Chapter 30
CHAPTER
—Malakai—
It was hard to tell if it was night or day, just a thin gray smear behind a wall of black clouds in the sky.
The ground turned brittle underfoot as we moved, every step throwing up dust that shimmered faintly with demonic residue. The air pressed heavier as we made our way down into the ravine, until breathing felt like dragging smoke into our lungs.
“She’s that way,” I said, pointing towards the densest patch of fog.
Lionel frowned. “Are you sure there’s even a path through—”
“I don’t need a path.” I was already walking.
The tether between Ethalyn and I pulsed weakly, faint as a dying ember. Each beat twisted tighter in my chest. I could barely feel her anymore. It wasn’t distance, it was suppression, the same way a scream muffles under water.
Ashley jogged up beside me, her eyes studying me like a hawk searching for weakness. “You’re shaking,” she muttered.
“I’m fine.”
“You always say that right before something explodes.”
“So take cover.”
Behind us, Nate groaned. “Could we not provoke him before breakfast? My other shoulder’s still working, and I’d really like to keep it that way.”
Eve chuckled dryly, scanning the mist with her scope. “Complain quieter, clown, unless you want the shadows to start mimicking your whining.”
We kept moving. The fog thickened, curling around us. Every few seconds, shapes flickered at the edge of sight, faces, wings, limbs that didn’t move right.
When the first one lunged, it barely had a form. Lionel’s shot cracked through the silence, the bullet splattering black mist.
“More!” Jaden shouted, raising a jagged wall of stone from the ground, before letting it fall flat towards the shapes, pulverizing them. New shadows climbed over them like oil.
The air sang as I summoned my threads, thin red blood cutting through smoke and flesh alike. Each strike was precise, restrained. I couldn’t afford to lose control again. Not now.
Ashley fought near me, wild grin flashing in the murk. “You’re getting tame,” she said between swings.
“And you’re getting slow.”
“Bite me.”
“Not… like literally bite, right?” Jaden asked confused from the other side.
Nate laughed breathlessly from somewhere behind us. “Are you sure you two aren’t flirting?”
“Shut up, Nate!” Ashley and I growled at the same time.
The fog began to thin ahead, replaced by a darker shadow, one that didn’t move. A shape towering above the horizon.
“There,” Faelin whispered. “The castle.”
Through the shifting blackness, spires rose towards the gray sky, twisted and impossible, the castle’s walls pulsing faintly like the veins of a living thing.
The sight hit me like a blow. The tether flickered again, even fainter this time, almost gone.
Then, the air changed.
Faelin gasped. Her shield of wind shattered like glass as something struck from above, a blur of claws and smoke. She crumpled before anyone could react, blood spurting across the ground and when she coughed for air, blood followed.
“Faelin!” Eve screamed, firing blindly into the dark. Another shape lunged out of the fog, slamming into her. She, too, went down hard, rifle skidding across the rocks.
“Cover them!” Lionel shouted, spinning towards the noise.
Ashley detonated a flash charge, white light ripping apart the mist for a heartbeat, revealing dozens, maybe hundreds, of shapes crawling towards us.
Jaden slammed his palms to the ground, the earth cracking open under his feet. “We’re surrounded!”
I grew impatient, we didn’t have time for this.
She didn’t have time.
The blood ripped free, glowing bright against the blackness.
The demons screamed as I tore through them, my bloodlust growing.
But even through the chaos, I could still feel it, that faint, dying pulse in my chest, her fire faltering somewhere inside that castle.
And for the first time since she’d been taken, I was afraid I might already be too late.
I snapped.
The air around me took on a crimson glow.
My threads pulsated as they began knitting together; coalescing until they became four thick arms. The power was out of my control as one of them whipped against a dead tree, crushing it into splinters.
Another swept towards the line of demons, smearing them into black ichor, annihilating them.
Lionel was already moving before the echo of the dying demons’ screams faded. He slid through the fog towards where Eve had gone down, firing short, controlled bursts with his gun. He shifted, the flash of his rifle carved stuttering shapes out of the dark—limbs, teeth, too many eyes.
“Eve! Stay down!”
She didn’t listen.
Typical.
She kicked one of the shadows off her chest and snapped up her backup pistol, three shots pointblank into its face. The thing folded in on itself like wet paper.
Jaden’s shout cut through the din. “She’s gone!”
I turned at the smell of blood. Faelin was motionless in the dust, her blood pooling like wine. Jaden knelt beside her, hands shaking, soil crawling up his arms as if trying to hold her here. But there was no pulse. Not even a hint of breath.
Normally, the beast inside of me would’ve lunged at the sight of mage blood when I had gone days without it. It didn’t even fight me this time, because it wasn’t hers.
It wasn’t Ethalyn’s flames or her blood.
“Jaden,” Ashley said softly, interrupting my thoughts.
He didn’t answer. Just stood, dirt swirling around his feet like a storm barely leashed. His eyes found mine. “Either we kill them all,” he said, voice cracking. “Or we run, now.”
Lionel dragged Eve back to her feet, blood streaked across both of them. “We don’t have the ammunition for a stand.”
“Move. Now.” I growled.
I tore the air apart with new threads, thin, sharp ribbons of blood that cut through the encroaching fog. The demons recoiled, shrieking as my magic ate into them. Every pulse of power left a metallic taste in my mouth, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.
Another wave of demons surged from the east, their numbers were great. Was this the army we had dreaded?
I aimed my magic towards them, but no matter how many I tore down, more kept coming. “Shit.”
“We’ll never outrun this many!” Nate shouted.
“Get closer, stand together!” Lionel shouted as our backs closed the distance.
Right when the demon army was about to swarm us, movement sounded behind us. I turned, were they flanking us?
No.
Humans with weapons held high and magic ripping through the air came, pushing the demons away from us. Reinforcements, the Ashen Corps and Aetherions, had finally caught up with us.
That’s when I saw Izera, the leader of the Ashen Corps, looking at me.
Her eyes widened, probably taking in the sickening sight of me.
“Sorry we’re late,” she said dryly, not happy to see me here at all.
“Better late than never,” I countered with a huff, calming somewhat at the sight of the promised reinforcements.
“Where’s the fire-wielder?” she asked, looking over our group as the cries of battle sounded around us.
“She’s been… taken,” Lionel said next to me, making my blood boil anew.
Izera’s eyes flicked to him, before returning to me. “I assume you’re aiming to rescue her?”
I nodded.
“We’ll cover you, we got the situation under control. Use this moment to push on!” she ordered as if I’d ever take orders from her.
But Ethalyn needed me, I was in no position to argue. I glanced over at the others who nodded in agreement.
“Let’s go get our girl,” Ashley said reassuringly, slapping her hand against my shoulder.
“You don’t have to tell me twice, firecracker,” I grinned, my magic slowly calming enough for me to control myself once more.
We ran.
The ground split behind us as Jaden threw up walls of rock to slow the horde, helping the other soldiers before we left them behind.
Ashley hurled bombs over her shoulder without looking back, each one turning the mist into fire and ash.
Lionel half-dragged Eve as we sprinted towards the shadow of the castle.
The structure loomed larger with every step, its spires curving like claws, its walls covered in living shadows that breathed with a slow, dreadful rhythm.
“Here!” Lionel pointed towards the wreck of what might once have been a watchtower, half-buried under blackened vines.
We dove inside. The stone was cold and slick, the air thick with the stench of layers of dust. I turned, making sure nothing followed us here.
Silence fell, broken only by the rasp of our breathing.
Ashley slid down the wall, hands covering her face. “Faelin’s gone.”
Nate knelt beside her, hand patting her shoulder. “We couldn’t have saved her.”
“She was trying to shield us,” Lionel said quietly. His voice was flat, clipped, a soldier’s tone. But his hands were shaking as he reloaded.
I leaned against the cold stone, blood still whispering under my skin. The tether, her tether, was pulling at me, pleading. I could barely feel it, like a single thin line stretched to its breaking point.
Lionel looked at me. “You still feel her?”
“Yes.”
“How far?”
I peeked out through the opening, towards the castle, the pulse in my chest tightening like a fist. “Inside.”
He nodded once. “Then we plan.”
Ashley lifted her head. “Plan? You mean we’re actually stopping to plan something now?”
“I mean,” Lionel said with a sharpened tone. “We go in, we survive, and we get her back. But we do it smart.”
I laughed softly, sharp, humorless. “You think there’s a smart way to walk into hell?”
“There’s a dumber way,” Eve muttered. “You charging in alone.”
I met her eyes coldly. She didn’t flinch.
Lionel spread the map he had been working on along the way across the cracked floor, quickly adding the details he had seen. “We find a weak point. A window, a servant’s tunnel, anything that leads inside without setting off the entire damned place.”
Jaden crouched beside him. “The cliff on this side of the castle,” he gestured to the east side on the map. “I might be able to shape it to let us get close enough to climb on top of the walls.”
“Good,” Lionel said. “That’s our entry. We go in quietly.”
“Quietly,” Ashley echoed, deadpan. “With him?” She jerked her chin towards me.