Chapter 195: Black hole 3

The energy kept spreading. It rolled across the valley floor like a rough tide, and wherever it touched, the ground simply stopped being there.

"Move!" Brin shouted. "Everyone, move!"

Nobody needed to be told twice. They scattered, and the generals scattered with them, all of them forgetting about the hunt in favor of running.

Kael didn’t stop to count. He grabbed whoever was closest, one under each arm and a third by the collar, and his wings tore open the air as he launched himself up.

Below him, Jordan swept his arms wide. Wind swelled beneath his siblings and lifted them off the ground, hurling them toward the mountain ridge. It wasn’t graceful, but it was enough to survive.

Quil carried some of them with the rings, including Davon, hooking their clothes and hauling them up.

Kael dropped the three onto the rock and turned back. Jordan’s group landed beside him in a heap, coughing and scrambling away from the cliff’s lip.

Then the ledge cracked.

It was a small sound. Kael turned toward it just in time to see the stone give way beneath Quil’s feet.

Quil’s eyes went wide. He didn’t even have time to scream. He just fell backward, arms reaching, and the valley opened its mouth beneath him.

And the black hole opened.

Everything slowed. The wind, the rubble, even the sound of Fin’s shout seemed to stretch into something thin and distant. Kael watched a pebble hang in the air beside his face.

Jordan reacted first. His hand shot out and he activated his ability, but it never arrived. The moment it touched the hole’s edge, it simply ended.

The hole was sucking in everything.

Kael saw it a heartbeat too late. By the time the thought finished forming, he was already moving. His wings snapped shut and he dove, the cliff blurring past him.

He caught Quil’s wrist.

"Got you!"

The hole caught them both.

The pull was immediate. Kael threw out his wings to brake, but the air gave him nothing to push against. His feathers bent backward. One wing spasmed, then the other, and the sky tilted away from him. He was losing it. Up and down were becoming suggestions.

"Damnit! I can’t hold on."

"I can’t call the rings either." Quil yelled back.

He looked down, and caught sight of the person who had opened this hole, staring into nothing, before the hole covered him.

"I’m losing it!" Kael yelled.

"Then let go!"

"Are you nuts!"

Something dropped onto the mountain above them.

It hit the rock hard enough to crack it, and Jordan spun around. Coco crouched at the edge of the cliff, her hair whipping around her face.

She lifted her head. Her eyes were dark, drained of all their usual warmth. She looked at the hole, then at the two figures sinking into it.

Her back split open.

Thick, dark tendrils burst from between her shoulder blades, rope-like and corded with muscle, glistening red where they flexed. They lashed downward, whipping through the air, and wrapped around Kael’s waist and Quil’s arm in one clean motion.

The pull affected her too.

Her boots skidded across the stone, the tendrils breaking. She dug her heels into the rock and hands immediately grabbed her from behind.

All the siblings.

They gripped her shoulders, her waist, the back of her collar. Someone wrapped both arms around her middle and planted their feet.

"Pull!"

They leaned back together. Inch by inch, she began to move backward, and Kael and Quil began to rise.

"Almost," someone panted. "Almost..."

Jordan didn’t wait to see it finish. He stepped off the cliff.

The wind caught him and held, and he walked up the air as if climbing invisible stairs, each step a hard, sharp press of current beneath his boots. The valley spread out below him. He swept his gaze across it, then across it again.

"Irue!"

The only answer was the low, endless hum of the hole. It had stopped being a hole. It was a widening absence, a place where the world had been deleted. He looked for a figure at the center of it, a flash of that familiar silhouette.

Nothing. Not even a shadow.

His jaw tightened. "Where is he...?"

Behind him, the rock gave a final groan. Kael’s boots scraped over the lip of the cliff and he collapsed onto his back, wings crumpling. Quil came up beside him, looking too calm for someone who almost got erased from existence.

"You stupid blonde!" Coco snapped at him. "Can’t you even escape right?"

He chuckled and shrugged.

"Let’s go. The mountain will be gone in a minute." Davon yelled.

Brin looked back. "Where’s Jordan?"

Everyone looked around , then up.

He was still hovering above the ridge, small against the grey sky. Fin called to him from below. "Jordan! We have to go! It’s still spreading!"

He didn’t answer.

"Let’s go. He’ll catch up." Brin gestured towards the available escaping route."

The edge of the void had reached the foot of the mountain. The trees went first, then the river, then the broken ground where the battle had been. Everything it touched did not burn or crumble. It was simply gone, folded away without a sound, as though someone were rubbing out a drawing.

Davon glanced back. He still caught a glimpse of Jordan. "How is he even still using his ability?"

"He’s probably using the properties of Irue’s ability." Brin replied.

"What?"

"Jordan can manipulate nature to be anything he wants. Whenever Irue is doing must be natural, so he’s using it."

Kael glanced back. "Um, are you sure he’s using it? He’s not there—aarrggh!"

Jordan dropped beside him.

"Shit!" Kael grabbed his chest.

Brin’s eyes scanned the surroundings, even as her attention settled on Jordan.

"It will keep spreading."

Jordan looked back.

The valley was gone. Where it had been, there was only the black hole. The mountain’s edge crumbled into it piece by piece.

"Father would have to handle whatever ’that’ is."