It’s fine. Youarefine. You were made for this by the Sisters themselves.
She hated when she was right.
Let them guide you. Let them feed you, like the Demons did.
Insanity.
She loosed Illamiata the tiniest bit, joining with the others—feeling out their intentions, their movements. Again, their rage was hers. Their strength and fury. Their vengeance.
Lunara didn’t have to understand it toharnessit.
With a scream, she threw a surge of power behind her first attack, her taloned whips cracking as they landed. The first kill echoed, boiling her blood.
That they’d taken him… That they’d fucking dared…
Lunara unleashed. She fell willingly into a pattern of alternating swings, obliterating Forgotten and filling the craters she left behind with piles of bone and shadow.
It wasn’t perfect, and she didn’t hit every time, but it was enough. It helped.
The others delivered Forgotten into the devastating paths of their comrades in perfect harmony. Vann’s vines would hurtle one into the air for the twins to decimate it. Fern struck hard enough to send them flying—right into Magnus’s waiting fangs. On and on they went, closer to the chasm’s edge with every hammering blow, every twining stem, every savage bite.
Just as they reached the steps and she touched back down, a shadow fell over them and Lunara glanced to the sky.
A colossal dragon flew above, blotting out the sunstar. Its scales glittered in shades of the deepest orange and gold, its clawed wings beating a steady rhythm as the quadricorn serpent threw its head back and roared. One of the riders on its back stood in their saddle and pulled down the swath of linen wrapped around their head and face.
Amunkar, Amal behind him, on their way to the Ghostbor.
“For Brand!” he shouted, spurring his dragon onward. Flames gushed from its maw as they flew, incinerating the enemies on the hillsides.
The Demons answered,“For Brand!”as he disappeared over the horizon.
Tears in her eyes, Lunara looked down into the gloom.
Throwing out her shield, she encompassed her friends—battered, a little worse for wear, but still standing tall and ready—and pushed the shadows away.
“For Brand,” she whispered, and led them into the abyss.
Where before theshadows had seemed curious, now they were volatile. Deranged. Slamming themselves collectively against her shield with harsh, repetitive strikes before recoiling with what Lunara would swear were screams. Like they’d been burned.
Still, they came back. Battering. Lashing. Biting. All of it focused onher—not the barrier or her companions.
It felt personal.
“I thought there’d be more to it,” Hedda murmured at her side, the gash above her brow seeping anew when she raised it.
It was hard to ignore the deep lacerations in Magnus’s bloodied muzzle or the matching claw marks on Fern’s bare shoulder and opposite thigh, her bandeau dress muddied and torn between. Faldir was sporting a particularly spectacular black eye, emphasizing the twisting scar down his face. Vann looked utterly exhausted, his limp more pronounced than she’d ever seen it.
All of them had rejected her offers of healing. She didn’t need to waste her time on their scratches, they’d said, but Lunara hadheard the words between—she needed to be ready for Brand. For whatever state they found him in.
“Yes, well…” Lunara frowned at a pocket of dribbling ooze and tamped down her shudder. “Fortunately or unfortunately, the only thing we found was the army of cursed creatures at the bottom. It’s empty, otherwise.”
“Disappointing, honestly.” She gaped at Faldir, and he shrugged. “What? I was hoping for a challenge.”
“You Demons.” Lunara shook her head. “I, for one, am gratefulit isn’t worse. Leaving the steps here was an egregious oversight.”
“I’d say you had more pressing matters to see to at the time.” Hedda swiped at the blood dripping from the cut in her swollen lip. “All the more reason to find Brand”—she leveled Faldir with a pointed look—“withoutany unnecessary drama.”
They lapsed into a heavy silence, Hedda’s quiet words settling over them as they descended ever further into the chasms’s bowels.
