Page 95 of This Shattered Star

Then came little pieces of stone as they dislodged from above, pelting us like solid raindrops.

My eyes widened when jagged cracks split the walls like streaks of lightning. The tower was falling apart. And it would kill us if we didn’t out in time.

“Run!” I yelled.

Kodhan threw open the door, and I almost wished he hadn’t. More dust to blew into the room like a thick morning fog, making it infinitesimally harder to breathe.

I motioned for them to follow me before bolting down the corridor. Stars, it wasimpossibleto see through all the dust.

It was a reckless gamble, but I prayed that the walls had been left untouched, the maze unchanged. And prayed even harder that the exit Theia and I had used would lead to the same place or at the very least be there at all. If I was wrong, then we would be crushed underneath ten floors of stone.

Narrowly avoiding a hunk of debris that careened down from the ceiling, I didn’t let myself linger on the fact that they trusted me enough to lead them blindly through the corridors, even though I hadn’t told them where, exactly, we were headed. But I knew Theia would catch on quickly enough. And I wondered if, for the first time, she would break one of her promises. If through the magic she possessed, she would tell Kodhan and Brannon of where we would end up, if we were lucky enough.Not that it mattered anymore. Not when death chased at our heels.

We sprinted past the grandfather clock which chimed loudly above the noise of the crumbling tower. The spindly hands spun in endless pirouettes, rotating so fast I nearly went dizzy just looking at them. Its numbers were jumbled out of order, some of them upside down and others backwards.

Still, it clanged on, the horrible racket eerily in tandem with the steady beat of adrenaline pounding hard inside of my chest. It was like a beast rattled within my ribcage, threatening to burst out of me at any moment.

“Almost there!” I shouted, and it cost me. I choked on the dust curling inside my mouth, coating my tongue and teeth. There was no way to tell if other competitors made it out of their rooms. It was all too loud, too hazy, making it impossible to focus on anything other than my own two feet.

We turned corner after corner until I could finally make out the outline of our possible salvation.

Another rumble shook the ground, almost deafening and so powerful that I stumbled.

“Go,go!” Brannon shouted behind me with an urgency that had me terrified to look back.

Wind licked at my calves and thighs, pushing my legs faster.

Please open. Please,I begged as I threw every ounce of my body weight into the hard wood. My bones screamed at the impact.

There was no time to catch myself after it flung open, gloriously unlocked—or broken with the force of which I crashed into it with—I didn’t care. Itopened,swinging so forcefully that it banged into the wall behind it, leaving me flying towards the ground face first.

My knees smashed onto spotless marble, barking in pain. Worse was the groan of my wrists, courtesy of my handsshooting out to stop my nose from kissing said marble.Not grass.Gone was the shadowy, ivy laden alcove. We’d been dumped somewhere else entirely.

Ignoring all of it, I whipped my head around, gasping as Theia came flying through the threshold, propelled by the sheer force of the wind that blew my hair back from my face. Unlike me, she had enough self-preservation to tuck her body into a tight roll to ease her fall.

Kodhan followed suit. He narrowly avoided tripping over us both, twisting out of the way at the last moment. Brannon all but leapt out of the disintegrating corridor, coming secondsaway from getting crushed by a gargantuan slab of stone that slammed down from the ceiling.

Our surroundings shuddered one final time before heaving a mighty sigh.

There was no going back.

The tower was destroyed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I didn’t need to look behind me to know where we were. The floor to ceiling windows lining the ornate diamond and gold-crested halls and sleek onyx pillars were indication enough.

Clean air filled my lungs with each deep inhale, expelling the layers of dust that coated my airways. For once, that constant draft proved useful. It whistled through the deserted halls, not enough to rattle the windows, but it managed chase away the sweat threatening to bead across my temple.

“We’re in the main castle,” Theia marveled, already back on her feet. Her boots squeaked as she took in the pearlescent whorls and carvings etched along the walls—the diamonds infused there—and the gold that swirled like glittering ribbons around the tall pillars. The same pillars I’d walked past thousands of times.

“By the stars,” Brannon groaned. He ran a hand over his face. “Just when things were starting to lean in our favor.”

Trouble, indeed.

More squeaking, this time leading towards one of the windows. “The tower collapsed. It’s nothing but rubble.”

Longer, heavier footfalls followed Theia’s voice. A predator’s stalk. “It served its purpose. We can only hold our breath until we discover what will replace it,” Kodhan said darkly.