Page 213 of Lana Pecherczyk

Ash frowned as he stood and examined their environment. “Maybe when Cloud attacked her, the wards weakened too.”

“Makes sense.” River shook his head, annoyed he hadn’t thought of that himself. Some wards could be tied off, left to run on their own almost indefinitely. But other wards, particularly those that included silent alarms written into the spell, must be tied to the caster’s lifeforce.

The stench hit next—raw flesh and acidic blood.

River gestured toward the right and moved first, hand hovering onPeacemaker. They walked around the spire and discovered two dead Wellhounds, black fur matted with ichor. Stab wounds pierced their hides, ripped open their guts. No lightning scars, but Cloud’s handiwork nonetheless. River had fought too many battles with him to mistake his favorite knife’s shape, the entry angle of the wounds.

Their jaws still gaped in death, and their weeping acidic eyes stared blankly.

River crouched beside the nearest carcass and examined the killing strokes.

“Precise. Clean. Economical,” he noted. Cloud had inflicted maximum damage with the least amount of stabs. He tested a clean part of the flank and found it still warm. His touch jostled a final manabee free from the body. River darted away,avoiding the hit. The mana could hold a vital memory, but the intoxicating effect wouldn’t be worth the trouble. He needed his wits about him. Instinct was how River survived. He tensed, preparing for more. Nothing.

The beasts must have been killed only minutes ago, a quarter turn at most.

Considering the breadth of damage at the Shadow Market, Cloud’s inner well must surely be close to depleted. Flying here wouldn’t have allowed him to refill. Despite this, Cloud hadn’t harvested the manabeeze. Ingesting them made one drunk, yes, but there were other ways to use the magic—powering a mana stone, for one.

“He’s in a rush.” River straightened. “But for what?”

Why kidnap Blake and bring her here?

Ash crouched to inspect a path of disturbed treasure showing where a body had been dragged. River didn’t need to follow it to know where it led. Blake’s presence, however faint, pulled in the same direction, toward a dark tunnel carved into the spire’s central peak. The doorway inside. Every instinct of his screamed for him to rush forward, but he forced himself to scan first. To use his training.

Something dark stained trinkets near the doorway—fresh vomit.

River’s blood ran cold. “Blake’s still unwell.”

Ash’s head snapped up. He looked to where River gestured and failed to hide his concern. They both knew that a Well-blessed human shouldn’t be sick, not like this. Before River could voice his fears, Ash strode toward the shadowed archway.

“This doorway leads down a spiraling staircase and splits into tunnels, leading far below the surface. Even into neighboring pinnacles.”

“No shit?” River gaped, mind whirling. “It’s like an ant farm in there?”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

River entered after Ash and descended crude steps that appeared to be carved out by talons. Dark memories permeated the stale air. The space accommodated wings, barely.

River hesitated to shift his away. Being trapped here without escape, knowing Blake depended on him, made him cautious.

Their boots echoed. Feathers brushed the walls, dislodging dust. Each step drove them deeper. The temperature rose. The Well’s presence thickened and pressed against River’s skin like mud.

“Princeling,” he murmured, gaze catching on skeletal remains embedded in a wall. “This place is fucked up.”

A pause. “Yeah.”

A few more steps ended in a landing, a fork in the path illuminated by blue glowworms crawling over the ceiling. Two circular passages vanished into darkness.

River strained his senses, checking for danger down each.

The right tunnel pulsed with twisted mana and smelled like a wet animal. A low growl echoed from its depths. Chains rattled. The left passage felt … cold. Dead. Deeper into the shadows, the lip of a massive rusted pipe protruded from the tunnel’s wall. Like a storm drain.

Except, where the water near Cloud’s trove had kept them sufficiently connected to the Well, here, it seemed like the pipewasthe tunnel. The metal itself exuded the distinct sensation of wrongness. It felt empty, devoid of mana, yet smelled like ozone.

He had the sense that the shadows were hungry, waiting to siphon his mana and swallow it like breakfast.

“What is it?” he asked.

Ash paused. Fidgeted. “It’s the bad place I told you about.”