Page 12 of The Inheritance (Breach Wars #1)

The lake owner paused, one massive paw on the torn-up corpse.

It was huge, ten feet tall, thirty-five feet long, and it stood on four sturdy legs armed with eighteen-inch claws.

Its body was a mix of dinosaur and amphibian, dark violet, with scales that shimmered with indigo and pink as it moved.

A massive fin-like crest crowned its head and flared along its spine all the way to the tip of a long, thick tail.

Its head with four small deep-set eyes and a wide, triangular mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth was straight dragon.

There was nothing else to compare it to.

It was a lake dragon, and it had sighted an intruder in its domain.

The bug monster scurried backward, then sideways, its tail raised high, ready to strike.

The dragon’s flesh rippled. Pale pink spots appeared on its sides, near its crest, glowing softly. Was it a warning or was it trying to mesmerize the bug?

The monster silverfish veered left, then right, but did not retreat. Bugs weren’t known for their strategic thinking. There was meat on the shore, and the bug wanted it.

The silverfish lunged forward, the bladed tail striking like a hammer. The dragon shifted out of the way and the chitin shears hit rock instead of flesh. The dragon lunged, swatting at the bug with a taloned paw. The silverfish dodged and charged in from the side.

I grabbed Bear’s leash, leaving her six inches of lead, and moved carefully away, past the boulders, along the ledge, toward the back of the cavern. Bear made no noise. She didn’t bark, she didn’t growl, she just snuck away with me.

Behind us, the bug monster screeched. A deep eerie hiss answered, almost a roar.

I picked my way along the wall, through jagged boulders. On our left, the cavern’s sides were smooth and almost sheer. On our right, the river that flowed from the waterfall rushed to the lake.

I flexed again. The water was twenty-two feet wide and seven feet deep. Too deep to easily cross, and the other shore sloped up, littered with large rocks. A chunk of cave ceiling or one of those stone bridges above must’ve collapsed and broken into big chunks. Too hard to climb.

I kept scanning. There had to be a way out of this deathtrap.

My vision snagged on something ahead, where the wall curved left. A dark gap split the rock face, twelve feet high and fourteen feet wide. I focused on it.

No dice. The gap was fifty-three yards away, and my talent told me that there was nothing valuable in the rock wall around it, but I couldn’t tell how deep it was.

My ability was always tied to my vision.

I could sense things buried within rock, but I still had to look at the rock while doing it.

If I closed my eyes, I got nothing, and that fissure was just a dark hole.

Once I entered the gap, I could scan it but until then, it was a mystery.

There could be other passages on the other side of the cavern, but I didn’t want to risk it. There could be nothing there.

The boulders ended. The ground here was almost clear and sheathed in the mauve flowers. We’d have to leave cover to get to the gap.

I glanced over my shoulder. The bug monster had circled the lake.

It was on our side now, still facing the dragon, but two of its left legs were missing and a long gouge carved across its chitin carapace.

It wasn’t darting quite as quickly. The huge lake monster kept advancing, its crest rigid, the spots on its sides almost blinding.

A wound split its right shoulder, bright with magenta blood.

We had to risk it.

I tugged Bear’s leash, and we padded into the open, heading for the gap. My enhanced vision snagged on the flowers. Deep blue. Poisonous when eaten. Everything in this fucking breach was trying to kill us.

Something thudded. I risked a glance. The bug had crashed into the wall, falling on its side, and the dragon bore down on it, mouth gaping. At the last moment, the silverfish flipped and dashed away, heading straight for us.

I ran, pulling Bear with me. We flew across the cave, scrambling over rocks. The air in my lungs turned to fire.

The bug was right behind us. I felt it there. I didn’t need to flex, I knew exactly where it was.

The gap loomed in front of us.

Bear and I scrambled into the darkness. For a moment I was running blind, and then my night vision kicked in. Ahead, the passage narrowed down to four feet wide.

Yes! The narrower the better.

An awful scraping noise came from behind us, the sound of bug legs digging into the rocks.

Beyond the narrow point lay darkness. It was too deep and too dark.

We dashed through the narrowed gap, and I slid to a halt, yanking Bear back. We stood on a seven-foot ledge. Beyond it the ground disappeared. There was no way down. There was just a gulf of empty dark nothing.

We were trapped.

The wall behind us shook.

I spun around.

The bug rammed the stone, trying to get its tail through, but the gap was too narrow. It screeched and struck the rock again. The mandibles shot toward me through the gap, slicing.

I jerked my right arm up on pure instinct.

The cuff around my wrist flowed into my fingers and snapped into a long sharp spike, and I drove it into the bug’s head.

The blade sliced through the right mandible and bit into the armored carapace.

The mandible hung limp. I yanked the blade free and stabbed again, and again, and again, thrusting and jabbing in a panic-fueled frenzy.

To my right, Bear launched forward, exploding into snarls, bit the mandible I had partially severed, and ripped it free.

The bug screeched. Pus-colored ichor wet its head. It tried to back up, but its head was wedged into the gap.

I kept jabbing. Bear bit and snapped, foam flying from her mouth.

Stab, stab, stab…

The bug collapsed. I drove the sword into it seven more times before my brain finally processed what I was seeing. The giant silverfish was dead. It wasn’t even twitching.

I heaved, trying to catch my breath. We killed it. Somehow we killed it.

Bear snarled next to me, biting a chunk of the bug she had torn off. All her fur stood on end.

“Good girl,” I breathed. “Finally snapped, huh?”

Bear growled and bit down. Chitin crunched.

The bug shuddered.

I jerked my sword up.

The silverfish slid backward, into the gloom of the dark passageway, and behind it, I saw the outline of a massive paw and pale glowing spots.

I dropped into a crouch and hugged Bear to me in case she decided to follow.

The silverfish vanished, swallowed by the darkness. The pale pink spots winked out.