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I tuck my blade away, unbothered, superior, flawless. “What can I say? I contain multitudes.”
But Luna is watching me differently now.
She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t roll her eyes or smirk or make some biting remark to put me back in my place. She just looks at me, gaze calculating, like she’s rethinking whatever she thought she knew about me.
So, naturally, I wink at her. “Told you to let me have that one.”
And gods help me, she smirks.
The moment stretches too long, a thin, razor-sharp thread of quiet that should have been my first warning. Luna’s smirk lingers, slow and knowing, and I should have known better, should have known that silence never means safety in this gods-forsaken nightmare realm. The ground beneath us gives one final, violent tremor, and then it erupts.
A fracture splits the ruins apart, jagged and raw, sending debris and stone clawing at the sky. The force of it nearly knocks me off my feet, and from the darkness beneath, something massive and wrong begins to rise. It moves like it’s dragging itself from the depths of hell, a writhing thing of shadow and sinew, its limbs shifting and reforming as if it hasn’t quite decided what shape it wants to take.
Lucien moves first, as he always does. His blade is already drawn, slicing through the air in a single, efficient motion, steel glinting as it finds its mark. He is precise. Lethal. But the thing, whatever the fuck it is, does not die. It does not recoil or scream.It does not fall apart beneath his practiced, deadly strike. Instead, it laughs.
The sound is not made of breath, not formed from lungs or throat, but rather an unnatural, disembodied thing, something that skitters through the ruins, settling into the marrow of my bones like sickness. I grimace.
“Oh, great,” I mutter, flexing my grip around my blade, already too tired for this shit. “It talks. Because that’s exactly what I needed tonight, some ancient horror monologuing at me.”
Silas, still grinning like a damn idiot, twirls a dagger between his fingers and elbows me lightly, unbothered by the massive, reality-breaking creature looming before us. “C’mon, you love this stuff.”
I shoot him a flat look. “I absolutely do not.”
Riven, who has never had a patient bone in his entire body, is already done waiting. Without hesitation, without even the barest hint of strategy, he lunges forward, all brute force and sharpened rage, a snarl ripping from his throat as he aims for the thing’s center. His blade finds its mark, buries deep into the writhing mess of limbs and shifting flesh.
But the thing moves with him.
Its body shifts, bending around the wound, swallowing the steel like it’s a mere inconvenience. And then, it opens its mouth.
Not a normal mouth. Not something natural. But a jagged, gaping wound in the fabric of reality, lined with too many teeth, stretching wide enough to swallow him whole.
I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. One second I’m watching, the next, I’m moving.
I grab Riven by the collar, yank him back hard, and the creature’s massive jaws snap shut around nothing but empty air. The sound is a sickening, wet crunch, the force of itvibrating through my bones, and I am deeply grateful that I am not currently scraping Riven off the ground in pieces.
Riven lands hard on his feet, wild-eyed and furious, his breath ragged from the near miss. He turns, jaw tight, rage radiating from him in thick waves. “I had it handled.”
I level him with a flat, unimpressed stare. “Oh yeah? Because from where I was standing, it looked like you were about to get eaten by a giant void-mouth. And as funny as that would have been, I’d rather not explain to Luna why I let you get chomped.”
His glare could peel the skin from my bones, but before he can attempt to punch me in the face for my noble, life-saving efforts, a shift in the air drags my attention sideways.
Luna steps forward.
And she is glowing.
Not with the soft, warm light of something mortal, but with something darker, something older, something that does not belong to this world. Magic pools around her, thick as storm clouds, creeping through the cracks in the ruined stone, rising like a tide. And the creature, the massive, snarling thing that just tried to devour Riven without so much as an afterthought, pauses.
I flick my gaze between her and the creature, arching a brow. "Well?" I gesture toward the thing. “Are you gonna handle it, or should I keep saving Riven’s ass all night?”
Riven snarls at me, lunging forward with clear intent to murder.
Luna laughs.
And the creature finally realizes it’s made a mistake.
Riven moves like a force of nature, like something born from the raw chaos of war itself. There is no hesitation, no calculation, only instinct honed to the sharpest edge. He surges forward, his blade carving through the darkness in a brutal, merciless arc. The creature barely reacts, it doesn't dodge,doesn’t even seem to acknowledge the danger, until steel meets flesh.
The first strike lands deep, sinking into the writhing mass of its body. A sound rips from the beast, something ancient and guttural, but it isn’t pain. It’s rage. The creature retaliates in an instant, slamming a limb against Riven with enough force to shatter bone, to kill something mortal. The impact sends him skidding backward, boots scraping against the broken earth, blood already dripping from his mouth where his lip split on impact.