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It’s sadistic and totally on par with Armand’s methods.
My chest hurts, and I put my hand over the aching spot. “The heart. The test—”
“I know,” Kai says with sadness. “I’m sorry this burden has been put on you.”
Tremors continue to rack the building, and the windows shatter. Glass blows inward, and Kai and I narrowly miss being scratched up by it all on our way to the door.
When we’re ten feet away from the exit, a loud snap echoes around us like thunder.
Over Kai’s shoulder, I look back at the altar, and a split is forming along the wall behind it. The dark line travels up and up, zigzagging this way and that. Once it reaches the highest point of the ceiling, the main support beam above us breaks in the middle, and the heavy wooden halves fall to the pews.
A bunch of the benches get smashed. Debris flies in all directions, and crumbling stone falls.
Through the gaping hole in the roof, the tall belltower looms. It starts to tilt because it has no foundation anymore, and it’s going to collapse onto the temple.
Onto us.
It’s too late.
We’re not going to escape in time.
Kai gets to the door and puts me down to yank at it, but it’s jammed from the damage to the structural integrity of the building.
Wide-eyed, I watch the falling belltower. We’re trapped in here, and we’ll be flattened like pancakes in less than two seconds. We’re both going to die, and it’s my fault for refusing to leave sooner.
However, right before the tower makes impact… it stops. The ominous rumbling continues, but the steeple is suspended horizontally in the air above the roof.
I glance at Madden. He’s still by Zaylee’s case, but his hands are up as if he’s holding something heavy, and his face is red with strain.
He’s the only reason we haven’t been crushed.
He saved us.
The door opens with an ear-splitting whine, but it’s not because of Kai. It’s Madden’s doing.
“Get out!” he shouts. “This won’t stop until you’re gone.”
Ushering me through the door, Kai digs into his sack and he produces what’s left of our rations. An apple. A bit of cheese. Some dried meat.
He sets them on the ground and tells Madden, “For Zaylee.”
Before I have a chance to say goodbye, Kai releases his wings, grabs me, and flaps hard to get us into the sky.
On autopilot, I wrap myself around him, but every cell in my body wants to protest.
This isn’t right.
Zaylee should be with us now. She wasright there.
As we get higher, the destroyed temple becomes smaller in my view, and I choke out, “I can’t believe I just had to make that choice.”
“It wasn’t a choice,” Kai comforts me. “It was either stay and die or leave and survive. We did what we had to do.”
The truth doesn’t make this any easier because the end result is still the last thing I ever wanted. “What will I tell Zaylee someday? How will I explain to her that I didn’t save her from the Lost Land when I had the chance? How can I justify leaving her with that awful barbarian?”
“He wasn’t that bad,” Kai remarks.
I gape at him. “Are you serious?”
