"We should've known he was crazy. I mean, he killed his best friend, right?" Axel muttered, staring at the swirling rift.
"Think we can still turn back?" one of the twins asked, voice tight.
The group shifted nervously, feet shuffling on broken pavement. No one moved toward the rift. No one wanted to be first.
Then someone stepped forward.
Nyla, with her hammer resting casually on her shoulder, walked toward the rift without hesitation.
"Don't be cowards," she called back over her shoulder. "Boss is waiting."
And just like that, she stepped through.
The others stood frozen for a moment, blinking at the space where she'd been. Then, one by one, as if her courage had been contagious, they found the nerve to follow.
***
Damon frowned the moment his recruits began appearing beside him.
But it wasn't their delayed appearance that made him frown, but the rift itself.
Unlike every rift he'd cleared before, mountain passes, forests, and swamps, this one was entirely artificial.
