Golden Age (The Shifting Tides Book 1) Read Free

more moving rubble.
    Wishing she could enter further and see what was happening but knowing she should wait, Chloe tried to envision each sound. She fought her panic as she wondered if Sophia was badly injured.
    There was silence for a time and she held her breath as she waited. She started to walk forward, scanning the corridor, peering through the dust. Her chest rose and fell as she approached the crumbled section and the doorway to Sophia’s bedchamber.
    Then Zachary appeared.
    He had returned to his normal form, and he held Sophia in his arms. His eyes were wild and he was panting. When Chloe saw that her sister was awake and alert, bed linen wrapped around her body, she fought a sob of relief.
    ‘Outside,’ Chloe said. ‘To the terrace. It’s too dangerous in here.’
    Soon they were in the fresh open air and Zachary was laying Sophia down on the stone, standing back while Chloe checked her sister, astounded to find she’d escaped with just cuts and grazes. Even so, Chloe had been instructed at the Temple of Aeris in the mysteries of healing. She wasn’t satisfied until she’d checked every joint and her sister had recited the bedtime prayer three times.
    ‘I must go and see if I can be of use elsewhere in the city,’ Zachary suddenly spoke.
    Chloe glanced up at him. ‘What of your people?’
    ‘It is your buildings of stone that are a danger, and we have none.’
    ‘Zachary . . . If you must change again, do not forget who you are.’
    Zachary nodded. He shook his head from side to side as clarity returned to his unfocused eyes.
    ‘And thank you,’ Chloe said.
    Without a reply, Zachary left the terrace, darting down the steps.

    Chloe fetched her bag of healing supplies and led her sister to the agora where she would be safe with the servants. She then rushed away to lend aid to anyone who needed her skills.
    The rest of the night passed in a blur.
    Much of the damage to the city followed the same pattern: dislodged tiles and collapsed roof beams with the occasional toppled wall. Everywhere she heard cries. Heading into the densely packed lower section of the city, Chloe set broken limbs, administered soma, and sewed gashes closed with needle and gut. She encountered too many cases where there was nothing she could do and left behind wailing wives and stunned children.
    As she ran from house to house she saw eldren lending their unique abilities to help. A female giant worked tirelessly to clear the ruins of a broken house while a small boy watched from just a few paces away, too concerned for his family to be afraid of the monstrous silver-haired woman. Several times Chloe glanced up, hearing the sound of wings as furies wheeled overhead, scanning the city as the seven-foot-tall winged men searched the city for anyone needing assistance. Twice she even saw gray-scaled dragons, lithe creatures with wings the size of sails and muscles rippling under glossy silver scales. Her breath caught as one with a crescent scar on the side of its wedge-shaped head swooped close overhead; it could only be Zachary.
    The great tremor was not followed by another but the consequences were plain to see. She passed a row of five bodies near the remains of two houses and blanched, muttering a swift prayer to Aldus, the god of justice, to grant them entrance to heaven.
    Eventually Chloe was completely out of supplies and she realized it was now light enough to see. The sun climbed the mountains behind Phalesia to reveal a city that had been shaken but still stood. The night had passed. The worst was over.
    Heading back to the upper city and climbing steps that felt as if they would never end, Chloe felt exhaustion in every limb.
    But then as she approached the city’s central square and its rim of civic buildings she heard a new chorus of cries, unmistakably shouts of fear.
    People with wide eyes and pale faces ran back the opposite way, calling for soldiers as they passed. Hoplites with shield and spear sprinted in the