Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,182

invisible force in midair and careened backward to slam into the stone. Fine cracks snaked in every direction from the point of impact. She twisted back into an upright position in an instant, but he was not done. Operating on pure instinct––his or the other’s, he was not certain which––he reached out with hands flared open to send tendrils of power threading through the disintegrating stone of the hive. The dome began to rumble even more violently than before. The Nar’ath queen scrabbled with her talons over the bucking surface, seeking enough purchase for another charge.

“We will destroy your kind, Adept!” she spat. “My minions will––”

“Let us see if you can command your minions from hell, fiend!” Amric snarled back.

He clenched both hands into fists. A deafening roar shook the hive, and the top half of the massive dome fell away before him in an avalanche of stone. The Nar’ath queen vanished from sight, clawing and shrieking, sucked into a growing vortex of rock and sand. The hive continued to fracture and tumble in after her, and her screeching was lost in the thunder.

A meandering crack split the stone at Amric’s feet. The vast hole that had been the top of the hive was growing rapidly; the ragged edge crumbled toward him like a voracious, widening maw that meant to consume him as well.

Amric turned and ran.

His body was bruised and battered, his every nerve tingling, and it felt as if he had been somehow singed from the inside. He pushed it all from his mind as best he could. Right now, to run was to live, and the fates be damned but he was going to run. He ran down the slope at a reckless pace, hurdling cracks as they yawned before him and skirting the sinkholes that opened like sores in the earth. The surface of the dome was decaying, softening from stone to sand, and seemed to catch at his boots as he pounded over it. His footing was far too treacherous to risk a look back, but his fevered imagination put the collapsing edge at his very heels.

He hurled himself past the last bit, leaping through the air to strike the sand of the wasteland. He rolled several times and came to his knees, gasping for breath. He was just in time to see the last remnants of the hive vanish beneath a crashing wave of sand, sending a plume of dust high into the night sky. Where the imposing structure had been, there was nothing left but a broad, shallow crater in the desert.

Amric sagged back on his haunches, shuddering with reaction. The strange presence flitted and circled within him, almost giddy, while he only felt a chilling numbness inside. He turned his hands over, staring down at them as if they were not his own. Wisps of smoke rose in slow curls from his fingers.

The whicker of horses caused him to lift his head. The others drew rein a short distance away, their eyes wide as they stared at him. Valkarr rode at the head of the group. Amric searched his friend’s expression, seeking any clue as to what he was feeling at the moment: revulsion, fear, anything. But the Sil’ath’s face was frozen in shock, and revealed nothing.

Bellimar urged his horse forward, edging past Valkarr’s blue dun. Incredulity and triumph warred within his ancient eyes.

“Swordsman,” he whispered. “Your aura––”

“I know,” Amric mumbled, looking back at his hands. “I know.”

In truth, he could feel the power still radiating from him like the heat from a bonfire. He closed his eyes, trying to shut it all out. He had asked for this, had invited it to emerge, had all but demanded that it fully join with him. But it was too much, too fast, and it felt like it was consuming him from the inside. The strange presence within him faltered, sensing his rejection. Its elation faded, eclipsed by rising puzzlement and concern.

Amric heard several of the riders slide from their mounts, heard the thumps as their boots hit the ground. Tentative steps approached him where he knelt. He felt them gathering around him, but no one touched him, and nothing else broke the silence except his ragged breathing.

Nothing, that is, until a sharp crackling began in the night air.

Amric’s head snapped up. He felt a jarring sense of panic come from the other within him, and that brimming presence fled, winking out of existence so quickly that Amric was left reeling at its sudden