The former corridor yawned into a crudely built chamber lit by guttering sconces, and his stomach turned. Guards lined the room—dozens—their armor gleaming dully, weapons at the ready. Their eyes glowed the flat, unnatural sheen of beings stripped of their will. Blank. Empty.
“Shit,” Koal muttered, steel drawn.
One by one, their heads snapped toward him, their lips peeling back into snarls. They surged forward like puppets on strings, scales popping on their skin and talons bursting free, but they couldn’t fully shift into battle form—the place couldn’t hold that many dragons.
Race summoned his Gaian sword. “They’re not alive to save. Drop ‘em.”
The first wave hit. His blade cut clean, severing a throat before the guard even managed a swing. Koal’s great sword arced wide, cleaving through another?—
Skaldr appeared out of the shadows, flanking Race’s other side. His strikes carried the fury of a man who’d lost too much to care for his own safety.
Yeah, they all did.
Race spun, his sword a blur, decapitating more of the zombie guards who had once served his sire. Rage fueled every inch of him.
These weren’t soldiers. They were desecrations of his father’s reign—proof of Malcarion’s depravity.
Swords clashed, metal screaming against metal, the air heavy with the stink of gore. The floor grew slick with blood, enemy boots slipping, bodies falling in heaps. Still, they came—guts hanging, limbs severed. They fought.
Fuck!Race unleashed his fire. The blank-eyed guards didn’t cry out. They stumbled forward, their armor collapsing into molten slag. Even dying, a group of them clawed ahead, driven by Malcarion’s thrall until their bodies finally turned to char under the force of his flames.
And then, silence.
Race stood among the dead, his chest heaving while pale, sickly green sparks of Malcarion’s foul magic flickered along the stone seams.
Koal spat on the ground, scowling at the corpses that Race hadn’t turned to slag yet. “Fucking sorcery.”
Skaldr growled.
But Race didn’t look at the bodies. His gaze fixed on the darkness ahead, into deeper shadows that pulsed with an unnatural light, like a heartbeat. “With all these guards, the bastard’s close.”
He strode deeper into the passage. The walls glowed faintly, veins of green fire running like rot through the stone. The air grew hotter, thicker, reeking of metal and char.
Then the chamber opened before them. More puppets lined up against the walls. None moved, not even a limb.
Pain ricocheted through his skull, spikes driven deep and hard. He staggered, one hand braced on the wall?—
“Sire. You okay?” Koal asked.
He couldn’t shut the pain off, could barely breathe through it, but he forced a nod and straightened. The lit chamber beyond drew his attention.
His eyes narrowed.
Not lit. Hundreds of forge stones hung suspended from a massive birdcage iron frame, pulsing like trapped hearts, each throb a muffled scream, bleeding radiance into the air—the powers stolen from the children. The illumination seared the chamber, waves of corrupted energy spilling outward until even the stone seemed to shudder.
At the center was Malcarion.
Dark strands of magic tethered him to the trellis, crackling with green and red energy, his hands sunk into the lattice. His body convulsed with every surge, veins bulging and eyes blazing with stolen power. Gold scales broke free, then receded.
Shirtless. Disheveled. He appeared almost skeletal, his long hair limp with sweat. No longer the suave male shifter Race once knew.
He threw back his head and laughed, and his forged Ember Crown slipped a little, the fiery stones glinting in the crackling light. “Yesss?—”
Then he stilled and tilted his head, his golden eyes swirling black as they settled on Race. Tinges of green underscored his pallid features.
“So, it’s true?” His voice boomed off the walls, power feeding him. “The ghost walks. Not for long, weakling?—”
The guards surged forward as if in response to his words, blank-eyed, enthralled, and voiceless.
