Page 29 of Vicious Is My Throne

I woke to the drip, drip, drip of moisture, the hollow sound echoing from somewhere up ahead.

Or behind us. I couldn’t get my bearings in this stifling dark since the torch had gone out, the musky smell of smoke hours old now. Even my wolf’s eyes couldn’t penetrate the shadows, though I picked everyone out from their scents, a sense of calm settling over me when I accounted for everyone, Anaria still clutched in Zorander’s arms.

“Raz. Zor. We should get moving.”

They rousted slowly, then Tristan’s fireball illuminated the length of the hewn tunnel walls…revealing none of those foul creatures.

But…I sniffed again. I swore I smelled a hint of rot down here.

And the closer we got to Tempeste, the stronger the stench became.

None of the others smelled it, none of them blessed with a shifter’s keen sense of smell except for Tristan. When I turned around, his head was raised high, nostrils flared, eyes narrowed as he scanned the ceiling overhead.

I followed his gaze to the rounded, soot-stained ceiling, coated with layers of black from the centuries-worth of smugglers’ wagons passing through these tunnels. There…I caught the shine of moisture as Raziel raised his torch over his head.

There, high on the ceiling, was a vein of blight, a black, gleaming finger of rotting death.

All the way down here, hundreds of feet beneath the ground.

Beneath Caladrius.

Which meant this realm, like the one we’d just left, was infected.

We had an hour until we emerged from the end of the tunnels, from the scratch marks etched on the wall. Uncle Dane’s handwriting, his way of marking distance. And there, as I watched, something black dripped down the wall like liquid night, tracing the rough marks left in the stone by the axes that carved these tunnels out.

“Everybody keep moving,” I said softly, drawing my blade, though what good would that do against the corruption of an Old God? “Stop when I say it’s safe.”

We rushed down the tunnel, a chill wind whipping toward us from the far-off exit tasting of foul, dead things and more bitter than any wind in the High Barrens. But when we reached a place where the smell lessened, where tendrils of black weren’t creeping down the sides of the tunnel, I held up my hand.

As one, the company halted, all of us gathering in a tight circle, Raz holding the torch high over our heads, scanning the walls.

“Corvus is here,” I said quietly, though my voice echoed louder than I would have liked. “I’m seeing indications of his rot, even at this depth.” Tristan nodded, eyes gleaming like garnets.

“Chances are, we’ll step out of these tunnels and straight into a blighted area which could be filled with anything. After what happened within the chamber, we need to be prepared.”

“We can’t get any on us.” Zorander paced toward the exit then back, arms crossed over his chest. “Can’t breathe in that foul black air. Not for long, at least.”

“I could shift,” Tristan suggested. “Fly us out one by one.”

“To where?” Raziel asked, not with any judgment but more of a genuine question. “What if all of Caladrius is corrupted? We can’t go back the way we came. Between the creatures and what’s waiting on the other end, we can’t go back.”

Anaria stayed quiet, scanning the walls, her bottom lip caught between her teeth like she always did when she was thinking.

“The Citadelle had some of the most powerful warding I’ve ever seen, which could still be in place,” I suggested. “The Fae King didn’t fuck around with security. If there’s anywhere in Tempeste that’s safe, it would be that building.”

“I have one word for you,” Raziel muttered. “Reapers.”

He was right.

Fucking right, and I dragged my hands down my face.

“Okay, forget Tempeste. Chances are we’re walking straight into Corvus’s trap. Pure, undiluted corruption that we can’t escape from. The Hammer is that way.” I pointed north. “Logically, everything between us and that cave is corrupted.”

“I could fly south, down to Lake Moor. No chance his magic stretches that far.”

“Which only means we’ll end up even further from our target.” I decided Zorander had the right idea and paced away to the edge of the flickering torchlight. But no further because fuck knew what lurked in that darkness.

Just like in that fucking vision Anaria and I had shared and had yet to dissect.

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