One drove his shoulder into me, knocking me sideways. Another seized Lazarus, wrenching him from her arms. Amara screamed his name—hoarse, breaking—until the sound splintered.
“Lazarus!”
A guard seized her by the hair, dragging her backward toward the tunnel. She kicked and clawed, bare feet streaked with blood, her cry echoing against the curved stone walls.
“No!” Lazarus roared, struggling as three men pinned him down.
“Bind them!” someone shouted.
Chains clattered like struck bells.
Cold iron bit into my wrists as the manacles snapped shut. The skin split beneath the metal, and blood welled between my fingers. Across the pit, another pair of shackles locked around Lazarus’ arms. The sound of it—iron on bone—echoed through the chamber.
“On your feet,” a voice barked.
They dragged us upright. The sand underfoot was dark with blood, wet enough to cling to our soles.
“Move,” one of them hissed. “Severen wants to see you both.”
They hauled us forward. The chains pulled tight between us, forcing our steps to match the slow rhythm of the condemned. The torches guttered behind us, leaving only the glow of dying flame.
Amara’s screams faded, swallowed by the darkness as the iron gate groaned shut.
Lazarus strained against his chains, muscles shaking, voice shredding as he called her name again and again until it was nothing but breath.
I didn’t fight.
I let them drag me through the filth, my body stiff, my mouth tasting of blood.
We hadn’t killed each other.
We hadn’t given Severen what he wanted.
But as they pulled us deeper into the dark, the voice still whispered through the hollow of my skull.
Severen had something far worse waiting for us.
Something that would make death feel merciful.
Chapter17
Lazarus
The Dreadhold breathed.
Not with life, but with something far older—something that remembered cruelty. It stole the soul from every man who entered, leaving only husks that walked and whispered.
The walls exhaled in slow, uneven gasps, like a dying creature refusing to die. The stone beneath my feet rippled with each step, slick with sweat and blood. Murmurs trailed along the corridor where the guards dragged us—our names, our sins, spoken in voices that knew too much.
A thousand unseen eyes blinked from the dark. Watching. Waiting. Counting.
My body was nearly spent. Every nerve burned from the stings of hornets and the venomous bees that had swarmed us in the last trial. Their poison throbbed beneath my skin, the welts pulsing like they had their own heartbeats. Blood still seeped from the gashes carved by the tiger’s claws, tracing my arm in sticky red threads; the stone floor seemed eager to drink.
We moved like the condemned—our steps slow, unsteady, driven only by the jab of spears at our backs.
“Faster!” a guard barked. “Move!”
I wanted to obey, but my body was wrecked. My legs shook under me; my lungs rasped like torn parchment. I needed water, sleep, sunlight—anything clean. All I had was the stale breath of the Dreadhold and the iron chains biting my wrists.
