the opposite of an earthquake. Starting from Mount Venture to the west, the ground—which had been steadily shaking all day—stopped moving. Earth aura froze.
The wave of silence reached them, and the rumbling of the ground ceased. Only a few boulders tumbled down the nearby slopes.
There came one, loud crash. Then another. Footsteps.
A dark stone head appeared over the western peak, and the Wandering Titan let out a roar that shook the golden sky.
“Run!” Lindon shouted down. Eithan was already on his feet, shakily ushering the Kazan clansmen forward, but they would only slam into the wall of people trying to choke themselves through the narrow exit from Sacred Valley.
They were beginning to stampede, even trampling each other in their desperation to get away. A massive golden light shone behind Eithan, resolving into his cloudship: The Bounding Gazelle.
It would barely fly in aura this thin, if indeed it would fly at all, but Eithan was clearly willing to try. He ushered the Kazan sacred artists onboard, physically hurling one and carrying two children under his arms before leaping up to the control console.
Lindon began flying away, toward the exit. The Akura cloudships should be gone by now, but he was seeing Fallen Leaf uniforms, and he could feel Orthos around. At least they had made it.
Eithan’s golden cloudship lurched along like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake, barely able to lift up before it had to sit back down, but it was still faster than dragging all the Kazan by hand.
Lindon left them behind, soaring over the line of people screaming and pushing to make it through the Heaven’s Glory exit.
To his relief, he could see a ship on a purple cloud flying off with its deck packed with people. Not all the Akura cloudships had taken off after all. Another, resting on the ground, was steadily filling with people.
But as he looked back west, over Sacred Valley, despair choked him again. There were still uncountably many people left. He couldn’t begin to see the end of the human line stretching off into the distant clan buildings and beyond.
Not everyone would make it.
But his family still could.
The skies were relatively clear, most ordinary citizens of Sacred Valley not having access to a flying vehicle, so Lindon soared easily over to where Orthos and Little Blue waited for him.
Kelsa paced next to the turtle, Jaran crouched on a stool and impatiently juggled his cane, while Seisha adjusted settings on her drudge. The hovering brown fish bristled with sensors and detectors; Lindon’s mother was clearly trying to figure out more information about what was happening.
All four of them stood on Windfall’s blue cloud base, and Lindon immediately recognized why. They had been directed to the right place, but they couldn’t open the door.
Lindon tried to reach out with his madra, but failed. Though he had left the suppression field, his spirit hadn’t fully recovered yet, and his pure madra dissipated only a few feet from his body.
Orthos had been watching Lindon fly up, and at his words, Lindon’s mother and sister looked up.
Lindon landed in front of them, his left hand resting on the door to his fortress. At the touch of his madra, the door slid soundlessly open.
The ramps to the nearby Akura ships were clogged, blocked by crowds of people trying to fight their way on, though the Akura Golds easily prevented any unwanted stowaways. A few of those waiting to board noticed Lindon’s fortress opening, and some groups began to run for his wide blue cloud.
“Where were you?” Lindon’s father demanded.
From her seat atop Orthos’ head, Little Blue whistled concern for the others.
“Get inside,” Lindon said, his voice low. He tried to give them a reassuring glance, but his eyes were locked on the golden horizon to the west. “Eithan will be joining us soon. Yerin got away on her own. Mercy and Ziel, I…I don’t know.”
“How are we going to carry everyone?” Kelsa asked. She had a huge backpack strapped on, but she was shifting from foot to foot, as though she longed to toss it aside and go find some people to save.
That first group of people had almost reached Lindon’s fortress, running desperately as though they thought he might take off at any moment.
“I don’t know,” Lindon said again. “We need more time. Get inside.”
His mother looked uneasily at the people clamoring to reach the fortress. “How much room do we have?”
“Enough for these, at least,” Lindon said, and Kelsa let out a sigh