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Then it happened. A flash from the sky distracted me long enough that I raised my head, searching for the source of the light. Fuck. No fucking way. A small, white dot was suspended in the air just ahead of me on the street, and it was steadily growing, widening into one of the rifts that the shrikes used to invade our reality.
I fumbled through my pockets, my hands shaking as I struggled to unlock my phone, then scroll through my contacts for Carver’s number.
Then a searing blast of crimson light rocketed from out of the night sky, a pillar of shimmering brilliance as thick around as an old sequoia, slamming into the fledgling rift. The rift exploded into shards of white nothingness – but the crimson beam continued its swan dive towards the earth.
And towards me.
I had no time to sink into the shadows, barely enough time to dodge. I twisted my body, toeing off of the asphalt in an attempt to leap out of the beam’s path, but it wasn’t enough. I gritted my teeth as I jumped, prepared to lose the entire left side of my body to the scorching shaft of light screaming towards me.
Then something the size and speed of a runaway car smashed into my body, flinging me out of the path of destruction.
The air crashed out of my lungs in one huge, painful gust. The unidentified object that had appeared out of nowhere put a deep, cold ache in the bones and muscles precisely in my side where it had hit me. I slammed heavily into the ground, eating a mouthful of dirt.
But it was better than being where the beam had struck. An explosion smashed the asphalt, cratering the street and sending out a massive boom that shattered the air – and the nearby street lamps, and a bunch of car windows, as well as the enormous block of ice that had saved my life.
Wait. A block of ice?
I coughed as I reached for my side, hissing when my fingers made contact with the raw, bruised flesh just around my ribs. Footsteps rang across the asphalt, and I would have panicked if I hadn’t known that it was Herald, somehow miraculously come to assault me bodily with a literal iceberg in order to save me from being annihilated by an actual orbital strike.
“What the fuck just happened?” I yelped. “What the fuck was that?”
“That,” Herald said through gritted teeth, “was the Heart.”
He knelt by my side, his hand swirling with coils of purple mist as he directed slow, delicious pulses of healing magic against my bones and my muscles. I sighed in relief – then yelped in pain when Herald cut me off from the healing magic and smacked me upside the head.
“I knew I would find you here, you idiot,” Herald growled, his glasses glinting menacingly in the moonlight. “Carver said to head straight for the bus terminal, didn’t he? You have limited time to get this done. But do you ever listen?”
“How do you know about that?” I muttered, still winded.
“They’re called cell phones, Dust. You may have heard of them.”
I blinked, confused. “When the hell did Carver give you his phone number?”
Herald frowned. “Are you kidding? Ages ago, when we all met up for that seafood dinner. We talk, swap notes on spells sometimes.”
“What the – how did I not know about this?”
“It’s not like we talk about you.” Herald shrugged. “Why would you need to know?”
“You guys don’t talk about me?” I said, weirdly crestfallen.
“Shut up. Not the point.” Herald gave me his hand, pulling me up off the ground. “Come on, we have to go.”
“One more thing. How did the Heart find me?”
He shook his head. “They aren’t Scions for nothing, Dust. They’ve given up on tracking you for the moment. They know you’re hiding. So they’ve changed tacks. Now they’re tracking the rifts, and whenever one appears, they blast it with a beam of energy from right out of the sky. Just like you saw.”
“Like an orbital strike,” I said. Just as I thought, too.
“Correct. They just need an approximate location. There’s a specially constructed room somewhere in the Lorica. It’s the nerve center. The Heart’s chamber. If enough Scions gather there, if enough of them channel their forces into the Heart – ”
“They blow shit up wherever they want, whenever they want.” Damn. The Lorica didn’t play around. “You saved my life, dude.” I dusted off my clothes, brushing blades of grass off my jeans. “Thanks.”
Herald nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his expression grim. “Wouldn’t have been the first time. Come on. Bus leaves soon.”
“I can make it to the terminal on my own.” I raised an eyebrow. “It’s okay. I’ll get there safely, I promise. No more detours. Not after that – whatever the hell that laser was.”
Herald dug his heels in, then raised his chin, doubling down. “Nope. Gotta make sure you get there in one piece. Carver said so.”
