The blasts kept coming, and Nikolai kept scrambling, the fog helping to disguise his form. But unless he could come up with something fast, he and Mai were going to fry.
Search deeper, not broader.
Without thought, he followed the instruction, plunging his awareness deep into the earth, down and down and down. Seeking. Andfinding. He touched an endless seething maelstrom that robbed him of breath.
Welcome to the core.
It resisted him at first, until he poked at it. Questing.
And it sent him an answer.
A pulsing burst of pure energy scorched from it, through him. So powerful, he couldn’t hope to control it, only let it fly. Forks of pure red lightning as broad as his thigh shot to meet the glowing blasts the thin man fired upon him.
The resulting explosion sent dirt and vegetation hurtling past. In its wake, Nikolai rolled upright.
Were they gone?
The dust cleared to reveal the tall figure standing with raised hands. And the hands glowed...
Mai squeaked in terror, and a new pulse of rage flooded Nikolai. He launched himself toward them, and he brought the storm with him.
The wind shrieked, thunder rolled, the rain pounded down. As Nikolai ran, the surrounding bushes spawned the furred creatures. They came at him with teeth and claws. He didn’t even look at them; with a wave of his hand, he sent the lightning to fry them. Their screams were lost in the crackles ricocheting between the thin man and himself.
The blasts flew at him in rapid succession, but Nikolai’s lightning obliterated them without effort. Crimson eyes widened as the thin man became more desperate, backing away until he bumped into his darker haired equivalent. As he kept his narrow back pressed to his cohort, his blasts strengthened, becoming a continuous band of sizzling mayhem.
But Nikolai raged, and nothing would stop him. The tree, the bushes, the grass—they twisted and withered, and finally combusted, despite the pouring rain. He stood amid flames, untouched. Then he gathered them into the lightning, and sent them at the thin men.
The inferno hurtled toward the two forms, and the one with white hair raised his glowing hands. They both vanished beneath the flaming mess.
Yet Nikolai sensed they survived. That the thin man had protected them, barely. And now, they retreated toward the doorway.
They were fleeing. He’d driven them away. Trembling with rage, Nikolai tried to ramp down. The dry brush still burned around him, but the rain was winning, drowning the flames.
He sensed the exact moment when the two figures passed through the strange door. It flared brightly before vanishing.
Well done. The Torshin is powerful. You almost had him.
Nikolai wasn’t listening. He stood with closed eyes as the nausea rose. He’d done it again. Only worse this time. The devastation—he couldn’t even think straight.
But through the fading doorway, the faintest trace of the alluring emotions from his dream called to him. Pure and clean—and as he focused on it, laced with pain and fear.
His dream woman. She was afraid, and in pain, somewhere on the other side of that door. But the contact was disappearing, as the opening itself had.
It is a gateway,the voice said.To another realm.
Gateway? Nikolai strode to where it had existed. The energy that had created it chased over his skin, fading with every second. If they had passed through, could he follow?
Your destiny lies along another path. The white-haired women will find you, and you must let them.
Let them find him? But he’d spent his entire life running from them.
You weren’t ready for them to find you before. But you are now.
Ngubi had worked so hard to keep him safe from the women. Pain speared through him at the thought of his dad.
None of that matters now.
It mattered. It mattered a lot. If it wasn’t for Nikolai, and what he could do, Ngubi would still be alive.
