Page 119 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

LYDIA

Lydia shoved as many of the books as she could in her bag, abandoning clothes and necessities in favor of trying to save as much knowledge as possible, but as they started toward the door, the whole building shook.

They both staggered, catching their balance against the wall, the thunder of falling stone deafening Lydia’s ears.

“Catapult,” Sonia whispered. “They hit the library. We need to run.”

Lydia shoved against the door, but it was jammed. “It’s stuck!”

A desperate sob of fear tore from her friend’s lips. “The Six have mercy, we’re trapped!”

Lydia felt the blood drain from her face. Dropping her bag, she slammed her shoulder into the heavy door. The frame rattled and strained against the force of the blow, but the door held.

Sonia picked up a chair and smashed the window. “Help!” she screamed. “We’re trapped!”

But as Lydia joined her at the window, she knew to call for help was hopeless. From this height, it was easy to see that the walls were thick with Gamdeshian soldiers. And beyond…

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 loud whoosh .

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 be abandoned, 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 a shift.

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 the Kairense appeared. It was the only vessel left in the harbor.

The sailors on the Kairense were 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.

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 the Kairense , 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.