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A ALIA HAD WAITED too long.

Relief had made her foolish, stoking false confidence when she should have heeded caution. A rider atop a fleet-footed horse had rushed to the walls of the Bad’i Chaa. Word had reached the Blood’d Tower, dispatched from spies in Azantiia. She had read it with great joy. Rami and the others had miraculously escaped imprisonment. The curled missive had been too brief to offer details. Only that the Razen Rose was seeking a way for them out of the city.

Upon reading this, Aalia had been anxious to rush back to the citadel, to await further updates. But with happiness surging through her, she had ignored a tremor, one that was slightly rougher. She had trusted it was yet another tremble that would die away like so many others.

Tazar had urged her back to the citadel, but she had held off, too joyous to believe the worst. Word had spread of her presence at the school. It had helped draw more to this firmer footing. She intended to be that beacon for as long as possible.

But the tremor quickly grew into a quake.

Then a series of them.

As they worsened, Tazar had not asked for her permission but had driven his stallion like a broom and swept her off the wall and into the circle of mounted Paladins waiting below.

Now, they all raced back to the safety of the citadel, which had bunkers, reinforced chambers built centuries ago as protection against the quakes that plagued the Eternal City.

As the ground shook and jolted, a phalanx of Paladins led the way, a silver arrow cutting a path through the city. Their route back had already been plotted, a zigzagging line across the city’s most stable areas, a stretch of over three leagues. Unfortunately, the same firmer ground—islands and sandbars in this turbulent sea—had drawn masses of people. They crowded into buildings, homes, and shops, spilling into the street with tents, with wagons, along with oxen, mules, and horses.

Aalia’s bannerman led with a raised flag, which waved with the crossed swords of the Klashean Arms. The Paladins to either side forged through the crowds, knocking people away and bellowing to clear a path. The panicked mass hardly moved. Yells and cries and the bawls of distressed animals rose to a deafening din. The crush of so many forced the Paladins closer to Aalia and Tazar. Soon they were racing knee to knee.

Horses heaved amidst clattering hooves.

Ropes of slather got thrown about.

Still, the riders pounded on and reached a switchback that climbed a cliff, a giant step of the city. The Paladins rode faster, as the slope’s steepness had discouraged camps. They quickly reached the top, which opened a view across the lower city. The imperial wall rose on the other side, so tall it looked like the world ended there.

“Keep going,” Tazar urged her. “The gates are not far.”

Aalia nodded, but she could not tear her gaze from the city. While they were reaching these heights, the ground had bucked wildly. And this was a bedrock region free of those treacherous clefts that ran beneath Kysalimri.

She gaped out at the more unstable areas.

Across the expanse of the city, towers shook and waved. Many had crashed, casting up flumes of dust that shivered and rolled upward. Entire sections had fallen away into cracks that split into gaping maws toothed by broken streets and fanged by cracked spires.

Farther out, the Bay of the Blessed boiled and frothed. At the shoreline, the waters had begun to recede, exposing sand and rock, building toward a massive surge to come.

By now, more and more dust flooded into the sky, covering the sun, hiding the shame below. Still, through the pall, the moon glowed, tinged red by the dust.

Then Aalia felt it.

Not just her.

Birds surged from the city in a massive flock, their silence terrifying to behold.

Then the entire city followed.

It lifted high, as if pulled by the moon, trembled for the longest breath—then crashed down and shattered. A roar struck her, followed by a wave of blasted air. Her horse reared, twisted, toppled sideways. She stood in her stirrups, balancing, struggling to keep the horse from falling, ready to leap away if it did.

Finally, her mount crashed back down to its hooves, jarring her hard.

Tazar shoved his stallion closer and pointed along the walls. “The gate!”

She turned to follow, but through the heavy pall, she caught a glowering view of the riven city. She shuddered at the destruction. Still, she noted a rough pattern to the gaping fissures, rifts, and dust-choked chasms. She had seen the same before, outlined in jagged clefts on Hrash’s maps.

She turned her back on the sight, praying such knowledge had helped spare many, but she struggled to grasp that hope with the ground still jarring with sporadic hard shakes. It felt like the final death rattles of the Eternal City, a name that now sounded mocking.

She joined Tazar and headed along the wall, aiming for the main gate a half league ahead. Then a shout broke through her sullen hopelessness. She turned as a Paladin leaped off a saddle to the left. His armored body struck her, knocking her back onto the rump of her horse. She would have tumbled off the rear, but his weight had fallen across her legs, trapping her.

Then the boulder struck, after breaking off the wall. It slammed into the Paladin’s shoulder, shattering bone, ribs, knocking his crushed helm away. She shoved straighter, with the stricken man still across her lap.

An arm lifted, and a face offered a profile running with blood.

An eye stared up.

“Regar…”

His arm crashed down, taking his life with it.

Tazar reached her and tried to pull the body away.

“No!” she yelled harshly, too harshly, too pained to take it back.

She simply cradled her Paladin and continued on.

By the time the procession reached the main gate, the shuddering had quieted to jolts and shivers. She entered the towering archway, formed by a pair of crossed gold swords.

People crowded here, too, yelling, angry, terrified, looking to lash out. They packed the yards both inside and out the walls. She passed through the throng, still cradling Regar across her lap.

“We should get to the bunker,” Tazar warned. “There will be more quakes before this is over.”

She agreed—but only about this not being finished.

She turned her horse to face the city. Crowned overhead by the archway’s crossed swords, she stared out at the devastation. She felt the weight across her legs, trapping her, not letting her escape her grief.

Tears coursed down her face.

She cried for the man on her lap, for the city, for all who suffered the same.

Slowly the shouts and clamor quieted, spreading outward.

She felt a thousand eyes upon her as a beam of sunlight pierced the dust and lit the archway. She held her Paladin and bared her anguish to the world.

Then a low chant rose and spread—from the archway, across the yards, and beyond.

E Y’llan Ras…

E Y’llan Ras…

E Y’llan Ras…