Azalea straightened up, spat out the slush left over from the many pills she’d crunched in her mouth to keep going, and turned into a streak of starlight that disappeared, heading off into the scorched wasteland.
Artekay bent down and scooped up some hot sand and ashes with his hand. He looked to the south.
“Holy s**t!”
Where there’d once been mountains, now only a thin, barely discernible strip of somewhat elevated land stretched out into the distance, as if someone had taken a sword as long as the heavens themselves and cut the mountains and the earth. There was no monster to be seen. The sky gradually lightened and sunlight returned to the mortal world. The jungle was gone.
***
Hadjar was lying in a pool of his own blood, breathing heavily, his armor torn. The white symbols we
