I squeezed his hand. "Thane grounds me so I can stand the fire. He doesn't replace it."
Kaelen stared at me for a long beat. "You are dangerous for my ego, little fireheart."
"Good. Your ego is big enough to be a target."
A corner of his mouth quirked up. "Come on. The Wolf is getting impatient."
We caught up to Flynn and found him crouched by a bend in the tunnel, sniffing the air. The faint, rhythmic chanting was audible again, louder than before.
Dissonance,the Skal projected from the ceiling, its thoughts sharp with irritation.Bad noise.
"They're still at it," Flynn whispered. "They haven't stopped."
"Marissa is efficient," Elias muttered. "She is stabilizing the vessel."
"We need a breach strategy," Kaelen said. "Thane?"
Thane moved to the front. "The wall here is softer. Sandstone and shale. I can bring it down, but it will be loud."
"Loud is fine," I said. "Loud is a distraction." I looked up at the Skal. "Steve. You know what to do?"
Chaos,Steve gurgled happily.Disrupt. Bite. Feed.
"Exactly."
"On my mark," Kaelen said, his sword igniting with dragon fire. The sudden light threw our shadows against the walls, monstrous and elongated.
Thane placed his massive hands against the tunnel wall. A deep, grinding vibration shook the floor.
"Three," Kaelen counted. "Two. One."
Thane shoved.
The wall didn't just crumble; it exploded outward into the excavation chamber. A shower of rock and dust blasted into the room, creating an instant fog of war.
"Now!" Kaelen roared.
Steve dropped from the ceiling, landing in the middle of the dust cloud with a screech that sounded like tearing metal. He didn't wait for orders. He spun, some of his tentacles whipping out, smashing a table of alchemical supplies. Glass shattered. Cultists screamed. Marissa cursed.
We surged through the breach.
The scene was a nightmare bathed in that strange stasis light. The air was thick with the smell of old blood and ozone.
Dozens of cultists and traitor Keepers turned toward us, their chanting cut off by shock.
And in the center, standing calm amidst the sudden storm within her circle of glowing jars, was Marissa.
She looked... wrong.
Her white robes were pristine, still untouched by the dirt of the cave, just as I had seen them before. Her skin seemed to glow with a pearlescent sheen. And her eyes were solid white, burning with a cold, divine fury.
"You are late," she said. Her voice wasn't a shout, but it cut through the noise of the Skal’s rampage like a bell. "I expected you to return hours ago."
"We stopped for snacks," Flynn called out, vaulting over a pile of rubble and driving his dagger into the shoulder of a charging cultist.
"Form up!" Kaelen barked. "Get Aria to the Throat!"
We formed a wedge. Kaelen at the point, a whirlwind of fire and steel. Thane and Flynn on the flanks, brutality and speed. Elias and I in the center. We pushed forward.
