Leena
The process of getting fifteen people through the beast realm door was more painful than I could’ve ever expected, even with my magic shielding us, and we landed in the hidden prison in a heap on the floor. My whole body ached as if I’d been punched repeatedly on end for hours, and my skin felt like it’d been raked over with coals. Even the dull, pale light of the cavern was too much. My head pounded as my vision blurred, and I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands. But at least we’d all made it in one piece. No one had been lost to the realm—that much I could tell, even through the haze. And fortunately, the aftereffects of such travel faded with each steadying breath.
“If I never have to do that again, it will be too soon,” Emelia said through a wheeze as her fingers dug into the dirt.
“Agreed.” Iov managed to push himself into a sitting position. He gripped either side of his head as if the world were about to give way beneath him.
Forcing myself to stand, I swayed on my feet before gripping the end of a cot. “I have no intention of ever repeating that, trust me.” My vision started to clear, and I turned my head toward the makeshift bed. Mother was exactly how I’d left her. Relief was a cool splash of water on my burning skin, and I brought myself to her side. Gripped her hand in mine.
“Soon,” I whispered. I would’ve tried to wake her right then and there, but the clock was ticking. We had to find Yazmin. At least here, the Charmers were safe.
The rest of the group stood, letting out stifled moans as they stretched and loosened their muscles. Kaori crept toward me, her gaze first locked on my mother. Then, my father. Her eyes grew wider by the second as she took in body after body. Whatever aches and pains she harbored from being tunneled through the realm seemed to disappear completely, and she rushed from cot to cot, hands frantically traveling over each Charmer and the roots crowning their heads.
“Kaori?”
She didn’t respond.
“They’re okay,” I tried again. “They’re not in any pain. They’re just…sleeping.”
She came to an abrupt halt when she reached the end of the room, her back to the stairs leading up and out of the hidden cavern. A tremor raced over her body. Releasing my mother’s hand, I took a few careful steps toward Kaori. The rest of the group waited, uncertain how to proceed. Only Calem joined me. Worry lanced his gaze, and he quickened his pace to reach her.
“Hey,” he said, stopping inches away from her.
She flinched before jerking her gaze toward him. Fury contorted her face into something disastrous. “This… This is their work. It has to be.”
I glanced at Calem, but he didn’t acknowledge me. He only focused on Kaori.
“We don’t know that.” Gently, he closed his hands around hers. But not before I could glimpse the growing network of mercury veins crawling up her arm. “Try to breathe. Think about—”
“I don’t want to breathe!” she shrieked, yanking her hand away. Every vein in her body lit up like they’d been struck by lightning, and the dark hue of her irises bled outward, obscuring the whites of her eyes.
Her transition was just as sudden as Calem’s, but instead of racing scales and bloodcurdling howls, the air around her shimmered with a crystalline glow. In an instant she was there, and the next there stood a creature both beautiful and terrifying. Her long, winding body took up the majority of the cavern. It curled and moved with the fluidity of water as she steadied herself on six legs. Glossy, mercury-tinted fur covered her entirely, and a mane of lavender hair traveled from the base of her skull all the way down to the tip of her tail. As she shook her wolflike head, her twin horns threatened to skewer the ceiling above us.
“Kaori…” Calem’s hands went slack. He stared at her with unrestricted awe, as if this was the first time he’d ever glimpsed her beast.
She snapped her head toward him, let out one rumbling groan, and then took off. Her clawed feet gouged the earth, and she barreled through the tunnel toward the exit. All I could do was stare. I’d certainly reacted with similar anger when I’d first traveled here with Kost, but I’d never expected such a reaction from Kaori.
Kost rushed to Calem’s side. “Go after her. Now!”
Calem didn’t need any additional prompting. Summoning shadows to quicken his steps, he took off. Seeing him bolt spurred me into action, and I rushed toward the stairwell, Kost and the rest of the group on my heels. We ascended as fast as we could, but we hadn’t even reached the exit before we heard the first startled scream, followed by a gurgled moan. When we emerged at the base of that lone tree, the surrounding tile was smeared in blood. A handful of soldiers had already fallen to Kaori’s beast, and Calem was close by, volleying blade after blade into the Lendrian attackers.
“Gods,” Emelia said on an exhale as she took in the scene.
I didn’t have a chance to answer her. A Sentinel had appeared, and he’d evaporated Calem’s shadow blades with the force of his blinding, white magic. Arcing his sword high, the Sentinel brought it down heavy against Kaori’s shoulder.
Her bone-rattling howl shook the leaves above us, and she jerked her head around to try to tear him off. He darted away before she could reach him, but hadn’t thought to look behind him.
I think it was the sound of Kaori’s cry that triggered Calem, because suddenly his gaze was pure mercury, and scales rippled over the length of his arms. With one clawed hand, he sliced clean through the Sentinel’s armor and pierced his heart.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
I didn’t recognize his gravelly, foreboding voice. And then he shifted, his beast taking over right before our eyes until he was standing tall beside Kaori. He rammed his skull gently into her neck—the most tender thing I’d ever seen him do in that form—and she answered with a soft call of her own. Then, they pushed forward together.
“For fuck’s sake,” Kost said, allowing a rare curse to color his words. He slipped one hand beneath his glasses and pinched his nose. “So much for stealth.”
“Come on.” I raced after them, ignoring the bloody puddles, and forged a straight path across the tile. I paused only for a moment when I reached the large archway leading out to a brightly lit corridor. Smeared tracks indicated they’d hooked a left, and once the rest of the group caught up with me, we took the same path. Our thudding, hurried steps ricocheted off the polished stone walls, and the ornate chandeliers shook overhead with every bestial call from Kaori and Calem.
The corridor spilled into a large, open room and I came to a screeching halt. We were in the throne room. An ocean-blue runner trimmed in gold ran right up to the stairs of a raised dais, complete with a golden throne adorned with glinting leaves. Mosaic windows lined the far back wall, and massive, circular skylights took up most of the ceiling. Heavy sunlight poured through the glass, illuminating the subtle veining in the polished marble floor.
Calem and Kaori had paused near the throne, the hackles on the backs of their necks raised high. From across the room, the double doors had been thrown open and a stream of Sentinels and soldiers were swarming into the room.
Joel blanched. “That has to be the majority of the force that was left behind.”
“Great,” Kost muttered, shadows already gathering near his fingertips. “Our whole objective was to bypass them, not summon them.” Emelia and Iov conjured weapons of their own, along with the other assassins who’d joined us, and Joel reached for the broadsword strapped to his hip.
The clattering of armored feet echoed off the walls, and Calem pinned his ears flat to his head. A low, warning howl slipped from his maw. His gaze snapped from soldier to soldier, as if he were calculating his attack instead of lunging headfirst without thought. But the enemy’s numbers were too great for him and Kaori to tackle alone.
Thrusting my hand outward, I channeled everything I had into my emblem and wrenched open the beast realm door. Most of my creatures were waiting with bated breath at the threshold. They knew what I was facing, what we all were facing, and they were eager to help. But for now, I only needed one of them.
Lola, my Laharock, burst through the realm and landed on the floor before Calem and Kaori. Her bloodred scales glimmered in the sun, and she stretched her long neck tall to look down upon the impeding forces. Her pupil-less white eyes held nothing but fury as she glared at the entrance.
“Now, Lola!” I shouted. She responded with a war cry that shook the very room, and heat blasted from her in a deadly radius. Calem and Kaori retreated several paces, safely out of her range, but the Lendrian soldiers weren’t as lucky. Earsplitting screams carried throughout the room as they tried to scramble backward, but they were blocked by their own men. They’d crammed too many bodies through the entrance, making their withdrawal clumsy and slow. The scent of burnt metal and flesh cooked the air, and I cringed.
A handful of Sentinels and soldiers opted to cling to the walls of the room, just barely out of Lola’s range, and they rushed toward us with abandon. Emelia’s halberd parried the first sword that came swinging through the air, but it only held for a fraction of a second. Soon, blinding light from the Sentinels erupted around us, and the very shadows my assassins wielded disappeared from existence. Emelia rolled to the side, dodging the attack, and yanked two silver blades from sheaths on her boots.
Kost let out a series of sharp curses, then extracted a slender sword from a scabbard at his hip. Knowing they’d likely be forced to face off against Sentinels, all the assassins had corporeal, secondary weapons stashed on their bodies. Joel joined in, slamming his broadsword against the back of one of his former brothers.
“Stop this madness! The real king lives. I’ve seen him,” Joel tried, screaming above the clash of metal. Not a single one of his brethren acknowledged his claim. Instead, the soldier he’d attacked responded by raising his sword above his head, preparing to strike. Joel kicked him in the chest, and the man stumbled toward Lola. Blistering heat cooked him alive, and violent screams pierced the air as he crumpled to the floor.
Calem and Kaori joined in then, lunging from soldier to soldier and sinking monstrous fangs into flesh and armor alike. There was no stopping their attacks, and even if a blade managed to cut open their flesh, they kept moving. Kept fighting.
As I reopened the beast realm door, eager to summon another beast to aid my family, the high arc of a blade catching in the sunlight stole my attention. Kost parried it easily and continued to fight without stopping, but my gaze was locked on those damn windows in the ceiling. The ones depicting the sun crawling toward its highest point.
I jerked my attention back to the exit, still filled to the brim with soldiers. I had to get to Yazmin. But the path we’d taken to get here had no other offshoots or possible paths for avoiding the throne room. I scanned the space, even contemplated launching myself out one of the mosaic windows at the back, when I spotted another corridor across the room.
“Joel!” I shouted, pointing to the exit. “Where does that lead?”
He stuck his blade into the belly of a soldier, then glanced toward the hall. “East tower!”
My mind whirred. If I could make it to the top of the tower, I could summon Onyx and fly over Wilheim in search of Yazmin. I didn’t have time to wait for this battle to end, and as much as it filled me with dread to leave my family alone with this threat, I had to trust that they’d be okay.
Kost ran his blade along the neck of a Sentinel, finding one of the few weak spots in his armor, and brought the man to his knees. The warrior let out a soft gurgle, followed by a blood-filled cough, then slumped to the floor. Kost whipped around before turning his gaze to me.
“Go.”
It was the only prompting I needed. Screaming over my shoulder at Lola, I instructed her to hold her ground until Kost told her otherwise, and she answered with a trembling roar. My feet pounded against the tile as I ran, dodging soldiers’ wayward attacks until I hit the wondrously empty hallway. A spiral staircase waited for me, and I kept running. Glittering platinum wall sconces held unlit torches, the oblong windows lining the walls providing all the light I needed.
My muscles throbbed as I continued to climb higher and higher. But adrenaline pushed me forward. Forced me to ignore the burn in my lungs and shortness of breath. Too long. I was taking too long. Panic ate away at my insides until I finally broke out onto the top of the tower. Without a roof to obstruct my view, the entirety of Wilheim was laid before me. The only thing that kept me from tumbling over the side was a series of stone columns and thick railing. I rushed to the edge and prepared to summon Onyx when I saw her.
Yazmin.
She was in the center of the courtyard Noc and I had traveled through on our mission to tame an Azad. Manicured lawns with fresh, budding grass sprawled out in a circular pattern around a tiered fountain. The statue on the highest layer was a kneeling, reverent king. The First King. Noc’s ancestor. And Yazmin stood before him, a chilling smile on her upturned face. A basin full of shiny, red liquid and bones waited by her feet. Noc’s blood and Wynn’s remains. Two of the ingredients needed to summon and tame Ocnolog. Beside her, an Asura sat on the ground, one set of hands firmly on the earth, another pair stretched out to its sides, and the final two arms raised to the heavens. Which meant its invisible, protective barrier was fully intact.
Across the courtyard, a secondary tower loomed against the clear blue sky. And in its rafters hung a stunning, crystalline bell. One whose melodious gong had just started to ring out over the quiet city. Midday.
“NO!” I shrieked, forcing everything I had into my hand and heaving open the beast realm door.
Below in the courtyard, something flashed. A long, silver blade reflecting in the sun. Yazmin held it high in one hand, and then with a definitive swoop, plunged it deep into her own heart. Blood exploded outward and coated the base of the fountain before flowing into the basin. She immediately sank to her knees, smile still pulling at her lips. A glowing orb like a tiny, twinkling gem floated outward from her chest. It hung in the air, waiting for someone—something—to claim it. Onyx came barreling out the beast realm then, manifesting before me and letting out a series of angry caterwauls that competed with the gong of the bell.
But one sound drowned out all others.
One disastrous, horrifying, deafening sound. A bellowing, distant roar that forced my attention away from the traitorous Crown and toward the horizon. To Hireath.
An ominous cloud of black smoke bloomed against the sky, followed by a rumbling that sent tremors through our entire world. As if a mountain itself had crashed in a horrendous landslide.
As if Hireath had fallen.
I don’t know how I knew that. But something deep inside me—a terrible, sickening sense of unbearable truth—fisted my heart and wrenched it tight. Yazmin had successfully awoken the very beast Celeste had given her life to subdue. And maybe that statue in the throne room of Hireath wasn’t just an homage to the great creature of years past. Maybe it was the headstone to an actual tomb.
As the black cloud of smoke deepened and blanketed the horizon, a column of fire erupted straight up to the heavens. And against that fiery orange and burning red stream of color, the figure of a dragon rose into the air.
Ocnolog was here.