Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“We all know you can’t go in,” Anton continued. “There are ten of us here and we’re ready to enter. Why don’t you step aside and let us fix your mess?”
“He did just say that there were ten of them?” Leo asked.
“Yes,” Kovalenko confirmed. “He learned to count.”
“Did that sound like a threat to you?” Leo wondered.
“It did.”
Leo’s eyes blazed with white. Two huge dark wings thrust from his back, ethereal as if woven from a thunderstorm. Lightning crackled and danced across the phantom contour feathers.
A pulse of deep green shot from Anton and contracted back into an aura that sheathed the big man like second armor.
“Persistent,” Krista said. “What do they know that I don’t?”
“There is a big adamantite vein in that breach,” Elias said.
“Someone has been talking.”
“Mhm.”
And he had a very good idea who. The pool of suspects was limited to four. Wagner was too pessimistic, Drishya was too young and inexperienced, and Melissa thought the guild completely had her back, thanks to Leo’s gentle style of interrogating. Only one person’s future was in doubt. London had taken an opportunity to open another door for himself.
“They aren’t normally that aggressive.” Krista frowned.
“This is being recorded,” Elias said. “They are hoping to provoke us and then splatter it all over the media.”
“You are in violation of Article 3 of the Gate Regulation Act.” Leo’s voice was an eerie, unnaturally loud whisper underscored by the roar of a distant storm. “Retreat or we will be forced to remove you for your safety.”
Anton took a step forward. The team behind him fanned out into a battle formation. Anton took another step. A third.
“That’s my cue.” Elias picked up his coffee mug and stepped out the door.
JoAnne was the first to see him. She put her hand on Anton’s arm and when he didn’t react, she said something under her breath. Anton stopped walking.
For a moment nobody moved.
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.”
He nodded.
“I’ll remember,” I promised.
Jovo grinned, let go of my hands, bowed to me, and dove into the portal. It snapped closed behind him, vanishing into thin air.
The tunnel lay dark and silent.
I took a deep breath and pulled my phone out of the pocket of my coveralls. I had carried it with me all this time, in a military grade shatterproof and water-tight case. I had turned it off when I entered the breach and hadn’t fired it back up even once. Even when turned off, phones still lost charge, and I needed it to power on now. My life literally depended on it.