“Which means—” Grier swallows. “—they could have help, my lords!”
“Yes,” I say coldly. “Or even a guide.”
The SoulTakers have hired help.
Clever bastards.
They are not storming the Vein. They are not attacking the surface. They are undermining it—trying to burrow their way into the heart of Nightfall like rot in bone.
“Reinforcements,” Grier says quickly, gaze dropping. “We should call for more sentinels, my lord.”
I stop.
Turn.
The air tightens.
My power answers before I speak. Heat spikes, fire coiling around my shoulders, my shadow stretching unnaturally long along the tunnel walls.
I feel it then—the slide.
The other face.
The mask of bone forming beneath my skin, ancient and inevitable, settling into place with a sensation like ice and fire colliding.
It arrives with my fury, swift and final.
“No,” I say softly.
Grier goes very still.
“We will not retreat or call in for more,” I continue. “We will not announce our fear. If the SoulTakers think they can dig their way into my realm, then we let them try.”
Dagan’s lips curve—not a smile, but approval.
“They won’t like what they find,” he says.
I glance deeper into the tunnel, toward the faint vibration beneath my feet—the pulse of The Ember Vein calling out, wounded and defiant.
“They will not reach it,” I vow.
Because if they do—if they threaten the Vein, my people, or the woman waiting above with my scent on her skin—I will collapse these tunnels.
I will burn their paths to slag.
And I will drag whatever remains of them screaming back into the dark they crawled from
The earth trembles in answer.
And somewhere above, I feel her heartbeat stutter—just once.
Enough to remind me that I must finish this quickly.
Because my fire belongs at her side.
And fuck anyone who tries to delay my return.
Chapter 14
