Page 119 of The City Of Fractured Memory

“We need to leave, now.” Riven whispers, his voice barely audible like he’s trying not to move his lips too much.

Alone in the cavern’s suffocating dark, I can hear nothing, but our own ragged breaths and the low, hunting growls echoing off the stone. Riven inches closer to me, while Stryx lies limp in my arms—too still, too quiet—and the not knowing hollows me out more viciously than fear ever could. Alive or dead, I can’t tell. The darkness swallows everything else.

Riven swears under his breath as magic flares to life in his hands, despite the tremor in his fingers. Light blossoms from his palm, pale and unsteady, pushing back against the blackness.

The cavern answers with a chorus of snarls.

We are surrounded.

Creatures emerge from the edges of the light. Huge, hulking shapes on four limbs, their bodies a slick, light-devouring black. They look like dogs only in the broadest sense, stretched and wrong, their forms too sickeningly angular. Where eyes should be there is nothing but smooth, empty flesh, and their jaws yawn impossibly wide, split with rows of jagged teeth that glisten as they pad towards us. The light catches on their mouths, on strings of saliva, on the slow, circling way they move closer.

Blind, and yet undeniably aware of us.

My grip tightens around Stryx as dread settles cold and heavy in my chest. Whatever God crossed through the shattered mirror has not come alone.

My gaze is dragged back to the wreckage of the mirror. At first, it looks like nothing more than shadow clings to the broken frame. Just smoke, dust and the absence of light. Then the darkness moves. It folds in on itself, rippling like a living thing, and I understand with a sickening jolt that it isn’t a shadow at all.

It’s a doorway.

This is no mirror, there never has been. It’s a threshold, vast and vertical, its edges splintered, but still holding, and beyond it there is nothing, but endless black. From the void beyond the creatures pour, one after another, slipping into the cavern like ink spilling through a crack. No light reaches the other side. No depth or shape, just infinite, watching darkness.

“Riven…” My voice shakes.

He sees it too, his jaw tightening. “The Voyd. It’s open.”

My eyes snap to his in alarm. “What do you mean?”

But before he can answer, more growls rise behind us, closer now. The creatures fan out, cutting off angles, herding us with instinctive precision. I clutch Stryx to my chest, my tears silently falling into her hair. I feel Riven’s gaze on me and we lock eyes, the pity in his expression making me suddenly angry.

“Octavia,” he says softly, his eyes darting to Stryx before landing back on me.

“Don’t,” I growl.

“She’s gone, you need to let her go.”

“No,” I hiss through my teeth, my tears falling thick and fast now. “Don’t say that. There’s still time, I fixed her–”

“She already lost so much blood. I’m so sorry. Sweetheart, you have to let her go.”

I wipe my tears away angrily, my eyes narrowing on him. “I. Will. Not. Leave. Her.”

Riven looks around at the wall of death approaching us, his eyes widening with panic. “If we don’t go now, we are all going to die, Octavia.”

“Then we take her with us. She’s still clinging on, I can feel it,” I beg him, but he doesn’t look convinced, and if I’m honest, neither am I. She’s too still, too pale. My stomach curdles at the realisation that Riven’s probably right, but I refuse to accept it.

There’s a sudden. haunting melody of gargling rips and hisses, and I turn to find some of the creatures feasting on the fallen corpses of the cult members. I look away quickly, bile forming in my throat as I try not to retch. I glance instead toward the tunnel we came through and feel my stomach drop. The route is long, winding and totally unforgiving. Even if we could fight our way to it…

We won’t survive it.

I swear again, sharp and vicious, panic clawing up my throat. “We won’t make it back the way we came.”

“Then what?” he snaps, following my gaze. “We can’t stay here, can we?”

My eyes flick around us, calculating, then lock onto his. A thought hits me like a slap. “The Memosyne. We can glamour ourselves. It’s the only way.”

Why didn’t we think of this before? How could we have been so stupid?

“We spent hours in those tunnels,” I hiss, furious at myself for not seeing it sooner. “Gods, we could’ve just gone through the Memosyne in the first place, we could’ve glamoured ourselves, walked straight through instead of–” I gesture helplessly at the cavern, the door, the monsters.