A blur of bone white launched itself at Xane, its clawed limbs latching onto the tyger’s powerful legs.
Xane roared, staggering under the sudden weight. The Thirst demon was all dense bone and writhing tendrils, its face splitting into a gaping maw lined with needle-thin teeth. A horrible, wet rasping filled the air as it wrapped around Xane’s limbs, dragging him down.
Jace cursed, still atop Xane, his bow snapping up, but there was no clean shot. The demon was too close.
Malissa reacted first. With a sharp flick of her wrist, she threw one of her thundervein knives, hitting it square in the eyes.
The demon screeched. With a spasmodic lurch, it uncoiled, shriveling back into itself. Blake’s magic returned the knife to Malissa.
Jace gave Malissa a sharp nod before turning his attention back to the cave ahead.
We streaked forward. The Thirst demons were too close. Their shrieks clawed at my ears, their teeth flashing in the dim light.
I risked a glance over my shoulder. The creatures poured toward us like a tide, their skeletal hands reaching, their sunken eyes glowing with hunger.
Faster, I urged, though Flame hardly needed encouragement.
With a final surge, we shot through the cavern’s mouth. The others followed in a blur of fur and steel. The moment we were inside, the temperature dropped, the air thick with damp stone.
Blake reined Kingsolver to a sharp halt beside me, his bronze hair damp with sweat. His gaze flicked back to the mouth of the cave, then to the others.
“Calla, Auron, Vidor, you’re with me for the Anchor,” he ordered. “The rest of you, hold the entrance.”
A void of infinite darkness unfurled within the ranks of the Onyx Tortoise Dominion, a swirling vortex of power laced with shards of glittering ice. The force of it washed over us.
Vidor’s magic crackled in the air, and with a flick of his wrist, he corralled the three women into a tight circle. The women gasped, fear flashing in their eyes as they were pulled together, helpless within his grasp. The ground trembled beneath him, and from the floor, a cage of twisted bones emerged, glowing with an eerie black light. The bones twisted and coiled around the women, forming an impenetrable prison, trapping them in place. His yinssecured, Vidor turned and followed Blake. I stared in horror at Una, trapped in place, though the demons wouldn’t be able to reach her through the magic of the bone cage. I realized the women’s yin magic would be used to feed the men’s yang powers.
Malissa drew her sword. Jace nocked an arrow, his eyes lethal.
The ravenous Thirst demons crashed toward us, but the line of warriors held them. The cave entrance became a battlefield of fire and blood as the Azures clashed with the swarm of demons. The eagle Azure flew at the creatures with his thundervein-tipped talons, while the leopard moved with powerful, fluid grace, every muscle rippling beneath his spotted hide. Quinn fought in a frenzy of fangs. Amid the carnage, the male Onyx wove his magic with deadly precision, his water whips filled with ice shards edged in shadowsteel. The Reds fought wreathed in a living inferno, carving a burning path through the horde, their fire licking up the walls.
I cracked my burning ribbons through the air, lashing them in wide, searing arcs that lit the demons ablaze on contact. Flames spiraled from each strike, the thundervein edges glowing white-hot as I drove them back.
Malissa and Venom moved like a single entity, a whirlwind of silver and darkness cutting through the chaos, her sword slicing at the Thirst demons with ruthless precision. Beside them, Jace fought, his bow a blur as he loosed arrow after arrow, each one tipped with thundervein.
I paused mid-strike, heart lurching as a sudden pull from the Pair bond yanked through my chest, sharp and urgent, dragging my thoughts toward Blake.
He says you’re needed, Flame relayed, her mental voice taut.Kingsolver says to come now, for Edith.
Flame and I shot forward, plunging deeper into the cavern, catching up to Calla, still in her bear form, and Auron and Vidor.
Blake’s eyes flared when he saw me, burning blue in the darkened light. We both dismounted, then moved forward with as much speed as caution would allow. The path twisted, jagged rocks jutting from the walls, moisture seeping from unseen crevices. The farther we went, the more the air pulsed. Not with heat but with power. Auron lit the way in the complete darkness, fire held between his palms.
Then I saw it.
Ahead, a glow pulsed like an off-kilter heartbeat, pale and crystalline, illuminating a farther cavern. Embedded in the stone was a gigantic diamond.
The Silver Anchor to the Demon Realm.
It must have been a thing of celestial beauty once: a diamond the size of a warhorse, its many facets cut with divine precision, refracting light in endless shimmering patterns that danced along the cavern walls.
But now it wasdying.
Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, jagged fissures leaking wisps of black smoke. The pulsing light within it was erratic, its glow flickering one moment like a failing heartbeat. The next, it surged with such force that the ground trembled beneath our feet. The color had soured to a sickly, yellow-tinged pallor, as though the corruption of the Demon Realm had seeped into its very core. With each throb of its unstable energy, the cave trembled, and the air thickened with the acrid scent of scorched stone and something older, somethingwrong. Magic bled from it in uneven bursts, warping the shadows and making them seem to lurch and twist. It was failing.
And at its base—
“Edith,” I breathed, running to her.
