Page 175 of The Gods Order

I hold my breath as both Kyzen and Riven shift their weight.

The god takes one step toward us. Then another. My foot leaves the ground to meet his next stride, but Amick holds his hand out, halting me.

One strike. Clean. Silent.

That’s all it’ll take to stop him from discovering us.

Amick holds my glare as if he can read the thoughts in my mind and is commanding me with his eyes to wait a fucking minute. I try to tell him with mine we may not have a damn minute. This guard shouldn’t be sensing the slightest thing from us right now.

The Dark God studies the hallway another long moment before grunting beneath his breath. With a shake of his head, he resumes his patrol. Only after his footsteps disappear does the ache in my lungs remind me I’d stopped breathing.

“Let’s go,” Amick says.

“What the fuck was that?” Sevryn asks, peering over his shoulder at us after we take a few strides forward.

“What’s going on, Godrun?” Gladian asks, cutting in before anyone can actually form an answer for Sevryn. “He passed right by the front of our group and didn’t pause till he reached us.”

“I was fucking present for that, you asshole. I didn’t do shit. I have us all covered,” she says, sneering at him.

“It’s probably the sons,” Barir grunts. “You all have an unmistakable air of Obliteration that surrounds you.”

The fuck we do.

There’s no doubt the glares my brothers give him match my own. He holds his hands up and faces back forward like he’s supposed to be fucking doing. Words escape us from that moment on as the activity in this part of the wing increases significantly.

Two separate times we have to flatten ourselves to walls or sprint down a hall because Attendants busy themselves cleaning already clean surfaces. I know more than anything my Binder wants to snatch them up and save them, but that isn’t an option right now.

Doren has to change directions another two times when we come across patrols pacing the ends of halls. Their positions raise my suspicions. It’s strange that they’d walk back and forth from wall to wall rather than the entire length.

We turn down another hall and the transformation in appearance is subtle at first, then becomes obvious.

The polished stone beneath our boots loses its shine and the vibrant veins of gold fade into muted shades of charcoal and ash. Marble statues give way to bare walls. Their surfaces are marked by hairline fractures that no one has bothered to repair, which is both shocking and concerning.

This hall seems far below our father’s standard.

Even the air changes.

The crisp scent of cedar gives way to cool stone and undisturbed dust. It smells like a place people pass through only when necessity demands it.

Doren’s fist rises without warning as we approach the end of the hall.

You can only go left from here, but regardless, we all stop as one behind him.

He edges to the corner, leaning just enough to steal a glance beyond it.

“Four guards,” he mumbles. His eyes sweep over each of us before settling on Thayla. “The Binding is through the double doors they’re standing in front of.”

Silence settles over the group. Then she steps forward.

“We’ll go first. You all stay behind us.”

Sevryn looks half a second away from arguing, but Yemi’s quick to drag him to her by his hand.

Kyzen falls into place on one side of Thayla, with Amick on his left. I press myself beside her and Riven takes my right.

We move as one.

The farther we creep down the hall, the more the corridor seems to narrow around us. It doesn’t actually grow smaller, but the air is thinner and the power pulsing wraps around me with suffocating pressure.