Chapter 59

Fifty-Nine

WESLEY

T he zombie Hunt , damaged and dripping guts and ooze, rose time and again, the number overwhelming. I blanked out for a few seconds, red covering my vision as the pure insanity of the berserker madness took over. The overwhelming need for blood roared through my mind, taking hold as I drove my horns through any who got near.

Finn’s scream jerked me out of the blood rage, a dozen Hunt stomped beneath my hooves. Two dozen more Hunt tore into the wolf, dragging it away, slashing into it until it bled a ghostly mix of blood, black ooze, and ice.

We were losing. Finn lay at the base of Sebastian’s statue, unmoving, little more than a splotch of dark shadow creeping between glowing mushrooms and dying flowers. Ice crystalizing the entire sanctuary floor in deadly jutting shards.

I bucked, smashing Hunt beasts away, crushing skulls, ribs, and breaking bones with every hit, then leapt to save the wolf. The nightmare waves of Winter’s curse flowed over him, freezing him back into stone, inch by painful inch. Not unlike where we’d first begun with the former werewolf king locked in ice, a battery to slowly drain for Winter’s gain.

Finn reached his fingers toward the last statue, Felix the monster, as if he could spay the distance with pure desire instead of strength. The Hunt crashed into me, the wave of ice cresting over my head, shards piercing my flank. The wolf yelped, its breathing labored as the ice overtook it, its magic yanked away to feed the heartless bitch of Winter’s curse. The Hunt’s fangs tore through my hide, blood splattered in the last gasp of warmth as I stumbled. Darkness closed in, my vision blurred, pain overwhelming. The world narrowed to the sound of Finn's labored breathing and fading heartbeat as I tried to force myself up.

Could he get to the next one on his own? The ice crackled as if something deep beneath the sanctuary stirred to life, a deep, and unsettling sensation shifting in the air. The last of the barriers fell and a cord snapped in the pit of my chest. The pulse of dark magic, ancient and hungry, rippled through the space. The wolf’s energy vanished as it froze solid. The last of the barriers snapped as if reaching Sebastian’s tree unlocked the final memories. The dark ice shards around Felix’s statue jolted to life, instantly growing in size and sending splinters of piercing magic tearing across the sanctuary.

The shadows poured into Finn with a violent force, twisting his body, reshaping it. The glow from the mushrooms dimmed, and the entire sanctuary trembled and shook as though ready to fall into ruin.

Oozing shadows crawled up my hooves, spreading cold needles of pain. I staggered; my breath ragged. I sucked in icy air, gaze locked on the goo that had been Finn, which bubbled and froze and bubbled and froze, cracking as if boiling one second then freezing the next.

A cackle erupted from the mess like something out of a nightmare as I struggled to breathe. It gurgled and grew louder as the dark mass rose, the shape something out of a book of demons. It resonated with the ancient darkness that had infected him. The blackness rising, as it reabsorbed the pieces stolen by Felix to split off another monster, becoming one inescapable nightmare.

Finn became the monster.

The icy air burned my lungs as I sucked in a last gasp of breath, the chill creeping up to my face, one eye already lost to darkness, the other fading. The acrid scent of decay filled my nostrils. The sound of cracking ice echoed in my ears, as if the very world was fracturing around me. The end of everything, I thought briefly. The vision had been both right and wrong all at once—this was the end, unstoppable as the darkness spread, but the darkness was Finn, and I would simply not live through it. Nor did I think the Finn I knew would either.

The terrifying sound of unhinged laughter boomed through the sanctuary, shaking the ground with an explosion of rage, heat, and shadows. I tried to scream, but locked in the black, I couldn’t gather a breath. Ice knives cut into me, every fiber of my being screaming to run, to escape the consuming darkness that was once Finn. But how could I abandon him? How could I live with myself if I didn't try to save him, even if it meant losing everything?

The Hunt leapt at him, trying to overwhelm the new creature, but it swatted them away as if they were mere flies. Each blow sent splatters of icy ooze flying in every direction, only for the curse to reassemble and lunge again, desperate to reclaim what it had unleashed. The dark beast that Finn had become stretched to its full height, towering over me, its form shifting and dripping with unnatural movement. Its eyes burned with cold fire, a soul-shattering void behind them. This was no longer a battle of wills. It was survival.

And we were losing.

The darkness that was Finn sucked down all of the Hunt, one by one, to feed his endless hunger. The more he devoured, the faster the darkness spread.

I gasped, unable to breathe, my heart breaking as I stared at the monster set free. The dark mass that had been Finn twisted and contorted, a grotesque mockery of his former self. Within the shadows, I glimpsed flickers of amber eyes—the same eyes that once looked at me with love, now clouded with madness. The beast roared, a sound that tore through the fabric of reality, and I knew that Finn was losing his battle. He reached for the wolf, still frozen and immobile beneath Winter’s curse, and I wanted to scream, fearing it would be the end of Finn if he devoured the wolf too.

Something sharp dug into my side, and I had a half second to fear Finn’s beast was on me, but I was ripped free of the darkness and pain, and jolted into a light-filled room painted with the scent of wildflowers and lavender.

Sunlight blazed through the windows, heat blistering against the cold that latched onto me. My Stag form slipped away as I bled the last of my energy. Sebastian leaned over me, the little Winter at his side, looking distraught. I opened my mouth, sucked in air, and screamed, “Finn!”