Page 109 of Immortal Origins
Ambrose glanced at her friend—or who she thought was her friend. “When. You better not die. I want my answers.”
The Behemoth fell down onto its hands on all fours, hot breath rising from its multiple nostrils as one head snapped to the side, the body of a screaming warrior clasped between its jaws. Blood and drool pooled at its feet, soaking the dirt.
Trial Champions rushed forward to fill the spots of fallen warriors as the monster swung its massive arms at the small bodies like they were nothing but dolls. The rest of them were locked into battle with each other, Rowland ripping his way through body after body, leaving a trail of fallen warriors in his wake without having broken a sweat.
“Can we even take that thing?” Ambrose yelled over the screams that filled the cavern.
“We don’t have to,” Lily roared. “We just need to stay alive long enough to get into those tunnels.”
“Tunnels?” Ambrose scanned the space.
“You don’t see them?” Lily called as she cut down an oncoming magewielding Ice Magick in the shape of a scythe.
Ambrose looked along the walls but all she saw was solid dragonstone. “No.”
“Look again.”
She peered past the battles, past the Behemoth, and just behind its massive body. Finally, she could see what it was protecting. Three dark entryways opened up behind it that some were managing to slip inside—warriors aimlessly choosing one before vanishing from sight.
“I see them!” Ambrose called. “How are we supposed to get to them?”
“We’re going to have to fight.” Lily squared her shoulders and pulled her second sword from a small pouch at her side that she’d been wearing the night of the festival.
How was that possible? It was Magick Ambrose didn’t know. One that shouldn’t have been possible. Illusion?
A mage Ambrose barely recognized stepped towards the Behemoth as fighters surrounded him. He hadn’t been in training much but she knew he was a shadow mage from Nethyr. The mage was around her age, but his eyes held many more years than his face. Hair and robes as dark as the shadows he called, he had a pale lean body that he clearly had never physically trained a day in his life. He pulled his bony hands up and in an instant all light in the arena extinguished and plunged them all into a darkness that no light could penetrate.
Ambrose tried to light a firelight but though she could feel her magick working—and knew there was a warm glow in her hand—no light cut through the shadows.
Absolute Darkness.
Though light couldn’t cut the shadows, sound had no issue as screams intensified and Ambrose felt the familiar coils of the darkness try to wrap themselves around her wrists, attempting to pull her sword from her fingers. They wound their way around her face and throat, choking her as she fought to pull air into her lungs.
Lily coughed from her side and Ambrose didn’t need to be able to see to know they were wrapped around her throat as well.
The Behemoth roared, but even its thunderous growls muffled against the shadows as they wound around its snouts, snuffing out its rage.
How could a mage his age be so powerful?
There were dozens of Trial Champions and the Behemoth itself… To wield such an incredible power would be on par with aGrand Mage.
Ambrose clawed at the shadows that gripped her throat, had it not already been dark she was sure her vision would be going black. Her lungs pulled and burned but no air came.
No air.
Lily gasped desperately as the Behemoth’s breaths gagged in its throats.
No air.
Muffled groans came from the fighters around them, though she couldn’t see them as they collapsed, metal armor singing as they each hit the ground.
No air.
The shadow mage was the only voice that came clear as he laughed in the darkness.
No air.
Ambrose fell to her knees, nails clawing at her throat but the shadows wouldn’t listen to her calls to release her.
