"Gray?!" I heard Mela shriek.

I groaned, dizziness murking my mind. I shook my head, scattering dust and small shards of stone free from my hair. I lifted my gaze. Mela stood in front of me. The vibrating ground shook her grimy figure, mine too. Terror shone bright in her dark eyes "Gray?"

She wasn't looking at me, she was staring behind me. Her eyes were so round the whites almost seemed to devour her irises. "Holy hells," she choked out, her body swaying and jittering with the trembling approach of the Stone Eater. Her gaze slashed to mine and she lurched forward, leaning down, reaching for me. "Get up. Get up, Gray!"

"Go!" I yelled, shoving at the chunks of shifting, jostling rock I was buried in. "Get to the junction fast!"

Her mouth quivered in her hesitation to leave me behind. She began to part her lips as if to say no, but I cut her off, bellowing, "Now!"

Her soft nostrils flared with frustration. "Use that godsdamned Crowther speed of yours!" she urged, before spinning around and surging forward.

The buzzing, sawing sound of grinding stone grew close.

Too close.

The fucking thing was almost on top of me.

I shoved off the rockfall and staggered to my shuddering feet, just as an unearthly roar reverberated over me, triumphant and ear-piercing.

Ahead of me, Mela careened around the corner of the junction.

I pushed forward, my mother's unnatural healing coursing through my body and dulling the ache and sting of grazed skin. I threw myself faster, faster, faster, down the long stretch of a straight tunnel.

I stole a harried glance over my shoulder and saw there was nothing but wildness in the serpent's thinned eyes. Inhuman. Without mercy. It yawned its mouth wide and I was staring into the deadly innards of a woodchipper, with rows of teeth rotating swiftly.

A fat, long tongue snapped out and I just managed to evade the wet organ that speared overhead, the movement scattering my sweat-damp hair like a gust of wind.

But I was gone, dashing forward, racing for the crossing of tunnels.

A violent storm of footfall.

A blazing tempest of speed.

I leaped, hitting the rough edge of the junction wall with a foot—

Used it as a springboard to twist around mid-air—

My wyrmblade sang a deadly note through the cold, dark air as I drew it free. I landed with a jarring jolt on the uneven stone floor and skidded. I braced my back foot against the slide, leaning forward to stop the backward momentum.

I arced my cursed sword low at my hip. Both of my hands gripped the knotted hilt tight. My taut muscles were bunched and ready to spring forward.

Mela mirrored me across the junction passage. Grim determination was carved into her features. A flash of a feral grin in the gloom.

The beast was moving too fast for it to check its momentum. Too swift for it to writhe and twist into the junction. So quick that when it hurtled past in a straight line, I only caught a glimpse of its head, a glint of quicksilver eyes. Its immense serpentine body rushed past, long and gray and filthy.

Fine stone hewn from the tunnel walls billowed out in a whirl of dust to obscure my vision. My eyelashes feathered to slits and I sent a prayer to Zrenyth that I'd strike its flank, right between the grinding plates of rotating skin.

"Now!" I roared to Mel.

I shoved forward. A violent derecho. A squalling line of fury.

A war cry wrenched from my throat.

I rammed the wyrmblade into the Stone Eater, using every scrap of strength that hummed in my body.

It felt like I'd hit fucking solid rock.

A violent shudder rattled through my wrists, up the bones of my arms, and I almost lost hold of the cursed sword.

But the wyrmblade carved inward, almost to the crossguard.

An ear-shattering otherworldly scream filled the air.

I tightened my hold and lunged in, heaving my full weight and might against the hilt, using my body as leverage and the serpent's unhindered momentum to my advantage.

The Stone Eater careened forward and my sword slashed through its innards, carving a fissure right down half of its length.

Black blood sprayed out in hot waves, soaking me.

An unearthly bellow of rage shook the tunnel's walls.

I held my ground, my teeth bared and clenched together. My blood-slippery fingers locked tight against the knotted hilt. Fire raged in my throat and flames burned my thighs as I lunged forward to keep leverage, to keep the blade slicing true—the sensation much like fighting off a jittering wall of strength.

The serpent came to a slow, slow, grinding halt.

I pried open my eyes just as the beast flailed and roared, almost wrenching the weapon from my hands. Its entire body thrashed in its death throes, cracking against the tunnel walls. It sounded like detonating explosives that brought down great sheets of rock.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

The beast shuddered and the erratic tremor jarred through my body.

One last heaving wriggle and I heard a wheezing gust of breath leak from its enormous mouth.

And then it went limp.

Its taut body fell to the ground with an almighty thump that shook the tunnel like an earthquake and nearly knocked me off my feet.

All those razoring scales slowed, slowed, the noise much like the metallic whir of machinery winding down, then they stopped moving altogether.

Nothing.

Silence but for the odd thunk of rockfall, and my gasping breath. Fat droplets of sweat ran down my forehead, carving a path through the splatters of black blood. From my neck down the beast's blood thickly coated my body like tar. My boots looked like I'd trampled through sludge and there were pools of the sticky liquid washing down the tunnel.

I jerked back.

Fuck.

I watched in astonishment as the skin on the beast turned to a whitish-flaky texture. I tentatively tested my sword, and its innards weren't so fleshy with give against the blade jammed inside its body as if it had turned to marble.

Holy shit.

I tugged and twisted, and finally felt it give. The blade drew cleanly from the serpent, the sensation much like a pen stabbing a piece of paper. Flimsy and insubstantial. As soon as I pulled the wyrmblade free, the beast shattered into a million pieces of rubble and clouds of dirty air. Stone collapsed to the floor in a loud rattle, and left the Stone Eater looking much like the pit of a quarry. Nothing remained of the beast, just chunks that might make sense if you knew what it had once been—a serpent.

But most of the fearsome creature had been turned to dust.

I swiveled away, swiftly covering my nose and mouth with my hands, trying not to breathe it in. When the dust finally settled, I was covered in a thick layer of wet grime.

Sheathing my sword, I clambered over the rockpile. My footing was cumbersome and ungainly as I made my way over the mess to Mela. She'd collapsed to her knees, hands braced on her hips with her head tipped back as she gasped for breath.

She only looked a little better than I did. Her gaze found mine and the whites of her eyes were a little bloodshot. I offered her my hand, she wrapped hers around mine, and I hauled her to her feet. "Hells, Gray, I thought we were done for."

I huffed a rusty laugh. "Me too." Raking my hands through my sweaty hair, I ruffled it to remove loose grit. Mela brushed what she could off her head and face and I did the same. The rest, the gore that painted our armor, would have to wait until later.

Mela slipped her weapon back into its sheath and glanced around. Her flashlight slunk over the rock-pile remains of the Stone Eater, and down either end of the long, straight tunnel we'd run down. "Where are we?"

I had no fucking idea.

It would be easy enough to trace our trail back.

A voice slithered inside my head. "You're close, son of the wyrm. The nest you seek is not far away."

"Yezekael's nest?"

"Search down the tunnel."

I clambered over the rubble, heading down where we'd come from. In its death throes, the Stone Eater had smashed either side of the tunnel's thick walls and, curiously, as I approached I realized it had smashed right through to a burrow that was positioned parallel to this tunnel.

I ducked inside and found myself in a large chamber, its black walls rounded with smooth grooves as if a great serpent had gouged its insides by twisting around and around. My nose pinched at the musty smell. Mela followed me inside, her boots gritting on the stone floor. She focused on the strangely coiled object in the cavern, dirty white and marble-ish. "What the hells is that?"

In the middle of the lair was what looked to be an enormous snakeskin. I strode over and tentatively toed it with a boot, and it crumbled to dust.

"Keep looking," the Uzrek urged.

"What the hells for?" I asked, carefully striding around the perimeter of the bare cavern. But just as I'd mentally spoken, I spotted it.

I stilled.

There was a fucking breach in one side of the burrow.

Stalking over, I crouched down and peered into the dark hole. It was a tunnel, shallow and narrow with just enough room for me to crawl and wriggle my way through as long as the size held. It looked unnatural as if it had been made by an adolescent Stone Eater chewing through the rock.

"I'm going to take a look," I said to Mela. I shrugged off my backpack and unstrapped my cursed sword, leaving it propped up against the wall. Mela dug out a flask of water and offered it to me first. I chugged down mouthfuls of crisp, refreshing water before handing it back.

"Hells, so good," she sighed, drinking fully and wiping her wet mouth with the back of her hand, flicking droplets off her dirty fingers. "You be careful," she huffed out as I squatted down and clambered inside the hole.

I had to get down so low I was on my belly, crawling through the narrow passageway, using my feet to shove me forward. A claustrophobic feeling squeezed all around me as I inched along, wriggling. The roughened stone dug into my gut, protected by the armor, but my fingers stung as I grazed them on the pocked surface, hauling my body forward.

The tiny tunnel stretched onward in a straight line.

On and on I crawled and wiggled.

Endlessly moving forward.

"Why are you helping me?" I mentally asked.

"Who says I'm helping? Maybe I'm simply curious," replied the Uzrek.

"Curious about what?"

The ancient beast made a murmuring sound of reflection, and there was a long pause of silence before it answered. "Why Sirro wants this Yezekael and if it has anything to do with your mother."

I stopped moving. Shock rushed into my lungs.

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

A laugh rumbled through my mind before I felt the Uzrek leafing through my memories, the sensation much like the fluttering of pages."The Horned God's there in the periphery of your memories. At gatherings, you and your family attended with the other Houses. I'm curious about the way he looked at your mother when he thought no one was observing him."

"What do you mean?" How did the Horned God look at my mother? And why hadn't I noticed?

The Uzrek answered my unspoken thoughts. "You were young at the time and oblivious to what you'd witnessed."

"How did he look at my mother?"

"With a strange mix of emotions," the wizened creature replied. "Admiration, longing, and regret...perhaps even a touch of pride."

What the hells?

It was an onslaught of information overload.

Sirro and my mother? What kind of connection did the two of them have? Maybe she hadn't even been aware of his attention. Maybe it was due to her saving the life of a Horned God all those years ago. Sirro's life perhaps? Maybe his affection for her simply was to do with her rising to a position a servant never had before.

But, regret and longing?

That sure as fuck didn't sit well with me.

I was even more determined to find this Yezekael.

There!

A shift in the darkness where the gloom was more filmy than flat.

An opening.

I crawled, my palms and fingers stinging, and my knees rubbed raw from the jagged rock.

"Finally," the Uzrek sighed in a way that sounded bored. As if the fucking thing had been dealing with a distracted child and had to lead me here like an infant.

"I can hear all your thoughts," he hissed.

"It comes with snooping in people's heads."

I could smell it before I was able to see it.

Yezekael's stale spicy scent wafted in and I dragged it through my nostrils.

I crawled closer, carefully peering through the wide crack in the rock and there it fucking was. Yezekael's new nest.

It was much like the abandoned nest Mela and I had found nearly two weeks ago. The space inside was larger though, and along the floor of the burrow where it met the uneven wall was a new collection of strange bits and pieces it had begun to gather.

This time I couldn't enter the burrow. I could only see a partial view of the nest right in the center of the lair, formed from bent branches and bones that were more whitish than mottled, and that was telling as to how long the creature had been here. The nest wasn't quite as big as the other either, as if it were still being made. There were torn pieces of fabric, a few feathers, and pieces of jewelry poking through the woven structure.

Relief and determination swelled in my chest.

Now, fucking finally, we had a lock on Yezekael.

"Indeed you do, son of the wyrm," the Uzrek chuckled in my mind.

Now to find a way to trap it.

Across the burrow was an entrance. Obviously, there was another way into Yezekael's part of the catacombs we hadn't discovered as yet.

I frowned. "There's another way in there. The passage it uses to come and go. How do we get to it?"

"You don't. It will know if you're about. This way you have a chance to capture it unaware."

The air knotted in my throat thickly, and my lips pressed together hard as if determined to stop the words that needed to be said. I swallowed back distaste and pushed it out. "Thank you."

But there was nothing but silence on the other end of the mental line.

Until a delighted chuckle rebounded inside my mind. "See, it wasn't so hard to say, after all, death-dealer."

I crawled slowly back along the serpent's tunnel. I smelled like a mix of the catacombs and Stone Eater, rank and foul, and as I moved, wiggling and shunting backward, I tried to work through everything we'd need to trap Yezekael, but Nelle's riotous emotions kept skittering beneath my skin. Terror had ensnared her and she was almost on the verge of a full-blown panic attack.

Calm, calm, calm—kept rolling around in my head like a mantra because that ancient, feral part of me was hissing at me to turn around and run back to the Keep and—Save her, save her, save her.

I was torn in two.

I needed to work with Mela to trap Yezekael, but Nelle needed me more.

Yet, there was nothing I could do for her.

Apart from this.

Closing my eyes, I concentrated hard, willing those filaments of dark magic, those otherworldly threads that connected us as one, to infuse Nelle with my strength. To lend her courage. To fill her with warmth and blinding sunshine.