Chapter 29

Seth signaled for us to stay back as he moved toward the crowd. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like any of this. But even without seeing the whole chamber, I could tell we were badly outnumbered. I had to trust him - to trust that he would do whatever it took to get Lilae back.

He slipped inside and seemed to melt into the mass of people. Then he was gone. We waited, the seconds stretching thin. Ashie stood at my side, axe clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone white. She was coiled and ready, just waiting for a reason.

Serah was something else entirely. Her face was hard with rage and purpose, a look I’d never seen on her before. It was frightening - and a small, quiet part of me was relieved she was with us, not against us.

A sickly green light flared from within the chamber, and a wave of dread rolled over me. Something was very wrong. My skin crawled, every instinct screaming at me to run. But I couldn’t. Not with Lilae still in there.

Ashie didn’t hesitate. She barreled into two humans just inside the doorway and vanished from sight as she fell.

I was moving before I realized it, chasing after her, tearing loose stones from the wall and hurling them at anyone who got in my way.

The stench of burning flesh filled the air. Another flash of green light split the chamber as crackling energy arced across the room, striking a man and stripping the meat from his bones in an instant. The dread in my gut deepened, turning cold and heavy.

There were children down there. So many of them. Chained. Crying. Lightning lashed out again and again, careless and cruel, reducing bodies to ash and bone in the blink of an eye.

Then Seth leapt up from the cistern, Lilae clutched tight in his arms. “Get her out of here!” he shouted, already turning back toward the chaos as he leapt down again.

So I did the only thing I could.

I took Lilae and I ran.

* * *

We stopped short of the junction chamber. From where I stood, I could see several humans already inside. I couldn’t tell how many there were, but that wasn’t what twisted my gut. Lilae was in there. Probably other kids too. And if the bastard we’d caught was telling the truth, there were at least a couple of wizards mixed in. Too many chances for something to go wrong. Too many chances for the wrong people to get hurt.

Seth went in alone. Figured one more human wouldn’t draw attention. It was a good plan - assuming it worked. Get eyes on the situation. See what we were really dealing with.

Too bad it didn’t work.

A flash of light burst from the chamber and the noise hit us a heartbeat later. Yells reached us from inside. I roared and charged, slamming my shield into the two humans closest to the entrance. I hadn’t realized there was a narrow balcony just inside. We all went over the edge together. Thankfully it was only a short drop - maybe six feet.

I landed hard on one of them, rolled, and came up swinging. My axe bit into another man before he even realized I was there.

Another flash. A jagged bolt of sickly green lightning tore through the air past me and struck someone behind, burning flesh away in an instant and leaving nothing but bones.

That’s when I saw them. Dozens of kids. Chained to the stone, eyes wide with terror.

Seth was already down there with Lilae when someone tackled him from behind. I started toward him, but something smashed into my side. Cold flooded my arm, biting deep, ice crawling over the steel of my shield. To my right, a wizard was already shaping another spell. I didn’t think - I hurled my axe. It hit him square in the chest and knocked him flat.

A sword rang against my shield, shattering most of the ice, but my arm still screamed and barely wanted to move. I kicked the man as hard as I could. He staggered back just in time for another arc of green energy to catch him and turn him into a heap of bones.

Seth and Lilae were gone. I didn’t know where they’d gone, only that they weren’t here anymore.

Another spell slammed into my shield. My muscles seized and I went down hard as more jagged bolts ripped through the cistern. Then a wave of **** hit me and sent me skidding across the stone.

The bones around me began to tremble.

They shifted. Reassembled. Pulled themselves upright into grinning skeletons, baleful fire burning in their empty eyes.

One turned toward me-

-and its skull exploded as Seth’s staff came down like a hammer.

I grabbed his hand and he hauled me to my feet. “Get these kids out of here!” he shouted over the boom of the lightning bolts. “I’ll buy you time.” Then he was gone, sprinting toward the source of the lightning - a swirling mass of pale green energy burning like a miniature sun near the spillway.

Charging that thing was suicide. But there was no other choice.

I snatched up my axe and smashed the first set of manacles I saw. The child - a young naga boy - just stared at me, frozen.

“Run!” I yelled, already swinging at the next set of chains.

There were too many of them. No way I could free them all before this place tore itself apart. But I’d break as many chains as I could before it did.

* * *

When the first flashes of light came, I recognized them at once. The color was necrofire green - but twisted, fouler somehow. Wrong in a way that made my skin crawl. Ashlara and Mirri were already inside when the thunder rolled through me. I sprinted after them, heart pounding, with no real idea of what waited beyond the doorway.

Chaos greeted me.

A man rushed me with a sword. I barely slowed, batting him aside; his body sailed through the air and struck the far wall hard enough to crack stone. In the center of the chamber, dozens of children knelt in a shallow pit, only a few feet down, chains biting into small wrists and ankles. Ashlara took a frost spell full-on - ice bloomed across her shield, locking it solid. Seth shoved Lilae into Mirri’s arms, shouting something I couldn’t hear, and Mirri turned and ran the way we’d come.

Then I saw it.

To the left, hovering near the spillway, a stone sphere churned and writhed, veined with necrofire and spitting jagged green lightning. My blood went cold. I had heard of these. Read about them. Cautionary tales whispered in lectures and banned texts - warnings about hubris, about hate given form.

A Bonefire Sphere.

Its power stripped flesh from bone as easily as breath from lungs. What remained rose again, driven by malice and grief, an army of the dead that turned on the living. Every attempt to master one ended the same way.

With ****.

Bolts of energy leapt from the sphere without pattern or mercy. Men fell. Children screamed. Stone shattered as lightning struck walls and ceiling alike. Chunks of masonry tore free and crashed down, and I felt the structure above us groan - the street overhead threatening to collapse and bury us all.

My magic wouldn’t be enough here. Not like this. And there wasn’t space to shed my disguise - no room to grow without crushing the very people we were trying to save.

Ashlara slammed her axe into the floor, trying to break the children free, but it was slow work. Too slow. Around us, bones were already stirring. Skeletons clawed their way upright, baleful fire burning in empty sockets, turning on anything that still breathed.

Seth charged the sphere.

I shouted, but the thunder swallowed my voice. He swung Adhaneth with everything he had. The impact sent a shockwave through the chamber—and then the sphere answered. A blast of **** hurled him across the room like a rag doll.

The ceiling cracked.

In that moment, I knew the truth of it. If the sphere didn’t kill us, the undead would. And if they didn’t, the street above would finish the job.

There was only one of those threats I could stop.

My body tore itself apart and reformed - arms and legs thickening, ribs twisting and growing as wings burst from my back. I shed the small shape I wore like a lie and claimed my true one, driving myself upward until my shoulders and spine wedged against the roof. I braced arms and legs wide, muscles screaming as I took the weight of the street above.

Stone groaned. The world pressed down on me.

* * *

I rolled to my feet and swung my staff, shattering the skeleton nearest me. Another rushed Ashlara and I was there in an instant, Adhaneth caving in its skull. I hauled her upright by the arm.

“Get these kids out of here!” I shouted. “I’ll buy you time.”

I didn’t wait for an answer.

I charged the sphere.

By now it burned like a pale sun, necrofire roiling across its surface, jagged lightning lashing out at everything. Its cold light crawled over my skin, searing even as it froze, and I felt flesh beginning to fail me with every step.

I hoped Mirri had gotten Lilae clear.

I hoped Ashlara could break the chains.

I hoped - desperately - that what I was about to do would matter.

I swung Adhaneth like a baseball bat and struck the necrotic star.

Cold power slammed into me. The world tipped sideways. The floor vanished and I was tumbling, senses spinning uselessly away. When I opened my eyes, I was sprawled on my back a dozen paces from the sphere.

A man stood over me - the dark-haired one, the voice that had whipped the others into hate.

“You’ve ruined everything!” he screamed, the words nearly lost beneath the unending thunder.

He lunged. I kicked out and sent him staggering, then **** myself upright. Every movement was agony. My skin was split and cracked, but no blood flowed - just dull pain. He charged again and we collided, grappling, his hands clawing for my throat.

I seized his face, fingers digging into his jaw. He screamed and recoiled, and I used the moment to shove him away. I fell, hard, then dragged myself back up just as he slammed into me again.

His fingers closed around my throat once more. Behind me, the sphere’s cold intensified until it felt like sharp ice pressed into my spine. Lightning leapt around us, throwing warped shadows across the walls. Pain tore through my arm and I watched as the flesh of my bicep simply ceased to exist.

I staggered.

Then I threw my weight backward, dropping hard onto my back and heaving with everything I had. The man sailed over me, over the edge of the spillway, his scream cut short by the roar of rushing water below.

The sphere loomed at my side.

I dragged myself upright. Serah had taken her dragon form and was bracing the failing roof, stone breaking and falling around her. I couldn’t see Ashlara anywhere. The sphere pulsed erratically now, light flaring brighter with every heartbeat. It was coming apart.

I knew it could kill me. My mangled arm was proof enough. Whatever resistance I had wasn’t enough for this.

But I was out of choices.

I wrapped my arms around the blazing green sphere and pulled.

My skin burned away where I touched it, agony flaring white-hot, but the orb shifted. The light overwhelmed everything, blinding me, or maybe burning my eyes from their sockets. I couldn’t breathe. I dug in with my legs and pushed with all the strength I had left.

The last thing I felt was the world spinning around me.