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Carnage’s hellfire, Sentinel’s Grace, Malgrave’s power holding both of them tight.

And that other presence underneath it all.

The one I really fucking wish I couldn’t hear.

I round the final corner and stop dead.

Found you.

The extraction chamber opens around me like a throat, and for the first time since Malgrave started this, I can hear the entire structure of what he’s done. Every sigil, every seam, every place the binding was stitched shut.

Carnage’s hellfire hits me first, and I stop dead. It’s stronger down here. So much stronger that for one stupid second, I almost turn around, expecting to find him standing behind me.

He isn’t. I know he’s still outside, fighting.

But his power is here.

Then I actually look at the room. “Holy fuck.” The chamber is enormous, carved so deep beneath the hillside I can’t even see the ceiling through the smoke hanging above me. Black stone stretches out in every direction, split by glowing symbols cut into the floor and walls.

But none of that is what stops me.

The floor has been ripped open. A massive chasm cuts straight through the center of the chamber, wide enough that I have to take several steps closer before I can see anything beyond the edge.

Heat blasts up from below. Fire burns down there, and not a few flames lick along the rock. An entire fucking world of it.

Rivers of molten red cut through black ground so far beneath me I can barely follow them, while huge columns of flame punch upward and disappear again. Smoke boils through the gap, carrying sparks and chunks of burning ash that drift into the chamber before crumbling into nothing.

Something screams somewhere below.

Then another voice joins it.

And another.

Fucking thousands of them.

My stomach rolls as I back away from the edge.

That isn’t a hole beneath the cavern.

I’m looking straight into fucking Hell.

“Jesus Christ.”

Carnage’s power surges again, and the entire chamber reacts. Every symbol carved into the floor flares at once, red light blasting through the cracks as the stone beneath my boots shudders. Heat punches up through the chasm hard enough to throw my hair back from my face.

Then I see Malgrave. He stands on the other side of the chamber, half hidden behind the waves of heat rolling up from below. Both gray hands are spread over a circle carved into the stone, fingers moving through symbols that burn brighter every time he touches them. His mouth is moving. I can’t hear the words over everything else, but I hear what they’re doing.

The binding tightens. Carnage’s hellfire bursts through it. Sentinel’s Grace comes with it, white-gold light tangled through the red-orange flames as both powers race across the chamber floor.

Malgrave’s hands close into fists, and the power jerks to a stop. Carnage’s hellfire bucks against the hold, flames exploding outward while Sentinel’s Grace flashes so bright I have to squint against it.

Malgrave strains, and for the first time since I met the bastard, he actually looks like this is costing him something. Veins stand out along his temples, his shoulders shake, and the symbols beneath his hands burn hotter as he forces the two powers back together, locking them inside the same binding.

Then I see what he is doing. “What the fuck?”

Malgrave throws both hands toward the chasm—the binding moves. Carnage’s hellfire and Sentinel’s Grace rip across the last few feet of stone, trapped together inside Malgrave’s power as they reach the edge.

For one second, they hold there, fighting.