Chapter 30
AMARIA
The fever took the edges off the world first. Then it took the middle.
I lay on my back, staring at a hairline fracture in the stone ceiling. It went in and out of focus…so severe… then melting, slowly, slower… then snapped back again—like a kaleidoscope spinning of its own accord.
A large, pale spider crawled over the back of my hand.
My eyes dropped to it and I watched its disjointed legs pick their way across my knuckles, feeling the tiny, scratching weight of it against my fevered skin.
It paused at my wrist, tasting the sweat, then moved on. I was just geography to it, and the other creatures dwelling in the dungeon now. Dead weight. Something to be walked over.
Steps approached. Heavy. Deliberate.
They sounded so far away, and really quite unimportant.
I didn't move. I didn't even blink.
A baton slammed against the iron bars—a deafening, ringing CLANG designed to startle.
I just kept watching the crack in the ceiling. It looked like a river on a map to nowhere.
"Look at it," a voice sneered. Rough. Bored. "King's great terror. Looks more like a corpse to me."
Spit landed on my face. Through my lashes I could see the saliva bubble and settle into my skin.
"Someone broke your little pet Crownforged," another guard sneered.
“Keep moving, you have orders to follow.” Eryndor. The command was severe, stripping the amusement from the air instantly.
The laughter died. The boots scraped against stone, retreating into the dark, or away from the dark, it’s hard to say.
My eyes slipped shut. The dark was heavy and warm, like a blanket I could curl up forever in.
I drifted.
Time stopped meaning anything. The dripping faded to a distant echo. The cold became something I floated above rather than felt. Maybe I slept. Maybe I just... left. Went somewhere the fever couldn't follow and the Quell-Rune couldn't reach.
I don't know how long I was gone.
Then voices dragged me back.
"Why bother with the little one?" A rough voice. The one who had spat on me. "She's not even a mouthful for the hounds."
Little one. The words landed somewhere distant. Muffled. Like hearing someone speak underwater.
"Not for the hounds," a second voice answered. "King's orders. Make it slow. Make it loud."
My fingers twitched against the stone.
"Why?"
"So the Rupture can hear it." A low, cruel chuckle echoed off the stone. "Let her listen to what happens to her friends. Break the little one, and the dual-marked breaks too."
My eyes popped open.
Serenya. They're talking about Serenya.
"Reckon she'll scream pretty for us?"
The crack in the ceiling snapped into focus. Sharp. Too sharp. The fever haze was burning off, replaced by something else—something with fangs and a taste for blood.
"Reckon we'll find out."
I was on my feet before I knew I was moving.
I lunged for the bars, my hands gripping the hard iron, a snarl tearing out of me. "Touch her and die—"
CRACK.
A sound of a whip breaking the air echoed from the lower levels. Followed instantly by a scream. High. Serrated.
Serenya.
The sound went through me like a spear. It carved out everything—but raw, primal fucking Fury.
"Hear that?" The guard's laughter drifted down the hall. "She's singing for us already."
My vision went red. I locked eyes with the guard. Seized the bars.
"I'm going to kill you now," I seethed.
The iron bars groaned under my grip; my hair lifted in the rising heat of my wrath.
"You and your little friend." My gaze shifted to the guard next to him.
I snarled viciously.
"You will sit here and rot in each other's waste because I'm going to slaughter every last motherfucker in this dungeon and there will be no one left to find you and bury you." The stone vibrated. The air thinning.
"This shit-infested dungeon is where you will rest for all of eternity."
I stretched for my Shadow. My light.
The Quell-Rune boiled white-hot against my chest, searing, punishing—stay down, stay broken, stay nothing—
Fuck you.
I gritted my teeth and screamed. Shaking my head and thrashing at the bars. I reached harder. Burning. I could smell my flesh burning.
Serenya screamed again. The sound ripped through me, and something inside answered. Something older than the rune. Older than the King's brand. Something that had been waiting in the dark, coiled and patient, for exactly this moment. Fury.
My eyes snapped open.
You do not get to have her.
The Quell-Rune burned. It wanted me weak. Wanted me broken.
I thought of Serenya screaming.
And I decided the rune could go fuck itself.
I wrapped my will around the King's leash and pulled.
Not today, you royal piece of shit.
I tore into the rune with everything I had. With pure, unholy desire and grit—the feral need to reach Serenya, to make them pay, to burn this whole fucking dungeon to the ground if that's what it took.
The Quell-Rune between my breast screamed. I screamed with it.
And then—
It burst into flames.
Flames made from my two marks uniting. They burned the rune right off of me.
Power flooded back into me like a river breaking through a dam. Light and Shadow roared to life, tangling together, wild and furious and starving. They'd been caged too long—and now they wanted out.
I yanked—one savage motion, muscles screaming, power surging.
The entire cell door ripped free with a shriek of tortured metal. I hurled it aside like it weighed nothing.
It crashed against the far wall hard enough to crack the stone.
For one second, the guards were too shocked to react.
That was all I needed.
I lunged—screaming, fangs elongated—and launched myself at the closest one. My feet landed on his hips, crouching against him like a gargoyle, one hand gripped his shoulder for purchase. The other ripped his sword from its sheath.
I held his gaze as I swung.
His little friend's head hit the stone before the body even realized it was dead. I pushed off his upper body and landed over the severed head. The guard stumbled back, hand grasping stupidly for a sword that was already in my grip.
Serenya's whimpering echoed up from below.
I snarled—and, without fanfare, drove his own blade straight through his throat.
Then I ran.
The stolen sword was wet in my grip. My satchel slapped against my hip with every stride.
The corridor was narrow—close enough that my elbows scraped the walls when I took the corners too fast, the stone tearing skin I didn't have time to notice.
Puddles splashed under my boots, shallow and black, the water so stagnant it had a film that clung to the leather.
Above me, pipes groaned through the rock—a deep, intestinal sound, like the dungeon itself was digesting.
I followed the echo of Serenya's whimpers.
The sound bounced off the walls and split, came from everywhere and nowhere, pulling me left, then right, then down a staircase so steep my knees nearly buckled on the landing.
The air changed as I descended. Warmer. Thicker. It sat on my tongue like a coin.
A body slumped against the wall ahead—Black Talon armor, throat opened in a ragged line.
The one who'd backhanded me when I spat blood in his eye.
Someone had gotten to him first.
Another guard rounded a corner. I didn't slow down. My blade found his heart before he could raise his weapon, and I was past him before his body hit the stone.
Serenya. Serenya. Serenya.
Her name was a heartbeat. A prayer. The only thing keeping me upright.
I rounded another corner, muscles coiled, ready for another fight—
And stopped.
The corridor opened into a vaulted chamber—some kind of old supply junction, crates rotting against the walls, the remains of a collapsed shelf spilling rusted tools across the floor. A single torch guttered in a wall bracket. The air here was different. Moving. A draft from somewhere deeper.
I smelled them before I saw them—sweat, oiled steel, and the earthy musk of the mud they used to mask their scent on raids. They crowded the junction until the air went hot and stagnant.
Grey cloaks peeled from the dark between the crates.
My sword arm dropped.
Kaelen. Moving with that quiet authority that bent the air around him. Brannick was at his side, his usual warmth replaced by a grim, hard edge. Maxx, a shifting shadow, his eyes glinting with unholy anger.
And Dreadscale.
A storm given flesh. His dragon tattoo smoldered faintly beneath his skin, his gaze finding mine across the dim corridor.
My knees almost went. The sword tip dropped and scraped against the stone—a sound that gave me away completely. Every muscle I'd been running on, every shred of adrenaline holding me upright, buckled at the sight of them. My throat locked. My eyes burned.
They came.
Brannick was closest. I grabbed him in a—quick, silent—hug and felt his arms crush me back for just a fleeting moment before we let go.
Maxx appeared at my side. He pressed my daggers into my hands—the familiar weight of them settling something frantic in my chest. I gripped them at the ready. He squeezed my shoulder once, then melted back into the shadows.
Kaelen's eyes met mine. A brief nod—we've got you—then lifted a finger to his lips. Quiet.
"Torren's cell has the north stairwell," he breathed, barely a sound. "Voss is holding the drainage junction. We have eight minutes before the next rotation."
He motioned down the corridor.
We moved as one.
More guards appeared at the far end of the passage, lanterns swinging.
Brannick was on them before they could shout, a silent blur of brutal efficiency.
Maxx's glamour flickered—phantom shapes, disorienting light—and Dreadscale simply walked through the pandemonium, soldiers stumbling away from him like he was a force of nature they couldn't bring themselves to touch.
The guards crumpled. Their lanterns rolled across the stone, light dying.
Silence.
Kaelen gestured down a narrow passage. "This way."
The stench of old blood and despair thickened as we descended. We were getting closer to something worse.