I had to get the others far away.

  I slammed the window shut and ran back to the front.

  “GO!” I pointed down the road.

  “He’s right in front of us!” Aelin looked at me. “Why can’t we go backwards?”

  “They’re fighting godsired!” I pointed out her window. “Off-road!”

  Aelin floored it and the RV bounced as she drove into the burning grass.

  I swallowed as I glanced back at the fighting. Aeraelly was on the other side of the border and technically we were in the godless zone. My mother had patrolled this territory, so if the God of Madness decided to come here himself back when she was alive, it would have been as good as a declaration of war. Now that there was no one to watch this side of the border, politics got a little more fuzzy. The other Gods could demand that he leave, but they wouldn’t be allowed to do anything more than just block his path until a resolution was sent to all the other Gods to inform them that Aeraelly was invading another Ward. That could take days, weeks, or even months, and by that time, we’d all be dead. I just had to hope that Trent could handle those two and that we could evade the one that was chasing us long enough for them to catch up to us.

  The screen to Fray’s bunk slid open and the green woman rolled out of bed into the hall. “What’s going on?”

  “Trying to outrun the godsired that Trent and Miel are fighting!” I pointed at the center screen.

  “Godsired?” Fray ran to the front and looked at the Minotaur running behind the RV. “Lunatics?”

  “How did you know?” I braced as Aelin vaulted a little hill.

  “Aeraelly is the only Minotaur God in the Synagogue.” Worry covered her face. “You think he’s out there?”

  “I hope not, because I wouldn’t want Trent or Miel to end up with a city right now.” I gave her a weak smile.

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  “That’s not how that works…” Justia shook her head. “Trent said that when a God is killed outside their city, the Dungeon Portals except for the main one die and that’s it. Which is why Rae wasn’t Desolated. The other Gods took him far enough outside the city to execute him.”

  “Oh, I must have missed that.” I took a deep breath. “Still, won’t the mantle stay there for one of them to be able to claim?”

  “Aeraelly could gift it to one of them, but if he doesn’t, then it would teleport back to the Dungeon in his city during the Desolation.” Justia took a deep breath. “But Aeraelly is Tier Eight.”

  Of course Justia would know the levels of the Gods.

  “We need to get far enough away so that the others aren’t caught in the Desolation Wave.” I glanced at the center console. Now that we were going off-road, we weren’t moving as fast, but neither was the Minotaur chasing us. Justia, Ether, and I would be okay since the Desolation Wave didn’t hurt godsired. But if we didn’t get far enough away, it would kill Fray and Aelin. Both had been in the Bequeathal Chamber and neither had been conscious, which meant that neither had enough blood of a God in them to protect them from the Desolation Wave.

  Justia squeezed Aelin’s shoulder, then screamed as one of the plains cats jumped on the hood of the RV.

  Aelin swerved to try to knock it off, but the large feline gripped the hood with its claws. I was glad to see that the monster wasn’t making holes in the metal, but that only meant the monster was lower than Tier Five, and a Tier One monster would be plenty enough to kill all of us.

  Actually, because of our higher starting stats, Ether and I could probably handle a Tier One, but that was just a single Tier One, not five of them.

  I pushed the thought out of my mind as I tried to think of a solution to our predicament. The RV made it out of the burn zone, so the light around us began to dim, but the monster was still taking an occasional swipe at the windshield.

  A loud thump hit the top of the RV. I checked the screen to make sure that the Minotaur was still behind us. He was a little farther back than he had been the last time that I’d checked, which meant we had another plains cat on the RV.

  “If this thing will hold up, we can beat them to Jyscor!” Aelin raised her fist. “WHOOT!”

  The way the Minotaur wasn’t running as hard told me that we were going exactly in the direction that it wanted us to go. Godless cities didn’t have as strict of checkpoints as the ones ruled by Gods, but we were still going to have to stop outside the gate. I didn’t know how long we’d have to wait, but I doubted any of the Adventurers or Nobles in Jyscor were going to want to fight a Lunatic. Even if we made it into the city, we wouldn’t be safe without Miel and Trent.

  “Don’t go to Jyscor…” I took a deep breath. “I’ve got a plan.”

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