Page 207 of Scorched Earth

Not wind, she realized. Water.

“Run!”

The Maarin heard the river, too, and their eyes fixed on her and Sonia as they raced toward the docks. “Hurry!” they shouted. “Faster!”

Lydia’s boots hit the dock.Don’t look back,she told herself.Just get to the ship.

They were almost there, the ship beginning to push away, the gangplank barely bridging the gap.

“Go!” Sonia shouted, shoving her across.

Lydia’s feet flew up the gangplank, but as she reached the ship, she felt the wood slip. She leapt onto the deck, then twisted and screamed, “Jump!”

Sonia leapt, their hands locking right as the river exploded into the harbor with the force of a god’s fist.

Lydia screamed, holding tight to her friend’s hands as the surge struck the ship and tipped it sideways, the Maarin shouting as they clung to handholds. The vessel groaned and cracked, slammed into one of the other docks, and then they were rotating out into the harbor. Lydia dragged Sonia onto the deck as Vane screamed, “Calm the seas! Calm the seas!”

But the only person who could do that was one of Madoria’s marked, and Fara was lying on the deck, blood streaming from a wound on her head.

The flooding river dragged the ship across the harbor, hurling them toward the sea walls with alarming speed.

“We’re going to hit the wall! Oars!”

But there was no time. And even if there were, the oars could not fight the strength of the river.

Lydia scrambled to Fara, desperate to heal her so that she might save everyone, but as Vane bellowed, “Brace yourselves,” she knew it was too late.

Lydia braced, then a flash of crimson scales reared from the water. A great serpent rose into the sky, fringed and beautiful and terrifying, her teeth bared at the river.

Aspasiana.

The guardian wrapped her long body around theKairense, tail thrashing as she swam against the current. But the force was too great, even for a demigod.

And the river hurled them against the sea wall.

Aspasiana screamed in pain as her body took the impact, her great form straining as she rotated the ship to pass it through the opening in the seawall before letting go. Rising from the water, the serpent screamed in wrath and agony, her body bleeding and broken, ribs puncturing her scaled hide.

All the world seemed to stand still.

Then Aspasiana collapsed across the waves, slowly sinking beneath the surge of water that flowed out into the sea.

All around her, the Maarin sobbed in grief even as they hurried to follow their captain’s orders. Sails rose, and the ship raced through the gap in the Cel fleet created by the river’s surge.

Aspasiana was dead and it was Lydia’s fault. She’d been the one who’d demanded they stay. Who’d refused to listen to every warning in an ill-fated quest to find answers.

Grief filled Lydia’s heart as she pressed her hands to Fara, healing her injury even as she looked back at the mighty city of Revat, jewel of Gamdesh and heartbeat of the West.

At the single tower remaining, the eyes of the visage carved into its onyx surface opening to reveal rings of flame, laughter chasing them as they escaped out to sea.

77KILLIAN

Rufina laughed and laughed as she circled high above the battlefield filled with Mudamorian dead, hidden by shadow as she soared higher out of arrow range.

Then the shriek of a giant hawk cut the night, and Niotin attacked her. There was a flurry of wing flaps and Rufina shouted a curse, droplets of blood raining down on Killian’s upturned face.

A crunch of bone. A cry of pain.

The hawk struck the ground in front of Killian with a heavy thump, his body shivering and then changing into the form of a man.