Chapter 60
Chapter sixty
The staircase stretched endlessly, each step deforming space as if reality itself had been warped. It didn’t spiral or descend straight but zigzagged at unnatural angles, casting shadows that bent and crawled across the walls in the uneven light.
“I don’t remember an underground level anywhere near the lab two weeks ago,” Rynna muttered, one hand gripping the rough stone wall for balance. A wave of queasiness rolled through her as the world pitched sideways.
“It was here.” Kaelith moved beside her, offering a steadying hand. “Skarn often complained about not being allowed to the lower levels.”
Ahead, Bran’s flames crackled, lighting the path just enough to reveal more of the winding staircase. “Whatever’s down here.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Taren, El, and I go first.”
Fenn’s steps faltered as he frowned. “Bran…”
“No, Guide Fenn,” Bran interrupted. He slowed, turning to face Fenn directly, the fire dancing in his eyes. “Hika is quite clear that we need to be the ones to face whatever it is. That she needs to face him.”
“I don’t like it. Rynna, Kaelith, and I are the more experienced unit.”
“And this is our destiny.” Taren rested his hand on the hilt of his great sword.
“Let us take this burden.” Elara looked back as they continued down. “You and Rynna have been preparing us for this moment for the last eight years.”
The words stopped Rynna mid-step. Her foot hovered above the stone as she stared at Elara’s back, the girl's quiet conviction echoing louder than any battlefield scream.
“We may be young, but we’re not blind,” Elara added. “You’ve both done enough.”
Rynna’s jaw tightened, her eyes flicking between Fenn and the younger Hollow-born as they continued down. Every step echoed hollowly, while the pathway narrowed with each turn. Inching closer, Rynna skimmed her fingers against Fenn’s before catching his hand in hers.
“There may yet be obstacles before the final battle,” Kaelith spoke from behind them. “I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunity for you to roar, wolf.”
“So long as we end the horde.” Fenn nodded.
The staircase continued to stretch, the disorienting twists making it hard to gauge how far they had come.
But as the last step came into view, the path finally opened into a small, dimly lit chamber scored directly into the earth.
The air here was colder, the walls damp and uneven.
And at the far corner, half-hidden in the darkness, an opening had been cut into the rock, its edges coarse and uneven as if it had been hastily carved.
“Whatever it is must be through there.” Bran pointed toward the door and started forward.
Then—
Click. The sound echoed through the space, and Rynna’s spine went rigid as the world fractured around them. The walls convulsed with a grinding groan as black sigils flared to life beneath their feet, pulsing across the stone like inky veins under skin.
What? She barely had time to think before a sudden weight slammed into her side.
Kaelith, shoulder-first, knocked her off balance, sending her crashing into Fenn in a tangle of limbs as something grated overhead, deep and mechanical.
Turning mid-fall, Rynna’s eyes widened at Kaelith, just behind them, with an arm outstretched from where he’d shoved her forward. Then the ceiling above the stairwell split open, and a slab of stone dropped like a guillotine. Right on his leg.
“Kae!” The slab struck with a bone-deep shudder, sending dust billowing outward as Kaelith’s scream carried through the haze.
Rynna blinked through the grit, calling into his mind. Kae!
But his leg was trapped beneath the slab, crushed under its full weight, as his hands clawed into the floor, slipping in the growing puddle of blood.
On the other side, just past him, Bran, Taren, and Elara had moved together into the small alcove to the side of the fallen door. Firelight from Bran’s blazing hair danced across their cheeks and rippled over the stone wall behind them.
Elara went first, stepping toward Kaelith, hand outstretched as a streak of black tore from the wall.
Rynna gathered her Will, ready to jump, but Taren was faster. He lunged, caught the young woman by the collar, and hauled her back just as a blade of shadow burst from the stone, cleaving through the space she had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
“Go!” Rynna shouted at the others. “We’ll follow!”
Then, without hesitation, she dove for Kaelith.
But the room was already shifting again, panels in the walls sliding open with a mechanical hiss, and new blades snapping out, whirling and retracting in timed bursts. It was like the chamber on the dead continent…except worse. There was no escape here, no wall to cling to for safety.
Air hissed between Kaelith’s teeth. “Can you get me out?”
Rynna dropped to her knees, heart hammering. The slab pinning him was massive.
Don’t panic. Just think.
Her vision darted, searching for anything that might be used to move the stone, before landing on Fenn.
“Go with them.” She reached for the slab, planting her feet. “I’ll get him out. Just go!”
She strained with everything she had, pulling on the hidden well of strength buried deep inside her, teeth gritted. And for a second—just one—the stone shifted. A fraction. Enough for air to hiss through the larger gap.
Kaelith’s body arched with a raw, strangled sound, part pain, part breathless shock.
Then the stone slammed back down with a dull, unforgiving thud.
“Fuck.” Her boot slipped in the slick sheen of Kaelith’s blood, and he collapsed back against the floor as the wind punched from her lungs.
Gasping, she looked up as his head dropped, limbs going slack. Then, the archway at the far end shuddered, and the stone above it groaned, dust billowing as the gap shrank with every heartbeat.
“Get them through the door, Bran!” Fenn’s voice boomed across the chamber. “We’ll follow!”
“Yes, Guide!” Flames burst from Bran’s skin in answer, spiraling up his arms and across his back in a roar of heat and light.
His eyes blazed, more flame than pupil, and he flung his arms wide, then swept the inferno around Taren and Elara in a sudden, searing arc. Fire swallowed them, and in a single motion, Bran hauled all of them together before the power exploded outward, lifting all three off the ground.
“Hurry!” Bran looked back, locking eyes with Rynna and Fenn across the firelit chamber.
Then he launched forward, trailing molten stone like a comet as he shot toward the closing door. And a heartbeat later, the trio vanished through the gap.
“Rynna.” Fenn’s eyes stayed locked on the space where they disappeared. “We need to help them.”
From the other side of the cavern, almost immediately, came the beginnings of elemental battle, blasts reverberating through the stone, each one accompanied by flashes of light that flickered through fractures in the walls.
“But Kaelith—” she began.
“Go,” the other man urged. “I’ll slither over when I’m ready.” He flashed her a crooked grin as electricity lit the chamber in brief, blinding bursts. “It sounds like they need you.”
“Kae.” Rynna rolled her eyes, blinking back the tears. Her throat burned. This wasn’t the time to fall apart.
“Can’t you jump him out?” Fenn’s voice cut through the thunder of flame and crumbling stone. “Or whatever you call it.”
She looked up, brows scrunching. His eyes burned with a silver predatory glow, and his fangs gleamed as they peeked out from beneath his lips.
Rynna froze, then startled with a choked inhale.
Of course.
She didn’t have to lift the stone. She could blink them straight to the narrow space just behind the falling door. Her stomach tightened at how obvious it was. She hadn’t seen it, not with the panic wailing through her veins.
“Yes,” she said, voice barely there. “But we have to go now.”
Fenn’s hand found hers instantly, fingers encircling her own.
“You ready?” Rynna reached for Kaelith’s shoulder with her other hand. “Coming out from under the slab’s going to hurt.”
His mouth twitched. A faint lift. Then it fell again beneath the strain. “Of course, pet.”
“Okay.” She focused, drawing her Will. It was only one jump, a clean step through space, faster than the stone’s final drop. Hopefully.
Kaelith’s eyes softened as the world folded.
Even one more second with you is worth every agony, he sighed in her mind.
Then the air split open, and they were gone.