The sound of the Earth breaking is not a roar. It is a high, shrieking tear, like metal being ripped apart by a god.
The First Chamber, a sanctuary that had stood intact since the dawn of the Moon Goddess’s intervention, is dying.
Massive slabs of granite, some the size of transport trucks, shear away from the vaulted ceiling. They plummet toward the shallow, glowing basin where Kade and I stand, our hands still locked from the vows we had just spoken. The golden water of the ley-lines flashes a sickly, blinding violet as the Architect’s sterilization beam punches through three miles of solid bedrock directly above us.
The air pressure drops instantly, popping our eardrums. The smell of pulverized rock and ozone fills the cavern.
Shield! I scream in my mind, the command echoing through
