54. Ozias

54

OZIAS

T umbling like a rolling rock in an avalanche, I crashed out of the gateway and onto rock that didn’t soften itself to cushion my fall.

And fuck , that hurt.

Seething against the sharp pain, I struggled upright. Nothing felt broken, but I’d probably have some colorful bruises soon.

Assuming I survived this.

Shoving the rest of the way to my feet, I scanned the shadows quickly. I was in a tunnel, the ceiling low like it’d been crafted by humans who didn’t come close to my height. There seemed to be a torch burning beyond the next turn because I could smell its smoke. The thin traces of its light stopped the darkness from being absolute.

But the stench of rot surrounded me, sickening to my senses, and cold dampness clung to the air. In the wall, the stones were worn down, their mortar chipped and crumbling. Dark fungus crawled like black vines from their gaps all across their sides, clawing toward the surface. The tangled corruption was unlike anything I’d seen in the earth before, but it wasn’t what gave me pause.

My mate was not here. Her presence was utterly gone, and sheer panic gripped the beast within me to realize we could not feel any trace of?—

In a rush, my awareness of her returned, as if she’d suddenly flared to life like a candle in a darkened room.

But she was above me, not down here. Her fear and pain radiated through our connection, spiking higher for a moment before fading into a persistent sort of horror.

Shuddering with rage, I scanned both directions of the tunnel, my senses racing to determine the fastest way to her side. Where the others were, I didn’t know, but every one of them would agree saving her was the first order of any business.

The sound of growling came beyond the turn to my left.

Monsters were here.

My lips peeled back from my teeth. Very well.

The shift tore through me as I took off, moving fast. My bones realigned. My joints jerked into new configurations. In only a few strides, it was no longer a man racing down the tunnel, but another monster.

And not a moment too soon.

A wolf charged around the turn, fangs bared. It was larger than an ordinary one of its species. Nearly the size of Ruhl, wherever the hell that shadow creature was. But the glowing red light burning in its eyes told the truth of what was truly inside the beast.

That didn’t make it any harder to kill.

Twisting fast, I evaded its teeth and slashed with my claws. A yelp of pain was followed a thudding crash as the wolf collided with the tunnel wall.

I spun. The wolf was on the ground, its side torn open. Its chest rose and fell in short, sharp breaths. It was already dead, its mind and body just hadn’t caught up to that fact yet.

But something else had.

A curl of smoke wafted up from the wolf’s back. Contorting in the air like snake that could fly, the Voidborn surged forward, racing for my chest.

Grabbing my ax, I swung the blade around, but the confines were too tight, the damned human tunnel too small. My ore-lined blade couldn’t move fast enough.

The Voidborn slammed into me.

And began screaming.

Stunned, I retreated, blinking fast as the strange sensation of glistening light faded from the corners of my eyes. My body felt encased in cold stone, radiant like quartz in the sunlight, but even as I registered that, the feeling already began to melt away. Where I’d been standing, the creature hung in the air, thrashing and writhing as if it was being tortured. The sound of its scream was like metal grating over stone, high-pitched and piercing my ears.

But even that faded, almost as if it was being dragged away into the distance to be swallowed in silence.

The Voidborn’s body turned to dust and disappeared.

I blinked. Well. That worked, then.

A groan came from the dying wolf. Except… it wasn’t a wolf any longer, but instead a man lying on the stone floor. His blond hair was matted into thick braids, and blue ink stained his temples and forehead. Sticky and red, his hands grasped his bare midsection, doing little to stem the tide of his blood pulsing away.

Barely focused, his light blue eyes found me. He coughed, struggling to make a sound. “Thank… you,” he rasped, his accent so thick, it nearly obscured the words.

His body sagged back to the ground, the life leaving his eyes.

Huh.

Turning, I took off down the tunnel again. The scent of damp fur, pungent smoke, and anxious sweat hung in the air. The first was likely from the creature behind me and the last one?—

A chunk of wood swung at my head, accompanied by a panicked cry.

I ducked, and the wood splintered against the corner of the tunnel.

“Sorry!” Niko emerged from behind the turn, gripping the piece of wood with embarrassment coloring his cheeks. “I thought you were a— Never mind.”

I straightened again, huffing out an irritated breath. He looked mostly intact, though one cheekbone bore a bloodied scrape that was starting to swell. It didn’t look like a cut from claws. More like he’d crashed into the stone wall or floor, possibly when the gateway spit him out.

Regrouping quickly, Niko dropped the wood and retrieved a torch that was wedged into a sconce on the wall. “Any idea how to get out of here?”

My nose twitched, testing the air again. Grunting, I jerked my fanged jaw toward the tunnel beyond him.

He nodded quickly, and because he was a smart man, he stayed behind me when I set off again.

My claws would protect us both.

Especially since the thought of doing magic in these close confines, surrounded by this climbing rot, seemed like a terrible choice, somehow. These tunnels were wrong in a way that made my skin crawl.

We hurried onward, tracking the tunnel as it curved in an erratic path through the ground. “Something bad happened down here,” Niko murmured as if in an echo of my thoughts.

I grunted in agreement. The earth felt… split. Like two tectonic plates had slammed into each another, causing one to buckle and be pulled beneath the other. But… not in a physical sense. An energetic one.

It made my head hurt.

Up ahead, a stairway came into view beyond a small archway. The steps were worn down and nearly lost in shadow, but the stone was still stable.

I slowed anyway, sniffing the air.

“What’s wrong?” Niko peered past me. “Oh.”

I glanced back at him.

He met my eyes resolutely. “I’ll guard our backs. You take care of anything coming down at us.”

I didn’t move. Those steps were a bottleneck. I couldn’t smell anything coming, and the asshole gods knew I couldn’t feel another way out of this place. But we’d still be vulnerable.

“We’ve got this,” my eternally hopeful friend assured me.

We’d see.

I strode onward, taking the short, human-sized steps three at a time. Niko jogged after me, the torch clutched in his fist. The firelight played across the walls, casting strange shadows from the blackened rot climbing the stones even here. But I trusted my nose more than my eyes to warn me of threats, and it said we were alone.

Barring this gods-forsaken rot.

Eyeing the vines warily, I kept climbing. Nothing in me wanted to let my fur come anywhere near those things. Up close, they really did look like a fungus. Slightly furry fungus that glistened strangely in the firelight and pulsed like veins in a living being.

But nothing about those things spoke of life to me. I didn’t even need to ask Niko. This wasn’t nature.

This was death, and it had come for Aneira—and through Aneira, the world.

The stairs came to an end in a small wooden doorway with rot climbing over its frame.

My lips peeled back in a displeased growl. Why did humans have to build things so small ?

Shuddering, I shifted back to my Erenlian form. My skin prickled at the chill hanging on the air, and gods knew I was still too large for this place. But at least this form stood less of a chance of brushing up against that fungus.

“Are we okay?” Niko asked behind me.

“Yes. Just—” I gestured to the door and then decided it wasn’t worth trying to explain. “Doesn’t matter. Come on.”

Pausing to sniff the air, I waited until my senses confirmed there was no one on the opposite side of the door and then pushed it aside, taking care not to touch the rot. We were at ground level from the feel of it. The princess was somewhere to my right. Based on her speed, she was definitely running from something, and it made me want to race to her side this instant.

But the castle corridors made the tunnel seem tame.

“What the…” Niko said behind me.

The rot was here as well, but tree branches were as well. They stabbed out from the gaps between the stones of the castle walls like they’d grown from within the building itself. Blackened leaves encrusted with pestilent growths hung from them, many on the verge of falling and others already on the ground. Where they’d dropped, more rot spread, like the growths on the leaves had exploded to release spores.

I didn’t take my eyes from the branches and rot. “Can your magic?—”

Niko was already making an oh-hell-no sound. “This… whatever it is… It’s angry . Raging with hate. If I try to touch it with my magic…”

“Bad.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then stay behind me.”

Ax in hand, I set off. The halls were wider than those in the tunnel, but with the branches sticking out everywhere, it still made for careful going.

Footsteps came from up ahead, shivering through the stones of the floor. The scent of my friends reach my nose.

Dex and Byron raced around the corner, skidding to a stop at the sight of us. “Oh, thank the gods,” Byron said. “This place is?—”

He cut off as a blur of smoke swept around the corner, transforming swiftly into Casimir. “Strange, yes?” the vampire finished.

Byron gave a brief nod.

I frowned, scanning the corridor. “This way.” I strode past them. My mate was moving fast, but she was still up ahead, and I needed her back with us.

Immediately.

“Any sign of anybody else?” Niko asked as he and the others followed.

“Witch magic is on the air to the west of us,” Casimir confirmed. “It is different than what fills this place. Hopefully that means our allies fared better with the gateways than we did.”

I scowled. Even if they had, the witches wouldn’t do a lot of good out there, and we had no way to tell them we were in here.

Dex seemed to come to the same conclusion. “Okay, once we find the princess, we need to get a signal to?—”

A roar shook the walls.

“Shit.” Dex took off running, but before he made it half a dozen steps, two green-skinned creatures with tusks came barreling around the corner.

They looked like they were running for their lives.

At the sight of us, their glowing eyes went wide. They tried to halt.

My ax cut them down. The Voidborn within them tried to flee only to meet my blade as well.

The floor quivered with heavy footsteps. Crouched down with his wings tucked into his sides, the demon stalked around the corner. Irritation twisted his gray face, the expression growing more pronounced when he spotted his prey already on the ground.

But he didn’t comment on the fact I’d killed his quarry. He merely kicked one of them and then harrumphed when they proved well and truly dead.

“Demon,” Dex said. “Take the lead. Ozias, you’re the second line of defense behind him. We’ll find the princess and then we signal the witches.”

“What about the twins?” Niko asked.

“We’ll find them.”

My friends nodded. I hefted my ax, staying well enough back from the demon to hopefully keep from hitting him if I had to swing the weapon.

The demon only scowled. Awkwardly, he turned around. “These stupid hallways are too small,” he groused.

I grunted in agreement. “Princess straight ahead.”

We took off after our mate.