Chapter 10
Graysen
The pounding footfall on stone, echoing down the pitch-black twisting tunnel, was a bass beat to the melody of splashing water. My breath came in ragged pants, my lungs on fire. I drove myself faster, harder, faster, a blade in either hand.
A fierce battle cry—
An explosion of a chittering-sawing sound—
The slash of blades raking across jagged rock—
A scream of pain—
“Mela!” I roared. “MELA!”
Fuck, fuck, fuuuck!
We were deep below the city of Ascendria in the catacombs. Only a week ago, I’d tracked Nelle down here after she ditched me to hunt down the Uzrek.
The Uzrek had known all along what we were and how we fitted together as Wyrm and Tamer. And it had recognized what I’d been doing all this time—Spinner of deceit.
Mela and I had been here for almost a week.
There was only one place in Ascendria Yezekael could evade a Horned God—a place with endless tunnels and caverns to hide in.
Part of the catacombs had been mapped, but over the centuries those that lurked here in the dark, dank passages had dug a myriad of extensions and burrows.
And now my friend was in trouble. Serious trouble.
Mela cried out once more, the sound lanced with agony and fury. Fear gouged my insides, and cold sweat trickled down my spine.
Shit, shit, shit—
I pushed harder, barreling down tunnels dripping with icy wetness, the fetid smell of decay fermenting every breath I dragged into my fiery lungs. Wicked currents of air tore at my hair as I plunged through the tomb-like passages at a reckless pace.
As I ran, I drew my arms free of my daypack and ditched it.
Most of the time I’d fought with daggers. Swords were only good in open-spaced caverns. But for those rare times Mela and I had to battle our way through an unexpected encounter with a beast, I kept my wyrmblade strapped to my back, along with its twin bastard.
Mela’s bellows of rage and the chittering-sawing noise grew louder as I approached.
Closer, closer, closer—my boots slamming across the pitted rock—faster, faster, faster.
Where is she, where is she, where is she—
Mela screamed.
My godsdamned heart dropped to the pit of my gut.
I burst into an enormous cavern that dropped away into shadow, its craggy ledges and broken stone jutting like fangs.
A faint, frayed slice of yellow light was swinging wildly, illuminating the back of the cavern where Mela twisted, kicking and slicing and stumbling.
High above, the roof looked as if it was alive, writhing like an angry sea, as chittering, creeping critters crawled out from a large crack in the ceiling.
Krekenns.
My fingers tightened on the twin daggers.
Fucking, nasty, mindless creatures. Tiny and arachnid-like with eight long, hairless limbs, smooth, murky-green skin where their eyes should be, and mouths full of needled teeth. In smaller numbers, we could easily stamp them out, but with this many, gods, both of us were in perilous danger.
They dripped from the ceiling and scuttled in wavering lines, like a swollen river that had broken its banks and churned along the pitted ground toward my friend.
I swerved and headed straight for Mela. A smaller number of krekenns had already swarmed her.
She swiped with her daggers as they leaped for her, slicing through limbs and abdomens, batting others aside, but more were climbing up her legs, in such numbers it was like watching a large insect brought down by ants.
My heart pounded in a panicked ricochet as I saw her flail.
Stagger back.
And almost lose her balance.
Holy hells…Mela!
More krekenns poured down from the fissures in the roof and scurried toward me.
“MELA!” I roared.
What to do? What to do? What to do?
There was an opening behind her, another tunnel.
Her gaze shot to mine, an odd mixture of relief and fury pinching her expression. “GRAY!”
I fumbled for my bandoleer, pulling out a smooth vial and thumbed it open. I hurled the vial faster than my approach.
It punched through the cavern like a bullet—
Exploded as it struck the cavern’s wall.
A thick, furious buzzing noise came from the dragonflies as they escaped the smashed container. An iridescent sheen of neon colors hummed with the beat of thousands of wings as the dragonflies engulfed Mela.
She disappeared from sight.
I drove forward, pumping my weary limbs, stomping tiny critters beneath my boots.
However, the krekenn swarm had split into two enormous masses, and one rushed toward me.
Mela, Mela, Mela!
And then the dragonflies lifted from Mela in a stream of brightly colored wings. They’d eaten the tiny creatures until there was not a shred of them left.
But the horde was nearly upon Mela.
Fuck, fuck, fuuuck!
Snatching up a grenade from a leather loop, I freed the safety pin and threw it right into the swelling sea of krekenns.
I crashed into Mela like a freight train, driving us both into the tunnel behind her.
We hit the rocky ground hard, my shoulder and hip barking in pain, rolling again before we came to a slow, dizzying halt.
I protected Mela’s body with my own and covered my head with my hands.
There was one brief moment when our gazes locked with mutual relief, and then—
The grenade exploded.
A deafening sound of rock striking rock.
A thunderous jolt.
The tunnel’s walls shook and trembled.
The ground quaked, chattering my teeth and rattling my bones.
Wildfyre lit up the cavern beyond in a haze of blistering heat. Flames roared and blew into the tunnel, scorching overhead in waves of blue. And a horrendous noise of screeching pierced my eardrums as the unnatural fire ate the krekenns.
As the passage shivered with the shockwave’s echo, fissures ran in splintering lines up its slick walls, and debris rained down, pelting my body.
The shaking slowly faded, then stopped.
Both Mela and I were breathing hard and covered in dust. The stink of smoke choked the air. I blew out a relieved breath, my limbs growing lax with the exertion to get to my friend in time.
Thank gods.
Mela shoved me angrily off her.
The fuck?!
I rose and paced the tunnel, slipping in and out of the yellow beam from the headlamp fixed to Mela’s night-vision goggles propped on her forehead, while I tried to smother the fury at what she’d gone and done.
Mela and I were used to hunting and being without comfort, so we’d kept our supplies minimal, enough food and water to last our time down here.
Neither of us was up to talking much or over-sharing.
She’d closed down after what had happened at the engagement blessing, and for me—besides hunting this creature for Sirro—I’d grieved the loss of my cousins and friends.
But eventually every thought circled back to Nelle and what I was going to do.
Every minute I didn’t have Yezekael was a minute away from her.
As we traveled deeper underground, the days passed with no way to know day from night, apart from the time ticking on our watches.
When Mela needed sleep, I would rig up a place for her to rest, and I hunted nearby, within hearing range if anything should get past the magical cloaking barrier I set up around her.
A few days back, when sleep deprivation finally had me keeling over, I passed out and slept a whole day while Mela kept watch. But today was different. When I fell prey to my weariness, she left me to go hunt by herself.
Mela got to her feet, clad in thick fur-trimmed boots, shoved her daggers into their sheaths, and furiously swiped at her grimy armor, sweeping off jagged shards of stone. Like me, she was fuming with pent-up aggression.
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “What the hells, Mela?! What the fuck were you thinking? We hunt in pairs. We have each other’s backs!” This past week she’d been acting irrationally, barely holding it together, and throwing herself into danger at every opportunity.
She turned fierce brown eyes to mine, and in their depth was an unhinged glint that unnerved me, but not enough to extinguish my anger. “You were asleep for ages!” Her teeth flashed in a snarl as she bit the words at me. “You were fine. I left you cloaked. No one, no thing, could find you.”
“It’s not about me, Mela. It’s about you.”
She shot me an irritated look as if I were making a big deal out of nothing, like a whiny kid. “You hunted while I was asleep.”
I kicked at rubble, sending shattered rock smashing against the tunnel.
“Only close by. Always within reach.” I couldn’t help it.
I had an incessant need to hunt. It had been too long, way too fucking long kept apart from Nelle.
I had no idea what was happening at the estate.
We were out of cell phone range, and the worry was destroying me.
I needed to find Yezekael and drag him back by his broken wings to Sirro.
Mela rolled her eyes at me. A light coating of dust dulled the natural luster of her dark brown skin, and grime lined the creases around her mouth, which deepened with her scowl. “I don’t see what the problem is.”
Storming up to her, I got right in her face.
“I do!” I couldn’t understand what she didn’t get.
“You’ve got a fucking death wish right now!
” She’d shut herself off from me. At Sirro’s orders, she’d come with me to hunt Yezekael, but she wasn’t okay.
Who would be after what had happened to her?
It was utterly terrifying to see my charismatic best friend, who was naturally cheerful and loved life, withdrawn and taking unnecessary risks.
She was in so much pain that her grief permeated the stale air.
I’d been breathing in her heartache and fury for the past week; it had suffused my lungs, mingling with my own in a thick miasma.
But she wouldn’t talk about it with me either.
As we hunted Yezekael, every single time we ran into trouble, she threw herself in, heedless of the consequences.
“Gods, Mela, you were almost their meal!”
“I would have gotten myself free!”