Page 62 of A Tempest of Shadows

Slowly, the throbbing eased, and my belly stopped feeling like it was going to hurl everything inside it all over the ground. Ryker came back and clasped my elbow.

“Are you okay?” he inquired.

“I’m doing better.”

“Good.”

He handed me my bow and quiver; I had no idea where he’d found them in the scattered debris littering the ground, and I didn’t ask. He kept hold of my arm as he led me toward the portal ten feet away.

“Are you okay?” I asked, though he looked fine.

“Yes.”

He led me into the portal he’d created, and a few seconds later, we emerged in the woods near the edge of The Hollows. “I have to go home,” I protested.

“I know, and we’ll go there next, but I had to see the town and if anything happened to it.”

I glared at him, but it made my head start pounding again, so I stopped. Shouts and cries of suffering quickly diverted my attention from Ryker to the horror unfolding in The Hollows.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Ryker

Ellery hovered at my side while we watched the troops sweeping through the town. Samael led a contingent into the tavern; a few seconds later, shouts erupted, and amsirah fled the building.

Debris littered the street, and while some of it—like a couple of busted lightning rods, roof tiles, thatching, and windowpanes—was probably because of that wall of air, much of it was also from the troops.

Chairs, ribbons, clothes, and other assorted wares littered the streets. They could also be from the windstorm, but the soldiers weren’t shy about heaving the merchants’ wares into the dirt or tossing furniture from the buildings.

“What are they doing?” Ellery breathed, seeming to have gotten over her annoyance at me for not taking her straight to her manor.

“I don’t know.”

After a few minutes inside the tavern, some soldiers emerged; they dragged two patrons between them. The men yelled and kicked against their captors, but their efforts proved futile as the soldiers pulled them toward the center of town and threw them into a carriage with bars on the windows and doors.

More bars created the back and side doors. Five men and two women were clinging to those bars as they stared out.

“What could they have possibly done to deserve this?” Ellery whispered.

I didn’t have an answer for her because I didn’t know. More screams sounded as residents raced out of their homes and other establishments. As customers and guards shouted, tables and chairs flew out of the inn’s doorway.

More soldiers kicked open the doors of the homes. Some of the residents fled into the trees, and while I would have liked to question them about what was happening, none of them came near us.

I decided against tracking them down. There was always later if it became necessary, but I suspected I’d get most of my answers from my father.

One of the men the guards chased stopped in the street. His hands moved as if he were trying to open a portal, but nothing happened.

The guard tackled him to the ground, burying his face in the dirt as he jerked the man’s arms behind his back. Why didn’t a portal open?

I was distracted from this question by a screaming woman who was kicking and punching at the guards carrying her out of the bordello. The guard held her back against his chest as she flailed to get free.

She didn’t succeed, and they tossed her into another prison carriage I hadn’t seen parked beside the blacksmith shop. More men and women filled the inside of it.

Another woman ran down the street; she stopped in the middle, planted her feet, and waved her hands. Again, no portal opened.

Are they even trying to open portals?

But why would they stop running if they weren’t trying to open a portal to get away? It made no sense; I’d opened a portal to get to Nottingshire, so why weren’t they succeeding in opening them?