A rasping exhale tore through the air—thousands of ruined bodies sucking in breath at once.
Then the stillness fractured, and the dead advanced as one, limbs jerking into motion.
“Go!” Fenn yelled, blades already in hand. “To the barrier! We’ll deal with this!”
But Kaelith didn’t seem to hear, his gaze unblinking, hungry. The mask he always wore—sarcasm, charm, indifference—splintered as a smile curved his lips. There was no humor in it. No quip. No warning. Only intent.
“Mine.” He exploded into motion as if unchained, boots flying over scorched earth, eyes fixed on Skarn and nothing else as the wave of dead fighters collapsed toward them.
Rynna broke into a run after him, short swords in hand, with Fenn matching pace beside her.
They didn’t speak. Didn’t look back. Together, the three of them cut through the scourge of undead, a spearpoint of fury and power driving straight for the heart of the storm.
Chapter forty-six
Beforetheycouldreachthe man, a black tide of the dead surged in their path, closing ranks around their master. Skarn vanished in the crush, swallowed by a wall of armored corpses.
Meanwhile, somewhere beyond that once-living barricade, Fang Unit fought their way toward the barrier. Fire roared, flaring against the darkened sky as arcs of lightning split the haze in jagged streaks.
“Fuck!” Rynna dropped, dirt and ash kicking into her eyes as a pike whistled past her ear. She rolled under its reach, too late to catch another glimpse of Kaelith’s trailing black hair.
A sudden blast of wind snatched her head around. Fenn stood ahead of her, his arm extended, fingers splayed wide. The gale ripped through the dead, bodies buckling in its wake.
“Step by step!” His voice cut through the din. “We’ll get to him. Just keep moving.”
Two throwing knives appeared in one hand as the other slammed down to the earth. The ground answered, stone shoving upward in jagged slabs that crushed the legs of the nearest dead. Fenn spun then, blades carving clean through one rotted neck, before driving into the eye socket of another.
Debris from his attack swirled past her face, stinging her eyes, and through it, she caught sight of the other man. Kaelith moved ahead of them, his body flowing like water,twisting away from spears and knives in one seamless chain of motion. Each turn was a pivot into violence of wind-filled gusts, stripping flesh from bone.
And when his head angled toward her, his eyes were nothing but black.
Shit. It had only been days since they turned. The Hunger would rise surrounded by all this death.
“Kaelith!” She caught Fenn’s arm before he could turn away. In the next heartbeat, the world folded, and they reappeared at Kaelith’s side.
Fuck the Rules.
A serpent exploded from his palm, scales catching what little light there was. It coiled around the neck of an advancing corpse, the crush of its body drawing out a brittle crack before the thing sagged.
“Don’t drink their blood!” She closed the distance, her hand closing around the snake’s head.
Kaelith’s mouth opened, teeth flashing, but she shoved the creature hard into his arms before he could argue. Then, her blades were already moving, silver arcs catching the flicker of fire from wherever Bran fought, crossing and uncrossing in the space of a thought. She blinked in and out of reach, reappearing where the undead pressed thickest, cutting through tendon and spine in snappish, economical motions.
The copper tang clung to the air, thick enough to taste, filling her nose. A sharp ache bloomed in her gums as her fangs pushed longer, and her vision tunneled, the edges blurring into shadow while a deeper, hungrier strength coiled within her.
No.She forced it down. If Fenn or Kaelith lost control, she needed to be able to call them back.
Her blade punched through a zombie’s ribs while her free hand shot up to rip his spear away before he could swing again. Stumbling back, she shook her head hard, the motion breaking the creeping haze.
“Dead blood is like poison!” Her voice cut across the din, a reminder more to herself than the other two.
Kaelith’s head whipped past her, hair flaring in the wind as his neck coiled around a soldier’s body, squeezing until the telltale fracture of ribs cracked through the air.
“I wasn’t planning on drinking them, pet.” The black in his eyes had receded. “Dead flesh offers no appeal. Your little infection hasn’t changed that.”
Light bled across her vision, and the far-off barrier ignited—red blazing through the sky in a violent, searing burst. Heat brushed her face, too sudden and wrong, as if the airitself had been slapped. She froze, blade half-raised. So did Kaelith. Even Fenn’s next strike hung suspended mid-swing.
The fire flared again, brighter this time, rattling her teeth in a pulsing shockwave as the barrier shuddered again. The air bent with it, just as Taren’s scream ripped across the field and the glow guttered into a sickly green. Fenn’s eyes cut to hers, the tight set of his jaw hiding nothing. Worry bled through his stare.
