Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
“What did he mean feed–”
Another growl cuts me off. I keep one hand firmly on Stryx, and grasp for Riven in the dark with the other. “Riven?” I breathe. “What was that?”
A growl sounds from behind me this time, making me whip round, but I can’t see a thing in the dark. I hear padded footsteps slowly surrounding us, and the growls and snarls become louder, closer, accompanied by ragged, animalistic pants.
“We need to leave, now.” Riven whispers, his voice barely audible like he’s trying not to move his lips too much.
Alone in the cavern’s suffocating dark, I can hear nothing, but our own ragged breaths and the low, hunting growls echoing off the stone.
Riven inches closer to me, while Stryx lies limp in my arms—too still, too quiet—and the not knowing hollows me out more viciously than fear ever could.
Alive or dead, I can’t tell. The darkness swallows everything else.
Riven swears under his breath as magic flares to life in his hands, despite the tremor in his fingers. Light blossoms from his palm, pale and unsteady, pushing back against the blackness.
The cavern answers with a chorus of snarls.
We are surrounded.
Creatures emerge from the edges of the light.
Huge, hulking shapes on four limbs, their bodies a slick, light-devouring black.
They look like dogs only in the broadest sense, stretched and wrong, their forms too sickeningly angular.
Where eyes should be there is nothing but smooth, empty flesh, and their jaws yawn impossibly wide, split with rows of jagged teeth that glisten as they pad towards us.
The light catches on their mouths, on strings of saliva, on the slow, circling way they move closer.
Blind, and yet undeniably aware of us.
My grip tightens around Stryx as dread settles cold and heavy in my chest. Whatever God crossed through the shattered mirror has not come alone.
My gaze is dragged back to the wreckage of the mirror.
At first, it looks like nothing more than shadow clings to the broken frame.
Just smoke, dust and the absence of light.
Then the darkness moves. It folds in on itself, rippling like a living thing, and I understand with a sickening jolt that it isn’t a shadow at all.
It’s a doorway.
This is no mirror, there never has been.
It’s a threshold, vast and vertical, its edges splintered, but still holding, and beyond it there is nothing, but endless black.
From the void beyond the creatures pour, one after another, slipping into the cavern like ink spilling through a crack.
No light reaches the other side. No depth or shape, just infinite, watching darkness.
“Riven…” My voice shakes.
He sees it too, his jaw tightening. “The Voyd. It’s open.”
My eyes snap to his in alarm. “What do you mean?”
But before he can answer, more growls rise behind us, closer now.
The creatures fan out, cutting off angles, herding us with instinctive precision.
I clutch Stryx to my chest, my tears silently falling into her hair.
I feel Riven’s gaze on me and we lock eyes, the pity in his expression making me suddenly angry.
“Octavia,” he says softly, his eyes darting to Stryx before landing back on me.
“Don’t,” I growl.
“She’s gone, you need to let her go.”
“No,” I hiss through my teeth, my tears falling thick and fast now. “Don’t say that. There’s still time, I fixed her–”
“She already lost so much blood. I’m so sorry. Sweetheart, you have to let her go.”
I wipe my tears away angrily, my eyes narrowing on him. “I. Will. Not. Leave. Her.”
Riven looks around at the wall of death approaching us, his eyes widening with panic. “If we don’t go now, we are all going to die, Octavia.”
“Then we take her with us. She’s still clinging on, I can feel it,” I beg him, but he doesn’t look convinced, and if I’m honest, neither am I. She’s too still, too pale. My stomach curdles at the realisation that Riven’s probably right, but I refuse to accept it.
There’s a sudden. haunting melody of gargling rips and hisses, and I turn to find some of the creatures feasting on the fallen corpses of the cult members.
I look away quickly, bile forming in my throat as I try not to retch.
I glance instead toward the tunnel we came through and feel my stomach drop.
The route is long, winding and totally unforgiving. Even if we could fight our way to it…
We won’t survive it.
I swear again, sharp and vicious, panic clawing up my throat. “We won’t make it back the way we came.”
“Then what?” he snaps, following my gaze. “We can’t stay here, can we?”
My eyes flick around us, calculating, then lock onto his. A thought hits me like a slap. “The Memosyne. We can glamour ourselves. It’s the only way.”
Why didn’t we think of this before? How could we have been so stupid?
“We spent hours in those tunnels,” I hiss, furious at myself for not seeing it sooner. “Gods, we could’ve just gone through the Memosyne in the first place, we could’ve glamoured ourselves, walked straight through instead of–” I gesture helplessly at the cavern, the door, the monsters.
Riven bares his teeth in something that might almost be a smile if it weren’t so strained.
“Us walking in openly would’ve been bad enough.
But strangers appearing out of thin air in the middle of the Memosyne?
” He shakes his head. “That would’ve gotten us killed faster, believe me.
” A creature lunges closer, jaw snapping.
Riven’s voice drops, deadly serious. “Still, it’s currently our best, and only, option. ”
I look down at Stryx, wondering if I’m imagining the faint rise and fall of her chest, and make the only choice I have left.
“Then we go. Now.”
We run.
Riven hoists Stryx into his arms without a word, her weight dead and wrong against his chest, as I release my magic from me in a wave of unrelenting death.
The creatures closest to us are thrown back like a tidal wave, but I don’t have time to pause and watch.
We sprint for the exit, my boots skidding on blood-slicked stone, breath tearing from my lungs as the tunnels stretch and twist ahead.
Behind us, the cacophony of sound is overwhelming: claws scraping rock, bodies slamming into walls, jaws snapping so close I can feel the rush of air at my heels.
I don’t think. There’s no space for thought.
Magic tears out of me in wild, brutal bursts, raw force flung over my shoulder, bolts of light and shadow colliding with black forms in the dark.
Echofae magic or the Veyne, I don’t even know anymore.
I don’t bother to shape it into anything, I don’t have the mental capacity to right now.
Some creatures are thrown back, some dissolve into smoke, some barely slow at all.
My chest burns, my head screams, but I don’t stop. I can’t.
“Don’t slow down!” Riven shouts, voice strained as Stryx’s head lolls against his shoulder. “We’re almost out!”
We burst through the final passage and spill into the back rooms of the Archives.
Riven and I slam our backs against the door a second before numerous thuds echo against it, the door shuddering dangerously under the weight of the creatures throwing themselves at it.
My gaze darts around desperately, before landing on the nearest bookcase.
I raise my hand, summoning my magic to me, concentrating hard on the huge wooden shelving.
There’s a slight tug to my magic, and I know I have it.
Without saying a word, I pull on it as hard as I can, shoving Riven away from the door seconds before the bookcase comes flying towards us, falling to the ground in front of the door, blocking it.
Riven looks at me with surprised reverence, but I don’t have time to bask in it. Now in familiar surroundings, I take the lead, charging through the library and out through the doors, no guards, or anyone for that matter, in sight. I stop dead.
Silence.
The vast halls of the Memosyne are eerily empty. No scholars bent over desks, no wardens, no murmuring voices echoing along the corridors.
“Something’s wrong,” I mutter, my eyes darting to Riven’s, his expression as anxious as mine.
We continue onward, our footsteps thundering obscenely loud as we stagger round the corner, rushing for the exit.
I throw open the great doors of the citadel, and the reason for the emptiness slams into me like a physical blow.
Chaos spills unchecked throughout the city.
The streets in the distance writhe with movement, creatures clawing their way from nowhere, shadows with teeth, wings and horns.
Fire burns where homes once stood. Screams carry on the wind, sharp and endless.
Demons, like the ones chasing us, roaming freely through the city.
My knees nearly give out as the truth settles, heavy and final. I can feel it in my bones, in the magic humming under my skin, in the way the very atmosphere trembles like a snapped chord. I don’t need to look up, I already know, but my eyes betray me anyway.
Where the great mist once cocooned the floating city, there is only torn air and open sky.
The Veil.
The ancient boundary between worlds, the barrier that kept Velmora safe and the Faceless God contained…
It’s gone.
And whatever is bleeding through now…
It’s only the beginning.
THE END