Chapter Forty
Craize sets us down just beyond the blazing ring.
The heat hits like a physical blow. Sweat beads instantly form along my hairline, my cheeks flushing as the air buckles into rippling waves of molten gold. Every breath burns—thick, heavy, and hostile—as if the fire itself has teeth and my lungs are caught between them.
At the edge of the inferno stands Ryder, one hand braced on the hilt of his sword. A thin line of blood slips down his cheek, stark against firelit skin. Nala stands at his side, her eyes greeting me with relief and panic all at once.
“You okay?” I ask, stepping into the heat. I cup Ryder’s cheek and release a careful pulse of warmth. The cut seals beneath my fingers, skin knitting cleanly back together.
He exhales, slow and controlled, tension easing from his shoulders. “I’m fine.” His eyes stay on mine, searching, measuring. “Are you?”
“I’m okay,” I say, though the lie tastes thin. My gaze slides past him to the fire. “And Versivius?”
“He’s nearby.” Ryder tilts his head, eyes tracking the sky. I follow—past smoke spiralling upward, past treetops trembling under the pressure—to the towering wall of flames. It roars like a living thing, furious and hungry, straining against whatever elixir cages it.
“Is it in there?” My hand lifts, unsteady, toward the inferno.
“For now.” Ryder’s jaw tightens with a stiff nod.
The fire surges, swallowing his words in its crackling snarl.
Shapes writhe within the blaze, and for a heartbeat, I swear I see something pacing, its silhouette bending in ways nothing living should.
My pulse stutters, and even though the heat grows quick around me, my hairs stand on end as if it were deathly cold.
Nala steps forward, voice calm and absolute. “We don’t have long. Lina said the fire won’t hold for more than an hour, and even then, she doesn’t know for sure.”
River rolls his shoulders, fingers tightening around the hilts of his knives, blue powder catching the light. “Then we’d best move quickly,” he says, a muscle jumping in his jaw.
A gust of wind sweeps low overhead—Versivius, unseen but unmistakable. A reminder. A comfort.
I draw in a steadying breath. “Okay,” I say. “This is it.”
Silence falls—not the absence of sound, but the kind that coils tight and waits.
Ryder draws his sword.
The soft metallic whisper cuts clean through the roar of the flames.
He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t look at us.
The firelight dances along the blade, catching in the hard line of his jaw, in the quiet fury etched into his face.
His stillness is lethal—the kind that comes just before something shatters.
Even the air seems to brace.
River steps up beside us, spinning one of his lightning-dusted knives between his fingers, grin sharp as broken glass.
“All right,” he says lightly. “Let’s destroy this son of a bitch.”
The fire hisses, as if answering the challenge.
And together, we step forward—inches from the flames.
I whistle for Craize. “Take them over,” I instruct, and he swoops low, wings slicing through smoke-heavy air as he collects his passengers. Nala swings onto Kareem’s back in one fluid motion. I’m about to climb behind her when a hand clamps around my wrist—cold and vice-tight.
“Asha, watch out!” Nala shouts.
My head snaps back.
Everything in me freezes.
It’s—
It’s my dad.
Leon stands before me, his hand wrapped tightly around my wrist.
“Dad!” I breathe a sigh of relief. He must have been turned. He must be here to help.
And then I see it.
His eyes flash an ink-black, the same depthless void as the obsidian veins threading Mourn Peak. My pulse misfires, and I feel his enthralled power searching mine, trying to dig its claws in. It’s not my father.
It’s as if the Siphon reached into my memories, sifted through every fear I carry—and chose the one person it knew could break me. The one person who knows every weakness I’ve ever had.
Something in me shifts.
Power surges up my spine before I can stop it. I fling him backwards with a violent pull of energy, launching him through the air. The recoil slams into me just as hard, staggering me a step.
“It’s okay, Nala—go!” I shout.
She hesitates, eyes flicking between my father’s crumpled form and my face, torn.
“Go,” I repeat, firmer. “I’ve got this.”
She holds my gaze for a heartbeat longer, searching for doubt. Finding none, she gives a sharp nod. Kareem crouches, and with a powerful beat of his wings, he carries them skyward.
My attention snaps back to the man lying motionless in the dirt.
Please let that have been enough to shock his system.
“Dad?” I call, moving closer. Carefully. Every step tightens my chest. “Are you okay?”
What if he hit his head? What if I—
Gods, what if I killed him?
“Dad?” I reach out, fingers trembling, brushing his cheek—
His eyes snap open, and my heart tremors. Black sludge leaks from his pupils, spiralling outward as it devours the whites of his eyes and swallows his irises whole. The vision makes me shudder.
His grip clamps around my wrist again, crushing. With inhuman strength, he hurls me backwards. My spine slams into the trunk of a tree, the impact ripping a groan from my throat.
Stars burst across my vision, and my head thrums.
When it clears, he’s already moving toward me in a slow and deliberate stance, almost predatory.
“Dad… you have to fight this,” I plead. “This isn’t you.”
He bends and retrieves his blade from the ground, eyes fixed on me as firelight glints along the metal. My breath catches.
“Dad,” I whisper. “Please.”
I push myself to my feet, heart tearing itself in two. I could stop him. I know I could.
But this is my father.
I would never forgive myself if I hurt him.
“Asha, baby,” he says gently, voice warm, and painfully familiar. “It’s me. Don’t be scared, I’m trying to help you.”
The lie is perfect, but just like the Hollows craft.
His eyes are not.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s not you. You have to fight it—”
He lunges.
The blade whistles toward my ribs, but I twist aside just in time, the air parting where steel should have been. He’s fast—too fast—his movements unnaturally smooth, stolen power carrying him forward.
“Dad, stop!” I shout, but he doesn’t hear me.
He swings again. I block with my forearm and leap back, the pain detonating with the impact.
I don’t have time for this. Not now. Not when the fire could collapse at any minute, not when my friends are moments from facing the Siphon without me.
He’s on me in a blink.
The blade slices across my bicep. Heat. Blood. I hiss through my teeth and slam my palm into the earth, releasing a burst of light. The ground fractures, flaring as it blasts him backwards.
He lands in a roll. Unfazed. Years of training evident in his movements.
He charges at me, but I don’t hesitate.
I sprint toward him. His eyes catch mine—amused, almost curious at my defiance. He lunges first, a ball of light flickering at his fingertips, but before he can claim the advantage, I seize it. The energy bends to my will, tearing free from his grasp and dancing obediently in my palm.
His eyes widen as we collide.
Then, I drive my hand into his chest and release the golden orbs.
Light detonates outward, flooding the fractures where the Siphon coils through his mind. The stench of burning flesh makes my stomach twist, but I don’t stop. I can’t. Not until the Siphon releases its hold.
Black slime crawls from his eyes and ears, streaking down his face as he screams. Darkness spills from his pupils in oily tendrils, unravelling, evaporating—ripped apart like smoke in a raging wind.
His knees hit the dirt, but I catch him before he can fall completely, arms wrapping around him as his weight collapses into me. His eyes lift to mine—dazed, pained, but present.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, my voice breaking as I tend to his burnt skin, regenerating his flesh. “You’re safe.”
He leans into my touch, exhausted, and for a moment, I want nothing more than to stay. To hold him. To pretend the world isn’t ending in fire behind me.
But he follows my gaze to the inferno.
“Go,” he says softly. Firmly. Like my dad again.
I swallow hard and nod once.
Then I turn and run—leaving him behind, trusting he’ll still be there when this is over.
The fire stares back at me, licking hungrily at the air like a starved beast.
‘You will watch the world burn.’
The words curl through my mind like smoke as my reflection burns molten orange. The heat sinks into my bones until it feels as if the fire breathes with me.
Not today.
As if the fire itself obeys, a column of shadow rises from the blaze—solid, thick, and shaped like a step.
My hand touches it, and it’s firm beneath my palm, like charred wood that refuses to burn.
I step onto it, and another forms ahead of me, then another.
Soon I’m sprinting upward, higher and higher above the roaring flames, each shadow-tendril unfurling beneath my feet the moment I need it.
The fire rages below, but my footing is certain.
When I reach the edge, the sight below knocks the breath from me—my friends are fighting for their lives.
The creature is relentless.
Fire washes over its inky black skin, but it does nothing—the flames curl around it and vanish, as if swallowed whole. Light doesn’t shimmer or reflect; it dies against the Siphon’s form, leaving only an impossibly dark silhouette.
It moves like liquid shadow, tendrils of darkness stretching, splitting, and reshaping themselves midair. Every step it takes shakes the scorched ground. Its presence is a living horror, the weight of a predator that exists only to consume.
Ryder’s sword gleams with raw, searing power, slicing off limbs that writhe, re-form, and lash out with blinding speed. The creature shrieks—a sound like metal ripping and wet stone grinding—vibrating the air so violently it scrapes across my bones.