Chapter 36
It shouldn’t be possible, and yet it is. If the Arcanum Imperium find out, then we’re doomed.
EXTRACT FROM MISSING PAGES OF DHARMA ONYX’S JOURNAL (VAULT ARCHIVES)
We moved stealthily in the direction the wood weavers had taken Bella. Not even the ravens made a sound as they tracked us. The torch burned bright, but for how much longer?
The forest was thick with flora here, no trail, nothing but dense canopy and the scent of rotting leaves and flowers.
“I smell Poppy,” Bryce said. “Bella, too. Blood…fresh.”
Shit. We picked up our pace.
Low moans of pain guided us, and then I spotted them. Both suspended four feet above the ground, their backs pressed to tree trunks that pulsed softly.
The Horrors were feeding. Why were they feeding? Surely the Carvers hadn’t set them up to do that. The Horrors were meant to maim, not kill—and wood weaver feeding would kill.
Bella hung limp and unconscious, but Poppy was awake. She reached for us. “Help…her…”
An unconscious Bella would be no help to us.
I had to get Poppy out first. I swung the torch at the wood weaver who had her captive.
It screeched as the flames grazed its bark, releasing Poppy with a wet squelch.
She hit the ground hard, catching herself on all fours, blood seeping from puncture wounds dotted across her back.
“Bella,” She tried to stand but collapsed. “For the love of Trinity, help her!”
Bella was sinking into the Horror’s body. It was swallowing her!
“No!” I thrust the torch at the branches holding her. The weaver screeched and spat her out.
Bryce shielded Bella with his body while I waved the torch at the wood weaver, forcing it back. Shadows moved around us—more wood weavers circling.
“Bella, please, wake up. Wake up.” Poppy gathered her friend in her arms while Bryce prowled around us, his body whipping from side to side as he tried to keep all the threats in sight.
One torch wouldn’t keep us safe. One fire wouldn’t stop these bastards.
I needed more. I needed a barrier. I scanned the ground searching for inspiration, torch held aloft to ward off the weavers. Leaves crunched beneath my boots.
The ground was dry. Kindling all around. I darted forward, dragging my torch along the ground, lighting up bracken to create a fiery line between us and them. A circle to protect us.
“What the Fel are you doing?” Bryce demanded. “Salamanders will come!”
The wood weavers screeched and reared back.
“Fuck the salamanders. We can deal with them after these soil sucking bastards are gone,” Poppy said, hauling Bella over her shoulders. “Worst case, I’ll draw water from the air and hold them back while we make a run for it.”
The wood weavers pressed in, testing the barrier, then retreated, only to test it again.
“The fire’s dying,” Poppy said.
The barrier fizzled, burning low in places with nothing to fuel it. “Shit.”
My torch was almost dead too. “Come on! Come on, burn.” I pressed the torch to the barrier flames. “I need you, please.”
A root whipped out, slashing my hand. I pulled it back sharply, and a droplet of blood hit the flames with a sizzle. Another root tried to snag my wrist, and I dodged it, splashing more drops of blood into the fire.
The flames fizzed and flared—blue then purple, and a male voice spoke from within them. “Onyx blood spilled in offering is now ours to protect.”
“Solaris?”
The flames flared higher, morphing into a large lizard-like beast, then into a humanoid form which split into several, until the fire itself became an army of burning figures.
The wood weavers attempted to retreat, but the fire men swept toward them, engulfing them in flames, and for the next few moments, the forest was filled with the shrill screams of dying Horrors.
When silence finally fell, and the flames winked out with a satisfied sigh, we were left with five blackened, crystallized hearts.
The hearts of wood weavers.
* * *
Bella regained consciousness once we were back on the plains, but she was pale and weak. Bryce offered to carry her now that she was able to hold on to him, and we picked up the pace.
No one asked me about the salamanders—or why they’d helped us. Just as well, because I didn’t understand it myself.
The five wood weaver hearts were in Poppy’s pack, tiny things for creatures that had looked so large.
The ravens tracked us from above, silent and watchful.
It’s over, right?” Bella said, her face pressed to Bryce’s back. “It’s midnight.”
“Yes,” Poppy said. “We just have to get back now.”
Figures sprinted toward us across the plain. Tyler and his cronies. “Great.”
Tyler had something dangling from his hand, and as he got closer, I made out the details—a disembodied head with long, dark hair and empty sockets where the eyes had been.
“They got an undine,” Poppy said.
“One?” Bella scoffed. “Ha!”
Bryce chuckled.
“Heading back with your tails between your legs, eh?” Tyler gloated as he approached. “Oh, did you get hurt?” He pressed his hand to his chest, mock concern twisting his smirk.
“Fuck off, Damascus,” Poppy said.
“Make me.”
Poppy took a step toward him.
“Don’t,” Bella said. “He’s not worth it. Besides, we got five wood weaver hearts, so he can suck a dick.”
Tyler’s smug smile faltered. “What? Bullshit!”
We ignored him and kept walking.
“Show me,” he demanded.
“No,” Poppy said.
“Because you’re lying.”
I was so fed up with the little shit. “Do you think any of us care what you think?”
He lunged at me, and I punched him in the mouth, hard enough to make him bleed.
“You bitch!” He charged, and I hit him again, blow after blow, one to the gut, one to the jaw, and one to the temple.
He hit the ground on his knees, wheezing hard, and I crouched down to his level.
“Listen to me, you disgusting, arrogant, piece of shit. Your family name might get you special treatment outside of Nightsbridge, but here, within the wards, you’re just like the rest of us.
A fucking conscripted grunt who has no choice but to put his worthless life on the line.
So get over yourself. All of you.” I looked up at his cronies.
“If you don’t, then you’re not going to make it here. ”
“This is perfect for you, isn’t it?” Tyler snarled.
“You get to matter here. To have a purpose when out there, you were nothing. No one. You think you can change that? You think we’re going to forget what your murderous family did?
And what you did…” His eyes narrowed to slits.
“I bet your mother was glad to die—so she could stop pretending to love you after what you took from her.” Blood rushed in my ears, heat flooding my veins as his words nudged every doubt, every insecurity, and every horrific fear inside me.
“You ruined her life, and look at you now, playing hero.”
My pulse thrummed in my throat and thudded in my head, something wild and untamed blooming inside me. I pressed my palms to the ground, bracing against the strange feeling rippling through me.
“Stop it!” Poppy said to Tyler. “Just back off.”
“You have no idea what she is,” Tyler said. “What she did.”
Annabeth’s blackened body filled my mind, followed by my father kneeling in the dark. The blade slicing. The thud of his head as it hit the ground. The blood and the screams. Mine and my mother’s. Her tears, so many tears, and the silence for days, so many days.
My fault.
Mine.
The ground trembled.
“What—what is that?” Bella cried.
“Anamaya! Anamaya, we have to go!” Poppy yanked at my arm.
I snapped out of my daze, allowing Poppy to pull me up as the ground shook.
The ravens spoke in Walter’s voice. “This is not us. Get to the main wards! Run!”
We ran while the world shook and groaned. The ground cracked and splintered, a mound of earth pushing up to our left and running alongside us.
There was something underneath.
Something huge.
“It’s coming this way!” Tyler yelled. He shoulder-shoved me toward the rapidly approaching furrow of earth.
The ground heaved, splitting apart with a scream that filled the air with the stench of sulphur and rotting flesh.
And then, out of the aperture rose an impossibility.
A creature so large it blocked out the moon with its massive body, all glistening dark scales and jagged ridges, maw large enough to swallow the stars.
The monstrous worm arched its armored body toward me, mouth yawning wide, ready to swallow me and the world.
Its black eyes gleamed as they locked onto me.
A shudder coursed through me, my mind screamed to run, even as my limbs locked in place.
Move. Dammit, move! My muscles strained with effort, but my feet remained rooted to the spot.
The worm’s maw hurtled toward me, and a scream lodged in my throat.
“Ana!” I was swept off my feet and bundled against taut muscle, enveloped in the scent of pine, and protected as we rolled.
Drayven.
My terror melted, limbs unlocking. I wrapped my arms around him as he hauled me to my feet.
Where was it? Where was the worm?
The ground furrowed to our right as the thing burrowed around, circling back toward us.
“You have to run,” Drayven said. “Don’t look in its eyes. Just run, and—”
The ground behind us erupted as the worm burst forth once more, blocking out the blanket of stars and casting us in its mammoth shadow. It screamed into the night—a horrific sound of triumph and domination.
The ground groaned and rumbled beneath the strain of expelling such an epic form.
Drayven grabbed my hand, and we ran.
“Move!” He ordered the others. But his command was lost beneath the roar of another tremor. Not that it mattered. The other students had the right idea, sprinting for the wards. Bryce and Poppy ran parallel to us, Bella clinging to the Thrope’s back.
We could outrun the beast. It was huge, but it was slow. We could make it if we—
The world went dark beneath the shadow of the beast.
“Shit!” Drayven veered to the left, taking me with him.
The worm slammed into the ground, missing us by a mere foot. The earth crumbled as it burrowed, creating a landslide of soil. My boots slipped, the only thing saving me from falling into the pit after the beast was Drayven’s grip on my hand.
“I’m going to shift. Get on!” Drayven cried.
He burst out of his clothes, morphing into his barghest form without breaking stride.
I stumbled, almost losing momentum, but managed to grab a handful of fur and haul myself onto his back. I locked my knees and pressed my body to his as the world rushed by.
Icy air tore at my face and ripped at my hair, burning my eyes and blurring my vision with hot tears.
I tucked my head, heart hammering against Drayven’s back as I attempted to block out the sound of the world crumbling by focusing on the steady thud of Drayven’s heartbeat.
“Wards incoming!” Drayven growled. “Hold on.”
I risked lifting my head a fraction, searching for the shimmer of the wards—how close were we?—when movement in my periphery drew my attention.
A furrow of earth headed our way.
My heart leapt into my throat, momentarily stealing my voice.
“Drayven, watch out!”
A mountain of earth slammed into us. The impact—sudden and hard—knocked me loose and up toward the sky.
The stars winked at me, as if trying to send a message. I reached for them, but gravity had other plans, wrapping its jealous arms around me and tugging me back to earth.
The impact knocked the wind out of me, sending shockwaves through my bones. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth as the world went strangely silent for a beat before a humming filled my head.
Move.
I needed to fucking move.
I rolled onto my side, and the world tipped beneath me.
“Ana! I’m coming!”
Drayven? I blinked to clear my vision as he bounded toward me.
I pushed up on my palms, arms trembling—a sure sign that my body was in shock. Wait, the tremble wasn’t inside me, it was shooting through me from the ground.
The ground was shaking.
Shit!
I fell back on my ass as the earth split before me, cutting me off from Drayven. The worm shot into the air, its massive frame creating a wall between me and sanctuary.
Pressure filled my head, setting my teeth on edge as the beast arched its body, ready to slam down and swallow me.
There was no time to evade. No time to run, I waited for terror to claim me, but a cold, steel-edged conviction filled my veins instead.
As the worm hurtled toward me, horrific maw wide and pulsing with thousands of teeth, I stopped thinking and allowed instinct to guide me. Primal conviction snapped into place, bringing a surge of heat that spread across my chest, drawing from a place buried deep inside me.
“Stop!” I threw up my arms, body rocking as energy rushed through me and outward.
The worm halted mid-attack, its monolithic frame quivering as it fought my command.
Arms wrapped around my waist, and the scent of pine filled my head. “Fuck. Ana, how?”
I shook my head. Every ounce of will focused on the worm, afraid that if I took my eyes off it, I’d lose control.
My blood burned hot, then cold. I wasn’t going to be able to hold the beast much longer.
A gust of air smacked me in the face, and a figure landed on the worm—silver hair flying like a flag behind him.
Sterling.
He climbed up the worm, using its scales as handholds.
“Hold it, Ana,” Drayven said, “I don’t know how you’re doing this but don’t fucking let go.”
I blinked cold sweat from my eyes, gritting my teeth as my chest vibrated with power that seemed to come from everywhere at once, using my body as a conduit.
My stomach quaked. A warning that I was running out of time. My fear was confirmed a moment later when the worm jerked to the left, almost breaking free of my hold. Sterling cried out, barely holding on.
Heat sizzled behind my eyes, spread across my palms—then the worm went still once more.
Sterling reached the worm's head, clambering higher, until he balanced precariously atop the beast.
The edges of my vision darkened, and I pushed out one desperate plea. “Please…”
“Hurry!” Drayven bellowed. “She can’t hold it much longer.”
My gaze flicked up to the dhampir, locking with his cold and unreadable stare. He dropped his chin in a nod, then brought his sword down, impaling the beast’s brain.
The worm toppled, and Sterling leapt off it, somersaulting in the air and landing on his feet, light as a cat.
The ground shook as the worm made impact, and I fell back against Drayven, free of the power that had saved me.
Other Hunters rushed onto the scene, yelling words that were swallowed by the thunder of blood in my ears.
“Ana?” Drayven’s grip tightened. “Ana, can you hear me?”
But the world was getting dark.
It was time to sleep.