19.

  Spook

  The rest of the evening carried us deeper into the chasm, where stone walls opened into a labyrinth of tunnels with hollowed chambers vast enough for dragons to rest their serpentine bodies.

  One of those cavernous rooms had become our camp. Shadows clung to the rough-hewn walls, and the fire we’d forced to life burned low, its glow painting us in shades of ember. Only Elora, Artemis and I lingered at its fading warmth.

  Across the chamber, Ash and Faelwen had unrolled their mats, deliberately distant from one another. I had seen the shine of tears in her eyes earlier, faint as dew on glass. A fight, no doubt. And if I was honest, one that probably centered on me.

  My hand wandered into Artemis’ fur, fingers twisting idly as my thoughts swirled, a whirlpool dragging me under.

  “You shouldn’t have teased her like that.”

  Elora’s voice broke the silence, sharp as a blade’s edge. She cut a slice from an apple with her hunter’s knife, the motion deliberate, merciless.

  My jaw tightened.

  “I know,” I muttered, the words rough in my throat.

  “Then why keep doing it? You know how Ash responds. And frankly, I can’t fault him. If I were in his place, I’d feel the same.”

  Her words sank their hooks into me. I stilled my hand in Artemis’ coat and looked up, caught in the stern weight of her gaze. Her light-brown eyes were steady, her messy bun falling sideways as she dipped her chin, the firelight casting her face in bronze shadows.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you serious?” she sighed, the sound like leaves trembling in a cold wind. “If I were in a serious relationship with my lover, I wouldn’t welcome another’s… affections for her or him.”

  “I don’t flirt with her.” The defence flew from me too fast, too sharp. She arched one brow, sceptical. I drew a harsh breath, teeth scraping the inside of my cheek as my eyes fell away from hers.

  “She’s chosen Ash you know that,” I forced out. “She made it clear. She cannot be mine. And neither can you.”

  Her gaze softened, studying me.

  “Faelwen loves you both. But she leans toward him.” She spoke ignoring my later words about her.

  My chest tightened at the memory of Faelwen’s words, her choice spoken aloud like a dagger pressed to my ribs. And of Elora telling me we couldn’t be more than what we were.

  Fuckbuddies.

  I clenched my teeth, swallowing the ache that rose like tidewater in my throat.

  Don’t let emotions cloud your mind. The memory of my mentor’s voice echoed in my mind. I could not cry. Not here. Not now. Tears were a weakness.

  “So, I wonder why burden yourself with those feelings? Remember I told you before you can either wait for her and waste away in the shadows of what-ifs, or move forward?” She continued unaware of the turmoil in my head. I looked up at her. Elora’s shrug was subtle, but her voice carried weight. “Why not let her go, when you know the end will not be yours?”

  The confusion in her eyes caught me off guard. She truly didn’t understand my emotions and why I couldn’t just ‘let go’. She had once told me elves felt emotions in a different way.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered, trying to unravel the knots inside me. “Maybe…because I refuse to leave her behind, the way my parents left me. I…” the words slipped away, stolen by the cold sting of an old loneliness pressing into my ribs.

  “You are not her parent,” Elora began.

  “I know,” I cut her off, voice harsher than I meant. “I mean… I know what it is to survive alone. To wake every day and know no one is coming to help you. And the more I knew her, the more I cared for her. Leaving her… it felt like betrayal. Like repeating what everyone else ever did to me. Parents, friends, lovers… all gone. I grew up in a world that taught me you can only rely on yourself. That strength means alliances, not friendships.”

  “And you didn’t want her to taste that same emptiness?”

  “Yes.” The word dragged from me like water through broken glass. “She never asked for this life. She was hurled into it, same as I was thrown into mine. I never chose to become…” my voice faltered.

  “A thief for the Black Hawks?” Elora finished for me, her tone softened.

  I swallowed. “Yes. And she deserves more than the kind of protection I learned. More than cold survival. She deserves someone who sees her, who guards her heart as well as her life. Someone who looks after her.”

  Elora shifted, rising to sit at my side. Her arm draped around my shoulders, warmth pressing through the armour of my restraint.

  “And who looks after you?”

  “Me.” The answer came without thought, sharp and automatic. “It’s always been me.”

  “I see.” Her hand brushed the back of my head, gentle. My jaw clenched again, fighting the sting behind my eyes.

  “I begin to understand you,” she whispered. “Humans burn with love in ways that still astonish me. It drives you to sacrifice, to protect, to endure. Even when your methods… trouble me, your motives do not.”

  She leaned closer, her forehead resting against mine, voice hushed as a prayer.

  “Spook, you deserve someone to guard you as well. Don’t vanish into her shadow, as I once vanished into others’. Stand for yourself.”

  “I know,” I breathed, hands rising to cup her face.

  “You cannot please the world by bleeding yourself dry. That road builds a prison. One day you wake, and you are gone, nothing left but duty. Promise me you’ll look after yourself too.”

  Her words sank deep. I nodded, voice barely more than air. “Okay.”

  Her lips curved with quiet relief. She touched my cheek once more before rising.

  “Then I’ll take a rest now. Wake me for the watch in a few hours?”

  I nodded. She left, and the cavern grew larger in her absence. Only Artemis remained. The wolf’s golden eyes fixed on me, wise and unbearably knowing.

  “What?” I snapped, the word brittle. He only tilted his head, then pressed a cold nose against my face.

  “Ugh! Don’t do that.” I shoved him lightly, but he gave a low growl in answer.

  “I don’t need to cry,” I bit out, voice cracking. His growl deepened, vibrating in his chest. “I said I don’t want to! Tears won’t mend anything. They’ll only…” my words stumbled, splintered.

  Artemis placed a paw against my thigh, gaze steady, unyielding, as if saying it’s alright. Then he pressed his head against my chin. My arms betrayed me, wrapping around him of their own will. I buried my face in his fur, the dam finally breaking in the silence of the cavern.

  ? ? ?

  Elora

  Rough hands pulled me from my sleep. My eyes fluttered open to Spook’s face, pale in the dim firelight, panic etched across his features. “What is it?” I whispered, already reaching for my dagger.

  He pressed a finger to his lips, then to his ear. I stilled, letting silence swallow me. For a moment there was nothing, only the sounds of the night. Then… footsteps. Low, deliberate.

  Voices threaded through the dark, guttural and wrong, a language that did not belong in this realm. The sound crawled along my skin, raising the hairs at my nape. Demonic.

  Underworld filth.

  My stomach turned cold. The last I had heard, Faywood’s armies still held the line in the southwest. How had these slipped through? Just as the ones had before, those we’d shaken off near the Ralnor Hills. Does this mean the balance is shifting?

  I snatched up my gear, moving silently across the stone floor to Ash. Spook had already gone to Faelwen. I leaned over Ash to wake him, only to find his eyes open, fixed on me with sharp awareness. I pressed a finger to my lips and motioned for haste.

  Within heartbeats we were gliding through the tunnels, our palms brushing the walls to guide us deeper into shadow. The air was heavy with dust and stone, until a bend in the passage brought us into sight of four figures.

  Two carried torches, their light flaring against faces half-shadowed beneath hoods. Faded black robes clung to their frames, marked with runes that pulsed faintly, like smouldering coals.

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  Exactly like the marks Ash bore.

  I felt him stiffen beside me before his arm drew me sharply back into the dark. He motioned for us all to take hold of each other. Than his lips moved, a soft incantation spoken and his voice thundered inside my mind.

  These are no ordinary necromancers.

  Heat flooded from his touch into my veins, a strange warmth that dizzied me, threading into my skull. Magic.

  They are shapeshifters, his thoughts boomed, weighted with contempt. They pose as monks, spreading the Fiends’ faith to ensnare souls. Do not trust the skin they wear. They will shed them for the monsters beneath.

  I inclined my head in silent understanding. I had heard the tales. Faelwen herself had faced one when she fled the ashes of her home.

  My brows lifted at Ash, a tilt of my head toward the creatures: what now?

  His reply surged through all of us at once. We split. Spook with Faelwen and Artemis. Elora with me. We circle wide and strike from both flanks. Fast. Surprise is our ally. Spook, your group takes the two left. Elora and I will deal with the ones on the right. Ready?

  A single pulse of agreement rippled back.

  We released each other, the connection breaking like a severed thread. The sudden silence in my mind was jarring. I caught Spook’s eyes one last time across the dark. he gave me a small, fleeting smile. I returned it, before the shadows swallowed him whole.

  I crouched low, trailing Ash. We hugged the cavern wall, careful to keep beyond the torchlight’s sweep. Ahead, the four creatures clustered around something on the ground. The closer we crept the thicker the air became, heavy as stone. Magic seeped through it, sizzling and old.

  Then I saw why.

  Half-buried in shadow lay the vast skeleton of a dragon, ribs like cathedral arches rising out of the dust. It’s skull, jagged and fractured, gaped toward us like a hollow crown.

  My breath caught. Recognition struck me like a hammer. Drazkhar Stonebane. One of the firstborn, guardian of a runestone, who had defended it until his final breath. I slowed, lips moving in reverence.

  “Máyar I aval?, varya-lin súl?.” A prayer to Elyon. May the goddess protect your soul.

  Ash’s head snapped toward me, eyes narrowing in a stern warning. I froze. The shapeshifters stirred but did not look our way.

  We waited, still as statues. Then Ash lifted his hand, fingers raised. One by one they fell, like sand through an hourglass. When only his fist remained, we struck.

  With a raw cry I ripped my sword free of its scabbard, steel flashing in the torchlight as I hurled myself at the nearest shapeshifter. Stone crunched beneath my boots, and for an instant I heard nothing but the thunder of my own heartbeat.

  Ash’s incantation rose behind me, cold and dark. A coil of red mist blossomed around my ankles, writhing like a living thing. It surged forward, sprouting tendrils that lashed at the first cloaked figure, binding him tight. His eyes widened in shock just as my sword fell, a silver arc through the gloom.

  The blade bit deep, severing flesh and bone. His head rolled into the dark. The other three whirled toward me, hissing words in their foul tongue. Until one gurgled, Faelwen’s arrow jutting clean through his throat. He collapsed with a wet thud.

  Two remained.

  Spook

  The fight broke like glass shattering. I darted through the dark, daggers flashing in my hands, shadows hugging my every step. Breath.

  Elora’s war-cry rang in front of me, Ash’s magic thickening the air with that suffocating red mist. I noticed Elora cutting the head of the first shapeshifter clean off. Faelwen loosed her bowstring with the surety of a heartbeat. And a second later the second shapeshifter dropped with an arrow in his throat.

  I focused on the other. My blade cut across its side, only to rebound uselessly, sparks flying from skin that was no longer flesh. I cursed under my breath. I was too slow.

  Breath in…. and out.

  Its form twisted, bones snapping, skin splitting. I leapt back as scales rippled over its length, its body lengthening into something serpentine. A hiss rattled through the chamber, and its yellow eyes fixed on me.

  “Of course,” I spat, breath ragged. “Why would anything be easy?”

  Faelwen

  The smell of them reached me before their faces did. Decay and a strange sulfuric smell. My stomach twisted. I knew that stench. I had lived with it in my nightmares since the night I met Malignus in that cave. Malignus who nearly killed me and Artemis.

  My bow was already in my hands, string taut. I swallowed down the tremor in my throat and let instinct take over. Breathe. Aim. Loose.

  The arrow flew true, embedding deep into the neck of one cloaked figure. His gurgling scream cut short as he toppled. For a heartbeat, pride flared in my chest. The next heartbeat, dread replaced it.

  The others were changing.

  One disappeared into smoke. The other… A serpentine too massive for the cavern coiled before us, its hiss scraping down my spine like knives. To my right, a screech split the air, high, piercing, unnatural. I flinched, the sound dragging me back to the Black Widow in Westray.

  Not again. Not again.

  Elora

  I lunged at the closest shapeshifter, but my strike cut nothing. His body dissolved into black smoke. Dissipating into the cavern. The last began to twist grotesquely, arms melting into his torso, bones stretching and popping. His skin cracked, scaling over with obsidian sheen. Spook darted in, his dagger flashing, but the blade glanced off uselessly.

  A serpent rose where a man had stood. Its body thick as a tree trunk, scales glittering with oily menace. It hissed, the sound rattling my bones.

  Then a scream, high, shrill and unbearable, split the cavern. I whirled, heart pounding.

  From the shadows to my left unfurled a nightmare. A creature stepped forward on clawed feet, towering, wings unfolding with a leathery snap. Its body was a man’s, its face a bat’s, jaw elongated into fangs, horns spiralling back like a crown of bone. Its talons scraped stone, sending sparks skittering.

  My throat went dry. But I raised my blade, forcing steadiness into my voice.

  “For Caradsher?n!”

  Ash rushed beside me, chanting again. The mist thickened, coiling like serpents across the ground, cloaking us in crimson fog.

  The bat-fiend lunged. Its claw carved the air where I’d stood, stone exploding as I rolled aside. I came up beneath its wing, driving my sword with every ounce of strength into its waist. Flesh tore, black ichor spilling. The beast’s howl shook the cavern, its claw sweeping down toward me.

  I ducked, sprinting beneath its massive frame as its guttural voice thundered. Then the ground split open at my feet. A corpse, eyes vacant and jaw slack, crawled upward, skeletal hands locking around my ankles.

  I screamed, tumbling forward, my sword biting into stone to anchor me. More pits tore open around us, clawed hands dragging themselves free.

  Faelwen

  Elora’s scream pierced through the chaos. “Elora!” I cried, voice raw before I could stop it. The word felt like it came from a child, not a warrior.

  Spook’s shadow flickered in the torchlight that lay abandoned on the ground. Artemis at his side. Ash’s chants rolled through the chamber, thick with power.

  The cavern became a storm of shadows and thunder holes to the underworld opening up all around us, and I…

  I could not falter. I loosed arrow after arrow. One snapped harmlessly off the serpent’s scales. Another lodged shallowly in its flank. My breath came ragged, tears threatening to blur my aim as memories of the horrors in my past threatened to overwhelm me. Then I heard it again. The sickening sound of Elora being dragged down, her cry for Ash piercing through the dark. My knees nearly gave way. I wanted to run to her, to drop my bow and throw myself between her and whatever monster held her.

  But Spook’s voice carried over the chaos, sharp, commanding. “Stay in the fight, little fox!”

  I forced another arrow to the string, biting down on the sob that clawed its way up my throat. For him. For her. For all those I couldn’t safe.

  Elora

  Faelwen’s cry echoed in the dark, and my blood iced. He wouldn’t abandon me, would he?

  “Wen!” Ash’s voice tore through the mist.

  “Stay with me,” I yelled.

  Ash turned away from me. “Ash! Stick to the plan!” I shouted, panic scraping my throat. He appeared through the fog, his hand snapping down upon the creature clutching me. With a sickening crack, its neck twisted, lifeless. I hauled myself from the pit just as the bat-fiend’s claw slashed again. Ash rolled aside, his robes flaring. I planted my feet, blade raised. The blow struck my sword, force shuddering down my arms, the shock rattling my bones. My boots screeched against stone as I was driven back, but I held. When its talons withdrew, I lunged, hacking down.

  My blade sheared part of its claw clean away. It screamed, rearing back, its wings buffeting the air in fury. Behind it, Ash battled through the rising dead, his body a conduit of power. Dark light bled from his shield and knife as he roared another incantation.

  Spook

  Artemis lunged past me, fangs bared, driving the serpent back a pace. I circled with him, daggers low, waiting for an opening. My pulse thundered, but not with fear. No, fear was luxury I’d unlearned long ago. What filled me instead was something harder, darker.

  If Elora screamed like that again, I’d kill them all, and Herdus help anyone who stood in my way.

  The serpent reared, jaws unhinged. I darted in, slashing at the vulnerable flesh beneath its jaw. My dagger bit, shallow but enough to draw blood. Its hiss shook the stone walls, its tail whipping toward me like a falling tree.

  I hit the ground hard, pain jolting up my spine. The world spun, but Artemis was already there, intercepting the strike with a snarl, his teeth sinking into scaled hide.

  I staggered upright, wiping blood from my lip, and grinned through the sting. “That’s it. Just a little lower this time.”

  I ran, reckless, blades ready to taste its throat.

  Faelwen

  The bat-fiend loomed, wings spanning like black banners. Its screech rattled my bones, but I steadied my hands. Use your power, Wen. Artemis voice whispered in my mind. A grin split my face. My power.

  I took a deep breath, opening the windows in my mind, letting the Weave in. My skin prickled with the burning sensation of the magic spreading through my body. I slowly raised my palm, aiming in a direct line at the serpent and the bat-fiend, and let go. Magic burst like thunder, lightning tearing open the serpent and blasting into the bat-fiends back. For a heartbeat, hope blazed through me. And in that same breath, I saw Elora’s body lifted like a ragdoll in the bat-fiend’s talons. Her sword clattered uselessly to the stones below. My cry lodged in my throat, strangled, helpless.

  Elora

  A thunderclap split the cavern. Lightning arced from Faelwen’s outstretched hand, ripping through the serpent and into the bat-fiend’s back. The smell of burnt flash and ozone filled the air as the beast convulsed, its body gaping open, before it collapsed in a heap.

  “YES!” I cried, surging forward.

  But triumph died quick.

  The bat-fiend recovered with blinding speed, talons closing around me. My sword fell from my grasp, clattering against the stones underneath me. Pressure crushed my ribs, air strangled from my lungs.

  Panic exploded in my chest.

  I tore the dagger from my belt and rammed it into the monster’s wrist. The blade sank halfway, hot blood splattering my arm. But the beast only screeched, jaws yawning wide. The stench of acid breath gagged me as its maw descended.

  I wriggled, desperate, useless.

  The teeth came closer… and closer.

  Then the beast shuddered violently. Its body convulsed, legs buckling. With a howl it dropped me. I crashed to the ground, the world bursting into white. For a moment I couldn’t move, lungs burning, ribs screaming.

  Shapes closed in around me, rotting corpses clawing upward. I raised my arms to strike…

  Then I saw.

  They weren’t here for me.

  Ash stood beyond them, cloaked in whirling mist. His robes streamed like torn banners, his veins black, glowing faintly beneath his skin. His eyes, once emerald, burned red as blood, lips chanting in a language that curdled the air. Demonic.

  The dead obeyed him.

  The horde swarmed the final shapeshifter, dragging it down. It shrieked, but the sound ended in a choking gurgle.

  Ash lowered his arms. One by one the dead crumbled, either collapsing into the pits from which they came or falling limp, nothing more than bone and rags.

  “Elora?” Spook’s voice rang out, distant, cautious.

  Soft Elvish spilled from Faelwen’s lips, a bowl of light blooming into the cavern. The glow revealed the battlefield in full; blood, broken stone, smoking corpses.

  A laugh bubbled from me, ragged but wild.

  “We defeated them!”

  Spook dropped to his knees beside me, eyes raking over my form, worry furrowing his brow.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Ash approached with Artemis and Faelwen. Bite marks and scratches marred his arms, but he stood tall. The others seemed mostly unscathed safe for a few bruises and small cuts here and there.

  I tested my limbs, inhaled sharply as pain lanced through my ribs. “Bruised, nothing worse,” I managed. Relief swept Spook’s face, but it was fleeting.

  Because from the shadows, a new voice spilled into the cavern. Smooth, dark and cruelly musical.

  “Too bad. I would have loved to strike a bargain with the daughter of Elandor Reyzana, lord of Caradsher?n.”

  The blood drained from Ash’s and Faelwen’s faces, leaving them pale as marble.