******
Jai and Ceder fled through the dark. They passed through an obliterated doorway, down a steep, lightless shaft, then through a series of endless tunnels. Jai led the way. He had haunted these subterranean corridors in a former life and would never forget the design of their twists and turns.
The mountain quaked and the walls crumbled in and collapsed, but the inseparable pair continued to navigate the stifling labyrinth with unparalleled speed and surety. They raced through a gaping cavern filled with eddies of liquid fire and molten char, then through a long, dark channel, and finally out to open water.
The sky was thick with rain. A small sea of apples floated in the floodwater like flotsam from a sunken ship—an orchard had lined this side of the summit less than an hour ago. The trees were all underwater now.
As Jai and Ceder surveyed the extent of the cataclysmic destruction, the Riverlilly popped up to the surface next to them, expelled from the maze of tunnels by the same force that shook the mountain to its core. They gave the boat a push toward an old friend in need, then dove to deeper waters to begin the last leg of their journey home.