Akareth was a pile of flesh and bone, surrounded by his faithful Kraal as they moaned and wept over the remnants of their master. I watched them dip their hands into the filth and devour it, sucking on his bones like ravenous beasts. Disgusting. His toys, soulless and empty, could not even let go of him when he was nothing but a puddle of darkness. They wanted nothing but to be close to him. And the xhoth? They had not caught on yet that their master was gone. Did they even care? Could they feel anything at all besides hunger?
None of it mattered, I supposed.
Nothing mattered.
I reached for my cutlass, all the bitter rage eating at my thoughts until everything was cloaked in a red hue, the tint of fury and bloodlust. I squeezed the iron hilt and snarled at the disgusting scene unfolding around me. Slowly, I staggered to my feet, watching the Kraal in their continued feast, when I heard something storming up behind me. I spun, numbed by my grief, to see a monstrous xhoth stampeding toward me, one arm hanging by thin threads of tendons and skin. The head of a spear burst from his throat before he reached me and he collapsed to the ground, sliding against the stone until the top of his finned head hit my ankle. I looked up, my eyes deceiving me when I saw Vidar, one hand over the wound I’d given him while his other clutched Lady Mary tightly to his side. He was bathed in blood, panting, his shoulders hunched with exhaustion, and all around him were the corpses of the xhoth who’d brought us there.
“Vidar,” I muttered to myself, frozen in place.
I’d been through it all before. I’d been forced to watch him die and come back a hundred times already and I could not help but question whether this time was any different. Gods, I wanted it to be, but I couldn’t bring myself to surrender to that hope again.
He started to drag his feet toward me, weak and in need of aid. The moment he started to stumble, I could not hold myself back. Irushed to his side, catching him in my arms, only to feel just how real the weight of him was.
“Vidar,” I said.
“We need to go,” he rasped.
“You’re… you’re alive.”
“It wasn’t real,” Lyla said flatly. “It never is. Never.”
I snatched Vidar’s blade and sheathed it in his belt, lifting his arm over my shoulders. I could deduce what was real and what wasn’t when we were out of that place, but at the moment, my body was in charge, making hasty decisions when my mind and heart could not. Even if it was a lie, a trick from the depths of my flawed mind, I did not want to waste the time wondering.
Before I moved out of the room, I turned, catching Lyla’s pointed stare.
“Come with us,” I said.
She gawked, her lips parting and then pressing together as if to trap words she did not know how to say.
“Why?” is all that finally left her mouth.
“Because this isn’t where you belong. I know it’s not. Deep down, you want that to be true.”
Again, her face moved like she wanted to speak. Instead, she turned back to the feasting Kraal and glared at them with angered disgust. One by one, they noticed her stare and began to look up from their nauseating meal, faces painted with their master’s remnants.
“Lyla,” I said, urging her on.
“You horrid, wretched things,” she murmured softly. “To be rid of you would be a gift.”
The Kraal began to drag their soiled bodies toward us, bearing their razor teeth.
“Lyla!”
“Kill each other,” she hissed.
Her tones struck my silentium, making it vibrate so hard it almost stung. The Kraal stilled, dropping bits of Akareth frombetween their teeth to slowly turn on one another, their hunger now focused on the sister closest to them until they were a pile of ripping, tearing fangs and claws. I could hear bones breaking. Flesh tearing. Teeth scraping. I could see it all around me in blurred visions as bodies rolled and wrestled. Shrieks turned to cries, growls to wet gurgling wheezes.
I turned from the chaos and slaughter, taking Vidar with me toward the stairs into the passage. Whether or not Lyla was following no longer mattered. Vidar did not have much time and it occurred to me that, even after a hundred perceived deaths, I was willing to fight for the sliver of a chance thatthistime, I could protect him.
When we got to the corridor, my boots splashed into shin deep water. The tide was rising. Soon, most of the temple would be underwater. I rushed Vidar along, praying he would not bleed out before we reached the end of that dark tunnel, when I heard the angered, hungry snarls of sons flooding the passage ahead. I stopped, mustering whatever strength I had in me to face the battle careening toward us.
“Not that way,” Lyla said, suddenly at my side, her demeanor calm and unbothered.
She turned into a passage barely visible even to me. It was narrow, hardly wide enough for two bodies to walk side by side. Behind us, Akareth’s sons were picking up our scent and the sound of their heavy footfalls carried toward us like a stampede. Lyla started to pick up her pace and Vidar and I pushed on to keep up, but he was growing heavier against my side.
“Vidar, stay with me, please,” I begged.
“Been hurt worse, love,” he strained, trying to make light of the fact that he was fading.
