”
Math shoved his arm into the Bifrost too, his body spasming from the shock. Within moments, both the other workers had done the same; the younger one shrieked from the pain.
As one, they held fast. They mustn’t let go until the runestones were activated. Only a few moments more.
The shadow struck him again, and again, shrilling so loud Jael’s ears rang with the horrible sound, and he could no longer tell what was real and what was an echo in his battered eardrums. Blissful relief mushroomed from the Bifrost the moment the runestones activated. The magic puffed around them in the form of misty fog. One last shriek tore from the shadow before it was sucked into the chasm, down into the light, down into the Bifrost.
The fog settled over several minutes, but still Jael gripped his runestone as it throbbed against his palm. At last, he dared to set it on the edge of the crack and release his tense hold. He eased onto his haunches, fingertips braced against the ground. Math wriggled backward but remained on his belly.
“What was that?” Math gasped. Tears leaked down the lad’s sickly pale cheeks.
Across from them, the other two rune workers were also trying to collect themselves. Scratches and blood covered them all.
Warm liquid dripped over Jael’s eyebrow and half-blinded his left eye.
“It’s not an infection,” he rasped and tried to collect his racing thoughts. The others gawped at him, their eyes round and frightened. “The Bifrost is being attacked. This isn’t an infection: it’s an invasion.”
The king’s voice echoed as crystal clear as if he’d been standing in the room rather than on the other side of the obelisk.
“That last aftershock took down a building in the North Quarter!” King Ereb shouted. “We lost three citizens, Jael. They’re dead. Buried beneath a mountain of rubble.”
Jael recoiled and winced at the accusation in his father’s tone. He hadn’t done it on purpose, but his stomach ached with regret; his failure to contain the Bifrost had cost them lives.
Three precious lives.
“And more will be dead if you don’t fix this right now.”
