Chapter 35
Elora
Blood roared in Elora’s ears, a thunderous drumming that drowned out everything else. She couldn’t remember how she’d ended up on the ground. The world tilted at wrong angles, dust coated her tongue, filling her throat. Each breath scraped.
A hot rivulet traced the curve of her temple, dripping onto the ground in tiny crimson splatters.
Her fingers twitched toward it but fell short, refusing her commands.
With each heartbeat, her right leg flared—a lightning strike of pain from knee to ankle that made her teeth clench against a scream. What happened? Where—
Palms pressed against her cheeks, thumbs brushing away grit that clung to her eyelashes.
A voice reached her through the ringing—fragments first, then syllables.
The blur above her solidified into a face she knew.
Rell’s jaw clenched and unclenched, a muscle twitching beneath stubble.
His eyes darted across her features, pupils dilated to black pools.
Gray powder caked his eyebrows and dusted his lashes, falling like snow when he blinked.
“Elora!” She finally heard him say. “Look at me. Are you hurt? Can you hear me?”
She blinked. Her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. “I—what—”
A wail cut through the air, then another, then dozens more layering into a wall of sound that vibrated in her chest. She twisted her neck against Rell’s fingers, the skin of his palms catching on her cheekbones.
The world snapped clear.
Twenty feet away, a stone archway had collapsed into a heap taller than a man.
White dust billowed from the pile, catching gold in the setting sun.
A woman’s arm jutted from beneath a jagged slab, fingers twitching.
A man lay face-down beside the rubble, his spine bent at an impossible angle where a wooden beam had fallen across his back.
Dark liquid spread in a perfect circle beneath his chest, soaking into the cracks between cobblestones.
“No,” she whispered, the word barely a breath. “No, no, no.”
Apprentices staggered through the wreckage, their Empire robes torn and filthy. A girl crawled on her hands and knees, her face a mask of blood. Three feet away, Alfie yanked at something beneath a fallen beam. The limb he freed wasn’t attached to anyone anymore.
Elora’s vision tunneled to pinpricks. Her tongue tasted like metal. Each inhale brought the copper-coin stench of blood, the acrid bite of dust, the unmistakable stench of opened bowels. Something hot and sour climbed her throat. Her jaw locked. Her hands pressed into grit and congealing blood.
“We need to move,” Rell said, his voice cutting through her spiral. His hands slid from her face to her shoulders, steadying her. “Elora, look at me. We need to get out of here. Now.”
She blinked up at him. A gash above his eyebrow pulsed dark liquid that carved a path through the chalk-white dust coating his face. A drop hung from his jaw, suspended, then fell.
“No.” She pushed his hands away. “We have to help them.”
Elora planted her palms against the ground and pushed herself up.
Her leg buckled, sending molten agony radiating through her flesh.
Crimson bloomed across her robe, spreading outward from a tear that revealed raw flesh beneath.
She gritted her teeth and looked away from the wound.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the people trapped beneath that mountain of rubble.
“Don’t—” Rell’s fingers brushed her elbow.
She shook him off. “I’m fine.”
The cobblestones tilted beneath her first step.
She grabbed a broken pillar, its surface still warm from the dying sun, grit digging into her palm.
She stumbled forward, drawn by a faint cry from beneath a collapsed section of wall.
Three more steps. Four. Then she heard a whimper beneath the rubble.
“Help...” The sound barely penetrated the stone.
Elora’s knees hit the ground beside the rubble. Her torn leg screamed in protest, but she wedged her fingertips beneath a slab and heaved. The stone mocked her, shifting only a whisper’s width as her arms quivered like plucked strings.
It wasn’t enough. Not like this.
She squeezed her eyes shut and reached inward, toward that coiled, feral thing that slumbered in her marrow.
Not all of it—just enough. She didn’t need the claws or fangs, just the raw power that lived in her bones.
Her skin prickled as muscle fibers thickened beneath, bones growing dense as iron.
When her eyelids lifted, the world had transformed—sharper, brighter, awash in scents that told stories her human senses could never read.
The stone lifted in her hands, suddenly manageable. She heaved it aside and peered into the darkness beneath.
A woman stared back, pupils blown wide, mouth working silently.
Dark crimson painted her hairline in thick strokes, one arm twisted backward at the elbow.
Elora’s fingers bled as she clawed at the debris, hurling aside jagged stone that sliced her palms. A heartbeat fluttered beneath her fingertips when she touched the woman’s throat.
Then her nostrils flared. The air changed.
Something primal inside her recognized it before her mind could process—the warm copper scent suddenly soured, like meat left too long in summer heat.
The unmistakable musk of emptied intestines.
Elora’s enhanced senses categorized each note in the symphony of endings surrounding her.
She could smell the difference between the living and the dead, and there were so few of the former.
The woman’s lips parted. A soft rattle escaped. Her eyes, still open, now reflected only the dust motes dancing in the fading light.
Elora’s hands froze mid-reach. “No! Damn it!” She scrambled toward a faint heartbeat sound, but the pile before her stood taller than she was, rubble interlocked like puzzle pieces.
Her muscles trembled, then gave way. The beast inside her retreated, leaving only a woman with bloody fingertips and human limitations.
“Get the apprentices out! Priority evacuation!” Florence yelled. “Mercenary squad, secure the surviving apprentices and return to The Hive immediately.”
Elora’s head snapped up. Through the settling dust, Florence stood near what remained of the stage, not a smudge on her leather vest, not a strand loose from her tight braid. Her hands remained steady at her sides while Elora’s own trembled, slick with blood.
The seconds stretched. Florence’s lips remained closed, her gaze sweeping over the carnage without lingering on the trapped and dying.
Elora’s jaw clenched until her teeth ached.
Her fingers curled into fists, nails biting half-moons into her palms. Heat crawled up her neck as she watched Florence gesture the mercenaries toward the huddled apprentices, her back turned to the woman’s arm still twitching beneath the stone slab not ten paces away.
“Rell! The apprentices on the stage—get them out! The building is compromised!” Florence commanded.
Elora’s neck muscles screamed as she twisted left, right, searching the dust-choked air for Rell’s silhouette.
The floor beneath her vibrated—first a whisper, then a growl that rattled her molars.
Hairline fractures spider-webbed across the ceiling, releasing streams of white powder that caught in her lashes.
Fingers dug into her ribs, her feet suddenly weightless.
She struggled instinctively, a growl building in her throat as Rell cradled her close to him, stubble scrapping her temple, his chest expanding against her side with each labored breath.
His boots skidded on loose rubble as he vaulted a fallen column, the impact jarring her wounded leg.
They burst through a doorway into twilight. Her body bounced against his chest with each pounding step across shattered cobblestones. He yanked them sideways into shadow just as a deafening roar exploded behind them. The ground shook, dust billowing into the darkening sky like a funeral shroud.
He lowered her onto a crate, his arm lingering around her waist. Her leg pulsed red hot with each heartbeat.
She pressed her palm against the wound, fingers coming away sticky.
From the main street came the clatter of Empire-issue boots against cobblestone, the metallic jangle of medic kits, voices shouting coordinates and commands.
“Search quadrant three! Check for survivors beneath the east wall!”
Elora’s lips cracked when she opened them. “The blood’s already cooling,” she whispered, tasting dust and copper on her tongue. Her nostrils flared, still catching that metallic scent even without her enhanced senses. “No one’s left to find.”
Rell’s shadow fell across her face as he shifted. A muscle in his jaw jumped beneath stubbled skin. “Three minutes before they seal every exit. We go now.”
Movement flickered at the alley’s entrance.
Florence stepped into view, her silhouette knife-sharp against the smoke-hazed sunset.
Behind her stumbled a cluster of apprentices, some leaning on others, guided by mercenaries with blood-spattered sleeves.
Seven. Eight? Elora tried to recall how many faces had filled those wooden benches.
Her stomach lurched, acid burning the back of her throat.
“Florence!” Rell called.
Florence turned, her eyes quickly scanning the two of them before narrowing. “Where are the others? The stage apprentices?”
“Gone.” Rell shook his head. “The stage didn’t just collapse, it fell through. Into the tunnels underneath.”
“They must be buried under the rubble,” Florence said.
“They aren’t.” Rell’s voice hardened. “The whole platform dropped straight down. Jax was...” He swallowed. “Jax is dead. Crushed by the initial fall. But Symond and Renna weren’t there. I searched as much as I could before the rest came down.”
Florence waved her hand like a dismissal. “You must have missed them.”
“No.” Rell stepped toward her. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There wasn’t enough debris in the tunnel. They weren’t there, Florence. They weren’t crushed or trapped. They were just... gone.”
“We have to go after them,” Rell insisted. “This was planned. They could still be close.”
Florence’s face betrayed nothing, yet her gaze darted with the cold efficiency of a ledger being balanced—tallying losses, not mourning them. “I understand your urgency, but we need to retreat to The Hive first. Regroup. Assess our casualties and come up with an actual plan.”
“While we’re planning, they’re getting away! Symond is—”
“Injured, possibly,” Florence cut in, her tone cooling several degrees. “As is Elora. As are you. The Empire will have this district locked down in minutes. If we’re caught here, we lose everything, not just Symond and Renna.”
Florence’s words seemed to strike him like physical blows, each one leaving its mark in the tightening of his jaw, the slight tremor in the hands.
His breath came shorter now, chest barely moving as if he were holding something dangerous inside.
The need to chase after Symond radiated from him like heat.
Family. That’s what this was about. Vye’s loyalty to Symond had become Rell’s burden too, whether he liked it or not.
“Fine,” Rell finally said, the word clipped. “We’ll do it your way.”
He hoisted her off the crate and into his arms, the abrupt motion sending a jolt of pain through her wounded leg.
Elora barely had time to brace herself before Rell’s grip tightened around her waist, his fingers pressing against her side with a fierce urgency that left no room for protest. She didn’t complain.
She understood what his grip really meant—frustration, fear, the silent scream of someone who’d lost too many people already.
Twenty paces ahead, Florence’s braid swung in perfect rhythm as she gestured the mercenaries into position. “Form a diamond pattern,” she called, voice as crisp as if directing servers at a banquet. “Two at point, two at rear. Move.”
Elora’s hands trembled before her eyes. Rust-colored crescents lined her fingernails.
The warmth lingering on her skin. Was it blood cooling or just her imagination?
Her breath caught. She’d drawn another breath.
And another. While back there, under stone and timber, lungs had stopped mid-inhale, conversations cut eternally short, parents who would never know if their children had survived.