Page 21 of Malicent (Seven Devils #1)

Millicent

DODGING SOME FALLEN LOGS AND twisted roots, I push forward until, eventually, the forest thins to a clearing. Ollie perches on a stump, his dark eyes darting toward the ivy-cloaked cave nestled on the hillside. It’s nearly invisible against the moss-covered stone.

“There are two men in the fields. Go get them,” I order, waving him off before turning to the cave.

As I push aside the emerald ivy, a wave of something dark and decrepit slams into me.

There you are. My fingers tighten around the steel hilts of my blades as I unsheathe them from my back, my muscles tense in preparation.

Within, the darkness is absolute. No light filters through the dense earth, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t need it.

As I descend on my mission to find the beast responsible for the massacre, the temperature plummets unnaturally quickly. Frost creeps along my boots like the thin tendrils of ice spiderwebbing across the stone walls. The soil beneath my feet is firm, solid enough that each step echoes faintly.

Then comes the smell: thick, rancid, and clinging to the air like grease. The scent of death. I bring a hand to my nose, but it does little to block the stench.

Something crunches on my next step.

I glance down. Bones—some still clothed in rotting flesh, others stripped bare—litter the floor. With every step, more splinter and snap under my weight.

Still, I press on.

Then, I hear it, a faint broken sob.

A child? No. That’s impossible. There’s no way a girl wandered down here.

Which means this is either a trap, or this is something that likes to keep its victims alive. A slow-feeding creature, perhaps, but that doesn’t fit. Not with the carnage left behind in the fields.

Is this the same beast?

Or am I missing something here?

The passage begins to narrow, the walls tightening around my shoulders.

The space shrinks further as I push forward, forcing me to turn sideways to slide between the stones.

Dirt breaks loose in dry clumps, flaking into my hair and coating my arms. I take smaller breaths, trying not to inhale the dust.

The sobs grow louder.

The sorrow in them is visceral, each cry drawn out with an aching loneliness.

My arm slides through an opening in the rock, and I pull myself forward, and I find myself in a massive cavern yawning before me.

Immense and sprawling, it dwarfs the passage I just escaped. Five tunnels gape like mouths, stretching into the darkness. The crying spills from the center tunnel. I mark the one to my left mentally as the first tunnel and note the center one as three to help direct myself.

I step forward, quickening my pace, ignoring the brittle crunch of bones. I follow the sobs down the third tunnel, navigating another narrowing passage. Suddenly, I squeeze through a tight gap only to end up in another open chamber.

It’s the same one.

The tunnels still gape ahead. The sobs still come from the third.

My grip tightens on my blades. There was no shift—no flicker of runes, no distortion of magic—that I could sense. And yet I looped.

I try the fourth and fifth halls. Same result.

I retrace my steps along the cavern walls, sheathing my blades to run my hands over the stone, searching for hidden runes or markings. I already know this is not practical. The chamber is circular, endless, stretching so high that even my sight cannot pierce the darkness above.

Stalactites hang like jagged fangs, dripping slow streams of cool water from their tips. Below, stalagmites rise in sharp, uneven clusters of miniature mountains, carving out obstacles across the cavern floor. If there are runes, they could be anywhere.

My frustration mounts. I leave the wall, kneeling beside one of the larger stalagmites and running my fingers along its rough surface. Nothing.

Taking a slow breath, I try the first and second tunnels again.

The loop repeats.

How long have I been in here? Something is fraying at the edges of my awareness.

The presence I felt at the mouth of the cave has been shifting, waxing and waning like the ebb and flow of the tide. Has it been an hour? Longer? Losing track of time is never good, especially now that I’m certain:

I’m in something’s domain.

There’s no curse. No illusion.

Only the most evolved creatures—those whose very existence is steeped in magic—can create a domain like this.

Within these domains, reality bends to the creatures’ will.

They can manipulate space, summon illusion, and distort time itself.

The strongest can do even worse: inflict poisons, insanity, curses, compulsion, the list doesn’t end.

To test my theory, I turn, scanning the cavern for the hundredth time. Then I see it.

The entrance is gone. Only smooth stone remains.

“Ah, so you know I’m here,” I call out—not just to the dark but to what is lurking unseen. My voice echoes through the cavern, swallowed by the silence.

“Come now, don’t be shy,” I sigh, rolling my shoulders as my patience wears thin. The bones scattered across the floor suddenly make sense. If this thing lures, traps, and simply waits for its prey to starve, that would explain the remains.

Something doesn’t add up. A creature capable of controlling a domain this vast shouldn’t rely on such a weak method of hunting. This is too…passive.

I spin the ring on my thumb, thinking.

Then the crying grows louder, and so does the sound of footsteps.

I freeze, my eyes snapping toward the third tunnel. Small, shuffling steps grow louder. Slowly, she emerges.

It’s a little girl—she couldn’t be more than five. Her blonde hair hangs in tangled clumps. A torn brown dress clings to her tiny frame. Her bare feet are blackened, flecked with dried blood, the wounds fresh from the jagged bones underfoot.

Red-rimmed blue eyes stare up at me, filled with tears.

“I w-want m-my m-m-mommy,” she stammers, breath hitching between words. “Are you going to take me to her?”

Her voice wobbles, eyes widening with sorrow.

My fingers flex at my sides, but I don’t reach for my sickles. Not yet.

“How did you get down here?” I gentle my voice, but my body remains cautious, ready to strike.

The cries I heard earlier didn’t sound like a child this young. They were deeper, more developed. Now they’ve…changed. Adjusted. As if they’re guessing what her cry should sound like.

She sniffles, tears spilling down her dirt-smeared cheeks. “Please, I-I’m l-l-lost,” she hiccups, clutching her chest as if struggling to breathe. “I’m st-st-stuck, I’m h-hungry. I w-want my m-mommy.”

Her small feet shuffle forward toward me, eager for help. She nearly stumbles as her left ankle rolls sharply. Oddly enough, she doesn’t react. Doesn’t flinch.

She just keeps coming.

Now inches away, I see her clearly. The hair is wrong. Not just tangled or filthy. It’s lifeless. Strands grow at unnatural angles, spouting from her scalp like weeds.

She tilts her head, peering up at me. Doe eyes are rimmed with silver tears.

White-glazed. Hollow.

Not hu—

I react instantly.

My fingers reach around the hilt of my crescent blade, pulling it forward in one fluid motion. The steel flashes as I bring it down—aimed at her neck.

My blade never lands. She catches it.

One small, filthy hand clamps around the steel like a vice. My shoulder wrenches as she yanks the weapon from my grip, the sheer force popping the joint out of place. I suck in a sharp breath, but before I can react—

She flings my sickle behind her, treating it like a common dagger.

The steel vanishes into the darkness, clattering against the stone. She doesn’t even blink at the gash in her pam where the blade sliced deep.

The crying swells.

Her mouth widens and she lunges, fingers outstretched, nails sharpened and seeking flesh.

I narrowly dodge, twisting to the side as her hands swipe through the space. My boot digs into the packed earth, grounding me as I unsheathe my second blade.

She halts mid-motion.

A scream of frustration rips from her throat, and she starts changing. Her arms snap outward, flaring at her sides like the spread of a winged creature ready to take flight.

Joints pop. Bones stretch. Skin tears. Her arms lengthen, skin splitting over the shoulders as new bone pushes through. Her legs follow, ripping open at the calves and quads, the muscle warping—expanding—shifting into a form built for speed.

She drops onto all fours.

Long clawed fingers dig into the stone, locking into the earth.

Blood pumps into the spaces around bones as her entire skeletal structure shifts, stretching and adapting for explosive movement.

Her spine arches, vertebrae snapping into a more canine-like posture.

The monstrosity before me carries the face of a child, but its body now resembles something canine— Lycanthropic in nature.

There are creatures that can mimic human form, some that can change their bodies.

But not like this.

This is something else—an evolution. A forced one.

The same kind of corruption Cage has spoken of. The same kind they still don’t fully understand. Of course, Nora desired whatever the North has—it is capable of creation.

Gods create.

The creature lunges, using its new form to close the distance between us instantly. Her cries still echo around the cavern, but I don’t run. Instead, I sprint forward to meet her head on, blade aimed straight for the skull.

The impact is sickening. Steel drives into the bone. The curved steel cuts deep, splitting down into the creature’s neck.

A shrill screech erupts from her throat. Its front arms thrash violently, trying to dislodge me.

It can’t touch me. Every blow lands against a conjured shimmering black orb shield, faint streaks of blue crackling along its surface as it encases me.

I smirk and twist my blade.

The creature’s neck gives.

Muscle and sinew shear apart as I shift my weight, bracing my bicep beneath the hilt before wrenching the sickle sword outward in a brutal twist. The maneuver slices cleanly through her neck.