The Shattered Bridge was a skeletal nightmare of ancient engineering. Spanning the jagged Maw of the Serpent—a canyon so deep that the river at its bottom looked like a vein of silver thread—it was the only passage into the Neutral Territories. The bridge was made of sky-iron and weathered basalt, relics of a time before the Great Cataclysm, and it groaned under the weight of the Imperial Carriage like a dying giant.
Damon held the reins of the four war-stallions with white-knuckled intensity. The horses were lathered in sweat, their nostrils flaring as they sensed the instability of the stone beneath their hooves.
"Keep them steady, Damon!" Arkon's voice cut through the howling wind, strained and thin.
