A burning spear of pure jinsei smashed into the ground next to me. Sand and grit exploded into my face, nearly causing me to lose my grip on the sandstone pillar. Another spear landed behind me, and a third hammered the stone between my hands. Cracks raced away from the impact point, unraveling the strength aspects I’d woven into the slab. In the space of a single breath, the spears obliterated all the work I’d done.
There was no time for thought or worry. I threw everything I had into a final, convulsive jerk backward. The stone rasped through the rubble as I gained a full three feet on that step.
And the pillar began crumbling to dust.
I let go of the stone and lunged forward, my jinsei-fueled legs carrying me faster than the speed of gravity. I’d pulled my friends back from certain death, but they weren’t out of the chasm. I slid on my belly to the edge of the abyss and grabbed Eric’s hand with both of mine.
“I’ve got you,” I shouted. “Let go of the stone!”
A spear vanished into the chasm. Its light burned for what felt like an eternity as I dragged my friends out of the darkness.
I summoned my serpents and commanded them to drag us back from the edge. They anchored themselves on the stone, pulled, reset their anchor, and pulled again. I clung to Eric’s arm, my eyes raised to watch for falling spears. The enemy had our range, but they hadn’t zeroed in on us.
Yet.
Finally, Eric was back on solid ground. He held onto Abi’s hand and turned around to help me pull. In a handful of seconds, we’d dragged Abi and Clem out of the jaws of certain death. But there was no time to enjoy our victory. A swarm of spears had reached the height of its arc and was now plummeting toward us like a meteor shower.
“Go!” I shouted. “Go, go, go!”
We all turned and ran ahead of the barrage. Clem and Abi stumbled, and Eric and I dragged them forward until they regained their feet. The spears were so close, I swore I heard the spitting hiss of the burning jinsei. We wouldn’t make it.
“I’ve got this!” Abi shouted. “Run!”
My friend raised his hands above his head and activated a variant of the discipline he’d used to keep the warped away from the rest of us. A powerful force emanated from him, and the barrage of jinsei spears twisted and turned in the air until their blazing tips aimed at Abi’s heart.
“No!” I shouted.
He remained utterly calm as the spears plunged out of the sky. The deadly projectiles slammed into buildings as they arced through the air, shattering sandstone and causing one structure after another to collapse. My friend vanished beneath the veil of destruction, his last moments hidden behind a wall of billowing sand.
The Loss
THE HERETICS UNLEASHED ragged battle cries. Their spears had demolished blocks of the ruined city. They’d seen my friend vanish in the cloud of destruction they’d inflicted on the ruins.
“Abi!” I shouted.
“Stop.” Eric grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me to face him before I could race out to dig our friend out of the ruins. “There’s no way he survived that. We have to use the time he bought for us.”
Eric’s words cut deep into my heart. I hadn’t come this far to lose one of my friends. Abi hadn’t bought us time, he’d saved our lives. If I had the chance to do the same, I’d take it.
“Get off me!” I spun away from Eric and raced to the pile of rubble, hoping the cloud that still hung in the air would hide me from my enemies.
Abi wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead.
The sand-choked air burned my eyes and tore at my throat with every gulp of breath. My Vision of the Design had shown me a glimpse of a future that might still come to pass. But only if I found Abi in the next few seconds.
“Jace!” Clem shouted. “We have to go!”
The despair in her voice was like a knife in my guts. But that pain was nothing against what I’d feel if I didn’t save my friend.
I reached the mound of fallen sandstone at the center of the destruction. Rubble still rained down from the buildings that surrounded me, the sandstone blocks shattering against the cavern’s floor. Fault lines in the ceiling widened and dropped even larger slabs of the failing dome that kicked up plumes of grit and dust when they exploded on impact.
My mind’s eye still held the image my technique had granted me. I reached the exact spot I’d seen. My serpents helped me fling rubble off the pile with wild abandon. The dust was settling; I had to finish this before it vanished and revealed my position to my enemies.
To my mother.
Seconds ticked past. My heart raced as I hurled hunks of stone the size of cars away from the spot I’d seen in my vision. After what felt like an eternity, I saw a splash of red on the stones my excavation had exposed.
No, not stones. It was Abi’s cheek, coated in dust from the rubble.
“Hang on,” I growled.
My serpents burrowed into the gaps in the pile of jagged rock. They flexed and pushed the stones away from my friend. I revealed Abi’s head and torso, his arms pulled in tight around his chest. This was what Vision of the Design had showed me. The collapsing buildings had shielded Abi from the heretics’ burning spears and trapped him in a cage of stone. He wasn’t dead.
Yet.
I flung another chunk of sandstone off the pile and slipped down into the gap in the rubble. A quick check of Abi’s core showed me he was alive, but he was far from all right. His jinsei reserves were terribly low, and there was something wrong with his meridians.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take a doctor to figure out what was wrong with my friend.
