Because as far as Kerrigan was concerned, the House of Shadows was doing way better than they had predicted. Only one dragon and rider casualty, the one she’d watched fall, but they’d had barely any reinforcements come in. They were still waiting for the bulk of the dragons and the foot soldiers that they’d promised would be there. And still, they worked on the dam.

Kerrigan stretched her aching back. Her magic had already been low, and after days of work, it was down to sputtering. She felt useless as Roake and Fordham picked up the slack. She drank long and deep from her waterskin and ate a small lunch to try to bring back her bottomless well of magic. It was the wrong time for her to be pulling up short.

The food did help. She could feel herself managing to knit it back together, if slowly. But as she sat on a nearby rock with Audria at her side, she tilted her head.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

“I don’t hear anything, except us,” Audria grumbled. She turned for the hundredth time back to Lethbridge, as if she could go to the thick of it by force of will.

“No, no, there’s something.”

She closed her eyes and listened harder. It was a whooshing sound. Like wind through the trees or an avalanche or…

Her eyes snapped open. “Get back!” she screamed. “Get away from the river.”

She scrambled to her feet and tugged for Tieran to come to her. He broke free from his work instantly, rushing to her side.

“Get back to work!” Alura shouted. “I didn’t say you could stop.”

“I hear it now,” Audria said. Then, she pointed north. “The river!”

Alura jerked around. Her eyes widened in horror. “Move, move, move!”

Kerrigan jumped on Tieran’s back just as the first rush of water came flowing down out of the mountains. It was enough water to fill the river and then some. It was the flood that came with the first snow melt. It was easily a month early.

Tieran jerked straight upward, and Kerrigan clung to him with all her might as the river hit the top of the rocks and obliterated the dam in a matter of seconds. She screamed and closed her eyes as water cascaded all around them. Tieran leveled off when he was high enough to be out of the way and then circled back down.

Audria and Alura had gotten out, but Fordham and Roake weren’t as lucky.

“Fordham!” she yelled over and over again.

A head bobbed up out of the water. Kerrigan recognized Roake and gestured for Audria to dive down for him. Roake’s dragon, Luxor, had just pulled himself out of the torrent of water on the opposite bank and would be no help. But still, no Fordham.