Chapter 54
“Holy gods,” someone muttered.
It was a slithering shift in the blackness, a suggestion of something awakening as it unfolded.
The first to emerge were its limbs, spindly and wrong, bending at unnatural angles as it dragged itself upward.
The bone white surface, slick and ridged, gleamed faintly as it pulled free from the dark.
Its claws curled and twitched, clicking against the ground.
Then came the torso, stretched and emaciated, its rib cage grotesquely expanded as if its very structure had been warped by its endless hunger.
Bone interlocked like a cage around something that should not be breathing, yet I heard it give a shallow, rasping inhalation, as if it could taste us already.
It unfolded further, rising, rising, until its full form stood silhouetted against the flickering firelight cast by the firens, grotesquely tall, impossibly thin.
Its spine protruded in jagged ridges, flexing with every shift, its vertebrae clicking into place as if it had been curled up in the void for eons and was only now remembering what it meant to move.
Its face was mostly a gaping maw, an abyss of shifting, jagged fangs that retracted and extended, ever moving, ever hungry. The edges of its gullet quivered, pulsing as though it could already feel the weight of flesh it had yet to devour.
A sound slithered from its throat. It was a low, guttural vibration.
It wasn’t just hungry.
“The Starved,” Vidor said, nostrils flaring.
He moved first, pale face twisted with determination.
With a flick of his wrist, he unleashed a torrent of dark energy, his withering touch spreading like a deadly miasma toward the Starved.
Shadows gathered around his hands, coiling like snakes, their venomous bite ready to consume whatever they touched.
We heard the Onyx women cry out in the distance as Vidor drew on their magic to strengthen his own.
The darkness expanded as it spread, shimmering with an unnatural black sheen.
The Starved responded with terrifying speed. One moment, the writhing black fog surged toward it, a tide of death meant to consume. The next, the creature’s grotesque maw split open in something that was not quite a scream.
And then it devoured.
The shadows, the tendrils of dark withering magic, the very air between them all collapsed inward, sucked into the yawning abyss of its mouth. The dark energy flickered, unraveled, and then vanished, as if it had never existed at all.
The Starved shuddered in monstrous pleasure, its elongated fingers twitching, its rib cage expanding, stretching as though it had just tasted something intoxicating. And then it lunged, hungry again.
It was a nightmare given motion, rushing at Vidor with the sick, jerking movements of something that had never been meant to walk in the light.
Vidor turned to face the monster, his eyes blazing with hatred, but even he couldn’t hide the fear that flickered in them.
Jace joined the fray, his arrows cutting through the air like streaks of light.
When the arrows bounced off the bone, he started firing them into the demon’s many joints.
The Starved only shook them off, still barreling forward with unstoppable momentum.
But then I saw the bone around the arrowheads beginning to corrode, a dark, sickly green spreading outward from the impact points.
For a heartbeat, hope flared. It could be hurt.
But then the Starved shuddered.
The decay did not spread like it should have. Instead, the rotted sections sloughed off, peeling away like dead skin, revealing fresh, unblemished bone beneath. The arrows fell away.
Jace swore, already loosing another shot, his golden hair slick with sweat. “It’s regenerating too fast!”
“You cannot win.” The Starved’s voice was a chittering nightmare, a grotesque chorus of scraping mandibles and hissing decay. Its abyssal maw quivered, as if tasting our fear. Its words were not spoken but exhaled, slithering through the marrow of my bones.
“Give me the woman of prophecy.”
Auron unleashed a volley of flaming phoenix phire arrows, each one bursting into firebirds mid-flight.
The birds screamed as they dove toward the Starved, their fiery talons searing into its bones.
The eagle-shifted Azure dove in and out at the Starved with his thundervein-tipped talons, as the other firens shot flames.
The combination of corrosion and fire began to take its toll, forcing the creature to stagger back, its focus split between the relentless attacks.
“Jace!” Auron shouted, but Jace didn’t need the reminder, already reloading his corroding arrows.
Auron’s flame veil surged as he leapt forward, firing another arrow that exploded into a blazing firebird, while the veil deflected attacks on him.
Lian’s hands crackled with power as she summoned a scorched earth, the ground beneath the Starved bubbling with heat, firestorm winds whipping around her. Her flames surged.
Flame’s presence swelled in the back of my mind, a steady, determined force cutting through the chaos.
Flame. There was an urgency and desperation in my thoughts.
Without hesitation, her response echoed through me: I’m here.
I watched as Flame bounded forward, her lithe form weaving through the battlefield, her golden eyes gleaming with purpose. In the distance, Kingsolver, Venom, and Xane growled low, circling the Starved. Flame roared, the sound reverberating through the cave like a call to arms.
The tygers responded. Kingsolver surged forward, claws raking through stone and earth.
Venom followed, his brute strength colliding with the Starved as Xane darted in and out, using speed to attack the Starved.
Even through the chaos, I could feel Flame coordinating them, pushing the tygers to fight together as a unit.
Don’t let them fall apart, I urged her, feeling her determination swell in response.
We won’t lose, she growled back.
But still, the Starved regenerated.
I ran to where Edith and Blake lay unconscious by the Anchor.
“Quinn!” I shouted, already scrambling to lift Edith. My arms slid under her back, but I couldn’t carry them both. “Help me!”
He appeared a moment later, his slate blue hair soaked to the roots, blood streaking his temple. His eyes went straight to Edith, then to Blake. “Great Nuwa,” he breathed. “Axefire is still down?”
I nodded once. “We have to get them somewhere less exposed.”
He didn’t hesitate. He crouched beside Blake, slung his arm over his shoulder, and hoisted him up with one brutal motion. I dragged Edith, her limbs trailing in the dirt, but we only needed to make it to the rocks near the inner wall. Enough cover to shield them from the worst of it.
We laid Edith against the wall, Blake next to her.
Edith’s hand was still warm in mine. I couldn’t even feel a whisper of Blake in our Pair bond now and tried to suppress my panic.
I quickly patted him down for anything I could use.
Not a single thundervein weapon, only one plain dagger remained.
He must have given everything in the fight.
Quinn crouched low, staring down at them. “They’ll be safest here. You stay with them.”
I gripped his arm. “Quinn, wait—”
He didn’t look away from Edith. “Tell her I’ll keep it at bay. Tell her I’m with her until the end.”
Then he stood. His body shimmered. For a second, the air bent around him, and he shifted into his massive wolf. He didn’t wait for me to answer. He ran. Back toward the Starved.
As I stood in front of Edith’s and Blake’s unconscious forms, Quinn attacked.
Auron moved, his flame blade glowing brightly as he swung it in perfect arcs, slicing through the Starved again and again.
His flame veil shimmered around him, that second skin of fire that protected him from the Starved’s ravenous touch.
Malissa’s eyes narrowed, her hands raised as she began throwing her thundervein knives.
The Starved kept coming. Vidor backed away from it but fell, causing a landslide of rocks. Calla, in her huge bear form, was caught up under the avalanche with him.
“Calla!” Quinn yelled, moving toward her. A moment later, the Starved surged toward him.
“Quinn!” I shouted.
He heard me and turned, leaping at the demon. I could see he snarled, but it was drowned out by the sickening chitter of the Starved as it struck. The Starved moved like a collapsing shadow, its limbs folding and unfolding in jerking, unnatural angles as it caught Quinn mid-motion.
I sprinted toward the demon, ribbons unfurling, desperate to stop the Starved.
Flame, Kingsolver, watch over Edith and Blake for me!
Flame slid in front of Edith, as Kingsolver bounded back to his rider.
But I didn’t make it in time.
Even as Quinn’s thundervein-tipped claws raked across the creature’s hide, the wounds vanished before they could deepen. It had Quinn in its grip.
He tried to tear himself free, but it was already too late.
The maw gaped open, wider than seemed possible, an abyss of writhing, jagged fangs.
Quinn yelped, the sound startlingly human, as the claws of the Starved pierced through fur and flesh, dragging him inward.
His body buckled, his back legs kicking wildly, scrabbling against the ground, but the Starved’s hunger was an inescapable void.
Quinn’s wolf form shrank as he shifted back, as if clinging to his last, desperate chance at survival—
And then Quinn’s human hand reached out, trembling, fingers curling toward us—
Before the darkness took him whole.
Not only him. His soul, too.
The Starved shuddered, its rib cage expanding, its jagged maw twisting in pleasure.
Quinn was gone.
I staggered, screaming—so loud it felt silent somehow. Arms wrapped around my waist, someone pulling me back, away from where the Starved still was, watching, waiting.
“Rubi, snap out of it,” Auron urged, before releasing me. “We need you. Blake, Edith—they need you.”