Chapter 18 · The Anchor Beneath Us

"Drop the blade, Seraphina. That arm is the only thing keeping me attached to this side of the rift."

Calian's voice came from beneath the broken vault floor, rough and strained. His trapped arm vanished into a ring of black ice while the rest of him was dragged toward the crack splitting the stone beneath us.

I tightened my grip on the silver blade. "Then stop fighting me."

"I'm not fighting you. I'm fighting the damn rift."

"You always say that right before you make everything worse."

The floor bucked. My knees slammed into the stone, and the blade nearly flew from my hand. Calian's fingers clawed at the edge of the broken platform. Frost climbed his wrist, locking him in place inch by inch.

Behind him, the rift opened wider.

It wasn't a hole anymore. It had teeth.

Two slabs of black stone twisted inside the split, forming blades that scraped against each other with a sound that made my molars ache. The pull from below caught Calian's coat and snapped it hard against his body. His shadow stretched toward the opening, thin and wrong, its edges already dissolving into the dark.

"Seraphina!" he barked. "Move back."

"You first."