The boat of the sun sank to the horizon, and still they would not settle, even though their instincts were surely telling them it was getting on time to sleep. The servants reported that none of the other animals around the estate were keyed up—with the single exception of Aunt Re’s pet cheetah, who was prowling the confines of her special chamber with the same wary urgency with which the dragons were prowling the training grounds.

And just as the sun-disk sank out of sight—everything suddenly went very, very quiet. Too quiet. Not a goose honked, not a bird sang, not even a single insect buzzed or rattled. The hair suddenly rose on the back of Kiron’s neck, and he felt cold all over, and instinctively looked around for something to clutch. The dragons went rigid.

Then—it came.

That moment of silence warned them, and they had all braced themselves, but it was still gut-wrenching. When the ground below one moves, the body automatically reacts, sharply, and with the most acute of terror.

And this was no ordinary shake, for it went on for what seemed like an eternity. It was not bad as such things went; in fact, it was no worse than many such that Kiron had felt before the Magi began employing the Eye on a regular basis. But it went on, and on, and on, while humans and animals alike screamed with atavistic fear, while birds exploded up into the darkening sky, calling alarm at the tops of their lungs, and the dragons ramped and snorted and hissed, clustering close until their heads and long necks formed a bizarre, ever-weaving bouquet. Under the crash of things falling over, pottery breaking, cries and howls and screams was another sound, deep, that rattled the chest and the gut. It was worse than the worst thunder he had ever heard, a moaning of earth and stone providing the drumming of this dance of disaster. The voice of the earthshake was like the groan of an earth wounded near to death.

But only Khaleph lifted off, and even then, not for long, only for a moment, and he set down again in spite of the fact that the ground was still heaving.

Nearly all of them had dropped to their knees, not because it was hard to keep their footing, but because the terror that welled up inside them made it impossible to stand. Only Ari and Aunt Re remained on their feet, and Kiron could not imagine how they were coping with abject fear that made his insides turn to water and his muscles to dough. They felt it; he could see it on their faces. Yet they were holding against it.

The shake continued to go on and on for far too long, until he could scarcely think or see, hardly draw a breath for the terror that tightened his chest.