Chapter 8
Eight
Nightside
Mina gaped as the sorcerer blasted into the air atop a jet of water. She’d just been marveling that they’d survived the fire field—and that the triumphant glint in his eyes was weirdly arousing—then geyser .
When he came crashing down onto hard stone, the impact knocked the breath from him; she swore residual opium smoke puffed from his lungs.
He spat steaming water. More sloshed from his leather pants and sluiced from his hair, cascading over blistered skin.
She gave a laugh. “You stunk so bad, even Nightside took exception!” The geyser had scalded him clean of that dissolute smell, and he no longer sweated out drugs. She detected a thread of his innate scent, and it was . . . nice.
His lowering expression made her laugh again. As he maneuvered himself to sit against a boulder, gusts of wind whipped across the rise, wicking away the moisture from his abused skin.
He’d be out of commission for a while, but not enough for her to take his head without a sword. Pity. Which meant she should concentrate on her escape.
Time was running out for Mina. She recalled her temptation to bite his jugular—clearly the plague’s work. It was already influencing her behavior, eroding her logic.
And that wasn’t her only concern. Once Mirceo discovered Lothaire had sent her away from Dacia and lost her, he might attack the much stronger king. Then Lothaire would relish the chance to do to Mirceo what he’d done to her uncle Viktor: beat him beyond recognition.
If Mirceo somehow kept his cool and realized where she was, he might provoke a Gaoler capture by appearing in front of a mass of humans. Or worse, his thoughts could turn to a perilous alternative, a ring that granted wishes. For a price.
If anyone was going to use that wishgiver, it’d be Mina. I’ve got to get free of Nightside and save my brother from himself.
Mind on the task ahead, she investigated the area. High ledges and stacks of seared boulders surrounded them, with only one outlet, a natural path.
Her gaze jerked up when a disturbing scent reached her from a distance. Something immortal but . . . dead. Undead.
Nightside’s stakes are real , she thought, the screams of those burning shifters echoing in her mind. Yet she had to push on. “Thanks for the ride, sorcerer, but this is where we part ways.”
“Even after I saved your life?”
“You told me I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”
His brows drew together, as if he was trying to recall his words. Then he said, “You already scent the undead, don’t you? Nightside is their realm. Ghouls, wendigos, and revenants originated from here.” She’d read about each species in her studies. “You’ll face them all. At least I would keep you alive for a time and protect you from them.”
“I’ve witnessed your powers. You couldn’t protect me in a sandbox. Good-bye for now, Silt Harea.”
“I will find you. It’s as good as done.”
“Better hope I don’t lay hands on a weapon before then.”
As she hastened away, he yelled, “Coming for you, little leech!”
She yelled back, “I like my odds, sorcerer!”
As she gained elevation on the path, rain began to fall. Fresh water? Her fortunes were turning! After all, during her studies with her uncle Trehan, she’d read of otherland realms that rained acid under a constant sun.
She quickened her pace, wondering how her Dacian uncles would take the news of her disappearance. Though they all resembled each other with their black hair and tall builds, their personalities varied wildly.
Trehan was methodical but fierce, a book-loving master of weapons. Brash Viktor was a military genius who hungered for a war that would never come to a hidden kingdom. And Stelian, the sentinel of Dacia’s stone borders? He sipped his ever-present bloodmead flask to disguise his hidden depths.
While Mirceo had raised her, these males had also shaped who she was today. She knew what they would do once they discovered she’d gone missing: raze all the worlds to find me. They could appear here at any moment. . . .
Her optimism faded when she reached a cliff. Below her spread an apocalyptic landscape of burned forest and drifting fog. Petrified trees jutted from ash, twisted remnants of a more verdant time.
Lava from another vent must have overtaken a swampy forest. She didn’t know how trees had grown without sun, but then, not every plane was bound by the rules of the mortal realm.
Gnawed bones dotted the area, evidence of a hunting ground. Through the rain, movement caught her eye, figures winding around trunks in the distance.
Wendigos. They had haggard bodies with stringy hair and claws like daggers. Fangs and orange-red eyes dominated their elongated faces.
Were her reddening eyes like theirs? A warning?
More movement. Half a dozen immortal prisoners were sprinting through the ash, attempting to outpace those beasts.
From her vantage, Mina spied a wendigo leap dozens of feet into the air above the fog bank to land on a male—who’d never seen it coming. His screams rang out.
As with ghouls, a wendigo’s single bite or scratch could transform a Lorean. Since the catalyst for a species change was always death, that meant undead contagion could kill even an immortal.
While ghouls were driven by an uncontrollable need to infect others, wendigos simply wanted to eat other beings, would unearth corpses to dine on in times of scarcity.
A pack of those corpse-eaters descended on the felled male. He wouldn’t likely resurrect; wendigos didn’t often leave enough of a victim’s body to revive.
Another scream; two out of six immortals had fallen. She was tempted to help the remaining ones, but she had no weapon. Besides, they could be as evil as Silt the Crazy Sorcerer, imprisoned here for a reason.
Cold logic, cold heart, Mina.
As the last four struggled through the fray, she used her speed to get around and ahead of them, allowing those Lorean deaths to provide a distraction.
“I’m looking for a female vampire,” Silt told a lion shifter curled up in the middle of a wendigo hunting ground.
“Be careful what you wish for,” the male said weakly. Why was his voice muffled?
“Have you seen her?” When Silt had made a tactical detour to acquire weapons, he’d lost her trail. Though he’d once been a gifted hunter, the rain had erased her tracks in this ashy quagmire. “Answer me.”
“Go suck your own tail.”
Like a flash, Silt had one of his new makeshift swords under the male’s chin. “Do not cross me.” He pressed the sword harder, glad he’d taken the time to rush back into the fire field to pluck two lengths of crystal as weapons. “Did you see a vampire?”
“She did this!” The shifter opened his mouth and pointed to the missing top row of teeth and fangs. “That leech pummeled me to the ground, booted me in the face, and stole my belt!”
“Sounds like she made off with your balls too?” Silt’s lips curved, though he hadn’t fared much better against her. She’d broken his nose, busted his own balls, and cracked his knee. “Did she drink you when you were down?” Either she would benefit from this creature’s blood, or the wendigos would. Silt searched for the telltale bite marks, but the male’s coat concealed his neck.
“No, she didn’t feed. Just booted me—for no reason whatsoever!”
Blood for the taking, and she passed it up? “Where did she go?”
“Dizzy after that. I think she headed toward that rise in the distance. We’re all headed there.”
“From where?”
“From the cave. Everyone starts in the same cave.”
As suspected.
Half-delirious, the shifter said, “The Gaolers warned me in dreams . . . but human flesh calls to me.” His pupils swelled to larger slits. “Mortals are so tender. I can’t resist devouring them.”
Silt punched him, knocking him unconscious, a death sentence in this field. He dropped down to filch the shifter’s boots, surprised they fit. Then he peeled off the leather coat from the male’s lax body. The cut was too tight but might stretch. He ripped strips from the shifter’s shirt to knot around the ends of his swords for handles.
Provisioned, he’d just started forward when he sensed wendigos behind him. He whirled around to find eyes burning with hunger. Gore stamped their revolting faces.
Opportunistic feeders would take the easy meat first. Weapons raised, Silt eased away from the shifter.
The wendigos pounced on the unconscious male with a ferocity that would have surprised even a predator like him.
As the pack started their feeding frenzy, Silt hastened away through the sludge.
The shifter woke in time for hell, his screams carrying over the desolate landscape.
Then more howls sounded in the distance. Ignoring the pain in his exhausted body, Silt ran headlong.
Another pack was on the scent of prey, heading away from him. His bet: They hunt a female vampire.