He was full of pride and arrogance as he ran through the pleasure gardens and toward the main rooms. His goal was the main staircase. When he had been there last, it had been the only staircase.
Behind, the great cat could feel the Deacons forming a Conclave, but even for Derodak’s children that would not be an instantaneous thing. He smashed through another door, and filled the palace with his roar. It had been generations since he had been here, and the building was much, much grander than it had been then.
However, there was one thing that had not changed. The cat turned his head and snarled. He could feel it under his paws like a hot piece of metal. The breach where nearly a thousand years ago he had stood with Derodak and pledged his allegiance to the Rossins—giving them his name and his power—still existed.
It was the weakest point between the Otherside and the human realm, and even after it had sealed, a scar remained on the fabric of reality.
Now it was screaming once more.
The Rossin knew that there could only be a few more moments. He flicked his head in the other direction and felt another presence appearing near him, a familiar one. It should have been upsetting, but in fact this new arrival gave him hope.
However, there was no time to waste on waiting for reinforcements. The Rossin wheeled about and bounded down the steps—moving much faster than any human could ever hope to. He passed quickly from the newer parts, through to the Ancient mosaicked walls, and finally into the bare caverns. Along the way he found Deacons waiting for him in their dark cloaks. They held up their foci and tried to use runes on him. When that failed, they tried to use swords. The Rossin sprang on them and snapped them as easily as twigs. They had not expected his return, and the one of their number who could stop him was otherwise engaged.
By the time the Rossin reached the final chamber, he was soaked in blood and flesh, though the blood did not please him as it once had. A terrible sound split the air just as his paw was on the threshold. The great cat looked up at the carved Maker of Ways and saw it was crumbling away. Then the whole ground shook, forcing the cat to spread his paws and brace as it rumbled under him.
Then he smelled it; the hot, fetid odor of the Otherside; something that he had hoped never to experience again. His roar of outrage was lost in the tumult. He bolted through the door toward it.
For a moment all he could see was the geistlord, the Maker of Ways. He towered in the tiny cavern, because above it was more than just a cavern now. The huge form of the Maker was holding apart the breach, two large tentacles in the human realm, while his wide black green shoulders were braced in the Otherside.
Eyes like red lanterns were fixed on the new world, and behind him were all the host of the undead. Closest burned the Murashev, Herald of Doom, ready to burn brightly. For a heartbeat, the Rossin saw nothing but those dire figures. The Maker was pressing on the breach, his strength alone holding it open.
The power to summon the Maker was beyond anyone in the human realm, even Derodak. Thinking of him made the Rossin capable of pulling his eyes away from the looming geistlord.
Below, near one of the writhing tentacles, he saw Derodak and Sorcha Faris. The Arch Abbot was leaning over her, pressing his hand against her collarbone, his eyes boring into hers. She was limp and pale, but her eyes were focused somewhere else.
It was the Wrayth in her. The Rossin saw with all the accuracy of a Sensitive. She was being forced to use those powers to connect with all of humanity. They could not feel it, but she was their conduit, gathering their wills to make the breach and the summons.
Yet still the Arch Abbot had time to spare for the Rossin. He looked up, full of power, and then held out his leather-clad hand. The shield rune sprang up between them, burning scarlet and unbearably hot in the room. It was Derodak, and he was like none of his lesser children.
The Rossin paced back and forth before the burning flames and contemplated the end of the world that had been his home. His frustration burned as brightly as the fire between them.
To have come so close and then be stymied by his old enemy was beyond frustrating. Still as much as he roared and raged, the shield of flame still held him.
Merrick, Zofiya and her army, on board the Summer Hawk, reached Vermillion on the wings of the coming storm. The weather had turned against them, and it had taken much longer to make the capital than usual. Still the Empress drove them on, urging her captains to burn whatever weirstones they needed to get them there in time.
When they first saw the city, Merrick rushed forward and saw immediately the damage that had been inflicted on the great city. The streets were full of panicked people, and the palace was burning with a flickering light, the like of which he had never seen before. Screams and prayers to little gods wafted up from below borne on smoke.
He took his place with the Empress, the Fensena and Aachon on the prow of the airship and none of them spoke. Zofiya had told him the state that she had found the capital city in and that had been enough to shock him—this was something else.
The coyote pressed against the Sensitive. “Look with your real eyes, youngster.”
He was almost too afraid of what he would see to try, but Merrick finally opened his Center and spread it over the city. What he saw sickened him. The lovely capital full of life and commerce was a fractured and injured animal. Robbed of peace, it was descending into anarchy. The air was stained with the terror of her people for not all of them were dead. That would happen when the barrier to the Otherside was gone and they became fodder for the geists.
“Look toward the palace,” the Fensena’s remarkably calm words intruded on Merrick’s contemplation.
At first he thought the center of the city was on fire, but then he realized it was something else. Indigo colors stained the sky over the palace, while tumultuous clouds flickered with barely contained lightning. “The breach is opening,” Merrick whispered under his breath. He had read about it over and over again in his studies, but he had never thought he would live to see it happen again.
Behind him he could feel the rest of the Sensitives—his Sensitives—reacting with horror as their knowledge brought the reality of the situation home.
He turned to Zofiya. “We need to get down there, now . . . we can’t go to the port. We must go there.” He pointed down toward the palace itself, though he wished to point only to the horizon and demand to flee.
“And then?” the Empress asked him. “What shall we do?”
They were hidden from the people behind them. He slipped his hand into hers and gave it a squeeze. He would much rather have taken her in his arms and kissed her.
“I will take the Conclave into the palace,” he replied. “It will be Deacon on Deacon fighting in there. You must do what you can to help your people.”
Her eyebrows drew together in an expression he recognized immediately, but he had no time for her demands. “I should be fighting at your side—that is my palace—”
“Darling,” he whispered to her, so that only the Fensena could have heard him, “if this does not work, you must be free to lead the people in whatever way you can against the geists.”
His brown eyes locked with hers, and her expression softened even in this dire moment. Since she was Empress, it was her choice to throw her arms around him and kiss him then and there. As always Zofiya made him breathless, but this time he most especially did not want to let her go. The taste of her in his mouth was like life itself, and death was not that far away.
When they moved apart, Merrick glanced over Zofiya’s shoulder, but none of the Deacons or soldiers at their back were looking at them.
“I will do as you ask,” Zofiya said clearly, “but only for my people.”