He threw his head back and laughed; the sound filled the pit and shook the cavern like a funeral bell.
Lazarus and I stood on opposite banks, breath ragged, the green light throwing our shadows long and trembling. The trunk bridged the gap. The churning teeth waited.
My mother’s whisper lingered—“Do not let Severen win”—but it was drowned beneath another fire. Defiance burned through me, hot and ugly. I spat words at Lazarus like a challenge. “You think you’ll be the one to rise? Think again. I’ll survive this. I will destroy you.”
I set my foot on the trunk. The wood bit into my bare feet—rough, arrested, solid—and for a second it felt like safety. Then pain detonated at the back of my skull.
Lazarus had struck me.
I lurched forward, fingers clawing the rough grain. I spun, snatched his arm with both hands. He answered like an animal, teeth sinking into my fingers, ragged and hot. I howled, ripped free, and smashed my fist into his face. Blood spattered from his lip; he staggered, teetering on the edge.
My heart pounded in my throat. Each step across that sawed trunk was a razor’s edge above the writhing black. The snakes below hissed and knotted and uncoiled, an endless tide of scales that flashed green and gold in the torchlight.
Then his hand closed on my ankle. I jerked, and the world tipped. I toppled, hanging over the pit, air stolen from my chest. The hissing swelled; fangs gleamed like knives.
Terror lit me from feet to crown. My nails tore into wood; the trunk bit my palms. I clung like a man who would not let death take him easily. With a raw, animal scream, I hauled myself back upright, limbs shaking.
The fear burned away as if some fiercer fire had swallowed it. In its place rose a molten rage—searing, and piercing.
The trunk groaned. The serpents hissed in a chorus, scales grinding like teeth. Venom hung in the air, bitter and metallic, but it was Lazarus’ voice that cut me deeper than any fang.
“We were once brothers,” he spat. His eyes were coals. “I stood by you, Salvatore. I bled for you. When your father cast you out, I shared what little I had. We fought together; we starved together—I always had your back. And you—” he shook his head, disgust ripping his face into something crueler than I’d ever seen—“you stabbed my mother to death because you couldn’t face punishment alone. You tried to defile Amara to break me. You butchered Rian and Orin in the last trial because you couldn’t bear seeing me with men who stood beside me. You can’t keep anyone, Salvatore. You only destroy.”
Each accusation landed like a fist. The trunk tilted beneath us, a thin, trembling bridge between us and the abyss. The snakes below pressed upward, a living hunger waiting for one of us to fall.
I heard the words as if through water. The memory of every shared scrap, every broken night, twisted into knives. I wanted to answer, to tear him down, to prove him wrong, but the hatred in his eyes folded me inward and I had no language left that would reach him.
The Dreadhold breathed. The torchlight blinked. The serpents hissed like one vast, living creature.
Two brothers stood on a plank above a grave, and every creak beneath us sounded like fate counting down.
“You’ll never understand,” I rasped, my throat raw. “How much I needed you. I didn’t want to be alone. I needed you, Lazarus!”
His face twisted, teeth bared, the veins in his neck standing out like cords.
“Needed me?” he roared. “You ruined my fucking life!”
He hit me with the weight of every word. “You brought me here! You dragged me into Severen’s hellhole! And you dragged Amara down with us. She’s suffering in this prison of nightmares because of you!”
He slammed into me like a bull. The trunk lurched; my bare feet slipped on splintered wood. Our balance fled.
Then we both went over.
The air tore from our lungs as we plunged into the pit.
We hit the ground hard, rolling through a sea of scales. The serpents didn’t strike—yet. They wound around us instead, gliding over skin slick and cold, tasting our sweat, our fear.
My stomach turned to stone. My body screamed to move, to breathe, to get away from the press of living muscle.
I forced myself upright.Survive.
My hand found a torch jutting from the wall; I wrenched it free and swung. Fire flared, throwing orange light across the pit. Snakes recoiled, hissing, their eyes burning like wet embers. Some struck at the flame; others melted back into the writhing heap.
Lazarus dragged himself up beside me, chest heaving, face blood-slick and furious. His voice ripped through the air, each word heavy with vitriol.
“Your father was right to beat you bloody as a child,” he spat. “He saw it. He knew what you were. He tried to beat the monster out of you, but it was already in your bones.”
The words hit harder than his fists. My vision blurred red; the torchlight pulsed.
