Karon touched my hand. “We need to go now. Gerick, you must come with us. I’ll carry Paulo.”

My son’s arms were wrapped about his middle. His terrible eyes pierced the gloom. So fragile in his darkness. So young.

The Lords’ wrath spun and surged around us. Footsteps rang on the stone beyond the great doors. They were coming.

“Ah, holy gods…” Karon’s voice broke. “We will not leave you here. If you stay… I will fight them until the last day of the world to set you free. I swear it.”

“And I with him,” I said, shaping the story yet again in my mind and heart, willing him to hear me. You have been blessed and beloved from the day we first knew you…

“Take care of Paulo, Seri. Get him out of the way.” As Karon retrieved his sword, I stepped to the battered boy on the floor.

“Wait!” Gerick held out one hand in warning. The world paused in its turning… and then, with his other hand, he reached out to Paulo.

Paulo’s eyes blinked open. He grabbed Gerick’s hand, staggered to his feet, and leaned on my son’s shoulder, grinning through his swollen eyes and bloodied lips. “We’d best go then. Lead on, my lord. We’ll be right behind.”

The creases of worry and grief graven on Karon’s blood-streaked face softened. For one moment he took my hand, his own wide hand near crushing my fingers. “As you say. Stay close, all of you.”

And as the raging fury of the Lords erupted behind us, and Madyalar crumpled to the floor, howling as Exeget’s poison ate its way into her body, Karon led the three of us into the Breach between the worlds.