It’s me.
The poison should be winning.
I can feel it trying to. The way it thickens the air until it feels like I’m breathing wet wool. The way my arms want to turn to stone and my thoughts want to scatter like frightened birds. But something in me refuses to let it take a single inch more.
The cavern doesn’t just hold the rot but is part of it, soaked init, fed by it. And now that it knows the Kings are failing, it leans in—greedy.
The ground trembles beneath my knees. Not from my magic. From the land.
A low groan rolls through the rock like a throat clearing, ancient and annoyed. The black tar on the wall begins to move again, and faster this time.
The ribbons unwind and unspool across the cavern walls in a frantic crawl, branching into thin tendrils that stretch toward the bodies on the ground as if tasting them, choosing them. One curls around Sinner’s ankle, slick and quiet. The second it touches him, he jerks like he’s been struck, a choked curse torn from his lips before his jaw locks and the sound dies in his throat.
London tries to lift her hand, tries to summon the ink-black blade of her power, but the poison steals it from her mid-thought. Her fingers twitch, useless. Knight’s arm shakes so badly it looks like his bones might rattle free of his skin. Creed’s attempt to bark an order only results in a raw rasp.
The tendrils slip closer, dragging across the stone with a soft, wet sound that makes my stomach twist. One threads up Knight’s boot, another snakes over Creed’s palm. When Creed tries to rip it away, it clings harder—like it’s delighted he noticed.
I search for the source. For thethingbehind the thing, and the moment I do, the air shifts.
A shadow moves deeper in the cavern. It slips past the evidence markers, past the claw marks and the dark that isn’t dark but the absence of light entirely. The shape presses into the stone like a stain, and my pulse pounds heavily.
My stomach turns over as I wait for it to reveal itself, but then Legend’s breath stutters in my arms. His fingers dig into my jacket like he can anchor himself in me if he holds on hard enough. His head lolls toward my shoulder and his mouth openson a sound that isn’t a word—just instinct and need and that horrible, failing pull.
And the moment I feel him slip, something in me snaps.
It’s like a chain going taut, like a door being kicked in, like my blood remembers it’s been waiting to spill into a flame.
I don’t think. Deep in my marrow, something buried inside me refuses to allow this cavern to take him. I will not let it takeany of them.
The tar lashes out again, whipping toward my wrist like it wants to wrap me up and mark me.
Magic roars to the surface, feral, wild, and nothing like the clean, sculpted spells they’ve been teaching me. This is older. Uncontained. A raw, ungoverned force slamming against the cavern walls like it wants to tear them apart. Just like when the knife appeared at Sinner’s throat, I don’t lift a hand.
I don’t draw a symbol.
I don’t even fucking speak, yet a portal erupts upward,forcedinto existence by nothing more than the brute strength of whatever lives inside me. It’s no ordinary portal.
It’s one ringed of fire.
Even through the effects of the poison, their confusion is obvious. Legend tries to lift his head again, brows furrowed, but struggles to maintain his balance. I can’t make out whatever words London gasps out as Knight stares through barely open eyes, disbelief mixing with panic. As for Sinner and Creed—the former tries to crawl toward us while Creed fails to move a muscle.
It’s a shit show.
I tighten my grip on Legend’s waist, dragging him up with me, my pulse thundering in a rhythm that matches the trembling in the air. Then, somehow, I’m carrying them all through.
We hit the floor with a hard bang, and the last thing I hear is Legend’s roar echoing inside my skull.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Legend
Knight’s crouched beside me when the world swims back into focus, his palm a hot brand against my shoulder like he’s trying to pin me to the floorboards by heat alone.
“What’s wrong with him?” he snarls at anyone who’ll answer, and the question scrapes along my ribs like a knife hunting bone. “Why are we fine and he’s not?”
“Her.” Creed’s one-word answer has my brows pulling.
Everything hums.
