Page 15

IRIS

I rush to get dressed. If Cherise’s people hadn’t dropped off fresh clothes, I’d have to run a rescue mission in my robe.

The half-caped Guide uniform is almost the same as the one the Sentinels wear. Ours is whiter than their black, with a hood that I struggle to get my head through when my vampire-sex hair is flowing everywhere.

It snags on the buttons and flashy hardware.

“Let me.” Remy reaches for the strand caught on a shield emblem. Instead of gently pulling the hair free, he pinches his claws and clips the entire piece.

While I gape at the sawed-off chunk, he unwinds the tangle, then tucks the severed lock into his pocket with an infuriating smirk. “Isn’t that better?”

“When we get back, I’m giving you a bowl cut.” I take one of the glaives balanced on the weapon rack, then I grab Remy’s shirt. “Take me to Vhex.”

“I don’t seem to recall?—”

“Remington Azrid.” I push the order through the Farguard badge I just pinned to my shirt. “Cut the bullshit. I know you can shadow-walk and I know you know where to find Vhex. Take me to him. Now .”

“Or else?” Remy asks teasingly.

Pissed, I pull back the silks that can’t help curling around him. When they’re gone, Remy’s shadows ripple in a come here motion, begging them to return.

I grit my teeth, rejecting the advance. “Or else I reverse-Guide you until your head explodes.”

“I wouldn’t like that very much.”

“Then you’d better learn to listen.”

Remy sighs. “What could you possibly see in that devil?”

What I see in Vhex is a Sentinel just as unstable as the one unsubtly sniffing my hair. Another borderline berserker with enough firepower to melt our defenses if I can’t tuck him into my pocket before he flames out.

I wrap my arms around Remy’s tight ribs and pin the pole of my glaive to his spine. “More shadow-walking, less vampire talking.”

His shadows wilt.

Very puppy dog for a vampire.

I relent and give them an encouraging stroke. I’m the one who’ll have to pay the price if he backslides.

“Hold on.” Reenergized, Remy pulls me closer.

His shadows cocoon us. In a flash of darkness, we blink outside, then re-appear high above the base in crisp, mountain air.

I smooth Remy’s silks along the way, stopping new tangles from making him any crazier. Far below us, Sentinel crews are repairing the wall in the early morning sun.

I glare. “You didn’t fix the arrays?”

“Away we go.” Remy crushes me to his body, shamelessly gripping my ass as he walks us through the shadows.

Kevan only took me flying in emergencies. He’d drag me above his army of stanky re-animated corpses.

Shadow travel is much more fun.

I’m not letting myself sniff the vampire.

But if I did?

I bet Remy smells like night-blooming jasmine.

After an icy rush that leaves my heart pounding, we pop back into sunlight above a shattered mountain.

Overturned trees poke out of the rubble of rock. I’d guess there was a landslide, but all the scattered greenery is charred.

I flinch as hellfire geysers from a pit below.

A familiar pulse hits me like a fist, and my body crisps with the echo of Vhex’s burn.

I grip Remy’s collar. “What did you do to him?”

His brow furrows.

“I don’t…remember,” he says slowly. The flicker of seriousness hints at the kind of commander that Major Azrid must’ve been before he lost himself to the shadows.

I let go of his throat.

I’ll bring the old Remington back.

I’ll be the Guide who drags both Sentinels out of their suffering. If they haven’t found better matches by then, they can stand at my side when the emperor hands me my medal.

I’ll deserve it if I can pull off that kind of miracle.

“Can you take us down to him?” I ask anxiously, peering into the smoking pit.

Remy’s eyes slip out of focus. “There’s a battle in the depths.”

“How strong is the enemy?” The ragged pulse of Vhex’s power blocks my Guide-senses from feeling anything beyond his mental screams.

“Multiple enemies. A and S-class.” Remy tilts his head. “Possibly stronger.”

“Fuck.”

“Yes.”

My first act as commander should be reporting the monster spawn, but Vhex’s desperate soul-cries tug my heart.

I chew my lip, debating.

Remy has the objectivity of a ball of steel wool, but he’s the strongest fighting force I can muster in a rush. We’d have to wait for back-up, and the power churning down below would steamroll most A-classes.

I swallow my jumping heart. I have to warn Cherise in case we fail . “Lend me your radio.”

“It’s in my other cape.”

Right. Right .

I need to lower my expectations far below that pit in the ground. I can’t expect help from Remy or anyone else.

With a sigh, I cup his face. “Do you at least remember my name?”

“Guide,” he says blissfully, closing his eyes to inhale my fingers.

Fan-tickity-tastic .

I give him a shake. “Just remember that I have your back. However far you fall into the dark, I’ll be right here to pull you out.”

Remy huffs my skin.

I shiver.

It’s still fifty-fifty who or what’s behind the wheel in his brain, but between his Sentinel and vampire instincts, I know he’ll jump on any chance to fight.

I shift my back against Remy’s chest and hold my glaive ready. “Take us down.”

“Mmm.” Remy hugs me tight, not missing the opportunity to run his nose behind my ear.

His cocooning shadows hide my shiver and block the sun.

There’s a rush and a tug. When the shadows peel away, flames singe my eyebrows.

As I choke on the smoky, raspberry tang of hellfire, Remy stops me from tumbling into the bowl of a godsdamned hell volcano.

No.

Half a volcano.

In a cavern big enough to stash the imperial capitol, half the ground is made of lava. The other half is a craggy shelf of rock and ice.

Steam billows where the forces collide, along with Vhex’s psychic screams and the skull-rattling roars of the giant rock trolls he has locked in an epic fight.

I will die immediately if I get in their way. My glaive would be a toothpick to these trolls.

“There.” I point to a cave low in the wall on Vhex’s side of the battlefield. “Set me on that ledge.”

Remy moves so fast my eyes water. Still hugging my waist, he lowers us to the rock shelf.

“Tell me your name.” He noses my throat.

I shiver despite the flames. “Iris.”

“Iris. I won’t forget.”

Uh huh.

Just like he won’t go straight for my closest artery the next time he has a mighty thirst.

I stroke his shadows anyway. “Go. Help Vhex. I’ll be right here.”

Remy snags my wrist, licks my pulse, then smirks and disappears.

Vampire spit tickles.

I wipe it off on my pants.

Using my glaive’s pole as a support against the uneven floor, I creep to watch the battle.

I don’t see Remy.

In his pyro-devil form, with hellfire hiding all but the outline of his body, Vhex hurls himself and columns of liquid flame at the monsters.

He jumps from island to island in the lava lake. The painful vibration of his energy leaves me gritting my teeth.

I thought he was in rough shape, fighting those kobolds.

This Vhex singes my spirit from a distance. I can’t even sense the most primitive lizard brain in the pattern of his thoughts.

He doesn’t think at all. Just reacts.

My pussy might not be magic enough to save him.

But we’ll try our best.

I scope a path from island to island, planning how to reach him from my perch. Only, one of those islands isn’t an island.

It’s a craggy nose.

The humped shapes that pop from the lava are all the bouldery pieces of defeated trolls.

My heart pangs.

Vhex may be utterly bananas, but while I was sleeping and getting shadow head, the Sentinel was battling alone in the dark.

He needs his own Guide.

For as long as he’s mine, I ache to save him and find out what kind of man is hiding beneath that horn.

A cave-shaking troll roar almost makes me drop my glaive. I shift the pole to my elbow and cover my ears.

Shadow blades stab at the smallest rock troll’s eyes. It bellows and swings, trying to swat the fly.

Remy’s shadows coil between the other trolls’ toes. The monsters are so massive, the shadows can’t stop them, only slow them down.

But if Vhex cooperates?—

I realize how fucking stupid I am the second Vhex launches a fireball.

Ignoring his actual enemies, that banana-horned bastard aims straight for the vampire.

I’m guessing Remy has already forgotten my name along with the rest of his vocabulary. He abandons the trolls to dive-bomb Vhex in a magic attack that rattles the cavern.

The two of them tumble through the sea of hellfire in a snarling, rolling ball that rockets right to me.

The trolls launch boulders and beams of ice, and thanks to Vhex and Remy not able or willing to give a single fuck, I’m about to be besieged.

I run.

There’s a reason I picked this cave.

It’s as deep as I hoped.

Fire and steam blast behind me as I flee. The uneven floor shakes. I trip on loose rock just in time to sprawl flat on my face and take a spray of burning embers to the back of my thigh.

With a yelp, I curl into a ball around my glaive.

The ceiling starts to fall.

I pray for a curtain of shadow to shield me from the falling rocks. Or maybe a flaming hot helping hand, which could melt the danger away with an easy wave.

Nothing.

No one comes.

Not Vhex Trezzoran.

Not Remington Azrid.

And certainly never Kevan Kyorgos.

Gritting through the burn in my leg that aches much worse than a simple graze, I plant my glaive and climb to my feet.

Stumbling, trying to cover my head, I shuffle down the darkened tunnel.

Alone.

I flew in an airplane when I was little, before the giant rocs spawned and killed the last of commercial air travel.

What’s true then is true now.

When the masks drop, you have to save yourself before you think about saving anyone else.

I trip forward into the tunnel, only slowing when the roar quiets and no more rocks are falling on my head.

I choke on smoke and whirling dust.

If the Sentinels pull out a win without killing each other, I’ll take care of them every way I can.

If they lose to the trolls…

I need to find my own way out and warn the Farguard to prepare.

I glance back once, then move ahead.

We’re all on our own.

As I trudge through the dusty darkness, I sense a shift in the air. Far ahead, I swear I spot a glow.

I squint, not sure if I’m hallucinating, but the cave must be a purpose-built tunnel. Its shape stays the same, unnaturally round, and the path never forks.

After walking until my calves burn, I reach the tunnel’s end. It opens to a cathedral-sized cavern, lit with a flickering, white glow.

Strange energy prickles between my shoulders.

It’s not a Sentinel’s power.

I wouldn’t even say it’s threatening. Kind of like…a hum with pauses?

Wary, I peer inside, then muffle my gasp.

The glow rises from an array.

A massive spell circle covers the cavern floor. Complex patterns are drawn in glowing, 3D lines that could be made from poured-out salt or powdered chalk.

The flicker comes from the eight crystal pillars spaced around the stone circle at the center of the array.

I don’t dabble in formations myself, but I’ve seen enough kinds to recognize the reinforced lines of an imprisoning seal.

And based on that eerie flicker?

It’s weakening.

Fast .

Before humans were strong enough to fight the monsters, the best they could do was seal away the ones they couldn’t defeat, hoping later generations would find a way to save themselves.

I’ve jail-broken plenty of lost-and-found monster prisons with Kevan. Never one this big.

Or this strong.

I don’t dare hang around to investigate what’s trapped below.

I spot another tunnel across the cavern.

Using my glaive as a walking pole, I pick down the slope to the cavern floor. There’s a gap between the wall and the outer ring of the array.

As long as I slink around without disturbing any lines, I shouldn’t have problems getting to the other side.

The thought carries me as long as thirty optimistic seconds.

That’s when I find the source of the weird, stuttering hum.

Not a hum, Iris.

It’s a snore.

From above, the sub-circles in the array pattern looked like they were filled with piles of the same fluffy, white powder used to draw the lines.

Turns out?

They’re fluffy because they’re wolves .

Many, many, curled-up-in-a-ball wolves. They’d be cute if they weren’t monster, car-sized array guardians, and I wasn’t trespassing in the formation that they exist to protect.

So, that’s a fun new thing.

I don’t move and neither do they, but it’s safe to assume the yet .

I didn’t run away from my narcissistic mother and emotionally unavailable ex just to die alone in a cave.

Vhex and Remy need me, and if I can’t save them, Faervaine’s northern border is boned.

See? I am important.

Taking careful, quiet steps, I hug the wall and skirt the border of the array.

I make it a quarter of the way.

I don’t sneeze, trip, or even kick a pebble.

Maybe I’m thinking too hard.

A howl echoes, just how I knew it would.

I sprint for the flattest spot I can find, keeping my back to the wall as more wolves take up the howl.

I wish I’d had time to tape the shaft of my glaive. I rub dust and sweat from my palms, then tighten my grip as the first white-eyed wolf pads toward me.

“I’ll win,” I warn.

The wolf growls.

“Fine.” I level my blade as the pack joins around its leader. “I’ll make you into coats.”

I don’t know how, but I promise myself.

I’m going to survive long enough to give Remy a bowl cut, wearing a wolf-fur stole.

Then I’m going to hang a godsdamned powdered donut on Vhex’s horn and ride his candy stick while I enjoy my snack.

A smaller voice chimes in as the first wolf lunges.

I can’t die here.

No one cares enough about me to come looking for my corpse.