“You harbor a sickness in this mountain,” he projects. His mental voice is flat, completely unaffected by my grip cutting off his air. “I have tracked the strange happenings in the dust. You burn with a corruption.”
“We burn because we are finally waking up,” I project back.
His claws dig straight into the thick muscle of my forearm, drawing lifeblood, but I do not lessen the crushing pressure on his throat.
His amber eyes drag from my face down to my ribs, watching the starfield flare erratic and white-hot against my skin.
“Whatever diseased creatures you are hiding in your deep rock are a plague, Kol. They have ruined the water sources for three boundaries.”
“They are the reason the water is finally clean.” I bare my teeth, leaning my full weight into his chest to trap him against the fractured stone. “And you will not take another step toward them. They are the Daughters of Ain.”
There is no shock in Lucek’s eyes. No sudden realization or awe.
Just a cold, utterly ruthless sneer that bleeds outward through the mindspace.
“The Daughters are a myth for weak clans to cling to as we starve in the dark,” he snarls, his face inches from mine. “If you truly believe whatever parasites you shelter are our makers, then your mind is as corrupted as your blood.”
His elbow drops suddenly, finding the raw, bleeding wound the shadowmaw left on my left shoulder. The torn muscle screams. My grip slips a fraction and he uses it.
His blade comes up fast, nicking the underside of my jaw.
We stand like that, locked. His blade at my throat. My hand still around his neck. The battle churning around us.
That’s when the sound of the cavern shifts.
From the narrow tunnel leading down from the Hall of Knowing, a single pair of feet breaks clear. A runner. One of Lucek’s men slipping past the fighting and violently sprinting for the passage that leads down into our deep chambers.
I brace to hurl Lucek aside to intercept him, but another sound stops me dead.
Small feet muffled by foot coverings. Reckless, frantic, skidding down the steep stone incline from the high tunnel.
Eh-ree-kah.
I know it is her even before Mih-kay-lah’s thought reaches the mindspace. Eh-ree-kah is throwing herself down the rock face. I feel the exact terrifying moment she hits the cavern floor and plunges into the pitch-black passage directly behind Lucek’s runner.
She is hunting him.
Mydra-kirstops beating. For a single, terrifying second, my entire biological system simply ceases to function. My control completely shatters.
Lucek’s eyes cut sideways, watching the passage. His lips pull back, fangs baring. “It seems I will carry this plague out of your mountain and scour it from the dust.”
Then, a scream echoes from the deep chambers.
The mindspace link from the warrior I left guarding the descent suddenly goes dark.
I release Lucek.
My claw opens and he drops. He hits the stone and catches himself on one knee, but the sound that tears out of my throat shakes the physical mountain. I am already moving.
I don’t care what he does next. I don’t care if he picks up a blade and drives it into my back.
I throw two rival warriors aside with a brutal sweep of my arms, desperate to reach the dark tunnel leading down, but the tide of shadowmaw bodies mixed in with warriors is too thick. There are too many of them between me and the descent. I cannot reach it in time.
Behind me, I am dimly aware of Lucek, watching me go. His clan’s assault faltering as the shadowmaws finish dying, as the remaining rival warriors find themselves outnumbered on three sides with no anchor. He says something short and sharp in the mindspace, a command, and his men begin to peel away from the fighting. Retreating. Bleeding.
I tear into the narrow descent. The darkness does not yield, but I do not need light to track the scent of blood and terror.
I hit the floor of the deep chambers with enough force to shake the mountain.
