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Math tore past him, with Rig still high on his back. The young apprentice held a runestone high that cast its own feeble dome of amethyst light.

“There! She’s there!” Rig screamed and pointed toward a cropping of jagged stalagmites. “Medda! Sissy!”

Shadows converged on the place, as if they’d only just noticed the child, too. Math sprinted toward the sling just visible behind the outcropping. Moments before the shadows descended, the circle of the dome spread over Medda and the sling. The shadows smashed off the barrier and the force of it drove Math to his knees. Rig tumbled from his back, scrambling on all fours to get to Medda while Math gripped his runestone and held it higher.

Rig pulled his sister onto his lap and hugged her, sobbing.

“Stop him,” Anrid gasped weakly. “You need to—stop him.”

Jael returned his focus to Talos, who still held his hand tented above the nameless tome, mouth twisted in shock. Had he not known what messing with that book could do?

“What are you doing?” Jael’s voice echoed over the cruel laughter of the shadows testing the strength of the two domes.

Talos worked his mouth, but no words came.

“What are you doing?” Jael repeated the question. “You need to stop this. Now!”

You can’t stop us. We are forever. Unstoppable. Unquenchable. Unsatiable.

Chilling laughter echoed in Jael’s bones. Even the dark elf flinched away from the terror he had unleashed. Had he thought he could control them?

Talos seemed to regather his courage as the voices reverberated around them. His mouth set in a forbidding line as his brows twisted and lowered over his hard eyes. “I am doing what I need to do for my people.” He spat the words at Jael, as if he were to blame for whatever woes plagued the dark elves. “The shades will return Gelaira to its glory.”

Anrid twisted in Jael’s arms so that she could see her betrothed. “But you’re putting the rest of Rhuin in danger! Don’t you see that? These shadows—these shades—they’re ripping Agmon apart!”

His gaze flitted over her as if she were of little importance. “The unworthy always fall.”

Your fall is inevitable. The shades’ laughter rose to ear-splitting shrieks. Inevitable. Inevitable...

The word rolled over and over in crushing waves that threatened to pop his eardrums.

Teague moved into Jael’s peripherals. He’d been so quiet; Jael had forgotten he was even there. The older elf took one more step toward his leader. “But they’re killing our own people!” he protested. “Talos, they’re killing us.” He waved a hand as if to indicate the others that were no longer present…the dark elves that had been lost.

Talos stared back at him, unflinching and unrelenting. “The unworthy will fall,” he repeated coldly, clinging to his foolish sentiment. “Those that remain will be stronger for it.”

At this, the shades dove toward them with renewed intensity and smashed against the fragile barrier cast by the light of Jael’s runestone. He buckled beneath the staggering power of the attack. The rune tore more strength from him, from the Bifrost, as it fought to maintain the shield. Anrid cried out and sagged against him, as if her strength was also torn from her to maintain the spell.

Talos lifted his hand, the one tented over the book. As he twirled his palm toward the ceiling, violent blue flames erupted around his hand and formed a fireball. Jael opened his mouth to order him to stop, but with a mere flick of his wrist, Talos flung the fireball toward them.

Jael only had time to twist his body to shield Anrid, to brace for the impact.

Only it never came.

Kora sprinted around him and threw his own body into the path of the projectile.

Chapter 37

Anrid screamed when Kora recoiled, collapsing after the fireball caught him on the chest and ignited with a roar.

A bellow reverberated in Jael’s torso as he pushed her away and dove toward Talos before he could summon another magical attack. The amethyst light from the runestone flickered off the cavern ceiling and walls in erratic motions, the way a spinning prism might catch the sunlight .

Wicked laughter attacked her on all sides. She struggled to ignore it and dropped to her knees beside a stunned Kora, who laid spread-eagle with blue flames licking at the front of his rumpled and torn tunic. Panic froze her in place.

You can’t save him, the shades hissed into her ear. You can’t save any of them.

She believed them.

The words invoked a despair in her unlike anything she’d ever known. They tore open a pit inside that could swallow and drown her in its depths.