60
Time seemed to slow as they fell.
Down, and down, and down.
Darien did not let go of her. One of his arms was wrapped tightly around her waist, the other cupping the back of her head, holding her face against his chest. Planes of cristala and chunks of stone and cement plummeted through the air with them, and a blast of smoke and fire swept up to gather them in infernal hands.
People were incinerated in the blast. Buildings were razed to the ground. Asphalt rippled and crumbled as seismic waves crashed over the streets.
Powerlines snapped.
The bridges over the river burst into dust.
The vast ocean trembled in the distance, the waves that were generated from the Well undulating far and wide.
Still, Darien held onto her, and she closed her eyes, her fingers squeezing his shoulders.
Until the glass and stone and cement were a torrent of destruction all around them, and she was ripped out of his grasp.
A wave of black swallowed her whole, ushering her off to some quiet and faraway place, where all of this was no more significant than a dream.
Sometime later, Loren came to, jerking to attention with a horrified gasp among what remained of the Control Tower—what remained of her city.
That single gasp echoed far and wide, for there was no other sound in the world. There was nothing but silence.
Skeletons of cars continued to burn, and plumes of acrid smoke twisted into the rosy sky of a new day—a new year no one but herself was around to see.
She should’ve died. By all rights, she should’ve died. But the ring Darien had slipped onto her finger had kept her alive. The leather-like armour was tattered and warped, hot against her skin from the force of the city’s incineration.
And Darien…
Where was Darien?
Loren’s leg was pinned beneath a twist of metal and cement. She shoved it aside with a scream of frustration and pushed herself up from the rubble.
But her legs refused to carry her. They collapsed from underneath her, bruises splitting through her kneecaps.
Throwing back her head, she sucked in a breath and screamed out his name.“DAAARRIIEENNN!”
An awful, heavy silence stretched all around her, and she realized she was alone. Not one person remained, not one demon. Not one building or home was standing.
Corpses were strewn about the square. Hundreds of them.
Thousands of them.
Through the twisting smoke, she spotted him several feet away, buried beneath the debris of the tower, the horrible, battered lump of him reflecting in the sharp planes of cristala standing vertical around him like a mirrored fence.
She blinked her eyes as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
His body was a bloody pulp. That handsome face was charred and peeling, blackened by the hands of fire and raw magic. His clothes had been torn, hardly more than tattered ribbons, blowing in the smouldering wind that swept through the square.
A strangled sound clawed out of her throat. Loren crawled to his side through the wreckage, shoving aside glass and metal and rock from where they were piled on top of him, not caring when the bits of piping and jagged windowpanes chewed through what was left of her armour and into her palms, as she carefully gathered his head into her lap.
“Darien.” The word was a soft gasp.“Darien.”She shook him, but he wouldn’t move. “Wait,” she stammered, her voice thick. “Don’t go. Don’t go. Walk with me, Darien. I want you to follow the river.Please. Go to the ocean with me—please.”A sob ripped out of her, cutting through what was left of her heart. “Stay with me!Please.”
He was so lifeless, so still.
He was gone.
