Two ardents flanked the suit, scowling around at everyone.

The man set one hand on Seth’s shoulder, and I shuffled closer, catching part of the conversation.

“...concerns are valid, of course, but you underestimate yourself and your men. You did well today.”

At that moment, the man turned toward me, and I finally saw his face. The president of the Valera Conglomerate, joining the common folk inside a rift. Usually, his face was fifty feet tall, smiling down from the neon glow of a digital billboard. Even in realistic dimensions, he still stuck out, with his suit working overtime to contain his herculean build and ever-present entourage moving as one behind him like a school of fish.

In person, it was easier to see the family resemblance between him and Colter. Colter would probably be his father’s clone in a few decades. But there was a distinct difference between them. One that held a hell of a lot more weight in my eyes. Colter, as the president’s son, could have had anything while doing nothing, and yet he was one of the best ardents in our division.

President Valera began moving, his hand still on Seth’s shoulder so my brother was dragged along with him. The various personnel were forced to drop what they were doing and step aside as the group cut through the crowd. Too late, I realized I was left standing in the middle of their path, forcing Valera to hesitate. He stared down at me, a small frown pursing his lips.

Seth cleared his throat and took a quick step forward. “My brother. Torrin. He’s a boneforger and inventor for the corporation.”

“Ah, of course. I’ve heard good things.” His attention slid right past me, his words nothing but inoffensive office-speak, and he started to walk again. After only a couple steps, he paused and looked back at Seth, real recognition behind his pupils this time. “My son speaks highly of your brother. In fact, the Valera Conglomerate believes his talents are wasted in his current duties.” Looking back at a woman in a crisp suit, he added, “Todd Gray is to be promoted to the active rift roster, immediately. Assign him to Colter’s team.”

Wait… Todd? Does he mean me?

The woman began to scribble a note on her readied clipboard as Seth and I ogled the president. Seeming not to notice, Valera gave Seth a smile like he’d just done him a huge favor. “Keep up the good work, Seth.” He nodded my way. “Todd.” His entourage moved away, leaving my brother and me momentarily alone among the crowd.

“Come on, let’s go,” Seth said, his face an impassive mask but his voice rough with anger. He didn’t wait for me before stalking toward the rift.

Suddenly bone-achingly tired and a little punch drunk from the last few seconds, I followed him to the line forming at the staircase that led back out to civilization. President Valera had promoted me, personally. It should have been a huge honor, but it was pretty obvious the man didn’t actually know anything about me. Hell, he’d called me Todd.

Still, I wasn’t exactly unhappy about it, even if this promotion was nothing more than an off-handed consolation to my brother. Maybe it wasn’t how I wanted it to happen, but it is what I’d been working toward.

Isn’t it? I asked myself, second-guessing every thought and emotion.

“Torrin.”

A strong hand grabbed my wrist, and I instinctively jerked free, only to realize that it was just Seth. The line ahead of us had dwindled. It was our turn.

Without any outward reaction, Seth ushered me ahead of him on the stairs.

When I stepped into the portal’s golden light, my body tensed automatically. I really friggin’ hated this part.

The golden light resisted me, and I had to force my way through it. My ears popped and a shrill ring drowned out everything else. The overall sensation reminded me of changing air pressure in a plane cabin—except the discomfort happened all at once, like the craft had dropped a thousand feet in two seconds.

When I finally stepped into the outside world, I released the breath I’d been holding. The ardents ahead of me shuddered, shaking off the experience, and as the ringing in my ears faded, I couldn’t help but do the same.

I looked over my shoulder as Seth walked through, but his face was as hard and unreadable as a mask of dead veilgator scales.

Our line continued moving, and my brother took the lead again, heading down the steps and into the bustling chaos of the construction zone surrounding the newly formed rift.

We were in the middle of a decimated suburbia. Beyond the cluster of work trucks and gathered ardents, flattened houses littered the surrounding neighborhoods. Nothing much remained besides piles of rubble, skeletal frames jutting out through collapsed rooftops, and mounds of broken drywall.

With the high raden density of this area, too many rifts had opened for it to remain classified as a safe zone. The locals had evacuated years ago, and the military had moved in.

There was even more activity out here than there’d been inside the rift. The hum of conversation mingled with the clatter of metal on metal. Sparks fizzed overhead, and I reflexively ducked as I spotted scaffolding going up around the glowing golden hole in space. On the raised platform, two men wearing welding masks worked on a metal piping, shooting more sparks into the air.

“I swear, these guys get faster every raid.” One of the ardents behind us stopped to look up at the structure.

His buddy shrugged and kept walking. “With how many rifts are popping out of God’s asshole these days, they’re getting plenty of practice.”

Crass but true.

Left unchecked, the rifts continued to slowly widen, and the rate at which they vomited out raden and parabeasts grew exponentially, even terraforming the landscape if enough escaped. The first ones had been the hardest, since it had taken time for the world’s governments to formulate a response…

The thought made me vaguely queasy, and I shrank back from it as distant memories swirled, just beneath the surface of conscious thought. Instead of focusing on these memories and trying to draw them to the surface, I focused on the construction above.

Sealing them quickly prevented attacks, but it also limited the amount of raden that leaked out into our atmosphere.

The marketing guys, of course, hadn’t missed the chance to build on public support for the raids; the monoliths raised to close the rifts almost always featured statues of powerful ardents who had made their name in the industry, even if they hadn’t done so at that specific site.

“Keep up,” Seth said, his super senses somehow detecting that I was dragging my feet.

Too tired and confused to muster any sort of snappy retort, I just followed him through the crowds lingering around dozens of food trucks and trailers. His long strides carried him quickly through the cluster of water stations and piles of trash bags, fast enough that I had to run behind him at a wheezing jog.

More butchered parabeast parts lay in sorted piles along the broken asphalt. A beast merchant stood behind them, wiping one hand on a bloodstained apron as he signed a paper with the other. A man in aviators inspected the signature, then handed over a briefcase. The two shook hands, sealing their deal.

A line of ardents and construction workers queued by a food truck as a thin, grinning woman offered the man at the front three folded tacos on a paper plate. As he took them, he said something that got a laugh from his fellow ardents, but the woman only rolled her eyes and called out, “Next!”

Piles of rubble and discarded tires marked the edge of the work zone. Beyond that were rows of jeeps and trucks parked on the only good stretch of road left in this area. Seth tugged his key fob out of his pocket, and the lights on his jeep flashed.

“Get in,” he said, yanking open the driver’s side door.

I let out a grunt and opened the passenger door, only for a filthy towel to hit me in the face.

“Don’t get blood on my car.”

“I’m cleaner than this towel,” I retorted, though I still set the grime-encrusted towel across the seat.

Our doors slammed, muffling the chaos outside—along with the distractions that kept me from pondering my whirlwind day. Even Seth’s lecturing would have been better than sitting quietly with my thoughts, but I didn't have the energy to break the silence myself.

Jace carved through the crowd a few minutes later and hopped in the back with a chipper, “Vámonos, amigos.” The jeep lurched as Seth hit the gas. The suburban ruins sped past, and my eyes slipped out of focus as I curled in on myself, increasingly irritable and exasperated.

Seth steered the jeep around a fallen streetlight, bumping over a shattered curb before returning to the asphalt. He then dodged a deep crack that ran for twenty feet right down the center of the road, cordoned off with bright orange cones and tattered yellow caution tape.

In the rearview mirror, Jace looked half asleep, arms crossed over his chest, head tipped back. Stitches made a scarecrow smile on his neck. I cast a side-eye Seth’s way, but he was staring straight ahead, stoic. No furtive glances in my direction. No fidgeting with the frayed seam on the steering wheel. No hint that he had anything on his mind, except for his customary slight frown.

“Nadya from the corporate office got back to me,” he said, catching me off guard. “There’s a secretary position opening up. I know what President Valera said, but you—”

“No,” I cut in coolly. Flicking my gaze off Seth, I caught Jace peeking through one eye in the back.

“The pay wouldn’t be as much, but it’s safe, steady work. And there would be—”

“Nope.” My fingers tapped against the molded plastic armrest.

Seth was quiet for a minute, eyes still locked on the road. “You can’t accept this ‘promotion.’ Take the secretary job.”

“You’re the one obsessed with the idea. Why don’t you go be some pressed suit’s coffee-fetcher.”

“If you take this promotion, a half-dead veilgator will be the least of your problems,” he answered, flatter than the ruined road.

“You say that like any of this was my fault.”

“Promotion?” Jace sat forward, a hand on both our backrests.

Seth’s fingers squeezed the wheel, ignoring Jace, his scowl still radiating my way. “You shouldn’t have put yourself in that situation to begin with. Now you want to make it worse by going into live rifts?”

I chuckled darkly, leaning my head against the cool glass of the window and closing my eyes. “If you’re disappointed, that’s more your problem than mine.”

I felt my brother’s glare burn into my cheek. “You’re investing time and energy into something you’ll never succeed in without raden.”

I straightened and twisted toward him wearing a wry, cold grin to mask my grinding teeth. “You know… when Matthew or Nathan tell me I’ll never amount to anything without raden, I don’t give a shit. They don’t know me.”

A muscle tensed in Seth’s jaw, chewing on his thoughts.