Page 136 of Fated In Ruin

Familiar, yet frightening, ancient, yet brand new, and while my instincts were screaming for me to run, my magic purred, as if my flames recognized some kinship with this strange, primordial magic, something familiar lurking behind that dark portal…and yet, was cautious.

My flames licked the edge of that still pool, sending a burst of steam hissing into the air. The walls groaned, stones shifting ominously. I didn't care. All I saw was Malachi's shadowed face, blood dripping into that pool beneath him, and Aria—hurting him.

The entire mountain could collapse around us. The whole world could end.

I didn’t care about that, either. Nothing else mattered if I lost him.

“Last chance,” I warned, but my magic was already there, a plume of hunger that engulfed her in the next heartbeat, a ravenous monster without mercy that devoured flesh and corruption and the last of her crimson power as if it were the lifeblood upon which I existed.

Her flesh solidified as she turned to ice, leaving my mouth tainted with rot, and a trace of the witch’s final, furious rage.

In that final second, I felt sorry for her, this once-powerful creature caught and used by a bigger monster, little more than a pawn at the end. But like Ravok, Aria had made her own fate, today was just her final reckoning.

The room was so clogged with hate and foulness that I heaved up a mouthful of vomit, engulfed by the reeking stench and the taste of decay as Aria crumbled to the ground in a pile of frosted dust.

Then the dull thudding of the portal filtered back in through my misery, a sense of resolve straightened my spine until I was upright, staring at what that bitch had done.

“I’ll get you down from there,” I promised Malachi, his head still slumped forward onto his chest. I stopped short of the pool, unsure what would happen if I stepped into that still water. “I’m going to…”

A dark chuckle answered me—not Malachi's voice. From the back of the chamber, Ravok stepped over Aria’s ashes, power billowing around him like red-tinted storm clouds.

“Get away from him,” I commanded, my voice unnaturally amplified by the magic-infused air. “Or I will ice you over, too.”

Ravok's smile only widened, “Evangeline,” he crooned, drawing my name out like a threat. “You came to me. This ritual requires both of you, after all.”

Shadows burst out of nowhere, engulfing me in a torrent of cold, smothering darkness, binding my wrists, my legs, twining cruelly around my throat, icy pain trickling into me everywhere they touched. Ravok’s smile was cruelty incarnate, his gaze directed over my head as Romulus whispered in my ear?—

“Now my old friend will finally understand that everything he has ever done has been in his Master’s service. Bringing you here was his greatest gift to him, and the one thing we could not accomplish alone.”

60

RIORDAN

“For the record, I didn’tletEvie fucking do anything.” Eldric clawed at Blake’s hand, banded around his throat, eyes darting toward the dark hole. “She was here one minute, the next, she was gone,” the scholar panted. “Disappeared.”

“You were supposed to be watching her, asshole.”

I closed my eyes.Don’t fucking say it. Don’t…

“I had my eyes on her the entire time, so yeah Iwatchedher disappear,” Eldric choked out, and Blake’s crushing grip tightened until the scholar’s larynx cracked.

“Put him down, this isn’t his fault. Ravok took her.” I tried to think past my anger as I crossed to the top of the spiral staircase, peering at endless darkness. Beneath the reek of spilled revenant blood, I picked up Malachi’s scent…and Evie’s.

Fury roared through me.The fucking revenants had only been a distraction.

And they had fucking worked, because now Evangeline—Ravok’s true target—was gone.

“She’s down there, so that’s where we’re going.” As much as I wanted to, we couldn’t dematerialize through solid stone, but we flew down those steps and along the passages at preternatural speeds.

The scent of Evie's magic hung in the air like smoke—desert storms tinged with fear. I followed her sweet spice like a beacon through the labyrinthian stone passages, Blake and Eldric panting at my heels.

“She's right up ahead,” I muttered, slowing down to keep my bearings. These ancient corridors bent and turned without logic, as if the mountain itself were trying to trap us.

And then…I lost the trail, like she’d disappeared into thin air.

Cobwebs fluttered around me as I lifted my head, catching nothing but the chalky reek of limestone and stale damp air that hadn’t been disturbed in centuries. Beneath my feet, the ground hummed, like we stood on top of a boiling volcano, ready to explode.

“How did we get turned around?” Blake hissed. “There’s only one fucking tunnel, where did she go?”

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