Chapter 33 · The Rift Looks Back

The eye was still open.

Kade could feel it watching him through the ward shell, through the stone, through his ribs. The shard in his chest pulsed hot and wrong, dragging his heartbeat into a rhythm that didn't belong to anything human.

Mira's hand was on his shoulder. Her fingers dug in hard enough to hurt.

"Kade."

He didn't answer. Couldn't. The shard was pulling him inward, showing him the shape of the thing on the other side of the Rift. It was old. It was patient. And it had been waiting a long time for someone to crack the shell.

"Kade, look at me."

He tried. His vision kept sliding back toward the ward, toward the fracture lines spreading across the barrier like spider silk. Drake was gone. Walked straight into the Rift with a core shard in his hand and a smile that said he'd already won.

Maybe he had.

The shard twisted again. Kade's knees buckled. Mira caught him before he hit the ground, her arm looping under his ribs, her breath sharp against his ear.

"Don't you dare," she said. "Don't you dare go where I can't follow.