Chapter 27
Graysen
People were moving all around me in waves of shock and confusion.
V?duva hunters pushed through the Crowther soldiers, jostling others as they stumbled close. Startled cries rose above the commotion, calling urgently for Petra. Jiao was bellowing, “MEDIC! MEDIC!”
But it was all white noise. The world faded into a snowy haze of smoke, and all that remained was Mela staring back at me, her eyes blown wide.
This was all my fault. If I hadn’t moved, Mela wouldn’t have been hit.
A morbid part of me recognized that Nelle’s distress had saved my life. The crossbow bolt would have ripped right through my chest, and a direct hit with a bolt cursed by Skalki would have killed me.
My friend’s panting breaths came fast as a freight train. “Gr-Gray…?” The shaky fingers she had wrapped around her throat clamped tighter as a sharp jolt twisted and buckled her chest. The godsawful sound of her wail shook me out of my shocked stupor.
Oh gods.
“Mela… Mela… Mela!”
And then…
Nelle.
A brutal rush of desperate need slammed through my body, as violent as a hurricane beating ocean waves to towering heights. The world around me darkened at the edges as something savage hammered at my heart. At my bones. At my very soul. Roaring at me to go to Nelle, now, now, now!
I barely saw Mela’s body shuddering on the stone ground at my feet.
I was vaguely aware of Sirro’s power lashing outward to wrap around the Gestelt bolt and tear it from Yezekael’s corpse.
All I thought of was Nelle.
All I saw was Nelle.
All I needed was Nelle.
My little bird filled my mind’s eye. My imagination spun a memory of her staring at me as sodden earth caved beneath her feet and she’d fallen from the cliff, pale hair whipping around wide gray eyes, lips pallid and shaking, forming my name.
Panic trembled across my cold skin.
Nelle went silent inside my head, beneath my flesh.
So quiet it felt like she’d left me.
No, no, no…
I dug deep, diving into the dark recesses of my being, searching frantically for those threads of moonlight stitched with sunshine that bound her to me. Where are they, where are they, where are they?
Yet again, I had a terrible choice to make—Nelle or Mela.
My friend would certainly die if I didn’t intervene.
How could I look myself in the eye if I turned away from Mela?
But Nelle, gods, Nelle…
I became distantly aware I’d been backing away on instinct.
One footstep—
Another—
Time seemed to slow as I twisted around, about to launch into a run.
You need to let her go—the Uzrek urged softly.
And I knew he wasn’t talking about Mela, nor was he referring to whatever was happening right now. She’s going to do that herself!—I shot back.
That’s not what I meant—the ancient creature replied—The first time we met, Death-Dealer, your fear was delightfully curious, but now it’s been replaced by something tragically new. Something more deeply rooted than losing your best friend. You fear that even if she’s freed, she won’t leave.
I fucking know that—I bit back, smarting—Tell me something I don’t know!
You know this—the Uzrek retorted, ire stinging through his tone—Yet you continue to hold on to her. You need to let her go right now.
I can’t!
The girl is forged from fire. You gave her what she needed last night. If you intercede now on her behalf, then you’ll ruin everything you’ve been working on—allowing her to stand on her own two feet. Have faith that whatever is happening, she’ll not only survive but grow stronger from it.
But I can’t feel her!
It’s too late, you’ll never reach her in time to save… Save your friend.
It was the scream of anguish shredding through the cavern that sliced through my heart and severed the last thread of Nelle’s hold on me. Petra shoved her way through the crowd, screaming, “Mela! Mela!”
I gasped, blinking and spinning back around. Guilt burned my throat. Oh gods, I’d almost left Mela alone to die.
I fell to my knees. The words ran together like a prayer.
“I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.” Mela’s fingers were ice-cold beneath mine.
I pulled her hand gently away from her neck.
The Gestelt bolt hadn’t clipped her, it had barely grazed her as it arrowed past. But even the merest touch of its scorching speed had left a burn mark.
Creeping sickly vine-tendrils and barbed nodes leaked a foul pus, bubbling like a festering tar pit.
The venomous curse was spreading fast, faster than it had with Jett.
His body had handled the Gestelt bolt because of our mother’s blood gift.
But Mela didn’t possess unnatural healing.
Petra dropped to the ground beside me. Her hoarse voice broke. “Mela?!” Ash-coated hands reached for Mela and hovered, shaking uncontrollably as Petra fumbled, not knowing what to do.
The Crowther medic arrived, rummaging in her kit.
A look of concern passed between us. She knew it was a Gestelt bolt and there was nothing she could do.
“I can give her something to ease the pain,” she murmured, retrieving a syringe of morphine infused with magic.
I swallowed back the heartache as I eyed the painkiller.
Not to save her, simply to ease her suffering as she passed into death.
Mela’s fingers suddenly clawed at mine. Stone grated beneath her boots as she kicked wildly. Another seizure shuddered through her, muscles locking, limbs spasming. Blood-flecked foam bubbled at her mouth as her neck arched, teeth snapping and eyes rolling back.
The Uzrek whispered inside my mind—She will die, thief.
She can’t!—I cried back, doing the only thing I could, hold her hand tightly in my own.
That bolt is cursed by Skalki herself. It will kill her in mere minutes unless you do something—I could feel the beast flicking through the jumble of my thoughts, riffling through my memories—Remember what you came across today.
Hope filled my chest with the barest glance of warmth.
It could save her…maybe…
Earlier today, when Nelle and I had sought the Purveyor of Rarities, a gwilin left Florin’s lair, slinking down the staircase.
Is there a way from here to get to the Purveyor of Rarities?—I asked.
There is.
Help me, please. I need to get to him.
There wasn’t a moment of hesitation—I’ll guide you.
I leaned over Mela, placing her hands around the back of my neck. “Hold on,” I whispered before scooping her into my arms and rising to my feet.
Confusion flickered through her pain-glazed eyes. The awful sound of her shallow breaths heaving her chest had dread pooling in mine.
Nelle was always in my thoughts.
But this time, my friend filled my heart—fracturing it with every passing second.
Petra rose, tears streaking through her soot-stained face. “What are you doing?”
I held Mela tighter. “I’m going to save her.”
Spinning around, I surged forward. Warm, smoky air whipped past as I cut a swift path through the crowd of soldiers and hunters until I broke free. And then I was gone in a rush of unnatural speed.
My mind sharpened into a blade as I focused on the Uzrek’s voice and raced beneath Ascendria through this tomb of darkness and stone and bones.
I stopped for nothing.
I didn’t care if I disturbed stone eaters or krekenns lurking in the murk, completely unmindful of the strange glow of eyes tracking me as I blew past. My mind held only one thing—the Uzrek spinning directions as fast as I took them.
I hurtled across vast caverns, vaulted boulders, bones crunching beneath my boots as I wove through twisting tunnels and climbed half-formed staircases.
I pushed deeper into the catacombs than I’d ever ventured before, ascending level by level toward the surface.
And still, it wasn’t enough.
The world shimmered as my eyes misted up and tears slid down my cheeks at the feel of Mela shuddering in my arms. The stench of rotting flesh grew more rancid, and the godsawful taste of death coated my tongue.
Your friend is waning. You’ll never reach there in time at this speed—you need to move faster.
I’m moving as fast as I can!
Faster, Wyrm Tamer!
A deep growl rose from the pit of my gut, a raw vibration of desperation rattling up through my chest. My mind spiraled inward, twisting down into the well that made me, me.
I sifted through the shards of myself, the biting angles and vulnerable edges, searching for the powerful part born of my ancient right.
And I sank into my very being, welcoming what had always burned in my blood.
It slammed right into me as if I’d collided with a wall.
Pure, raw power—supercharged and wild, vicious and lethal—punched into my heart.
A fiery kick of colossal might burst through my bloodstream like blazing wyrmfire.
It scorched through every inch of me, forging me into something old yet new.
Strange yet familiar. I was remade, refashioned into my ancestors who walked the earth before me.
A Wyrm Tamer.
I was a cyclonic windstorm of wrathful might, a line of destruction barreling down the tunnel.
My boots slammed against the cavern floor, a raucous thudding like spitting bullets, matching the one thought pounding through my mind—faster, faster, faster.
Even the catacombs seemed to tremble as I raced through its ancient belly.
A crack of splitting rock exploded overhead. Zig-zagging fissures tore through craggy walls, dust and stone raining in my wake.
It wasn’t fear that pushed me into the Tamer. It was the determination to save my friend. And I would save her, because there was no fucking way I was going to let her die. She needed to live for Elyse.
I burst from a tunnel into a long chamber.
One blink and I’d crossed halfway.
Another blink and I’d hit the far end, entering a new tunnel.
I disappeared into darkness and reappeared where my sight had marked a point ahead.
Again.
And again.
Time and distance unraveled. I crossed vast spans in a nanosecond.
Appearing.
Reappearing.
It was like swifting, but not. This was something entirely different.
A chuckle rose in my mind. Not from me—from the Uzrek. Finally, son of the Wyrm, you’ve become what you were born to be. All those wyrm genes coursing through your blood, the very marrow in your bones, have finally been triggered.
I pushed faster, feeling instead of thinking, settling into the tamer abilities.
My senses pulled tight in an eerie contraction, the world becoming a hint of color and texture as it blurred past, yet I saw it all with startling clarity.
It felt as if I were traveling in short bursts through voids, like dark passageways, the distance folding in on itself, stepping between here and there in a single footfall.
A step I barely felt, my body lengthening its stride as if untethered from the ground.
The Uzrek purred—Such magnificent abilities and qualities. I’ve not seen them in an age, Tamer.
My heart jolted. What did you just say?
But I’d already tuned him out.
A foreboding bell tolled in the back of my mind as my thoughts raced through what he’d said and what it meant. I’d always believed the answer to saving both my mother and Nelle would reveal itself. I just hadn’t looked closely enough. It had been right in front of me all along.
I gripped Mela tighter. My clever best friend.
Her voice echoed through my mind—the advice she’d given me weeks ago when we’d first come down here to hunt Yezekael for Sirro.
If there are only two players… Then become the third.
I’d always known that there was always going to be a loser in all of this, and I was okay with that because I’d finally found the last piece of the puzzle I desperately needed to save Nelle.
It was one word.
A single word that solved everything and changed the game completely.
Qualities.