Chapter 26

Ican't stop laughing. Nothing about my situation is even vaguely funny, but the stress has finally cracked me. That, and the insane headache I have from tearing apart the shadows that bound the king.

The Butcher King.

"Let her go," he snarls.

My shoulders shake with laughter, and I press my lips into a thin line.

Eldgrim's knife digs into the tender skin of my throat, and it hurts. Hot blood wells and drips down my neck. Tears squeeze from eyes, but it's not from the pain, but from the laughter I can't quite seem to keep at bay.

I must be losing my damn mind.

"We will use her. We will do what we came here to do," Eldgrim snarls.

The Butcher King hisses like a cat, and frankly, it's horrifying. His fangs are sharp and wicked looking, his scars stand out in stark relief against his skin, and red flames fill his eyes.

Eldgrim stiffens beside me, and for a moment, I think it's because he's going to finally do it. End this. End me. I close my eyes, my panicked laughter finally quelling.

I only wish I could see Hyadum again.

When the knife stays put, I slowly open my eyes again.

Something's changed. The Butcher King and Eldgrim both look beyond the cavernous door, at something in the hallway beyond.

I hear it then, too. A creature roars, an indistinct sound that echoes off the stone walls. The torches gutter, and then a wolf howl goes up, and all the hair on my arms stands on end.

"What have you done, Eldgrim?" A threat of violence pulses from the king, and I inhale slowly through my nose.

"I did what you were too cowardly to do. I did what needed to be done."

"You will bring them here. You would bring them down on us again?"

"They are already here!" Eldgrim snarls. My gaze darts between them, all humor lost. I don't want to die. It's a chant in my ears, in time with the throb of my blood pulsing from my throat. "These Starbound are the key, Ragnar, they always have been. But you were too soft to do anything about it."

"No one calls me soft," the Butcher King growls. "No one that wants to live. You are a traitor. You have betrayed our entire people. You are a dead man walking."

Eldgrim drops the knife from my throat, and I sag against the wall as he launches himself at the Butcher King.

I'm so damn tired, but I don't want to die.

So I reach out, with that strange, familiar yet foreign sixth sense, and I grab for Eldgrim. This time, I slip through the dark weft of shadow that surrounds him, and I find his heart. My breath shakes; sweat drips from my forehead.

This is so much harder than last time.

The roar outside my prison sounds again, met with a wolf howl, the sound of metal on metal. And still, I reach, tugging on the structure of Eldgrim's heart, turning the valves around.

I can't. I'm so tired. A ragged gasp tears from my lips, and I slump. Tears drip down my nose, falling onto my filthy blouse, where they mingle with the blood soaking the neckline.

I can't do it.

A peculiar sensation winds around me, and I look up, utterly spent. Something thick and white glints in the torchlight. Vampire fangs, probably. More tears flow.

"Mina," a familiar voice thunders.

"Hyadum," I say weakly, sniffling. "Hyadum."

An enormous wolf tears into the room, savaging Eldgrim's stupid fucking face. I want to howl with it. Hyadum's lurching towards me, bleeding from two dozen cuts. He's even more huge than I remember him.

Naked from the waist up, his torso's slick with sweat and blood both. A black eye blooms on his face, and I've never seen anything more beautiful in my life.

"You came," I sob. "I missed you so much."

"Mina, Mina, do not cry. You are safe now." He cups my chin in his hands, inspecting the slash across my throat. "I'll fucking kill the king for this."

"Ragnar had nothing to do with it," I hiccup. I try to wipe my cheeks, but my wrists are so heavy. Between the magic I spent and the manacles, I can hardly move.

"Ragnar?" Hyadum says.

I glance past him, at where Arietis stands, a sword pressed against the cleft in Ragnar's throat.

"The Butcher King was under a spell. The dude the wolf is eating did it."

"She speaks true," Ragnar says, his voice rich like velvet.

"Do not open your mouth unless we tell you to," Arietis rumbles, sinking the tip of the sword into the Butcher King's neck. Ragnar's eyes burn, but he says nothing, simply inhales deeply.

"What do you mean he was under a spell? How do you know?"

I swing my gaze toward the speaker, and my mouth drops open. "Everybody sees the centaur, right? I'm not hallucinating, right? There's a horse-man thing right there?"

A soft pop sounds, and then there's a naked man where the horse was. "I'm Kaus," the lean, totally naked guy says, grinning at me.

"You do not have much time until they find us all here," Ragnar says quietly. "You should take her and go. The woman speaks true. I hardly remember… anything."

"Wouldn't that be fucking convenient for you," Hyadum says, ice coating the words.

"I felt it," I say quickly. "It was like his mind was wrapped in shadows. And I can feel people's body parts, too." I stop, realizing what that sounded like. "I mean, on the inside. To heal them. Well, I assume I could heal people, but I kind of just murdered a vampire on the way here. His heart flowed the wrong way, so I tried to fix it."

"You accessed your power?" Hyadum's hand strokes down my face. His eyes are narrowed, but he doesn't look like he thinks I'm lying, just that he's thinking hard.

"Yeah. And I don't know what that means, but I am really, really tired. Can we please, please, leave?"

Hyadum nods and easily snaps the metal links of the chain holding me to the wall. He continues, snapping the other hand free next.

"To the king!" The shout is far off, but too close.

"Get me out of here," I whimper.

Hyadum breaks the chains on my ankles, then hefts me into his arms. I inhale deeply, snuggling closer to him.

Safe. With Hyadum, I have never been safer.

"Do you want us to kill him?" Arietis asks Hyadum quietly.

They'll do it, too. They would kill the cursed Butcher King in a heartbeat.

"Mina?" Hyadum asks, and I realize he's letting me make the call.

A sick, selfish part of me wants him to, wants him to end all the vampires… but Ragnar didn't do anything wrong. The fuckface dead on the floor did, and he pulled Ragnar's strings like he was his personal crowned marionette.

Another soft pop sounds, and I wince as the wolf turns into a huge naked man. I avert my eyes.

"He's a dangerous man to leave alive." The former wolf stalks towards the king, circling him.

"He's not a man at all," Kaus says.

I look into Ragnar's furious, flaming eyes, and something passes between us. There's anger there, an inferno of it, but it's not at us. Not at me. There's madness there too, and an infinite, deep pool of sorrow.

Footsteps sound from somewhere above. My fingernails bite into my palms.

"We need to make a decision, and make it now," Arietis urges.

"Leave him," I say. "He won't hurt us."

"There is another passage to safety," the king says.

"How do we know you aren't lying?" Kaus asks, flipping an arrow in his hand.

"A trap," the wolf says at the same time.

"Because I don't want you dead, you fools. We came here for an alliance. An alliance against the harbingers and those they bear the banner for."

At the word harbingers, the wolf lets out a low, unearthly growl, and Kaus knocks an arrow.

Quick as lightning, the king jerks a torch on the wall, and the sound of stone grating on stone sounds. A dark hole appears in the wall of the stone chamber. Hyadum clutches me to him, and for once, I'm only too happy to be hauled around like a sack of potatoes.

"It smells of fresh air," the wolf says.

"I vow to you on the blood of my ancestors, this tunnel will see you safely outside the castle walls." Ragnar's eyes glow white, as does the grotesque bone crown on his head.

"To the king!" The shout is louder now.

"Fuck it," Hyadum snarls, and shoves us past the king into the passageway.

"Stars dammit," Arietis says from behind us.

"I owe you a life debt, Starbound woman," Ragnar calls out.

"This better not be a trap," Kaus grumbles.

The wolf is silent, and another strange pop sounds. Something furry brushes by my foot, and I realize he's shifted again.

Stone grinds on stone, the tunnel entrance sealing behind us. It stretches on forever, but I close my eyes and rest my cheek against Hyadum's chest. Every heartbeat is music to my ears, and I count them, savoring the feel of his arms around me.

"Thank you," I finally croak out, too spent to cry. "Thank you for rescuing me."

"You undid a blood curse," Hyadum says. "I think you may have very well saved yourself."

Arietis makes a wordless noise of agreement.

"About her magic usage," Kaus begins. "I do not want to scare her, or you, Hyadum."

"You realize I can hear you, right?" I scowl, and Hyadum holds me a little tighter.

"You and your sisters are exactly the same." I can't see him, but the centaur sounds annoyed.

Then it hits me.

"What do you mean, we're the same? You've seen my sisters? My sisters are safe?"

I look up to Hyadum for verification, but it's too dark to make out his features, much less his expression.

"They're safe," Hyadum confirms.

"Rude, but safe," Kaus agrees.

"They're here," Hyadum says, and excitement surges through me, before it falls away into a fresh pit of dread.

"Wait. They're here? As in, at the scary vampire city? Then they're not safe!"

"You just let the Butcher King go," Arietis says drily. "You said he was safe."

"He is safe, but the rest of them…" I trail off, frustrated.

"Trust me, Mina, your sisters are a force to be reckoned with. I am fairly sure they are having the time of their lives. You seem to be quite the talent, too," Kaus says.

"She is," Hyadum's voice rumbles through me.

A cool breeze washes across my skin, and light dances across the dull gray walls.

My ears pop, like I've hit high altitude, and the naked wolf man reappears. "The entrance to the tunnel is just ahead. It's clear."

Relief crashes against me so hard I go completely limp.

We made it.