Kerralyn was already scanning the corridor, her hands moving toward the pack she wasn’t carrying. She had nothing to bind the wound with, nothing to slow the bleeding. Her face said she knew it.
“We’ll deal with it when we’re out,” Isi said, keeping her voice steady so Lexie would believe they’d get out. “Hold pressure if you can.”
Derren was beside Lexie before anyone else moved, one look at her leg telling him everything. He pulled her arm across his shoulders and lifted, taking her weight completely. His jaw set, eyes forward.
“Don’t,” Lexie said.
“Don’t argue,” he said back.
She didn’t.
Gavelle and Pherin finished the second Skathe, turning it to cinders.
“We have to hurry,” Kira gasped when we joined her. “They’ll seal the exits. We have only a few minutes before—” A roar echoed from the upper level, followed by the crash of doors.
“Fuck,” I breathed. We’d walked into a trap, and now we were the ones being hunted.
“They know you’re here,” Derren said grimly.
We ditched our pendants, deciding it would be easier to fight in our own forms, and ran through corridors that seemed to shift and twist around us. Kira led, her knowledge of the layout invaluable.
Chaos ruled the ground level. I pressed myself into the shadows along a wall as Skathes ran in every direction, searching. When a patrol came near, we pressed ourselves into an alcove while they thundered past, their claws clicking on the stone floor.
“This way,” Kira hissed, pointing to a long hall on the opposite side of this one. We rushed after her. “Once we’re outside, I’ll take you to the breach site.”
I snuffed out a torch with magic and ripped the metal spike holding it off the wall. Its weight and pointed tip felt satisfying in my grip.
We ran down the corridor, following Kira toward a side entrance. But as we approached the open archway at the end, a figure stepped inside, blocking our path.
Tall, she wore a dark cloak, with long gray-tinged hair spilling from beneath the hood. Power radiated from her like heat from a forge, and her voice carried an odd distortion that made my skin crawl.
“Leaving so soon?” she asked.
She raised one pale hand, and magic gathered, the sick, corrupted power of bloodfire. Behind her, three Skathes lumbered around her and into view. She placed her fingers on the first one’s forehead.
The creature shrieked as its life force drained away, its screams turning to wet gurgles as it collapsed. The thing that had been a monster moments before became a desiccated husk that crumbled to ash on the floor.
And the woman was changing. The skin on her hands tightened, wrinkles smoothing away. Her hair sticking out from around the hood grew lustrous, red where it had started to gray. Though we couldn’t see her face, it was clear she’d stolen years of life from the creature and made them her own.
Every Skathe in this fortress was a weapon she could use against us. We weren’t just outnumbered. We were surrounded by her ammunition.
My stomach turned, and every instinct screamed that we were facing something that should not exist.
“Bloodfire magic,” Isi breathed beside me.
The woman’s attention fixed on her before shifting to Addie. “Velacross’s legacy has finally arrived, and it hopes to make a difference. How poetic. Tell me, girls, do you dream of your grandfather’s sins?”
I wasn’t sure how they knew to do it, but Isi and Addie combined their magic in a way that made the air sing. Silver and blue-white light erupted from their joined hands, fusing together into a single, blinding cord.
The cloaked woman laughed and gestured at the remaining Skathes. They dissolved into ash as she drained them and used their life force to fuel a barrier that deflected the sisters’ attack.
“Impressive,” the woman said. “But you’re children playing with powers you don’t understand.”
Gavelle and Pherin dove at her from above, forcing her to dodge.
A blast of flames, and she disappeared.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE