Chapter 69

The Fae called this place the Hammer.

I clutched Anaria tighter, making a second pass beneath the gravity-defying rock formation, searching for a spot big enough for us to set down. But every inch of tumbled stone was slicked with rot.

The mountain's namesake loomed overhead, an enormous two-sided granite sledgehammer balanced on the eroded, delicate tip of the peak, and beneath that—like a mouth opened in a perpetual scream—was Corvus's lair.

A faint mist drifted from the dark entrance, rot dripping down the cliff face, turning the area below into a pool of bubbling, oily black. Even up here, the stench was so noxious my throat burned.

"What do you think?" I flapped once, and we rose ten feet higher as effortlessly as if I'd taken a single step. "See anywhere?"

Raz and I had scouted the southern slope last night and chosen the safest route up to the cave—a climb straight up leading to a passable trail at the edge of that parapet. I thought I'd understood how impossible that ascent would be, but now, in the full light of day…I swallowed.

"What about there, Zor?" Anaria pointed to a small area not completely crusted over with twisted vines or seeping black, oily residue. "Get us close and I'll hit those rocks with enough magic to clear a spot for Tristan to land."

The wyvern soared somewhere above the clouds, while Raz and Tavion hung back on the other side of the chasm, watching from an untouched outcropping. Waiting for us to scout out a safe landing spot so we could begin our climb.

There were no good landing spots.

Low ground, prone to an attack from above. Uneven, barely enough room for my feet, let alone a wyvern and four of us to maneuver. I flapped higher, looking for something better, but there was nothing for miles but rot.

"What if I fly us up to that trail?"

"We decided last night that's too treacherous. We have no idea how loose that rock is, and if we cause an avalanche, then we're screwed." Anaria tugged on my shirt. "Just…hold this position. A few seconds is all I need, Zor."

She scalded the rocks with cold fire, blight turning to gray ash, vines writhing as they burned, shrinking away until a section of rock was revealed. The blight didn't resume its creeping advance.

Her scorched borders held.

The moment we set down, her magic bloomed like winter's breath, driving the noxious fumes away as Tristan's shadow passed over us, Anaria dropping the bag slung over her shoulder to the ground with a thump. The wyvern landed, stirring up a cloud of dust thick enough to choke a horse.

Anaria's face was unreadable as her eyes dragged up and up and up that sheer rock wall, pausing on that dark, gaping opening.

Tristan was still dressing when Tavion and Raz materialized, Raz pointing to the cliff rising before us. "We climb until we reach that midway point, then we take the trail," he murmured. "This won't be easy, so we'd best conserve our energy for when we reach the cave."

Anaria blasted a path to the foot of the cliff face, and Tristan took the lead, finding hand- and footholds that I would have missed. She stayed right behind Tristan, clearing a path for him, blasting away every tendril of black so all we touched was smooth, gray rock.

I gauged the distance before we reached the beginning of that narrow trail.

She'd be drained by the time we reached the top.

Fuck, we all would.

But there was nothing attacking us. No Reapers. No sign Corvus even knew we were here. The mouth of the cave was quiet, only that faint mist drifting out before being sucked away by the wind.

There was no fucking way we were this lucky.

But by the time we hit the halfway point, I decided luck had nothing to do with success. I was blinded by sweat. Leathers and boots weren't made for climbing, and Anaria was forced to carry the weapon since the godsdamned thing would pretty much kill the rest of us. She was pale today, and through our strange new connection…very, very quiet. I couldn't stop watching her.

Tristan heaved himself over the lip of rock first, then he pulled Anaria up. When I reached the shelf—barely a trail at all—I pulled up Tavion, then Raz. Navigating the path became a slow, tedious process of Anaria blasting a few feet of loose rock clean, then the rest of us picking our way behind her.

We'd almost reached the mouth of the cave when the narrow shelf rumbled beneath our feet, the entire mountain heaving.

"Fuck. Is this an avalanche?" Tavion pitched forward and I threw my arm across his chest, pinning him to the rock as thick, black sludge spewed out of the mouth of the cave with enough power to crush everything below.

That river of blight rocketed past, barely an arm's length from Anaria and Tristan. "Back up," I hissed. "Move back. Give them some room."

"What the fuck?" Tavion's boots shuffled along the narrow ledge, fingers gripping the rock to stay balanced.

"Corvus knows we're here. And that was our only way inside."

A fine black mist and noxious fumes swirled and choked, then suddenly I could breathe again, a shield of bitterly cold magic swirling around us.

"So much for the element of surprise." Anaria's voice echoed slightly within the barrier she'd erected. "Unless someone has an idea of how we get through that, we'll have to find another way inside."