As we traveled deeper underground, the days passed with no way to know day from night, apart from the time ticking on our watches. When Mela needed sleep, I would rig up a place for her to rest, and I hunted nearby, within hearing range if anything should get past the magical cloaking barrier I set up around her.
A few days back, when sleep deprivation finally had me keeling over, I passed out and slept a whole day while Mela kept watch. But today was different. When I fell prey to my weariness, she left me to go hunt by herself.
Mela got to her feet, clad in thick fur-trimmed boots, shoved her daggers into their sheaths, and furiously swiped at her grimy armor, sweeping off jagged shards of stone. Like me, she was fuming with pent-up aggression.
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “What the hells, Mela?! What the fuck were you thinking? We hunt in pairs. We have each other’s backs!” This past week she’d been acting irrationally, barely holding it together, and throwing herself into danger at every opportunity.
She turned fierce brown eyes to mine, and in their depth was an unhinged glint that unnerved me, but not enough to extinguish my anger. “You were asleep for ages!” Her teeth flashed in a snarl as she bit the words at me. “You were fine. I left you cloaked. No one, nothing, could find you.”
“It’s not about me, Mela. It’s about you.”
She shot me an irritated look as if I were making a big deal out of nothing, like a whiny kid. “You hunted while I was asleep.”
I kicked at rubble, sending shattered rock smashing against the tunnel. “Only close by. Always within reach.” I couldn’t help it. I had an incessant need to hunt. It had been too long, way too fucking long kept apart from Nelle. I had no idea what was happening at the estate. We were out of cell phone range, and the worry was destroying me. I needed to find Yezekael and drag him back by his broken wings to Sirro.
Mela rolled her eyes at me. A light coating of dust dulled the natural luster of her dark brown skin, and grime lined the creases around her mouth, which deepened with her scowl. “I don’t see what the problem is.”
Storming up to her, I got right in her face. “I do!” I couldn’t understand what she didn’t get. “You’ve got a fucking death wish right now!” She’d shut herself off from me. At Sirro’s orders, she’d come with me to hunt Yezekael, but she wasn’t okay. Who would be after what had happened to her? It was utterly terrifying to see my charismatic best friend, who was naturally cheerful and loved life, withdrawn and taking unnecessary risks. She was in so much pain that her grief permeated the stale air. I’d been breathing in her heartache and fury for the past week; it had suffused my lungs, mingling with my own in a thick miasma. But she wouldn’t talk about it with me either. As we hunted Yezekael, every single time we ran into trouble, she threw herself in, heedless of the consequences.
“Gods, Mela, you were almost their meal!”
“I would have gotten myself free!”
“Really?” I jerked back, my brows rising in faux surprise. “Because from where I was looking, the krekenns were about to pick your bones clean.”
“Fuck you!” She shoved at my chest, and I retreated a step, not because of the force she’d used, but trying a different tactic. I pushed that unbridled anger deep down, willing myself to be calm. Running my fingers through my hair, I tugged at the sweat-damp locks, letting go to brace my hand upon my hip. I faced her and urged quietly, “Just talk to me.”
Mela angled herself closer and hissed, “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Anger erupted. “Bullshit!” She’d been in love with Elyse Estlore for most of her life, and finally they’d shared their feelings for one another. Their love was a struck match, lit and burning bright. And less than an hour later, everything new between them had been extinguished. Being at the temple on the Wychthorn estate was too much for Elyse’sotherness. I shuddered at the memory of that tomb, all that ancient stonethat had leached sacrificial death over the centuries, and the malevolent remnants of our Gods’ power strumming through the cold, rank air like a sinister melody.
“You need to talk about Elyse.” She’d shown herself asother, a fire-torch, exploding like a bonfire to score the temple with infernal flames and sent people fleeing. Sirro had laid claim to Elyse forwhateverit was the Horned Gods were working on alongside the Pellans. There was something ominous brewing within their laboratories, and they were afterothers, as many as they could find.
“Get out of my face, Gray!”
I threw my hands up in the air. “There’s nothing at all to say about the girl you’ve loved since forever being stolen by the Horned Gods?”
“SHE’S DEAD!” Mela roared, her fingers bunched into fists.
My reply was on the tip of my tongue when Mela retaliated. “What’syourproblem, Gray?” She popped a shoulder out, widening her stance. Her features tightened with loathing and disgust. “Nelle Wychthorn, is it? She get under your skin?”
I blinked.
She tipped her head back and barked a bitter laugh. “The great manwhore couldn’t get it up to fuck for months on end, and sure, it was okay foryouto be dismissive toward the Wychthorn Princess, but damned if you’d let anyone else utter a word against her. You’re an idiot if you believed I wouldn’t see through you,” she sneered, her soft round nose scrunching. “So, go on, tell me what’s been eating you,huh?She doesn’t want you, Gray? Are you too much of a jerk? A cold-hearted bastard? A giant manwhore for her to fall in love with? Or is the lovely princess sitting at home, all made-up and pretty and starry-eyed, anxiously waiting for you to return from this hunt?”
It was far from the truth and yet so horribly close that it was a white-hot branding iron pressed upon my flesh. “FUCK YOU!”I punched the wall beside her head because I was a fucking asshole with a gaping wound in my heart and I wanted to lash out. Chunks of debris exploded everywhere as I smashed a hole right through it. Pain ripped across my knuckles, shredding skin and crunching bone.
Mela lunged, her mouth parting to snarl when an awful cracking noise tore through the passageway.
We both froze.
I watched with dread in the yellow glow of Mela’s headlamp, a fissure slicing down the wall right behind her. Rock split apart, the fault line splintering down to the tunnel floor.
The uneven, rocky terrain quaked, tossing us about.
“Oh, shit.”My footing stumbled.
A thunderous yawning sound…
