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“How do we determine if it’s safe to cross?” Niko asked. “If some measure of that magic remains…”
Nervousness like ants on my skin made me shiver. He had a point, one that meant there was no way I was letting any of my giants be the first across. But even if my stepmother had made the Warden Wall, that didn’t necessarily mean it was safe for a vampire to cross either.
“I will test it,” Casimir said solemnly.
I was already shaking my head. “If there’s anything left and it reacts to what we are?—”
“I’ll be cautious,” he assured me. “If there is any magic lingering, I should be able to detect it before I am close enough to be harmed, especially after what happened earlier. The feeling is quite… memorable.”
He said the final word with a tight expression, and I shuddered. It was that. Gods, how had I never noticed how horrible that magic felt before?
But then, I hadn’t had access to my own power before either.
With a nod to the others, he started down the hill, Ruhl flowing along at his side. Despite the protests of the others, I trailed after him, ready to grab him and yank him back if anything started to go wrong.
But away from the forest, we were horribly exposed, and I glanced around as we walked, bracing for any sign of an attack. With the wall down like this, surely soldiers were patrolling the area or at least trying to determine what the hell happened.
Unless the soldiers already knew. Or unless something else had gone wrong and there were no soldiers left…
By the time we neared the fallen pillars, I was so on edge, I could barely breathe. But even as we passed the first of the scattered stones, there was no tingle of magic or whisper of a warning on the breeze.
The Warden Wall may as well have never been there at all.
“Are you picking up anything?” I asked Casimir when we came to a stop just short of the scorch marks on the grass. My words felt loud in the eerie quiet of the field, and the breeze stirred smells of ash and something vaguely sour that I couldn’t place.
Casimir shook his head. “Whatever was here, it’s not just drained. It’s like it never existed in the first place. Like it was taken right out of the world.”
His eyes met mine, and I could read between those lines. “The Voidborn,” I whispered.
“Possibly.”
“Anything?” Dex asked from several yards back.
“An absence that is chilling,” Casimir replied. “But no more so than the presence of this Warden Wall would have been, I’m sure.”
The silence from the others was confirmation enough.
“So then,” Clay prompted, gallows humor in his tone. “Who’s going first across the big swath of death, eh?”
Again, there was silence.
“I will,” Niko said.
I turned to protest—I didn’t want any of them to risk this, though I knew there wasn’t really much choice—but he was already walking forward.
Ozias muttered something about self-sacrificing fools under his breath and started to follow.
“Careful,” Lars cautioned, looking as tense as I’d ever seen him.
Niko flashed them all a smile before turning the expression on me. Reaching out, he clasped my hand.
I didn’t let him go. “I’m coming too.”
Ozias’s growl was hardly necessary to let me know how little he liked the idea. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t letting one of them get hurt because I was too far away to do anything.
Our footsteps on the burnt grass were the only sounds as we stepped onto the scorched swath of grass.
The strange smell on the air grew worse. I wrinkled my nose in disgust.
