“Run!” I roar, shoving a guard’s blade aside and splitting his throat open in the same breath.
Therion carves us a path, axe dripping, his roar shaking the walls. But one of the shadowhounds lunges, faster than the rest. Its jaws clamp onto his forearm, teeth sinking deep, dragging him sideways.
He doesn’t cry out. He never does. He just snarls, wrenching the beast up with brute strength, and brings his axe down in a single, brutal arc that splits skull from spine. Blood—his and its—coats the stones.
“Go!” he bellows, shoving forward, already bleeding through his gauntlet. He fights like nothing’s wrong. But I see the way his grip slips on the axe. I see the trail he leaves.
We don’t have time to stop.
Ronyn picks off those who get too close, Jax holds the line long enough for Seren to stumble past, Codex clutched tight. Rubi clambers through the path, hitching her skirts so she can run, blood dripping from the sickle blade buried in the fabric.
Elyssara stays at my side, magic glowing faint beneath her skin, her blade already painted in blood.
“It’s the Lightborne,” one of the guards realizes, staring at the glow that peeks above her leathers and armor. But beneath her hood, her face is still obscured. Hopefully enough to give us cover.Fuck. We need those Shards!
We crash through the chaos—beasts snapping at our heels, guards howling behind us—until a familiar voice cuts through.
“This way!” the voice pants.
“Tess!” Elyssara cries as the girl bursts from a side passage, waving us on with wild urgency.
Mavyrn.
She’s nowhere to be found.
I sweep my eyes around the tunnels, desperate to find her in the shadows.
To make us a fucking Gateway and get out of here.
She’s fucking gone.
Therion searches the tunnels, too.
“If the old fuckin’ bat left us here,” he mutters under his breath, but he keeps running.
“I know somewhere safe!” Tess shouts, already surging upward to Virellin’s streets.
Fuck.
Nymeris will have to wait.
So, we follow—bleeding, gasping—through the tunnels of The Underbelly, hunted by both beasts and men.
But the Codex is ours. And I’ll send whoever comes for it to the Final Gate without a second thought.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
ELYSSARA
The Barrier Districtgreets us like a fist to the ribs—clamor, torchlight, steel. We burst from The Underbelly’s throat into streets already barricaded, guards thick as flies on rot. Banners of the crown hang limp in the night air, but the patrols are sharp-eyed, restless, too many.
“We need to get to the roofs,” Tess rushes out, panic thick in her tone.
She’s right. Because if there’s anything I know about Virellin, it’s how to get around unseen, and the roofs are the best way to do it.
I drag air into my lungs, damp and cold compared to The Underbelly’s humid stench. My boots slip on cobbles slick with ale and piss, but I move fast, trusting that the others will keep up, and I scale a wall before the guards can round the corner. My fingers find holds where others would see only stone. Muscle memory. The old me. The thief.The shadow.
The others follow in fractured silence—Therion grunting as his axe catches on the climb, Ronyn muttering curses about being hungry under his breath, Rubi too wild to be quiet but quick enough for that not to matter. Jax merges with the shadows, quiet and compliant for a change. Kael doesn’tstumble. He never does. His presence is steady at my back, tether humming with dark calm that pulses in time with mine.
