The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,110

exhausted but pleased, there were at least twenty stone creatures following in her wake.

“That’s amazing,” Violet said, grinning at her.

Isaac nodded in agreement. He’d heard stories about the Carlisles, but he’d never seen this power in action before.

It was incredible, and more than that?—it gave them a fighting chance.

“Thanks,” Harper said, flushing a little bit. She turned to face the guardians, and her voice rang out across the lake, strong and sure. “Remember: Follow me. And when I tell you who your target is, attack them without mercy.”

They headed into the woods, flanked by the soft rustlings of Harper’s stone army as they walked toward the town seal.

They had a plan, more or less, although in Isaac’s opinion it was not a very good one. Their first priority was rescuing May. Justin had told them where Richard was in the Gray?—perhaps it was naive to think he would still be there, but it was their best chance of finding him. She would be wherever he was, and then they’d have to see if the three of them were actually strong enough to take him down.

Isaac’s palms burned in anticipation of what he was about to do as they reached the edge of the town square. The copse of trees here had grown wild and impassable, pulsating and writhing. Opening the Gray would be the easy part. The airborne corruption had thinned the veil to the point of rupture, and he could feel dozens of potential gateways all around him. All he had to do was find one and pull it open.

Isaac took a deep breath. His hands began to shimmer, and he opened them wide, ripping a hole in the world.

The guardians filed into the Gray at Harper’s command. She walked through after them, looking fierce and unflappable with her sword. Violet went next, pausing at the edge of the portal for a moment.

“Hey,” Isaac said softly. “You’re not doing it alone this time.”

She flashed him a grin. “I know.”

And then she was gone.

Isaac followed a moment later. It was distressingly easy?—no strain on his muscles or his powers the way it had always been before, as if he’d merely had to unlock a door this time instead of make it himself and pull it open.

When he entered the Gray, he landed in a standoff.

Richard Sullivan stood at the edge of the town square, his hands raised, roots coiling at his beck and call from the forest that stretched behind him. Above his head was a broken white-and-gray sky, clouds roiling and clashing together like a thunderstorm.

“Well,” he said. “You three aren’t what I was expecting. A splintered bone, a tarnished dagger, and a stone with a sword of all things.”

Isaac realized, dread coursing through him, that his words had come out normally in the Gray, that the sound of their feet was not delayed a moment. If he looked to the horizon on all sides, he could see the world coming undone, the sharp outline of trees fading into mist. This place was falling apart at the seams, and they were at the center of its unraveling.

“Where’s May?” he called out, trying to focus.

“Oh, so she didn’t send you herself?” Richard said. “Disappointing.”

Isaac didn’t believe him. Richard wouldn’t let her go that easily.

“Don’t pretend,” Violet snapped. “We know you have her.”

“You’re in such a rush to die,” Richard said, sighing. “Well. Let’s get on with it, then.”

And the battle began.

Harper raised her hand, and her army of stone animals rushed toward Richard. He countered with the ground itself. Corrupted roots sliced up from the dirt, coiling around red-brown stone. Isaac stared into the maelstrom, his mind churning.

This was the man all his troubles came from. His selfishness had created the cycle of brutality that had made Isaac’s life a living hell. He was the reason why Caleb and Isaiah were dead, why his mother was dying, why he and Gabriel had been broken apart. All for this. All for power.

This was his chance to end this cycle once and for all.

He would make Richard Sullivan regret the day he’d turned on the other founders. And he would show him the boy who had survived his ancestor’s brutal ritual. Heat burned through him as he focused on the trees nearest to him, and then his fury surged outward, his hand brushing against the nearest trunk, which disintegrated to ash. Roots coiled around his legs, but they sloughed off into ash wherever they touched bare skin. He was on fire; he