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EVANGELINE

D uring the seconds I was debating ignoring Blake’s order—a direct order that I’d promised to obey—the choice was taken from me.

A violent pull wrenched me downward, the stone floor dissolving beneath my feet. Cold darkness swallowed me whole, and I plummeted, twisting and spinning, weightless yet suffocating. A force—something ancient, something cruel—dragged me into the abyss.

I fell for what felt like hours, arms flailing, legs kicking.

I might have screamed, before the wind tore the breath from my lungs, and I lost my best knife as I clawed at the rushing air to stop my descent.

I hit the ground hard, shattering the silver nitrate vials, one of my own daggers slicing into my thigh.

The smothering, stale air was damp and smelled of limestone and decay. Flickering torches cast jagged shadows on the hewn walls of a labyrinth—identical corridors leading off in all directions. My pulse roared in my ears as I staggered to my feet, trying to get my bearings.

Then Ravok was right in front of me.

The Ancient emerged from the darkness, wreathed in smoke and shadows, his crimson-flecked gaze gleaming with triumph as he bore down on me. My magic guttered, sinking back into the well at my center. I tried to keep breathing, but down here, in his domain, even the air was poisoned with his oppressive power.

“I have foreseen this moment so many times,” he murmured, his silken voice sinister. He stepped closer, power radiating from him like a storm waiting to break. “You, brought to me at last. Fate always corrects its course.”

I glared up at him, willing myself to speak. “You don’t control fate any more than you control us. Now where is Malachi?”

His lips curled. “But I do. And Malachi…” He sighed, almost wistful. “His death is inevitable. I have seen it. You must accept that as truth.”

A chill raced down my spine, but before I could react, a voice—warm, steady, and achingly familiar—bloomed in my mind.

Run, Evangeline. You have to run. Now. None of what you see is real, but soon enough, it will be and I cannot keep you safe.

Malachi . He was still alive. My breath caught. His words sent a rush of fresh resolve through me.

You are the one thing he cannot control.

Ravok’s gaze sharpened, as if sensing our silent conversation. He reached for me, fingers curling in the air like invisible chains tightening around my throat. That hand swiped straight toward my face…

And nothing but a wash of cold air brushed over me.

When I opened my eyes, the corridor was empty. An illusion . That had been an illusion.

Run, Malachi urged. I’ll buy you as much time as I can, but you have to get everyone out of here, none of you will survive if you don’t.

I didn’t hesitate. Whirling on my heel, I sprinted deeper into the labyrinth, following the fragile trail of the blood bond, toward Malachi, and toward Ravok.

* * *

The serpentine corridors wound before me like the insides of some stone beast. Every breath was a ragged gasp, each inhale carried the scent of damp stone tinged with something metallic and familiar.

Malachi's blood.

I pressed my palm flat against my throat where the blood bond throbbed like a second pulse, increasingly frantic. The insistent warning worked like a compass point, pulling me deeper and deeper into this labyrinth, a maze I would never find my way out of.

“Hold on,” I whispered, though he couldn't hear me. “I'm coming.”

My footsteps echoed against the walls as I raced around another corner, skidding to a halt at a three-way intersection. The bond tugged sharply to the left—a path that plunged deeper into the mountain, away from daylight and safety. I didn't hesitate.

With each step, the air grew heavier, something evil lurking beneath the dusty, smothering atmosphere. My magic kept stirring, like even it sensed something wasn’t right. Everything felt wrong—the stone around me, the air, the humming vibration that buzzed in my ears like insects.

Discordant. Like everything down here was at odds.

“Where are you, Malachi?” I muttered, picking up my pace.

Pain lanced through our bond, a spike so intense I fell to my knees. Somewhere ahead, Malachi was hurting. Ravok was hurting him . The thought sent a surge of primal fury roaring through my veins.

My shadow flames responded immediately.

They rose around me like a cape suspended in the air, blackness spilling from my fingertips, surrounding me like a penumbra of darkness. I hadn't summoned them—not consciously—but my fear had called and they had answered.

That dark fire roared ahead of me in a devouring plume as I raced along the passages, dragging along hewn stone walls like curious fingers and everywhere they touched, the mountain seemed to shudder.

Dust sprinkled down from overhead.

Low rumbles vibrated up through the soles of my boots.

“ No, no, no ,” I hissed, trying to rein them in. “You need to wait. We’re almost there.”

But another tremor shook the passageway, stronger this time. A crack appeared overhead, zigzagging across the stone, the floor rumbling beneath my feet, that low, even hum growing more intense the deeper I went.

I forced myself to keep moving. I had to get control or I would bring the entire mountain down on all our heads—Malachi included. Blake and Rohr and Eldric, if they were behind me. But my magic was a fickle bitch, fighting me the entire time, stubbornly resisting every attempt at control, like it had a mind of its own.

Another sharp pull from the bond, a desperation that wasn't mine flooding me with fear.

Malachi needed help. And even though the smell of his blood was close enough to touch, our bond was thinning by the second, ready to snap.

“I’m almost there,” I whispered to the shadows, to myself, to him . “Hold on, just a little longer. I’m coming. I’m coming .”

My flames surged forward, carving a path through the dust choked corridor ahead. The stone groaned in protest, those flickering flames dragging along the wall with a shriek—like nails on a chalkboard.

That strange, magical dissonance grew stronger with each twist and turn. The power locked down in these tunnels felt ancient and corrupt, as if someone had taken the natural order of things and tangled them together in an unnatural way. My shadows reacted, growing more volatile with every pounding step.

There was a dead end ahead, an intersection, and I skidded to a stop, nearly slamming into the wall, I’d been moving so fast. To my right was an opening, the room beyond glowing with a warm, soothing light.

To my left… no.

Oh God, no.

My palms pressed hard against cold, damp stone, lungs stuffed so full of the limey taste of granite and the coppery scent of Malachi’s blood, my fangs punched out in a surge of hunger.

Then hunger turned to horror, everything in me recoiling from the sight in front of me.

Outlined by an arched doorway, Malachi hung suspended in front of a whirling black sphere, spilling over with a throbbing, corrupted energy that thumped against my chest like a beating drum. His eyes were closed, chin rested on his chest, red, glowing chains cutting so deeply from his weight he was bleeding everywhere, from his arms, his face, his throat.

So much blood, dripping and dripping endlessly into a still pool of water beneath him.

Aria waited behind him, barely even a ghost, silver-streaked hair framing her skeletal face, dark eyes glistening in sunken, bruised eye sockets. But more of that red magic spilled from her hands, keeping Malachi trapped.

Keeping him in pain.

“Put him the fuck down.” The bond yanked hard, as if Malachi was trying to stop me, and my eyes flicked to him, searching for a sign of life. “Let me rephrase that. Put him down or I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Only the Master has the authority to command me.” Aria’s ghostly whisper suspended in the throbbing air, and the entire chamber shuddered when I stepped inside, magic spilling out of me in an uncontrolled rage of dark fire.

Every part of my body contracted when I crossed that threshold, as if I’d stepped into a different dimension, and the power in here felt…odd.

Familiar, yet frightening, ancient, yet brand new, and while my instincts were screaming for me to run, my magic purred, as if my flames recognized some kinship with this strange, primordial magic, something familiar lurking behind that dark portal…and yet, was cautious.

My flames licked the edge of that still pool, sending a burst of steam hissing into the air. The walls groaned, stones shifting ominously. I didn't care. All I saw was Malachi's shadowed face, blood dripping into that pool beneath him, and Aria— hurting him .

The entire mountain could collapse around us. The whole world could end.

I didn’t care about that, either. Nothing else mattered if I lost him.

“Last chance,” I warned, but my magic was already there, a plume of hunger that engulfed her in the next heartbeat, a ravenous monster without mercy that devoured flesh and corruption and the last of her crimson power as if it were the lifeblood upon which I existed.

Her flesh solidified as she turned to ice, leaving my mouth tainted with rot, and a trace of the witch’s final, furious rage.

In that final second, I felt sorry for her, this once-powerful creature caught and used by a bigger monster, little more than a pawn at the end. But like Ravok, Aria had made her own fate, today was just her final reckoning.

The room was so clogged with hate and foulness that I heaved up a mouthful of vomit, engulfed by the reeking stench and the taste of decay as Aria crumbled to the ground in a pile of frosted dust.

Then the dull thudding of the portal filtered back in through my misery, a sense of resolve straightened my spine until I was upright, staring at what that bitch had done.

“I’ll get you down from there,” I promised Malachi, his head still slumped forward onto his chest. I stopped short of the pool, unsure what would happen if I stepped into that still water. “I’m going to…”

A dark chuckle answered me—not Malachi's voice. From the back of the chamber, Ravok stepped over Aria’s ashes, power billowing around him like red-tinted storm clouds.

“Get away from him,” I commanded, my voice unnaturally amplified by the magic-infused air. “Or I will ice you over, too.”

Ravok's smile only widened, “Evangeline,” he crooned, drawing my name out like a threat. “You came to me. This ritual requires both of you, after all.”

Shadows burst out of nowhere, engulfing me in a torrent of cold, smothering darkness, binding my wrists, my legs, twining cruelly around my throat, icy pain trickling into me everywhere they touched. Ravok’s smile was cruelty incarnate, his gaze directed over my head as Romulus whispered in my ear?—

“Now my old friend will finally understand that everything he has ever done has been in his Master’s service. Bringing you here was his greatest gift to him, and the one thing we could not accomplish alone.”