The Fork did not die quietly.
Where the ground was torn asunder, cold fire ran like blood through split-open veins. The air was filled with static, distorting light into twisted forms. The sky above them swooped in to graze the roofs of the ruins; at other moments, it simply vanished, leaving black holes.
Their path was not a path but a thin ribbon of stone nestled between fissures. Beside it, oceans of molten code seethed and hungered to devour anything that dared stray within reach.
Mika took the lead this time. She walked hesitantly, but her face had set in an expression nearly of anger. She had lost her bow, yet she trailed her hands halfway up as if to create light between them. It was obstinacy that drove her forward, not belief.
