Another hellspawn slid into step on my right. Calder, with his sword already in hand and a smile stretching wide across his face. “Going after the big prize without me, Princess? I’m insulted.”
“Just try to keep up,” I said, dodging a fallen hellspawn that hadn’t survived the first clash.
Varz emerged out of the chaos slightly ahead of us, his twin daggers clutched in his hands. He didn’t speak, but that didn’t stop me from smiling. It feltgoodto have my people back at my side. Like the good old days—except, we had a new addition, one that had my smile growing into a massive grin.
Steel flashed, and a heartbeat later, Eliza burst forward, her blades singing through the air as she carved down a demon twice her size. She ended the move with a tight roll that took another out at the knees, then she caught up to my side, breathless but grinning, a streak of blood painted across her cheek like war paint.
“You didn’t think I’d miss the fun, did you?” she called over the clash.
“Never,” I called back.
“That was hot!” Calder shouted at Eliza.
She just rolled her eyes and continued killing.
Eliza fit in seamlessly, and as a unit, we didn’t slow. We fought our way through the outpost’s ranks, the four of us fighting together. We cut our way through until finally we burst through the front gate. My hellspawn ranks surged through with me, tearing into the defenders wherever they bottlenecked and giving us our opening. The scent of blood hit me, and instead of curdling my stomach, it steadied my pulse and sharpened my focus.
The dirt terrain morphed into uneven stone slabs as we crossed into the outpost itself.
“The cage is at the back,” I told the others, pointing to where I’d seen it when Calyx and I had scouted.
Varz nodded and altered his trajectory, while Calder ran his blade through another hellspawn and tossed the corpse aside. Eliza stayed close, cutting down anything that tried to flank us. Her movements were all precision—quick, brutal, economical. She didn’t waste a strike.
Above us came the sudden rush of displaced air as a shadow swept over the outpost. I glanced up in time to see Mephisar drop from the sky, wings stretched wide. His serpentine body coiled midair before he snapped his head downward and opened his maw. Fire poured from his mouth in a roaring torrent that engulfed the entire guard tower.
“Quite effective,” Calder shouted as he ducked past a burning support beam that crashed down beside him.
Varz shot past us and buried one of his daggers into the neck of a soldier that had the poor sense to rush us. He yanked it free without breaking stride and maintained his position next to me.
Eliza spun and caught another attacker mid-charge, slammed her blade through its chest, then kicked the body free.
Past a half-collapsed weapons cache sat the massive cage—bars as thick as my arm, etched in sigils I assumed were meant to hold the dragon and keep it from escaping. Except, where Iexpected to find molten eyes glaring at me, I found a completely empty cage, the door hanging wide open.
“Shit,” I hissed under my breath.
Eliza came up beside me, breathing hard, sword dripping black ichor. “Well, that’s not good.”
The dragon was gone. Out there. Somewhere.
I whirled back around and scanned the sky, my eyes cutting through the smoke, searching for any glint of scaled armour or a shadow of wings that didn’t belong to Mephisar.
Nothing.
The damn thing was nowhere to be found. And I had no way of knowing when they’d let it out or where it’d gone.
“Lily.” Varz’s voice snapped me back right as a small group of hellspawn rushed us.
Calder and Eliza took them out before they could even lay a finger on me.
My head spun as I tried to piece everything together. We’d come expecting to find the dragon, and instead we’d found two of Lucifer’s loyal fallen angels, and no dragon. Which meant they’d released the dragon, likely with the command to hunt us—or rather,me—down. It was out there somewhere, but it wasn’t here. And right now, that was all that mattered. It also meant I had to change my strategy and focus on where we were most needed.
“Back to Rathiel and Calyx,” I ordered. “Now.”
No one hesitated. Gorr spun around and lunged at the nearest hellspawn, his jaws closing around one throat while his tail lashed another. Calder fell in beside me, cutting down anything that strayed too close for our comfort.
“Guess we’ll save the dragon hunt for later,” Calder said, his blade sliding free of a netheron’s ribs with a wet sound.
“Don’t sound so disappointed,” I said.
