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“We’re making inroads.” The ghouls had noticed; their howls grew deafening.

“Almost to the entrance! We need to reach that rift in time—” A crevasse suddenly ruptured beside them, splitting the plateau like a cracked plate. Ghouls bowled against her as the ground shifted. “Adham!” Kosmina evaded their claws but teetered at the edge, nearly horizontal.

He lunged for her, snatching her sword arm before she fell. The drop couldn’t be more than a couple of dozen feet, but ghouls had tumbled in to fill the ravine below her.

As Adham yanked her up, they sprang into the air and seized her hair, dangling from it!

“Ahh!” Her head snapped back, neck arcing.

He gripped her arm tighter. Tug-of-war; she was the rope. He slashed his sword behind her, lopping off the ends of her hair.

The recoil flung her into him.Safe.

Yet then she screamed. A ghoul had slipped up from behind. Before Adham could defend, Kosmina shoved her free arm between its claws and Adham’s neck.

Five new wounds gaped across her skin.

“Kosmina?” Adham backhanded the creature so hard it didn’t rise, then pulled her against him. Blood rushed from her arm to soak her slashed sleeve, but he spied the green contagion already spreading.

She’d known she would get clawed! “Why? Woman, why?”

She swallowed, stoic look in place. “What’s done is done.” As more ghouls welled from the entrance, she freed herself from his grasp, rushing into the fray. “I’ll get you inside. You’ll pick up the scent of the mortal world as you get closer.”

Burying his shock, he charged after her. He would kill every one of the ghouls, get her to freedom, then secure that wishgiver ring. Kosmina would turn within three days at most, but it could be hours.I’ll save her before then.

Another quake almost sent him to his knees; she was flung feet away. The ghouls, used to this, maintained their footing and attacked him in number. As he carved with his sword, he kept his gaze on her.

She’d leapt to her feet—too late; a sentry swung a rock, bashing it against her temple.

“Noo!”Adham roared when she crumpled to the ground unconscious. Sword slashing in a frenzy, he barreled forward.

But a pair of sentries snatched her up and sprinted inside the mountain with their prize. Others guarded their escape.

He fought headlong. “Mina!” Another quake reverberated. Just before he reached the hive’s entrance, a massive landslide rained down.

He dove to follow his mate into the hive?—

Boulders caught him, bulleting him back into that new ravine. The force was unstoppable; stone ravaged even hisimmortal body. Sword and sand lost. And then the ravine closed on him like a giant mouth, swallowing him and a troop of ghouls.

He had to reach her, had to fight! He thrashed with all his strength; exposed bones flayed open his ragged skin. His mangled limbs couldn’t budge the rocks. Without moving the rocks, he couldn’t regenerate. Pain warred with panic. Air grew scarce in this tomb.

A glow appeared in the dark, a ghoul buried right beside him. It dug its green hand through the rubble toward Adham’s trapped arm but couldn’t stretch enough to reach him. Desperate to infect, it extended its forefinger until scant inches separated him from a dripping claw. Wriggling closer. Closer. A worm burrowing . . .

Immobilized, Adham couldn’t flee. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t save Kosmina.

He struggled to sense his pouch of sand, tried to connect with the silt these rocks had created. But suffocation threatened. Would he die and resurrect over and over until Nightside’s end? Or until his ghoul neighbor made contact?

Thoughts faded with his air supply. His princess’s name carried on his last breath. “Mina . . .”

Forty-Six

“For the love of all that’s unholy, will you shut up?” Lothaire snapped as he and Kristoff limped farther away from the first sign oflivinglife they’d found in this godsforsaken place. “I tire of your constant complaining. I have Mina’s scent, and I will continue to track it.” Lothaire’s insanity remained piqued after his near death against the revenants and the return of those hellhounds.

Yet Kristoff needed to reach him. “Of course we will follow her, but that castle you passed up back there would’ve had food.” The holding, amid a sea of boiling water, had looked like a lifeline. “We could regenerate and ready ourselves for other foes.”

“There was also sorcery in that castle,” Lothaire pointed out as they climbed to a rock-strewn plateau beside a mountain. “You failed to learn from my earlier wisdom. Lesson two thousand and twenty-nine: Beware the Sorceri.” He inhaled the misty air, frowning. Had he lost the trail?

Probably. They were too depleted to be effective. “You might be able to feed on a reptile’s leisurely schedule, but I need blood every day. I could bite my own neck right now.”