Chapter 34

Kit

"Weren't you curious how the priests got some of these beauties onto the trial grounds?" Salazar continues. "Turns out, if one has the right tools, one can open a gateway to the Gloom anywhere. Even here."

Tavias zaps the creature with lightning and the worm falls dead. But there is already another piranha coming through the opening. And another.

"You've cut a rift into the blight?" Cyril demands, Quinton and Hauck moving into position to dispatch the creatures. "Are you insane?"

Five more piranha's start wiggling forward.

"I'm pragmatic," Salazar replies. "I know how to make use of all the tools in my reach. From mindless Gloom dwellers to the useful idiots crowding the outside of the palace. Bait them the right way, and they will fall over themselves to do your bidding. Geoffrey."

Geoffrey barks to the priests and they shift to a new chant. The air above us shimmering then re-settles into transparency. I realize what he's done a heartbeat later when several of the piranhas, who'd been quietly slithering toward Salazar himself, hit an invisible wall.

Salazar smiles. "Ah, yes. You will find a dome barrier now surrounding you. It's another trick from the trials that I wisely appropriated. What were you saying about draining one's power again?"

Salazar had been waiting to give the order, letting us expend our strength on his personal shields before trapping us in a bubble of monsters.

"Kill all the corrupt creatures you like, King Cyril. But know more will forever come. There is no end to what will slither forth from the blight. Your only choice, your only path to safety, is to yield to the one person who has the power to order the rift closed. To me. If you won't bend a knee for your sake, do it for the dame's."

Tavais unleashes another volley of lightning, but the worms simply crawl over their downed companions and keep coming. Maws of needle-sharp teeth open and close blindly. Rhythmically. Hungrily.

"You see Cyril, I don't just want your death," Salazar says. "I want your surrender."

I stop listening. Stepping up to Tavias's shoulder, I add my flame to his lightning as we tackle the growing pile of worms. The slick, viscous fluid covering their bodies ignites easily, leaving a gut-wrenching stench behind. The good news is that these piranha are apparently highly flammable. The bad news? These piranhas are highly flammable. Like slithering oil lamps.

"Watch your flames," Tavias shouts to me as if controlling the power rolling through my veins is that easy. "A bonfire will burn us as easily as them."

I try to narrow my focus, but I can't. So I try the opposite instead. I make my flame hotter, incinerating the piranhas completely. It's harder work, but it's cleaner. Safer.

Quinton shouts at me to conserve my strength as he pushes to the front, dancing with his sword and shadows.

I don't argue, but I don't lighten up either. I don't need a power reserve if I'm dead. For the next eternity, my focus stays entirely on the rift opening. With each jet of fire I wield, I walk a balance beam between burning myself out and burning the worms dead. The battlefield resonates with the crackle and pop of my flames. The heat building inside me as my heart pounds.

I burn and kill. But more come. The only difference between one moment and the next is how much harder it is getting to wield my magic. There are always more. Always. It's like bailing water from a leaky boat.

Think, I order myself as fatigue forces me to brace my hands on my knees. What would Ettienne do? Ettienne would be ruthless. He'd rip down the dome barrier and force everyone in the throne room to fight and die—Salazar's own son included. He'd turn Salazar's weapon against him. Force his hand. Yes, that's what he'd do—but how? How did he take out the dome at the final trial? "We have to kill the priests," I shout.

"I can't… extend lightning… outside the dome," Tavias replies between heaving breaths. He has made a mini-shield with his power and is trying to shove it against the rift, as if he can patch the hole in the world with his magic. It's not working.

Worse, a new shadow falls over the rift, dimming the window into the colorless Gloom. Tavias roars as something shoves against his shield so hard that it lifts him off his feet and throws him clear across the room. Then not one, but three new nightmares emerge from the rift.

These aren't the mindless piranhas we've been contending with. These creatures vaguely resemble grotesquely enlarged hedgehogs. Their six-foot long bodies are covered in pale green skin, their faces mottled in blotches of black and purple. But it's their foot-long quills that send true ice cold fear through me. Quills that look needle sharp and drip with a venomous, luminescent ooze.

"These are Spinecrawlers," Quinton shouts just as one of the creatures swivels its red bulbous eyes toward me. "Don't let the quills hit you."

I move farther away.

That doesn't help. The creature tightens its body and shoots off a volley of spikes. I dive to the side. There is a woosh of air as several pass mere inches from my face before thudding into the marble behind me. Where they shatter, a trail of corrosive venom starts eating into the stone.

Racing in from my left, Quinton flips over the spinecrawler who'd just attacked me and decapitates it with his swords. The head and body fall separately. The remaining two spinecrawlers let out a shriek of rage.

I think we just made them mad. Really mad.

One of the two remaining spinecrawlers shoots off its quills. He is faster than the first one was, and more accurate.

I throw myself to the side, colliding with the body of a piranha that is mercifully dead. I bounce off the putrid worm, scanning the room as Hauck's words from earlier ring in my head. Hauck. For my plan to work, I need Hauck.

I find him just as one of the spinecrawlers does. I throw my fire at the creature, but my well of power is running dry. The small streaks of flame that I manage do little more than irritate it further. Hauck raises his sword to move in for the kill, but the creature fires off more quills and this time we aren't so lucky.

I watch in horror as one of the venomous spikes pierces deep into Hauck's thigh. He screams and falls to his knees. I sprint to him, aware of Quinton shifting position to guard the pair of us while Cyril moves to help Tavias.

It's only heartbeats before I am at Hauck's side, but he is already thrashing on the floor. His gorgeous eyes are wide, the pupils large and unfocused. I force myself to breathe as I kneel by him. To think. The fact that Hauck still has a leg at all means the spike inside him is yet to burst. I saw the venom eat through marble—his leg would be goop if the venom was truly spilling inside his flesh.

Hauck convulses. Even while intact the spinecrawler's quill is moments from killing him. I need to get it out.

"I'm so sorry for this," I say as I straddle Hauck's leg, putting all my weight on his knee, which makes Hauck scream anew. Gathering all my love, I send it toward him through the bond. He calms, his glazed eyes meeting mine. "This will hurt, and you have to let me do it anyway," I tell him as I grip the spike in my hands and pull it free with excruciating slow precision.

Hauck's back arches in agony, but he never breaks eye contact with me. And he barely moves his leg at all as I start to pull the barbed lance from his thigh. I've no notion how he is holding still through the pain, but I'm certain he is doing it for me. To make certain that the venomous quill doesn't accidently break in my hands.

I throw the spike across the room the moment it's free, and Hauck collapses onto the marble floor. Sweat covers his skin and his breath is ragged. Labored. I wish I could let him rest, but I can't.

"Hauck. Look at me, please."

He blinks his glassy eyes open and forces a smile. "Hey there turnip."

I take his face between my hands. "Listen to me. We need to kill the priests. Will plants answer your call at a distance?"

"We should stab the priests," Hauck muses, his eyes losing focus. He makes a stabbing motion with his hand, which looks more lewd than violent. An unfocused smile spreads over his lips. "Or just stab."

"Get your head out of the bedroom for a bloody moment," I tell him. "Remember what you said, that you are here if anyone needs a tree grown? Well, we need that tree now. Do you understand?" I sigh when he fails to respond and try again. "Hauck. Can you control plants outside the barrier dome?"

Hauck's gaze narrows on my breasts. "My bedroom is outside the dome. You make me think of my bedroom. Of my bed."

"Hauck. Focus. Please."

"I see you on my bed," he slurs. "So naked. So hot. Hot like your fire. Like what's between your thighs."

"His magic won't reach beyond the dome," Cyril calls back to me. He is splitting his attention between three different opponents, his magic and sword moving in a deadly dance. "None of ours will."

I squeeze my hand into a fist as I stare down at Hauck laid out and raving on the marble floor. Maybe the best I can do now is protect him. For however long we can hold the line.

Hauck hits my hand with his arm, his fingers no longer moving in enough coordination to grab me. "My bedroom," he says, making an effort to enunciate the word. "Need my bedroom."

"Yes, we will meet in your bedroom," I tell him gently.

He shakes his head in violent jerks, and I can feel the toll it takes on him to keep his focus. "My bedroom," he repeats. "Below." Hauck puts extra effort into the words. "Below." His hand beats the floor determinedly.

I no longer think it's the venom talking.

"Your bedroom," I repeat back to him. "Your bedroom is below?"

A nod.

"Below. Your bedroom is below us. Below the dome," I say, working out the details. "The dome shield has no floor." It suddenly hits me what Hauck is trying to do. I'd asked Hauck to grow a tree, but for that he needs to connect to a sapling first. He can't go through the dome to reach any vegetation… but he can go through the floor. Grabbing Hauck's palms, I flatten them out on the marble for him.

Hauck closes his eyes and I feel the magic rising inside him. All that earth magic that we thought had little use in this battle. The power Hauck still has inside him.

There is a scream but for once it's on the other side of the shield. I swivel around to see thick vines erupting from between the marble tiles, upsetting the floor entirely. The vines are bright and pretty, with purple ringed spikes and tiny, blindingly vivid yellow flowers. Nothing in nature picks colors like that without a reason.

"They are venomous, aren't they?" I ask, as the tendrils rush over the floor and snare the priests' ankles.

The first of the thorns pierces a priest's skin. The man's lips swell immediately, his tongue suddenly too big for his mouth. His eyes widen and, a moment later, he is no longer chanting. Or waving spells. No, he is doing nothing but clawing at his neck now, his face turning an increasingly deadly shade of red.

"Vipervinea Noctis." Hauck pants, his eyes losing focus. "My vines. Pet vines. In my bedroom."

I squeeze his arm, trying to keep him with me. Another voice drops off chanting. A third. We are almost there. "You have pet vines?"

"Pretty vines," Hauck whispers. "I hoard pretty things. I want to hoard you. I will take you for my hoard."

The air around us shifts palpably as the magical barrier, sustained by the priests' incantations, falls away. Hauck loses consciousness.

The creatures shift around, sensing more air and space and food. Another two spinecrawlers and a hog like thing have gotten through while I was focused on Hauck. Plus the piranhas. A never ending torrent of piranhas. I scrape enough power together to deflect a worm glaring my way, but Geoffrey—who has drawn a spinecrawler's attention—is not so lucky. Or prepared. The male freezes for a split second too long.

And in that moment of indecision the creature Salazar had invited into the throne room shoots off a volley of venomous spines right into Geoffrey's belly.

"No," Salazar roars, catching Geoffrey's body as it falls.

All the warriors have their sword out now, facing off against the blight's hoard.

"Grieve later," Cyril shouts to Salazar. "Close the rift now."

I turn to see a massive shadow looming on the other side of the window into the Gloom. Whatever is trying to come through next is bigger, more dangerous than anything that has come thus far.

Panic flushes over Salazar's face as he watches the spinecrawler's venom corrode the remains of Geoffrey's belly.

"I can't close it," Salazar shouts. "You idiots killed my priests! The rift will close when it closes. Just hold the line until then. If any of these creatures escape into the capital it's on your heads." Turning on his heels, the would-be king of Massa'eve sprints to the door behind the throne.

And I follow.