“Now, Ciprian. Drop it now,” Celine shouts. The sensation of his nightmare falling away scrapes along my scales. Then every eye focuses on us.
Moving left to right, I lock eyes with them one at a time, slicing through more than a dozen monsters and veydran before they process what’s happening.
Cold, like nothing I’ve ever experienced, slams into me. I’m sluggish and achy, but it’s not nearly as bad as before. I’ve gotten stronger—no,we’vegotten stronger. I’m not a man or a basilisk split into two anymore. I’m just Luca.
Celine brushes past me, grabs a petrified veydra, and hurls it at an advancing line of fighters. The stone figure bowls them over, and screams of pain explode from the pile.
More shouted orders, husky—panicked. We’ve surprised them.
A red blip crosses the corner of my vision. I dodge a split second before talons rake against my scales, leaving a gash in my neck instead. It hurts, but I ignore the pain as Celine jumps on my back, using me as a launching pad to throw herself at the monster.
She catches its leg. It screeches in fury, but the sound cuts off abruptly when Celine slams it down with enough force to shake the ground. Out cold, it doesn’t get back up or change forms.
That’s fine.
We won’t be here when it wakes up.
Riven is tearing through the veydran to my left, snapping bones like matchsticks while Hyacinth stays a few feet behind him. Her lips never stop moving. Acrid and earthy, her magic coats the air until I can taste it on my tongue. I wonder what she’s?—
Dirt clods and ice pellets pepper my face and eyes as the ground explodes. I flinch away, temporarily blinded by the flying debris.Motherfucker, I need to see!I shake my head, trying to clear my eyes as monsters shoot up from holes in the ground the size of Malach’s thighs.
Alistair shoves past me, weaving through the burrows until he’s nothing but a blur. Everywhere he goes, he snaps a neck, leaving a trail of dead, razor-toothed worms behind him.
Venom coats my mouth, and my eyes won’t stop watering, blurring my view of the portal. We’re only about ten yards away, but it’s never felt so far.
Keep moving.I tell myself not to stop. We’re winning. We can do this.
Then every single remaining veydra morphs into the same form. Bulky and malignant, with red hair blowing in the wind. They wear a face that’s as strange as it is familiar.
Celine roars with rage.
Our bond pulses with too many things to name: agony, fury, and something even more intense... vengeance. It burns brighter than the sun.
Something tells me I’m about to finally meet S’lach.
FORTY-FIVE
Monster Realm Survival Tip #95:
You are part of the show whether
you consent or not.
CIPRIAN
Don’t pass out. Don’t fucking do it.
You’re a Casanell, son: fear is for everyone else.
They’re counting on you; you can’t let them down.
Eat their terror, Ciprian. Weakness isn’t an option.
I can’t hold on. I’m slipping!
You won’t fail. You’ll makeme proud.
Now is hardly the best time to hallucinate a conversation with myself and my dead dad, but I’m not sure I have a choice. Of course, my circling-the-drain brain would decide to act like I’d downed two bottles of wine and stumbled into a fortune teller’s tent.
