Chapter 59 #2
Answering howls sounded in the distance. The Wolflords were coming.
Vann’s smile was not in the least bit comforting. “Life or death, little sister?”
What the…
“I should think life would be obvious!”
Is he trying to scare you? Honestly!
“I rather agree,” he answered, though why it sounded sad was beyond her.
Between one blink and the next, Vann’s platinum hair flowed with green. The black bled away from his one eye and revealed an emerald iris to match the other. Even his skin brightened, deepening as a healthy pink suffused his cheeks.
Riotous flowers and teeming vines flew across the battlefield below. They filled the rotting places with life and rose up to seize Forgotten by their multi jointed legs, holding them in place for the Demons and Sorcerit to slaughter.
Well, alright then…
Shouts from the bottom of the incline, and Magnus let out a snarl. The Demons guarding it were being overrun by the Forgotten concentrating there. They slashed out with teeth and talons, and Lunara watched in horror as one of the warriors was impaled and devoured.
“No!”
“Ah. Time to go.” Hedda wrenched her back, stopping her from trying to help. “They have their job, we have ours. Sadness has to be for later.” Jaw tight, she shouted for the Demons below to clear away. “Ready?”
Not even a little bit.
“Go!”
Fern was a blur as she shot past, hurtling towards the ground.
Mace raised, she brought it down in an arc, thunder booming when she connected with her first target.
The earth shook with every hit she landed, shockwaves rippling out and sending the Forgotten sprawling.
From nowhere, rain poured around her in a tight circle, never touching Fern even as it doused their glowing ember gazes and flowed up into their mouths.
Twitching, gurgling, drowning—just before she cast out hot streaks of lightning to electrocute and disintegrate them.
Faldir whistled. “Fuck. I think I’m in love,” he said, and joined her.
Vann followed with a wink, riding a wave of flora that churned the soil.
Pastel petals scattered and sank into the Forgotten, eating through their woody flesh like acid.
Thorns shot out and embedded themselves in fiery eye sockets.
Vines lashed out like clawed hands, gripping the maimed at each limb and tearing them apart before burying the pieces in their wake.
Magnus leapt from the incline and landed on the back of a Forgotten.
His massive jaws closing over its jagged skull and tearing it away in a single pull, shadows spilling from the decapitated torso like blood.
Its needlepoint teeth were still snapping when he fed the severed head to Vann’s violent maelstrom of plants.
She could hardly track him as he moved on to the next, and the next.
Shitting stars.
“Araxis showed you what to do, and we’re running out of time.” Hedda gave her a nudge, eyes darting between her and whatever was happening behind them. “Let go, my friend. You must.”
With a deep breath, Lunara unfurled her whips. Araxis’s voice in her mind, she commanded the particles in the air to lift her body, holding her suspended—safe—over the pandemonium.
Yesterday, she’d been nothing. No one. Now, she was the Keeper of Illamiata and she was fucking flying over a bleeding battlefield.
It’s fine. You are fine. You were made for this by the Sisters themselves.
She hated when she was right.
Let them guide you. Let them feed you, like the Demons did.
Insanity.
She loosed Illamiata the tiniest bit, joining with the others—feeling out their intentions, their movements. Again, their rage was hers. Their strength and fury. Their vengeance.
Lunara didn’t have to understand it to harness it.
With a scream, she threw a surge of power behind her first attack, her taloned whips cracking as they landed. The first kill echoed, boiling her blood.
That they’d taken him… That they’d fucking dared…
Lunara unleashed. She fell willingly into a pattern of alternating swings, obliterating Forgotten and filling the craters she left behind with piles of bone and shadow.
It wasn’t perfect, and she didn’t hit every time, but it was enough. It helped.
The others delivered Forgotten into the devastating paths of their comrades in perfect harmony.
Vann’s vines would hurtle one into the air for the twins to decimate it.
Fern struck hard enough to send them flying—right into Magnus’s waiting fangs.
On and on they went, closer to the chasm’s edge with every hammering blow, every twining stem, every savage bite.
Just as they reached the steps and she touched back down, a shadow fell over them and Lunara glanced to the sky.
A colossal dragon flew above, blotting out the sunstar.
Its scales glittered in shades of the deepest orange and gold, its clawed wings beating a steady rhythm as the quadricorn serpent threw its head back and roared.
One of the riders on its back stood in their saddle and pulled down the swath of linen wrapped around their head and face.
Amunkar, Amal behind him, on their way to the Ghostbor.
“For Brand!” he shouted, spurring his dragon onward. Flames gushed from its maw as they flew, incinerating the enemies on the hillsides.
The Demons answered, “For Brand!” as he disappeared over the horizon.
Tears in her eyes, Lunara looked down into the gloom.
Throwing out her shield, she encompassed her friends—battered, a little worse for wear, but still standing tall and ready—and pushed the shadows away.
“For Brand,” she whispered, and led them into the abyss.
Where before the shadows had seemed curious, now they were volatile. Deranged. Slamming themselves collectively against her shield with harsh, repetitive strikes before recoiling with what Lunara would swear were screams. Like they’d been burned.
Still, they came back. Battering. Lashing. Biting. All of it focused on her—not the barrier or her companions.
It felt personal.
“I thought there’d be more to it,” Hedda murmured at her side, the gash above her brow seeping anew when she raised it.
It was hard to ignore the deep lacerations in Magnus’s bloodied muzzle or the matching claw marks on Fern’s bare shoulder and opposite thigh, her bandeau dress muddied and torn between.
Faldir was sporting a particularly spectacular black eye, emphasizing the twisting scar down his face.
Vann looked utterly exhausted, his limp more pronounced than she’d ever seen it.
All of them had rejected her offers of healing. She didn’t need to waste her time on their scratches, they’d said, but Lunara had heard the words between—she needed to be ready for Brand. For whatever state they found him in.
“Yes, well…” Lunara frowned at a pocket of dribbling ooze and tamped down her shudder. “Fortunately or unfortunately, the only thing we found was the army of cursed creatures at the bottom. It’s empty, otherwise.”
“Disappointing, honestly.” She gaped at Faldir, and he shrugged. “What? I was hoping for a challenge.”
“You Demons.” Lunara shook her head. “I, for one, am grateful it isn’t worse. Leaving the steps here was an egregious oversight.”
“I’d say you had more pressing matters to see to at the time.” Hedda swiped at the blood dripping from the cut in her swollen lip. “All the more reason to find Brand”—she leveled Faldir with a pointed look—“without any unnecessary drama.”
They lapsed into a heavy silence, Hedda’s quiet words settling over them as they descended ever further into the chasms’s bowels.
Over and over, Lunara searched for the bond as they trekked. For anything that would tell her where her mate was in this foul place, and—again and again—felt nothing.
It’s fine. He’s fine. Everything will be fine.
No, it was too much. Too much. She was so fucking tired.
Tears sprang to her eyes, a wretched, consuming hopelessness with them. What if there was no point to this? What if he was already gone and she was doing nothing more than leading the rest of the people she cared about into ruin? What if they all—
Something isn’t right.
Of course something wasn’t right. Nothing was right. This was futile.
Stop it! This isn’t right! Don’t you feel it?
Lunara blinked, sniffling. Only then did she notice her breaths were coming in shorter and shallower. That there were fingers in her mind. Insidious tendrils digging in and searching through her.
“Wait.” She stumbled to a stop. “Just wait.”
Sweat dotted her brow and soaked the neckline of her fighting linens. When had that happened?
“What is it?” Vann asked, searching her face as Magnus loosed a low whine.
“I…” A hand was closing over her face to smother her. She was sure of it. “Something is wrong.”
No sooner had she said the words than the presence multiplied and a horrific pressure filled her skull, threatening to crack it in two.
“You would bring that trinket here, into my domain?”
Weeping fucking Sisters. Not another one.
It wasn’t herself. It wasn’t Endellion. It wasn’t even the monster who’d stolen Brand.
This was something else. Something old. Something evil.
She felt it in the tiny hairs on her body as they stood on end. In every particle as they cowered within her, begging her to run.
“Interesting choice, little one. If only you understood what it was you had. The gift you were giving me.”
Piss. Shite. Arse. It hurt. She was going to shatter apart. Was going to disintegrate into a million tiny pieces.
Illamiata flared in her chest, vibrating as prismatic light flashed out from her.
The being chuckled. “Ah, yes. Very interesting, indeed. Not to worry. My children will thank you when they feed on your marrow. I will thank your barren bones when I am free.”
Lunara fell to her knees as it left her, gasping for air. The relief was so stark, so sudden.
She doubled over, vomiting, as if her body wished to purge any lingering traces of whatever the fuck that had been.
Who. Who it had been.
“Lunara!” Hedda was crouched in front of her, panic etched onto her face. “What is it? What happened?”
The shadows lightened, the black going tepid around them. Lazy.
“Something… something was here,” she rasped, still retching. “Someone. I don’t—”
The entire chasm shuddered around them, and went still.
“I don’t like this,” Fern said, her head cocked to the side. “It doesn’t feel right.”
Another shudder, dust and pebbles clattering against the stone. Time slowed as she watched the crack form, and yet it happened so fast.
Before Lunara could move, they were hurtling down into the darkness, the step gone from beneath them.