Page 83 of The Inheritance

Elias sipped his coffee and started forward. Behind him, Jackson came out of the library and leaned on the wall.

Elias reached the middle of the street, took a deeper breath, and let go. Power roared out of him, snapping into an invisible half-sphere. Twenty yards ahead of him a mining cart slid out of the way.

Anton glanced at the cart and back at Elias.

Elias kept walking. His forcefield moved with him. The two heavy trailers just ahead of the Guardian group slid to the sides, gouging the pavement, pushed out of Elias’s path.

The rival guild group backed away. Anton remained and pulled a sword off his back. The seventy-five-inch-long blade was solid black. Pure adamant. Nice.

The forward edge of Elias’ shield touched the rival tank.

Anton gripped his sword, and the oversized blade burst into purple glow. The big man swung. The sword smashed into the forcefield and bounced off.

Elias kept walking.

Anton took a step back and slashed again. The sword rebounded.

Anton slid backward. Two feet. Three. Four. The tank reversed his sword and raised it above the pavement, about to stab it into the ground to anchor himself.

“It will break,” Leo called out.

“I’d listen to him.” Elias said, pausing. “It’s a good sword.”

Anton stared at them for a long second.

Elias drank his coffee.

The Guardian tank sheathed his sword. Elias dropped the shield. Another moment and it would be tapped out anyway.

The Guardians eyed him, wary.

Elias took the final swallow of his coffee. “Tell Graham that if he feels some way about this, he’s welcome to give me a call after I’m done with this gate.”

Anton turned his back to him and went back to the van. His team followed.

Elias watched them go, then turned around. “Alright people, I want us in that breach in ten minutes!”

The gate loomed before me, huge and dark. I turned to Jovo and pointed at it.

“Home.”

He grinned.

I opened my arms and hugged him.

He hugged me back and said something in his language. If my gem was awake, I might have understood it, but it was still dormant.

Jovo tinkered with his bracelet. A pale hole formed in the middle of the tunnel, with a fiery rim that spun like a pinwheel, throwing long trails of sparks. I glimpsed a strange city of sand-colored stone poised against a purple sky with a huge, shattered planet hanging above it.

Jovo pointed at the portal. “Baha-char. Kiar sae Baha-char.”

I had no idea what a baha-char was.

He grabbed my hands, looking into my eyes, and pronounced the words slowly.

“Baha-char, Ada. Kiar sae Baha-char.”

This seemed vitally important. “Kiar sae Baha-char.”