Page 52 of Beast of Blood and Ash
There was only the bond. Only the hunt.
I disengaged from the warrior in front of me with a brutal, final blow that sent him staggering back, his chest caved in. The wet crack of bone was an afterthought. I didn’t wait for him to fall, ignoring the sprays of blood clinging to my arms. I left the others to the chaos; all that mattered was the fading scent of her fear, sharp as raw copper, and the foul stench of Draskeer’s trail, like rotten eggs and poison musk.
My mind was a maelstrom: guilt, terror, longing, the twin engines of shame and desperation twisting every nerve raw. I had promised her safety. I had promised myself I would stand between her and all the monsters of this world. And now she was gone, snatched into the dark by the worst Ignarath had ever bred.
I launched myself into the darkness after them.
The stone passage narrowed, rough-hewn walls scraping my wings, the air cooler, thick with the echo of my footfalls and the distant, rhythmic thump of the city’s alarms. Every sense stretched to breaking. I could smell them, the acidic reek of Draskeer, carrying the old ghosts of the arena, and beneath it, the fragile sweetness of Reika’s skin, her terror a trail I could track even blind.
My side burned.
I realized, distantly, that I was hurt, a deep gash in my ribs, blood seeping hot and sticky down my flank. I didn’t feel it. I didn’t care.
There was only the trail, slick and cold and metallic, winding through unmapped stone, through secret ways I hadn’t known existed. These were the old tunnels, forgotten even by the city’s lifeblood. They spiraled and twisted, black as the world before creation.
I stumbled, righted myself, shoved forward, reckless as the beast I was raised to be.
In these tunnels, every shadow was an enemy. My feet slipped on blood, stone slick beneath my claws. My heartbeat thundered, a savage drum drowning out even the alarms. I barely saw the walls, the smears of old battle, the broken doors kicked in by desperate hands.
I drove myself forward, chasing the ghosts and the scent and the memory of what I would never forgive myself for—too slow, too weak, too late. Guilt and terror blurred together until I was nothing but a predator chasing the last warmth of hope.
The tunnel opened up into the searing glare of the volcanic wastes. The wind howled, ripping at the lingering traces of scent—Draskeer, Reika, blood and panic—almost lost, but not quite. The world outside was a red desert, shimmering with toxic heat, stone whipped into knives by the gale. The ground was a mosaicof cracked obsidian and glass, the sky a boiling cauldron of twin suns leering down.
The trail was faint there, the wind tearing at the scent, but it was enough.
I didn’t hesitate.
Bloodied, battered, and alone, I vanished into the shimmering red desert.
I was the blade. The city was a wound. If I failed, if I hesitated, everything would bleed out.
But I was not what Ignarath made me. I was something else. I was the monster they should have feared all along.
And I would burn the world to bring her home.
22
REIKA
The air wasa punch to the face. Hot. Sharp. Thick with the smell of sulfur and baked rock. Draskeer’s grip was an iron cage on my bicep, claws digging deep as he dragged me into the volcanic wilds, a hellscape of shattered stone under a sky that bled. Every jarring step was a reminder. I was a prisoner again.
There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
Every sense screamed danger. The volcanic crust cracked under my boots with each uneven step. Heat pressed down, a physical weight that turned each breath into a punishment. When the wind shifted, it drove the chemical bite of minerals down my throat. It was the kind of air that scorched you from the inside out, a fire in the lungs, burning hotter with every gasp.
With each step, Draskeer yanked me forward, his claws digging deeper. I couldn’t stop seeing old blood pooled in the cracks of the stone, real or just a phantom of memory.
I didn’t dare stagger or let him see the tremor that shook my muscles beneath a stubborn posture. He had known all my tells once, but I wasn’t the same girl he’d tormented in the pens.
And yet, my body tried so hard to betray me. My skin prickled where his claws pressed, a phantom ache of memory.Still, my mind scrambled for a weapon—for Omvar’s voice hissing through the cracks.
You are not prey. Not anymore.
“You’re quiet, little prey,” Draskeer sneered, his voice scraping against my nerves. “Remember how you used to cry? I miss that sound.”
He wanted me whimpering. Wanted me to collapse under the weight of old terror. My mouth went dry. My heart stuttered, a frantic bird desperate to beat out of my chest. The stink of him, hot stone and copper and something spoiled, was an overwhelming wave. I stumbled but caught my balance, planting my feet on the grit.
Omvar’s voice echoed in my head.Your center of gravity is too high.
