Chapter 46 · Dawn of the Iron Vow

"Don't move, Raven. The sky is coming down."

Seraphina drove her shoulder into his chest and shoved him behind the broken golden seat just as the ceiling split open.

A slab of black stone dropped where his head had been. It hit the floor hard enough to throw both of them sideways. Raven caught Seraphina by the waist before she slammed into a pillar, but the floor bucked again, and his boots slid through a sheet of glowing ash.

"I said don't move," she snapped.

"You said that after pushing me into a collapsing throne room. Pick a better time to become reasonable."

"You want to argue or live?"

"I can do both. You know that."

The black hole above them twisted wider.

It wasn't a hole anymore. It was a wound punched through the world. Pieces of the ruined chamber rose toward it—golden tiles, chunks of the ceiling, broken weapons, even dead soldiers who had not been dead long enough to stop screaming.

Seraphina grabbed Raven's coat and hauled him lower. Her gauntlet scraped his jaw. The metal was hot enough to sting.

"The core is feeding it," she said.