Last Moment

"What do you want to do?" Reyan and the others looked to the Empress as she stared stoically forward.

What could they do? Did they really have an option?

Alvar came to her side and cleared his throat. "Should we pull in the bridge?"

The structure still spanned between the previous tower and the current one. If they wanted to retreat, there was no reason to retrieve the bridge just now.

Beyond the thing lurking in the darkness below, Aurora did not like the idea of being separated from the rest of the group if they retreated.

As long as the final tower stood above the darkness, she was willing to risk the journey.

Aurora gave a determined nod. "Pull the bridge and prepare to make the final crossing. We will send the scouts ahead to check the ability of the last platform to hold weight."

With this remnant of earth being the largest of them all, the advanced party had not seen fit to cross to the final point until everyone had made it safely across. This turned out to be a life-saving move. Likely one or more of the men would have been lost while trying to cross when the earthquake hit.

Now, they checked the ropes to see if they were secure, and went across the expanse one by one.

Aurora held her breath as each soldier climbed into the makeshift harness and was ferried across the abyss.

The first few men did not seem to make much difference to the precarious patch of earth. But soon that changed.

As soon as a soldier climbed in the harness, the strain on the other landmass became too much. The entire platform began to shift.

"Balance!" Devrim shouted from the safety of the cliff face.

Clearly he was watching the scene just as closely as his wife. To punctuate his point, Brinn jumped onto the stone and ordered all of the soldier to spread out.

Before long, the men and women had stabilized things enough for the next person to finish their journey to the final plateau.

The rest of the advance party slowly ventured out, with each new individual making the others refocus their weight around the wide, flat surface.

On the precipice of the chasm, Devrim worked feverishly on a project that Aurora could not see.

Whatever it was, the project required a lot of wood. Aurora could see the men and women along the cliff scurrying like ants to gather as many of the branches as they could.

Soon, hammers were beating sharpened stakes into the wider pieces. It looked as if the Emperor was trying to build a second bridge, but without the ropes which had connected the first.

"What is he cooking up?" Aurora cocked her head to either side. "I guess Renat has rubbed off on him at least a little bit."

In truth, Aurora was glad for the distraction. Other than making sure none of the horses plunged over the edge—which was a tedious task considering the steeds had no desire to do that anyway—the Empress had nothing to do but wait.

She wasn't strong enough to make any real difference for the bridge and keeping an eye on the danger below didn't really change anything.

The only other thing she could monitor was the erosion happening under the final tilting tower, but even then, all she could do was report when things went wrong.

Besides, if they went wrong and the platform collapsed, Aurora was pretty sure the people on the large balancing rock would know at the same time she did.

By the time the group was ready to send the bridge out to cover the final gap, Devrim was also finishing up his project on his end.

As the bridge got close to reaching its final destination, Devrim and his group began to lower their own wooden structure.

It wasn't a bridge exactly, but it was large and heavy. If Aurora had to call it anything, it would be a ramp.

But Dervim screamed a different name across to her. "Counterweight!"

Of course! Aurora had wondered if the people on the stone surface would be enough to balance out the very heavy bridge. Science was not her strong suit, but the weights had not seemed to match up.

Devrim's solution suddenly made sense. By having the ramp on the opposite side from the bridge, the people would be able to prevent the tilting of the plateau.

If they timed it right…

When the time came, the Emperor's voice rang loud and clear. "On my mark! Ready? Now!"

Everyone pushed at once. Not being as big or heavy as the bridge, the ramp hit as close to the edge as it could, while those on the side with the bridge pushed as much of the structure as possible onto the final landmark to balance the weight.

The people already on the final tower moved and shifted to keep things distributed while everything settled. They looked like dancers on a stage in a coordinated waltz. Aurora could not help but admire their skill. She would commend them when she got to safety. They were truly brave to risk their lives in such a way.

At last it seemed that the two sides were balanced. One by one the advance party exited onto solid ground, leaving the surface ready for the last group.

One soldier volunteered to go first and took his horse across. All went well.

Each of the animals and humans crossed individually in a painstaking process. But patience and prudence was key.

Aurora's stomach twisted into knots. Patience was not a gift she possessed. And deep down, she knew they only had a limited amount of time

The Empress stood in line like the rest, but the horse she was monitoring became anxious as they neared their turn on the bridge. She reared back and nearly shoved Aurora over the edge.

"Calm down girl. We are almost there," the fiery-haired woman cooed as much to herself as the mare. They were so close!

At the sound of her voice, the horse stilled. She snorted, the scarf around her head keeping the mare from seeing just how close she came to her own demise.

"I would beg you to trade horses with me," Alvar was behind her and held out his reins.

"Go ahead of us," the Empress said to the soldier behind her. After testing to make sure things were safe, there were only a few men left with her still needing to go.

The Empress turned to Alvar. "I appreciate your offer, but I think she would cooperate even less for you than she does for me. I'll walk her across. If she bucks, I'll move out of the way."

The elf tried to convince her to change her mind, but it was no use. By the time he realized that he was wasting his breath, they were the only ones left needing to cross the bridge.

"At least go ahead of me," the elf motioned her forward.

Aurora nodded. With Reyan hovering nervously overhead, the Empress pulled the skittish mare across the chasm. The horse could sense she was no longer on solid ground when her hoofs clattered against the wood, and she resisted.

"Come now, you've been left behind. Everyone but Alvar is safely across. Don't you want to see your friends?" Aurora knew the horse couldn't understand, but it didn't stop her from coaxing it with soothing words.

But as they reached the platform, the horse became erratic, wild even.

"Aurora!" Devrim called.

From behind, the final horse came blazing past the Empress and used all of its momentum to jump, riderless, across the final breach. The people on the cliffside barely had time to get out of its way.

Aurora chided her mare, "See, if it can go, then so can..."

The ground below her released a large cracking sound into the air. The platform splintered, its edges immediately falling away. Both the bridge and ramp fell from view into the world below.

The Empress swore she could hear a crash and low, angry hiss as the ramp hit against something solid, but she had no time to contemplate its meaning. The rumbling of the rocks was only beginning.

Aurora had no way to span the gap now on her own. The breach had grown too wide. And the ropes which had connected the two places in addition to the ramp had been lost. It would take a moment to get a new one thrown where the Empress could reach them.

"Time to go," Aurora mounted the mare and clicked her heels. Although she could not jump the gap, the horse hopefully could. She pulled off the horse's blindfold at the last reasonable moment. "Jump!"

Thankfully, the terrified mare had the presence of mind not to try to stay on the crumbling piece of rock. She leapt across the expanse.

Aurora looked down into the void. Two gargantuan eyes stared malevolently at her as they plummeted into the darkness.

The Empress breathed a sigh of relief as the horse's hooves landed on the solid ground on the opposite side of the chasm.

She was safe!

Or so she thought.