Men screamed.
Beasts fed.
The air quivered with the smell of copper and decay. Flesh tore, bones split. The walls drank it all, dark veins glistening under the torchlight.
A prisoner begged for mercy. His voice pitched high, then broke into a choking gurgle as a tiger crushed his throat. A crimson fan splattered the limestone. The sound lingered, slick and obscene, like laughter dragged from a corpse.
The ground shuddered beneath us. Stone moaned. Then a sound began—low, trembling, almost human.
A hum.
It built from beneath the floor, from within the walls. The Dreadhold itself seemed to stir, something vast and winged shifting inside its bones.
Then the air moved.
They poured through the cracks.
Insects—small, black, endless. Their wings vibrated in a single hateful pitch; the sound was like a thousand knives slicing the dark. They flooded the chamber, clouding the torchlight until it looked as though the night had taken shape and learned to fly.
I struck at them with bloodied hands, but they clung to me—writhing through my hair, crawling into my ears, their stings searing fire through my skin. The noise consumed everything—beasts, screams, the heartbeat in my throat. It was all one sound now—an ocean of pain.
The beasts had been terror.
This was torment.
This was the Dreadhold itself opening its throat to devour us.
Beside me, Lazarus fought without hesitation—his movements deliberate, almost divine. He drove his spear through a lion’s ribs, twisted, tore free, and pivoted toward another threat before the first body had even fallen. Blood slicked his arms, his face, but he didn’t falter.
He shouted my name—or maybe it was a warning. I couldn’t tell. The swarm had stolen all meaning from the air.
A blur leaped from the smoke—fur, teeth, fury. I stumbled back, reaching for anything. My hand found a rusted hammer half-buried in gore, and I swung.
The hammer crushed bone with the dull thud of inevitability. Blood sprayed hot across my chest. Flesh yielded like wet clay. The sound was obscene and beautiful. I struck until nothing moved.
Bodies fell around us—some torn by beasts, others still twitching as insects devoured them alive—the chamber stank of iron and smoke, of men reduced to meat.
The Dreadhold had become a slaughterhouse.
When the haze thinned for a single, shaking breath, only four of us still stood—Lazarus, Orin, Rian, and me. The rest were slaughtered. Tarek’s last cry ended in a wet crunch as the lion’s jaws closed over his face; his body convulsed once before falling still. The air was thick with dust and blood, with the hot reek of entrails and sweat.
Lazarus’ gaze flashed toward Orin and Rian. Trust—flickering, fragile—glimmered there. A bond forming where mine had been broken. The sight of it made my stomach twist.
Lazarus was mine.
Not theirs.
I would shatter that illusion.
From the smoke, a tiger slunk forward—its ribs sharp beneath its hide, its eyes burning like coals. It fixed on Lazarus.
And I fixed on Orin.
I charged, roaring. The tiger leaped—and so did I.
Orin moved to intercept, believing I was coming to help. Fool. He never saw me coming. The hammer fell, driven by rage, by the poison spreading through me.
The sound was thick and dull—the hollow crack of bone surrendering. Blood burst in a spray across my arms, my face, the sand. Orin’s body twitched once, then folded into itself, a heap of flesh sinking into the dirt.
