“The ceeren are extinct,” Casteel stated. “They were killed off before the war when Saion went to sleep.”
The nape of my neck tingled as I faced the sea. “The ceeren descended from the gods.” My fingers pressed into the stone of the Rise as I watched some dinghies drifting toward the area where the ship was last seen, the men on the wooden boats peering into the water. “And the gods are awake.”
“Fuck,” Kieran muttered. “Let’s hope they were just seeing…dolphins.”
We could hope that, but the three of us knew better. We could still feel the unnaturalness in the air.
Casteel leaned against the stone beside me. “Where is Emil?”
The sunlight vanished instantly, drawing our gazes upward to see thick, heavy, inky clouds suddenly appear along the horizon. Their edges didn’t wisp or shift with the wind whipping along Wayfair’s ivory walls. They remained eerily rigid as they slid across the sky.
“That can’t be good,” Casteel commented.
Stepping back, I focused on the clouds as they unfurled, seeping across the sky like spilled ink. I turned as the shadow fell upon the terracotta roofs of homes and businesses, most stacked upon one another with tight, winding alleys between them. The Garden District dimmed, as did the area farther east, toward theCliffs of Sorrow. The Shadow Temple loomed like a dark void, sucking in any and all light.
“Godsdamn it,” muttered Casteel, snapping my gaze to him. He was staring toward the base of the rocky area where Stonehill had been built. “He’s supposed to be in the stables.”
Finding the tall, sandy-brown-haired Malik on the streets below took me a second. He stood with two soldiers near the narrow inlet that cut through Wayfair’s grounds, between the castle and the manor.
Naill peered over the ledge. “He’s probably trying to figure out what’s going on.” He leaned out and shouted Malik’s name.
Down below, Malik’s head cranked around. He stepped away from the soldiers, his brows furrowing and then smoothing out when he saw us. His lips moved, but I didn’t get a chance to hear what he said.
Shouts erupted from the southern border of Lowertown—shouts that quickly turned to screams, causing my heart to lurch.
A sound like thunder came from below, rising up from the businesses and cramped apartments that crowded Lowertown. I leaned out, squinting. The streets looked alive, except they weren’t. It was a mass of—
Fear slammed into me, causing me to jerk back as a horde of people barreled through the narrow streets, some on foot and others on horseback or in carriages.
Oh, gods.
Horror seized me as they pressed forward, pushing and falling, clamoring overtop one another as they ran—away from the southern border of Lowertown and the harbor, toward higher ground and Wayfair.
Soldiers spilled from the inner Rise gates, shouting orders and trying to calm the people and restore some semblance of order, but they ended up swallowed in the panic. The cries of pain were sharp, and I flinched as I backed away from thedisaster unfolding on the streets. Eather hummed inside me, pulsing intently. Panic and fear rose, bearing down on me. Red-hot pain scraped my senses—
Casteel was suddenly by my side, clasping my cheeks, his face inches from mine. “Poppy, you need to shut it down.”
“I know.” My breath was thin and pained as I flinched at the deeper, aching pulse I now knew was a harbinger of death. I struggled to breathe around the onslaught and not cave to what the essence demanded—to intervene and snatch back the lives lost. It hadn’t even been this intense while I’d been in the Continents.
The wind howled, tugging at the strands of my hair and whipping them around our faces as I closed my eyes, blocking out the chaos below. I quickly erected a wall in my mind, piling stone upon stone until it was taller than any Rise. Until the panic and fear, the stinging bite of pain, and the ache of souls leaving bodies faded away, and the need to bring them back went with it.
Mouth dry, I opened my eyes. Casteel stared down at me. A silver-streaked gold gaze searched mine. “You good?”
I nodded, dragging in more air.
“Need to hear you say it.”
“I am,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“Good.” His gaze held mine for a second longer, and then his hands slipped away.
Feeling a bit steadier, I turned back to the scene below. The mass of people was getting closer to the area below us, where the land narrowed.
“Look.” Naill pointed to the dinghies in the bay.
One of the wooden boats had drifted farther away from the other two and was now over the area where the ship had sunk. Men slowly stood as they stared into the water.
Everything happened within seconds. The men…gods, they had no chance.
