22

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The darkness starts to thicken. A calm, soothing sensation washes over them, like the welcome call of a fire in a hearth after too many phases fighting in ice storms.

The narrow walls of the tunnel swell again; and lead into a bulbed chamber. The nest.

A ripple of movement shudders down the line of five males, but the ripple is one of unease, too.

The dragon is nowhere in sight. It's quiet—too quiet. And the silence is a sheet of ice pressing down on them.

Samick keeps to his artruleum sword, but his fisted grip tells that he's grabbed a few of his throwing stars, too.

Alasdare reaches around his back for his weapons belt. His gloved hands clutch the ivory hilts of two daggers—glass blades frosted with dead ice. A better option against a dragon than the razored whip he's partial to, or even the gold-flecked dagger Samick crafted for him so long ago now.

Daxeel trades in his daggers for the same as Dare—glass blades, both longer than the length of his forearms.

Rune takes his dead-ice sword from the sheath on his back.

Prit keeps to his artuleum.

Silent, the five of them move into the chamber.

Samick veers left into the swell of darkness, Prit at his heels. Daxeel moves for the right, Alasdare a shadow behind him whose steps are purposed with stealth and power. Then Rune stops at the mouth of the chamber.

All gazes slide to the far corner, where a crescent of beach pebbles are hugged to the cavern wall—and the nest is staring right back at them.

Three dragon hatchlings, all with their underdeveloped red eyes aimed at them. Daxeel's lip twitches at the peachy tone of their wrinkled, loose skin, translucent enough that the grey of their bones are visible. There was always something off-putting about hatchlings to Dax. He would bathe in the blood and guts of his enemies before he ever touched one of those things.

But he doesn't have to.

They only have to feed the hatchlings—and so, Prit has just one more breath to fill his lungs before it happens.

Faster than a heartbeat can echo in the chamber, before the hatchlings can throw their long necks back and cry out the danger call to their mother, Samick has shuddered through space.

From one side of Prit, he now stands on the other side—and in his hand is a freshly torn throat. His extended talons are shards of ice, his hand black with blood, and his eyes shine through the darkness in a flare of frost.

Prit drops to his knees.

His short lashes flutter, black eyes glittering with obvious shock. The gaping hole in his neck pulses and sputters blood.

None of the other males move beyond turning their chins to angle their gazes at him. And they watch in stiff silence as Prit crumples to the cavern floor. His heart wavers once in his chest; his boot twitches… then nothing.

He is dead. Prit, who so willingly followed Dare to the caves, who so easily trusted a fellow dark male he once knew at the barracks.

Daxeel can't deny Dare's value. No one can.

It would have been better to have him enter the passage with them, to use Dax as an anchor and land at the foot of the cliff. But Dare had blood to steal from Nari, blood to then deliver to the iilra, and some he should still have on his person now.

There was not enough time for him to link with his brothers. It was a risk to have him enter the portal, land too far away, maybe be killed before he could bring Daxeel the extra drop of blood.

But it was a risk they had to take for this—to bring a sacrifice into the chamber, one needed to keep the hatchlings fed and quiet while they search for dragon eyes around the nest.

Crumpled on the floor of the cave, Prit is a stack of muscle and blood, and Rune moves for him, fast. He boots out at the body's side. Rune's kick delivers, it always does. Brutal. And it sends the corpse cracking into the wall of the cave.

Bones crunch, a skull cracks, and then the body thuds down into the nest curved against the wall. The hatchlings start feasting on Prit before his leathers even stop creaking.

"That was harsh." Dare aims an arched brow at Rune. "Did he fuck your mother?" Then, as an afterthought, he flashes a grin in the dark, "Or your father?"

Rune spares him a glower. "I'm not wasting our precious time being delicate about it."

Dare's grin darkens, but his eyes gleam brighter. "Whatever helps you look your father in the eyes."

Samick's back jolts with a silent scoff. But he daren't make a sound, and he keeps the small smile hidden from Rune as they all spear off from the mouth of the cavern.

Rune huffs as he crouches at the bed of a rock pile. He starts to finger through the stones.

Daxeel sighs an exhausted sound, then makes for a different pile. He, too, might have laughed—if they weren't in a fucking dragon cave, with every litalf warrior on this side of the portal hunting him down.

They each find a pile, and in mere seconds, the sound of rocks rustling, stones falling, pebbles being tossed aside and hitting walls, floods the chamber—that, and crushing bone and torn flesh as the hatchlings devour Prit.

"Found one." Dare's flippant murmur startles the others.

Daxeel frowns over his shoulder. The disbelief is etched into every line of his face, but sure enough, Dare has a black, polished-type pebble impaled on his finger—his middle finger, and he aims it right at Rune.

Rune's pale lip twitches, then he turns his back on him. He starts on his rock heap again—but with the rush of rocks falling, Daxeel suspects he's looking a bit faster now.

It's Samick who says, "Your hunting skills might sometimes amaze me."

Dare pockets the dragon eye, then starts to rifle through the pile again for more. "Don't be coy, brother. I amaze you."

Still fingering through fragments of rock and cliff, Daxeel doesn't need to look back to know Samick has become frost all over again. Refocused, he has returned to his search efforts.

Daxeel does the same. Reaching out his gloved fingers, he swipes away a dusty layer of debris from the edge of a boulder, then rifles through that small stack for a shiny black pebble with a natural hole carved into its centre.

Some more moments pass by, hearing rocks rustle and flesh being torn from bone as the hatchlings devour Prit.

Then, Dare's voice comes slick with a smile, "Got another."

"Oh, fuck off." Rune's hiss echoes through the chamber. "You did not find a second."

Dare lifts his middle finger again, and there is another. "Tell me how much you envy me. I like the flirtations as much as I like the hunt."

Samick's icy voice murmurs, "He would sooner tell Daxeel how much he fancies his sister."

Instant tension bolts Daxeel's muscles to his bones. A ripple runs through him, his upper lip curling back. "Shut up and focus on the dragon eyes. Two of them is not enough for all five of us."

With that, the chat is stomped out.

Dare runs his narrowed golden eyes over the pile. His nose wrinkles, as though he's sniffing the air above the rocks and stones and pebbles—then he shoves back and stands. "This pile is dead."

A growl catches in Rune's throat, but it doesn't do more than sweep a smile over Dare's face, and he advances on him anyway.

"One should never be too embarrassed to ask for help," Dare says with a tut, then kneels for Rune's stack. "Unless, of course, you're a dark male—in which case, this must be awfully embarrassing for you."

Some growls come from the pair across the cavern. Daxeel doesn't look back at them, but he can picture their pushing and shoving vividly, because it's all the two of them ever do.

Then, when the roughing dies down, it takes Dare mere fucking minutes to find a third anchor.

Rune and Dare don't stop bickering. But together, they hunt for a fourth—and maybe Rune rushes his search to at least find one of the five needed.

But Samick's the next to call out, "Another. That's four."

Then himself, Daxeel brushes dust of a particularly gloomy dragon eye. His grim stare bores through it for only a moment before he pushes up to his feet.

He doesn't yet announce it.

Instead, he runs his gaze over the backs of Rune and Dare, seeing how the latter blows dust in Rune's face, living to wind him like a clock. Samick is tossing little stones over his shoulder, his pace as glacier as his energy.

Then he looks to the nest, where Prit's body is—or was, since it's mostly devoured now, boots and leathers, too. A fleeting thought of cannibalism passes through his mind. Leathers of dragons, now food for dragons.

Daxeel eyes the gnawed bones and torn flesh with distance in his eyes.

He isn't sorry. None of them are. It was never going to be one of them who was sacrificed. Together, they would have risked facing off with the mother dragon than turn against one of their own.

Daxeel keeps these brothers closer to himself than he keeps Caius. Brothers in soul are above brothers in blood, a reflected culture in Licht, and one Daxeel has known since his time at the barracks.

But Daxeel gives no more thought to it, because to think of any of them dying in the Sacrament is a vicious feeling in the chest, and so he lifts his hand—the dragon eye pinched between his gloved fingers—and calls off the search.

"Five."

Rune curses under his breath.

In two steps, Samick advances. He watches him closely, his green eyes as pale as ice frosted over a glade. "Are you ready?"

Dax cuts his stare to the hybrid who socks Rune on the arm. "You've got it?"

Dare pushes Rune aside just once before he slips out a phial from his trouser pocket. A phial with some drops of crimson blood. "One evate anchor, from me to you."

Before he can toss it, a flutter of the lashes darkens golden eyes—then Dare whips his chin to the side. His nose wrinkles. Slowly, he draws in a breath deep enough to expand his chest.

Then, he exhales in a harsh growl, "Litalves."

The song of metal whistles through the chamber as Rune whips out his sword, then steps forward, his eyes darting to the shadows of the tunnel. "They are coming."

A mere heartbeat passes before the others pick up on the sound. The distant thunder of bootsteps pounding off stone. Not one set, not two, but at least a dozen light fae running up the tunnel towards the chamber.

"Now!" Rune's voice bellows through the chamber and he throws a wild look at Dax. "Do it now!"

And he does.

Daxeel doesn't wait for the anchor of Nari's blood.

He can't risk the litalves reaching them—so he brings the dragon eye to his mouth and whispers, "I am the dark, the dark is me. I offer Mother a piece of my soul."

Daxeel's heart stops.

Hesitation steals him.

He swallows, thick. "To speak to Mother, I offer her a sacrifice." His whispered words are swallowed by the hole of the dragon eye. His lashes shut on ocean eyes, darkness stealing him whole as that final word escapes him like a choked breath and spears his chest with a screaming ache; "Evate."

Time stops. And the darkness become something alien as he collapses to the ground.

A burst of air explodes in the cavern.

The force of it, like a violent wave crashing into a cliffside, is enough to throw the others off their balance. Then—

Shadows.

Shadows pummel Daxeel.

??????

Thick shadows whirl around the limp body on the ground; darkness that's come to life and devours Daxeel as fervently as the hatchlings consume Prit.

The chamber rumbles from the onslaught of vicious blackness. Stones and dust rain down on them, and they are blind in this new darkness.

Rapid bootsteps smack through the raging shadows. Brandishing his sword, Rune runs up to the edge of the tunnel's mouth and presses his back to the shuddering stone.

And just as the group of light warriors come barrelling blind into the dark, Samick takes point on the other side. Dead-ice daggers in each fist, he moves first—and brings one down with precision.

It sinks into the curve of a shoulder, the tip of the blade piercing through a windpipe, then Samick rips it back out and slinks into the darkness.

Flames from lanterns and torches ignite the dark as more come, barrelling through the tunnel—but that light doesn't help them, not against the thickest shadows swarming the chamber, spearing through Daxeel's motionless body over and over. It blots blind spots all over the cavern, for even the dark males.

"The shadows," Samick's hiss is fast followed by the stab of a dagger into litalf flesh, "are—" a grunt as he rips out the dagger and staggers back a step "—killing him!"

Rune throws up his sword just as one comes down on him; a clash of metal and ice, and the light fae shoves his full weight against him.

"Dare!" Runes shout booms through the chamber. It's lost in the shadows beating down on Daxeel. "Dare, where the fuck are you?" He boots out at the litalf's chest, using the strength of his kick to send him cracking into the wall.

All he gets in answer is a coughing sound, one wracked with dust and debris. He throws his wild gaze around the dark for the hybrid, but even he strains to see through the brutal Cursed Shadows.

Samick spears past him like a faithful arrow. And with his sudden swerve, a confetti of blood and throats fly up into the air. The rapid thumps of three heavy bodies hit the ground.

"The anchor!" Rune's shout comes again, this time with the added punch of a bone snapped in two. "Dare, where's the fucking anchor?"

"Got it," Dare grits the words out with a hoarse voice. He grunts, shoving himself up from the ground—the spot he landed on the moment the shadows blasted through the chamber and knocked him out, cold.

Rune ducks as the fire of a torch strikes out at him. The litalf wielding it like a sword is backed by two others, and Rune knows they have already taken out half of the litalf group.

But this one who wields fire, the same hue as her braided curls, she hesitates, and she's a fool for it. Her hesitation is their acquaintance—and Rune just barely remembers her name to be Luna, a once-off lover of Samick, a friend of a friend.

But she's no friend of Rune, and she fools herself with her caution, like she doesn't want this, to kill any of them.

Weakling. Rune knows the one who runs up behind her is Ridge, a new lover of Eamon's.

But this Luna still advances, and so Rune will cut her down as easily as he would a stranger.

Somewhere behind him, Samick lures the other three deeper into the Cursed Shadows, where they are all completely blind—and can only rely on their other senses, a tip in the scales for Samick, whose senses are unmatched by any other fae Rune's ever known.

The wink of gold catches in Rune's focused stare. He almost looks away from the torch-wielding female just as Dare's favourite dagger is pitched through the air. The blade sinks into her eye, and she just grunts once before dropping to her knees, dead.

Ridge's shout is hollow.

Rune turns on him, but the male beside him is the one who charges—and as Rune throws his weight into his defensive strike, he only hears the grunts and cries from the thick shadows, where Samick circles and strikes out at the others.

Dare rushes by in a flash. His shoulder smacks into Rune hard enough to stagger him. But in the thick swirls of ink and tar and poison, Dare pushes against the beating winds of the Cursed Shadows. Lips curled into a snarl, beads of sweat are fast to glisten on his forehead, the exertion of fighting Mother herself. A forever losing battle.

In Dare's grip, he keeps the phial of blood from the feisty halfling who got too close in the courtyard, and it glistens with beads of her blood, like rubies.

Dare hikes against the harsh winds fighting his every step, made harder by his hybrid blood. It's less welcoming to him, his slender muscles less willing to reach Daxeel through the lashes of shadows, but Dare shoves through the pain of each step. With a grunt, he drops to his knees and crawls to Daxeel's side, hearing bodies drop throughout the chamber.

The only reason Dax is still breathing is because he forged the bond. Deep in his body, somewhere, he's awake, and he clutches onto that bond between him and Nari, the only tether that's keeping his soul in this realm.

But he needs a stronger grip on that anchor to survive the Cursed Shadows.

Dare shoves himself against the beating winds until his hand smacks down on Daxeel's inked throat.

The cry that runs through Dare is a feral one as he forces everything he has into that final drag of his own body—then he smacks the phial down into Daxeel's mouth.

"Now!" Dare bellows and reaches his hand out into the punishing darkness.

Boots smack down on stone right on the other side of Daxeel's body. Samick drops to his knees and grabs onto his limp wrist.

But it's Rune who wrenches himself through the black storm and hits his hand onto Dare's outstretched one.

With everything he has, Dare heaves his body back—and Rune is thrown into Samick.

One litalf is still alive in the dark. Ridge. The song of his sword calls out just before his weighted bootsteps punch closer towards them, like he's only just found direction in the confusion of the whirling lashes of darkness.

Dare falls onto his side, panting as the strength leaves his body. Feels he's been on the battlefield for a week straight.

"Hold on!" Dare smacks his elbow out—and it connects the underside of Daxeel's chin.

Glass shatters. The phial breaks in his mouth.

Nari's blood is free on his tongue, mixing with his own.

The evate bond is soul and soul. But blood is of the body.

Rune grips onto Daxeel's belt; Samick to his wrist, Dare to his hand. The black storm pulsates. It falters above, all around them, then sucks into itself like a sharp gasp.

Ridge throws himself aside. He lands hard on his back by the hatchlings. Head lifted, red eyes burning—but they don't get another moment to move for him.

Dare shuts his eyes before it happens, before the cloud of Cursed Shadows implodes in on itself, then erupts with the force of a hundred volcanos.

They don't feel the blast. Not as it destroys the chamber, annihilates the entire tunnel system, avalanches the cliffside, or blows through every contender still on the rocky shore…

Darkness like no other before it wipes the slate clean.