No one—and I fucking meant no one—got a jump on me.

Except they have—idiot.

I'd been so bewildered by the fact that Wychthorn had befriended the Uzrek—actually found the beast without getting herself devoured by him—I'd been deaf and blind to the fact someone else was hunting us.

My mind instantly speared back to the meeting with Sirro last night regarding the attack on our convoy of stolen souls. There hadn't been any trace of the enemy left behind, and clever Wychthorn had deduced how they'd managed to do it—by swifting.

I knew deep in my bones that these were the same ones who'd set our truck alight and burned all those stolen souls alive with wildfyre.

Whoever the fuck they were—and I didn't care—they were in for a world of pain. I was going to litter the Uzrek's nest with the dead.

It was pitch-black but for Wychthorn's flashlight illuminating a sliver of the cavern. But I could see. Nine...no, twelve...Fuck, now there were fifteen of them swifting in. They blocked the entrance to the cavern as well as the tunnel the Uzrek had disappeared into. They were tall, much taller than me, and wearing masks. Papier mâché creations, no slits for eyes, just creepy macabre faces. They were clothed in flowing robes of ivory and carried blades, but the cluster near the entrance hoisted crossbows, taking aim—

Shit, shit, shit—

Bolts flew fast.

I lunged to the side and threw myself into a roll before flipping to my feet. A thudding sound, followed by stone breaking, erupted right where I'd stood only a moment ago.

Three swifted in, right in front of me. The long reach of their swords gave them the advantage.

It was a dance, a flurry of movement, a clash of steel.

My boots smashed into kneecaps, fists into masked faces, elbows into guts.

But it felt wrong. Not forgiving like flesh and bone. This felt hard like iron, yet strangely papery thin. Because nothing living can swift.

Two more joined the three.

The fuckers began to swift, avoiding my strikes, my blows.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I threw my senses outward, listening and feeling for the tell-tale suck of air just before they swifted and reappeared. I pushed myself harder, faster, a blur of speed, more violent than a katabatic wind sweeping down a jagged mountain slope. Dodging every slice and thrust, as they worked together to bring me down.

They weren't breathing. Not a pant. Not a gasp for breath behind those strange masks. Not even an exchange between them. But they seemed to know what to do; how to work together.

They were good. Really good. Maybe even better.

Shit. They're better.

Fuck. Why didn't I bring my sword? An array of weapons?

A snapping of my daggers—

Through tendons, slashing the back of knees, severing ankles and wrists—

A cold smile as three lost their limbs. Unable to stand. Unable to hold a weapon.

But—

It didn't keep them down—

It didn't keep them from rising, coming for me again

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

White-hot pain bit my shoulder as the edge of a sword grazed my flesh.

A slash from behind—

I only just managed to whirl aside in time as the tip of the sword's blade carved a bloody graze across my forearm.

I delivered a lethal roundhouse kick to the masked face. The neck snapped and their head lolled. But the creepy fuck didn't crumble. It merely fought back with its head at an odd angle.

Fuck, an army of the dead?

Well, why the fuck not?

Of course, this shit was going to happen to me.

Then I realized, way too late, they could see as well as I could in the dark.

If they could see me—

They could see her.

Protect, protect, protect—it was the only thing pounding in my blood.

More surrounded me. More swifted in. I was lost within a sea of silk and masks and swords. My wyrmblade daggers sang and metal sparked as I battled, fending off their vicious blows with my own. And I knew with growing dread, they weren't after me—they were after her.

I fought on, defending Wychthorn, keeping her to my back. Chancing a glance over my shoulder, I startled to find her standing and edging along the cavern wall. I could hear her strangled breath as she fought her panic attack.

I told her to stay down!

Why does she never listen to me?!

And what the fuck did the Uzrek mean—I didn't know what I was?

What the hells was the Uzrek going to tell me?

The creepy army of the dead were driving me aside to wedge themselves between me and Wychthorn and they were fucking making it happen. But those beginning to pincer her in were wary. They kept their distance. Either that or they were waiting for an order. Or someone to arrive.

"Graysen?!" Nelle rasped, and the panicked sound squeezed my heart with a cold fist.

An icy wind stirred the musty air in the catacombs—

I bodily swayed as a single quake shook the cavern—

Shit, Wychthorn was fucking losing it. "Nelle, I'm here! I'm still here!"

She spun in my direction, too dark to see, but she heard me. "Graysen?!"

Too late, too late... I'd been distracted...

I'd left myself open for a beheading—

I felt the air hissing to the right of me—

The arc of the blade sweeping—

Shit, is this how I end? My corpse rotting beneath Ascendria?

A blur of mist and shadow—

A guttural snarl—

Sage erupted out of the darkness, knocking into the thing that was going to end my life. The sword soared wide, missing the back of my neck by an inch, the blade whistling by.

Sage had the enemy on its back, his fangs were latched onto their throat as he wrestled his head back and forth. He ripped their throat out, spraying an arc of congealed dark blood that splattered across my chest and neck. Not fresh. Not warm. Cold sticky lumpy blood.

Sage bounded off, charging for the next warrior.

We worked together, both with the same goal: protect Wychthorn.

But there was more swifting in. Fuck, how many of them are there?

Sage leaped for one and a heavy thud came from across the cavern—

A deadly sound razored through the air—

The momentum and force of the bolt hit the wraith-wolf right in the chest—

An agonizing noise tore from the wraith-wolf, the likes of which I'd never heard before on the battlefield and never wanted to again. It sliced through my insides and the chaos of warfare.

Sage tumbled, his limbs slackened and loose. He hit the stone ground hard and careened into the wall with a sick thunk.

He huffed for breath and whined as he tried to get to his paws. Faltered. Then collapsed.

"Sage. Sage!" Nelle stumbled in the dark, heading to where she could hear her dog rasping for breath. Her fear of the dark was overridden by her fear for her friend. Her heart was with Sage and she was terrified and panicked and not thinking straight.

But our enemy was closing her in, surrounding her, cutting her off.

"Graysen! Please! Save Sage!"

It was the wrong thing to do, leaving Wychthorn open and vulnerable, but I hurtled between two of the enemy, spinning around to smash away a strike, fighting to reach Sage. The wraith-wolf might not have liked me but he'd saved my life.

Five of the creepy-fuckers charged at me, their swords level and lethal. Racing toward them, I leaped up onto a small cropping of rock, using my speed and agility to spring upwards, flying overtop of them to flip and twist and land in a crouch beside the fallen wraith-wolf. A heavy bolt was embedded in his misty chest and he rippled in and out of existence. He heaved pained breaths and whimpered as he grew weaker and began to fade.

Behind me, something fired—a whoosh and a whoomph—

Wychthorn screamed and I think my heart stopped beating.

Shooting a wide-eyed glance over my shoulder, I saw her on the ground and tangled up in a net of some kind that fizzed with dark magic. She thrashed, trying to free herself.

I loosened a bellow of fury. Roared her name. Fissures cracked through the ceiling and dust and loose stone rained down. Violence burned through my blood with a blistering intensity. I couldn't even think. I just reacted, giving over to bloodthirst. Surging toward her, I darted bolts, slicing them aside with whirling daggers. Cutting and thrusting. Downing the enemy by hacking through sinew. Punching a hole in their ranks as they fought to keep us separate. Fought to kill me and claim her.

But there were too many between her and me.

And two reached for her—

Nelle lurched to her feet, the netting dragging with her.

"Graysen!" A commanding tone laced her voice—

Had me momentarily pausing—

Had all of us swinging her way. We were drawn toward her lethal authority that rang through the cavern.

My little bird wasn't terrified. She was enraged. She was burning with it. Silver threads backlit her tiny figure and made her pale hair dance and shimmer. I had no time to think, how, when her voice shredded through the darkness. "Get Sage! Run! Run now!"

"NOT WITHOUT YOU!" I roared back. Not without you!

Every single atom in my body, every heartbeat pounded for her, the blood coursing through my veins, all of it, all of me, was wired to her. I couldn't leave her.

"Get out of here!"

I can't...I can't...I can't...

A squalling wind blustered through the cavern, striking me so hard I staggered to keep my balance. The robes of the enemy snapped and flailed as they too fought against the tempest. The savage air charged and vibrated and it was different from the energy that usually bounced between Wychthorn and I.

"NOW!" she roared.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuck!

I spun and ran, a burst of black speed, racing toward Sage and scooping up his fading body, before I ran from the cavern, cursing myself.

I left her alone.

In the dark.

And then I heard another voice creeping through the cavern. Ancient, amused. The Uzrek. "Let me have one or two, young Wychthorn."

***

Sage panted, his tongue lolling wetly against my forearm. I'd run perhaps no more than a few twists through the rabbit warren catacombs when I heard it first.

A yawning noise—

The rock jolted beneath my feet, followed by a tempest of violent tremors that shook the rough-hewn walls.

An explosion—

That knocked me off my balance. I stumbled and fell. Caging Sage as best I could, I skidded across the coarse stone. Stinging heat burned my exposed flesh from being grazed as I rolled us over to protect the wraith-wolf. Deafening noise reverberated through the passageway and rattled inside my head. Chunks of rock fell from the ceiling, thumping all around me. Plumes of dust and pangs of pain—my shoulder, my spine, my calf—as rockfall struck.

I sucked in a breath—

Light exploded, cutting everything around me into sharp relief. Blinding light. Cold, pale light.

So desperately cold my body chilled and my skin prickled and shivered.

Light...no, not quite light, that was wrong...it was fire scorching the roof of the catacombs above me.

Fire forged of light and silver. It illuminated my world, but it brought no heat. It was like starlight. Like moonlight. Beautiful, brilliant, and remote—so far beyond me. Unobtainable and unreachable like the night sky.

Physical pain registered all over my body, but it was nothing compared to the agony inside my chest.

There was nothing but fear—paralyzing fear taking root in my heart. Fear at what I'd find when I went back.

Because I'd left her there, alone, with them.

***

I didn't understand when I took my first step back into the cavern—the whiteness of the vast space.

Snowflakes flurried in the air, like motes, drifting downward, caught in a gentle swirling breeze.

How the fuck can winter reach beneath the earth?

I cupped my hand and caught featherlight snowflakes. But they weren't cold. As I walked deeper, flakes brushing my cheeks and dusting my hair, they did not feel wet either. And the sensation on my tongue was bitter, like smoke.

It was ash, not snow.

Ash.

There was nothing. Absolutely nothing left in the cavern. I'd left Nelle with at least twenty of those things. They'd trapped her with netting and that didn't even exist. There were no bodies. No papier mâché masks. No weapons or brittle bones. The cavern had been wiped clean.

Only one person survived whatever it was that had been unleashed.

And that was the person who unleashed it.

She'd collapsed in the middle of the cavern, gasping for breath.

And I'd never been so fucking happy to see her in my entire life.

***

I didn't know how much time had passed. Only that gentle hands turned me over.

Graysen crouched beside me, running a clinical touch over my body, checking and assessing. "You're okay...you're okay...you're okay..." he murmured over and over and over again. It sounded like it was meant for me, but I think it was meant more for him.

I blinked up at him with gritty, sore eyes.

He sucked in a sharp breath when our gazes met. My hands went to his shoulders and he blew the air out of his lungs, heaving his chest. And there was real fear gleaming in his eyes before they dipped to the rough wet ground where ash had turned to sludge, as if it were too much to share. "I didn't know...I didn't know what I'd find...I should never have left you."

I squeezed his shoulders. I had barely anything left of me to do anything else. I needed him to know, to feel, I was okay.

He rested his crooked arm on a bent knee. Bringing his eyes back to mine, I saw the emotions that had brimmed near the surface had been safely tucked away. He gently brushed tangled, sooty locks of hair away from my forehead. "I felt it. I felt whatever it was you unleashed." He glanced away, his gaze returning a moment later, shadowed in thought. "It felt like..." He struggled to form the words. Then he shook his head, still unable to explain it.

Death, I might have said. Storm and rage and unholy fire.

I couldn't speak. I couldn't tell him.

And now he knew I was other.

What was he going to do?

A terrible fear fell through me.

Had the Crowthers known all along that I was other?

Is that why they'd picked me instead of Evvie for the Alverac?

My breath must have picked up in panic because the fine skin feathering from his eyes crinkled in concern. He pressed a hand against my chest and splayed his fingers over my heart. "Easy, Nelle...just breathe...breathe..."

That's what clenched my heart the most and had air flowing back into my lungs. It was always little bird or Wychthorn or even just you. My throat burned, and when I spoke, my voice sounded hoarse as if I'd been screaming. "You said my name."

He stilled, a fleeting look of surprise crossing his features before he finally settled into a smile. "Don't get used to it."

I coughed, sitting up and finding half my skirt had burned away. "I like it. I like how it sounds."

Another noise registered...erratic breathing. "Sage?!"

I lumbered to my feet and swayed. A different kind of terror slunk through me seeing that vicious bolt lodged inside my wraith-wolf's chest, and the way he was fading into death.

"Poisoned or cursed...I'm not sure," Graysen said, wrapping a hand around my elbow to help support me. "I need to get it out, but everything I need is up in my car."

His car. Where were we in relation to it?

"Please, I'll give you anything, " I rasped, "if you can save him."

"Anything?" And a wolfish grin spread over his face.

"Gods Crowther—" I began to snap.

But he cut me off, kneeling down, and urging, "Get on, and hold tight." I went to clamber onto his back, winding my arms around his neck. He smelled good. Even sweaty and covered in ash and blackened blood he smelled good.

I paused and he glanced over his shoulder at me in confusion.

He was fast. I had no doubt. But there was little time. "Don't freak out," I told him, unwinding my arms and stepping aside.

His eyes grew wide as he slowly rose. "Shit, whenever someone tells me that...of course I'm going to fucking freak out."

"Hold tight to Sage," I instructed.

He picked up my wraith-wolf, cradling him and shooting a wary look at me.

I grabbed hold of his arm, rallied what little power was left to me, and coaxed a pocket of air around Graysen so he could breathe in the void. The creature inside me vibrated, snarling, waiting—

And then I threw us into a swift.