“Go,” Triste growled, her voice thick with strain. Kaden turned. Her eyes were wide, lips parted, and her chest heaved as though she’d just sprinted the Circuit of Ravens. Sweat sheened her forehead and face. Matol’s blood dripped. “Go.”

Kaden glanced up. “I’m going, come on. This whole place is falling apart.”

“I know, you fool.” She groaned. “I’m holding it up.”

There was no time to stare, no time to ask questions. Kaden seized her by the arm, thrust his torch before him into the half-lit darkness of choking stone dust, and dragged her forward. By the time they reached the door, the entire chamber was shaking, stones the size of his chest raining down like hail, shattering on the floor.

“Faster,” Kiel said, sliding in front of them, naczal held at the ready.

The corridor, too, was collapsing, the grinding and shattering blotting out all other sound. Of Adiv and his men, there was no sign, just a hundred paces of straight stone hallway ending in a staircase. No guards. There was no need, when Adiv could pull the entire structure down on their heads, burying them in the rubble. As though in a trance, Triste stumbled forward behind Kiel. Kaden began to follow, when a fragment of stone caught him across the back, slamming his body to the floor and blasting apart the vaniate. Pain and fear flooded in, the hot red reek of his own mortality. Powerless to shout, he watched as Triste and Kiel reached the stairs, then started up, not realizing he’d fallen.

He took a breath, almost choked on the dust, then dragged in another. Each movement of his lungs sent a stabbing pain through his back. Something was broken—maybe a rib—but there was no time to dwell on it. Without Triste to support the ceiling, the corridor was coming apart. Grimly, Kaden thrust back the wash of feeling, dragging himself to his feet.

The forty-six steps were the longest of his life, but by the time he reached the upper landing, the tunnel had stopped shaking. He could hear the last stones smashing against the floor below, but the sound was muted, partly by distance, partly by a louder, more strident noise shoving it aside, drowning it out. Men were screaming in the hallway ahead, shouting and sobbing, voices bright with desperation. Kaden took a step forward, slipped, caught himself, then looked down. The stone was awash in blood. A few paces off, a soldier lay crumpled against the wall. Beyond him another, then another.