Page 206 of Scorched Earth

Was a sea of legionnaires on the march.

Thousands upon thousands, the only gap in the ranks made for the war machines pulled by oxen, the siege towers reaching high into the sky.

Marcus was out there, the master of this horror, and Lydia knew that if he caught her in this library, mark or no mark, she was a dead woman.

They needed to get out.

Now.

While Sonia kept trying to get the attention of someone who might help, Lydia snatched up the lamp and went to the door. “I’m going to try to burn the wood!” she shouted. “Weaken it enough to break through.”

Splashing lamp oil around the hinges and bolt, she stepped back as flames burst bright with a loudwhoosh.

Thick smoke began to fill the room, and the pair of them pressed to the window, coughing violently.

“We just need to wait for it to burn enough that the wood weakens!” Lydia gasped. “Then I can break it.”

But the black smoke grew thicker, pouring toward the open window and leaving no air for their lungs.

“I can’t breathe!” Sonia gasped. “Lydia, I can’t—”

Lydia was already running across the room. Her shoulder struck the engulfed door and it broke in half, revealing the beam that had fallen in front of it, as well as the rubble beyond. Ignoring the pain, she wrenched the burning pieces of door out of the way and climbed under the beam. Her hands were an agony of burns as she rolled to extinguish her clothes. “Sonia! Crawl through!”

For a heartbeat, she thought her friend had succumbed to the smoke, then Sonia climbed under the beam. Coughing, Lydia hauled her to her feet, and they were running to the stairs.

The catapult stone had come through the ceiling, rock and timber and glass everywhere, the shelves a chaos of what had to beabandoned, for the librarians had only been able to take the most precious of volumes. It broke Lydia’s heart to leave the rest behind because the Cel would steal it all.

But there was no choice. Even though nothing had changed in the rhythm of the bombardment, Lydia could feel ashift.A tension in the air that immediately caused her to look skyward as they exited the library tower, certain that she’d see a swirling cloud of shadow like when the Corrupter had come for her in Derin.

The skies were clear and sunny, yet the danger she saw was just as real.

“Run!” Lydia screamed as the first god tower began a slow collapse sideways like a falling giant.

She and Sonia sprinted through streets empty of people yet full of abandoned belongings. Lydia didn’t dare look up lest she lose her footing in the mess, but a scream of terror tore from her as the tower struck its neighbor, the roar of falling rock crashing down on the city like knives in her ears.

“Faster!” She saw Sonia’s mouth form the word but couldn’t hear it over the noise of the towers descending into one another, the sky full of falling rubble.

They reached the boardwalk running down the edge of the river, the fastest route to the harbor. Yet as Lydia looked down, it was to find the riverbed totally dry.

Then another tower began to fall.

A cloud of dust exploded over them, making it hard to see, and Lydia tripped and fell. Got to her feet only to fall again a dozen steps later, her feet tangling in the piles of belongings left on the boardwalk.

Sonia caught her hand, dragging her onward, and through the dust, the familiar blue sails of theKairenseappeared. It was the only vessel left in the harbor.

The sailors on theKairensewere making ready to push away from the dock.

“Wait!” Lydia shouted. “We’re coming!”

But the Maarin couldn’t hear her over the noise.

“Wait!” she screamed, praying for the roar of falling rock to cease. Lydia glanced over her shoulder, seeing that only the black tower of the Seventh remained upright over the cloud of dust. It called to her, and Lydia stopped running.

“Lydia!” Sonia screamed. “Don’t stop!”

The ground trembled and a loud roaring filled her ears.

Something, like a great wind, stirred the dust as it wove through Revat.