Chapter Thirty-Eight
KAEL
The tunnel narrows the farther we climb from The Bowels, walls slick with water and rot. Every footstep echoes like a drumbeat announcing our arrival, and there’s no way to mask it. One way in, one way out. A grave by design.
The others shift behind me—Seren’s breath sharp, Ronyn too loud, Rubi on edge for a change, Therion steady but taut as a bowstring.
Elyssara’s silent at my side, though I can feel the tether hum with her contained violence.
Correk didn’t come—he should get reacquainted with his brother.
And we need Mavyrn safe and waiting in the tunnels for a Gateway to Nymeris. Without her, we’re fucked.
I don’t bother hiding my calm. This will end in blood. It always does.
The stink of beasts reaches us before the guards do—wet fur, shit, iron. A warning. A promise. And when the torchlight finally catches on the jagged tattoos carved into the men’s faces, I know we’ve found the Blackfangs.
And the Codex waiting in the den behind them.
“Gentlemen,” I say in greeting, lethal calm lacing my tone.
The Blackfangs stalk forward—missing teeth, carved scars—the look of men used to violence. Six of them form a wall, bodies braced to block the tunnel.
But the Codex will be ours one way or another.
The beasts beyond snap their snarling jaws, and the clatter of chains pulling taut echoes through the tunnels.
The Blackfangs eye us intently, analyzing. “Three men and a few bitches in skirts? You’re either stupid, ignorant, or desperate. So, which one is it?” one of the men snarls, and the tunnel fills with gravelly laughter and sarcastic scoffs.
But I don’t bother responding. I’ve seen men lean on reputation for fear before. But these men? They’re nothing more than grunts with bloated egos.
“We’re here for the Codex. Give it to us,” I demand without breaking eye contact. I’m not here for negotiation. I’m here to take.
A sick smile twists the mouthy guard’s lips. He’ll regret it.
“How about this…” he starts, and I ready myself for blood, “you give me the redhead for an hour, and in exchange, I’ll let you take the first swing?” His lackeys laugh at his taunt, nodding in agreement.
His foul, rotted teeth break through his smile, and it sickens me, but this time, I bare my own. Because insinuations like that earn men a fast trip to the Final Gate.
“You wouldn’t survive an hour with me, honey,” Elyssara taunts, her face feral with a lethal grin.
I bet she’d take the hour and her pleasure by blade.
She’s ready to fight, and who am I to keep her waiting?
“If you had an hour with her, you’d beg for the Stars, the gods and your mother to save you,” I reply, palming a short blade that will perform better in the narrow tunnels.
The man’s posture doesn’t change, his face twisting into a snarl. But I notice the way his eyes yawn open a little wider.
“Release the hounds!” he bellows as he drops into a fighting stance, but we’re already moving.
Elyssara’s blade arcs through the dark tunnels, splitting the flesh under the mouthy guard’s chin, and I see the tip of her Starforged Blade spike through the man’s mouth as he chokes on her steel.
Good girl. I encourage through the tether, and pride surges back at me.
The tunnel explodes. The shadowhound beasts bellow, chains drop to the stone floor, and they surge forward in a frenzy of slavering jaws.
Therion barrels into the fray, his axe cleaving a man from shoulder to ribs, blood slicking the stones. The space he opens is instantly filled by another Blackfang—until Ronyn’s arrow whistles past my ear and buries itself through the man’s eye, dropping him like meat on a hook.
Seren darts beneath the falling body, quicker than thought, yanking the loose chain from its slack grip and looping it around the throat of another.
He thrashes, snarling for help—only to collapse screaming when Rubi’s sickle hooks his hamstring and drags him down.
She doesn’t kill him quickly. She likes to make them bleed first.
Jax moves with a soldier’s brutality, no flourish, no mercy. Her chakram arcs through the tunnel, embedding in organs and throats. She doesn’t wound—she ends.
I step into the chaos, calm as the eye of the storm, short blade in hand. One Blackfang lunges, teeth bared in a grin he doesn’t keep for long—my steel slides between his ribs, angled up, puncturing lung and heart in a single, efficient strike. I twist free before his body hits the stones.
This is what I was made for. Violence as precision. Death as certainty.
A shadowhound beast breaks its chain, lunging straight for Seren, but Elyssara meets it head-on. She doesn’t flinch. She never does.
Her Starforged Blade spears up through its skull, her wild grin shining as black ichor sprays across the tunnel wall. She wrenches the blade free and turns on another Blackfang and carves the grin off his face in a single, feral stroke.
The tunnel narrows with screams, steel, and snapping jaws.
Blood spatters the walls, the stones, our skin.
And through it all, each of them moves like pieces in a single, brutal symphony—Therion’s precision, Seren’s cunning, Jax’s brutality, Ronyn’s accuracy, Rubi’s cruelty, Elyssara’s fury.
And me, the steady rhythm of inevitable death.
Six men. Six corpses. The floor runs red, just as I promised, the air thick with iron and gore.
We surge forward into the den, the beasts howling behind us, the Codex waiting in the dark.
I know Thalmyr’s men won’t be far away—we need to move fast.
We need the Codex.
The den yawns wide as we break from the tunnel, stepping over corpses into pools of their blood.
The den is a cavern carved out by violence itself.
Cages line the walls, shadows shifting within—snarling beasts with eyes like embers.
Bones litter the ground, scraps of meals and men both.
The stench of piss and rot burns my throat.
And there it is.
The Codex. Massive. Ancient. A thick tome veined with silver sigils that pulse like a heartbeat, set on a pedestal hacked from the cavern wall. It hums in my bones, a power I don’t understand and don’t care to. What matters is simple: it’s ours.
But we aren’t alone.
Blackfang reinforcements rise from the shadows—dozens of them, scarred and feral, chains wrapped around their fists, jagged blades in hand. Beasts thrash in their cages at the sound of battle-cries. The tunnel guards were nothing. These are the true monsters.
“Back to back!” Therion bellows, already swinging his axe in a wide, brutal arc that forces three men to leap back or lose their heads.
Ronyn plants himself behind him, loosing arrows into the gaps Therion makes—one finds a throat, another an eye. “I knew I should’ve eaten,” he grouses, string singing as fast as his mouth.
Jax braces at Therion’s side, chakram spinning with precision—every one of her daily lessons since childhood evident in her movements. Every blow that should cut Seren or Rubi apart is cut short by her spinning blades. She growls with each hit, refusing to budge.
Rubi is a blur of vicious joy. Her sickle hooks a Blackfang’s ankle, yanking him down, and she hacks at him like he’s a stalk of grain, cackling as blood spatters her face.
Seren slips beneath Jax’s guard, fast and clever. She grabs a torch and drives it into a beast’s cage, sending it shrieking as flames lick its fur. It thrashes, tearing its own bars loose—then lunges at the nearest Blackfang instead of us. Clever girl.
And Elyssara—fuck, Elyssara. She moves like ruin given flesh.
Her Starforged Blade sings through the dark, carving a man open from hip to shoulder, spinning to drive her boot into another’s knee.
Her grin is feral, her eyes alight, and when a shadowhound beast breaks its chain and lunges for her, she meets it with dark enjoyment, driving her steel up through its skull.
I take my place among them, at peace in the chaos. One Blackfang charges, teeth bared. I slide aside, drive my blade through his chest, and rip it free before he hits the ground. Another comes—steel at my throat—but my short blade takes his wrist clean off. Violence is breath, is certainty.
Then, boots echo through the tunnels. More.
Heavy boots pound against stone. Torchlight flares. Royal Guards flood in. Armored. Disciplined. A wall of death.
For a heartbeat, no one moves. Blackfangs and Royal Guards stare at each other over our blood-slick bodies.
Then the world explodes.
Beasts are freed, cages cracking. Shadowhound beasts rip into Royal Guards, Royal Guards cut down Blackfangs, Blackfangs lunge at us all. It’s chaos—two predators tearing each other apart with us trapped in the middle.
“The Codex!” Elyssara shouts, her voice cutting through the din.
It’s Seren who reaches it—her hand slamming against the stone. The sigils flare, not fading. Answering. Her Veilborn blood thrums in the glow, and for a heartbeat even the guards hesitate, staring at her like she’s something holy.
She snatches it up, the weight straining her arms, but the Codex knows her. It hums, alive, in her grasp.
“Run!” I roar, shoving a guard’s blade aside and splitting his throat open in the same breath.
Therion carves us a path, axe dripping, his roar shaking the walls. But one of the shadowhounds lunges, faster than the rest. Its jaws clamp onto his forearm, teeth sinking deep, dragging him sideways.
He doesn’t cry out. He never does. He just snarls, wrenching the beast up with brute strength, and brings his axe down in a single, brutal arc that splits skull from spine. Blood—his and its—coats the stones.
“Go!” he bellows, shoving forward, already bleeding through his gauntlet. He fights like nothing’s wrong. But I see the way his grip slips on the axe. I see the trail he leaves.
We don’t have time to stop.
Ronyn picks off those who get too close, Jax holds the line long enough for Seren to stumble past, Codex clutched tight. Rubi clambers through the path, hitching her skirts so she can run, blood dripping from the sickle blade buried in the fabric.
Elyssara stays at my side, magic glowing faint beneath her skin, her blade already painted in blood.
“It’s the Lightborne,” one of the guards realizes, staring at the glow that peeks above her leathers and armor. But beneath her hood, her face is still obscured. Hopefully enough to give us cover. Fuck. We need those Shards!
We crash through the chaos—beasts snapping at our heels, guards howling behind us—until a familiar voice cuts through.
“This way!” the voice pants.
“Tess!” Elyssara cries as the girl bursts from a side passage, waving us on with wild urgency.
Mavyrn.
She’s nowhere to be found.
I sweep my eyes around the tunnels, desperate to find her in the shadows.
To make us a fucking Gateway and get out of here.
She’s fucking gone.
Therion searches the tunnels, too.
“If the old fuckin’ bat left us here,” he mutters under his breath, but he keeps running.
“I know somewhere safe!” Tess shouts, already surging upward to Virellin’s streets.
Fuck.
Nymeris will have to wait.
So, we follow—bleeding, gasping—through the tunnels of The Underbelly, hunted by both beasts and men.
But the Codex is ours. And I’ll send whoever comes for it to the Final Gate without a second thought.