The tremor didn’t arrive through the rock. It arrived through the teeth.
Ren Vale sat on a dry dark rock ledge beside the emerald pool of the third-tier clouded eye, his braced left forearm resting in his lap, the heavy diamond volume of the Grimoire of Cleavage open across his knees. He was dipping the silver metal ring of his mammoth bone awl into a small horn well of dark oak-ink, transcribing Kael’s clockwork equations onto a clean strip of thick parchment. Just then, a violent, sub-heard shaking seized the base of his skull.
It felt as though an invisible hand had gripped his spine and given it a sharp, spinning twist.
Across the cave, the surface of the green pool erupted into thousands of tiny, dancing droplets that leaped three inches into the air like boiling water. From the ceiling fifty feet above, a three-ton amethyst geode cracked down its center with a sharp thwack, showering the shale beach with violet crystal-clear shards.
“Hold the timber!” Old Corren’s voice bellowed through the apartments. He was followed by the wild clatter of his spruce crutches. “Get the children under the dark rock arches! The stone is shaking!”
Ren dropped his awl, his uninjured right hand instinctively reaching for Mira.
