Page 50 of Wicked Prince of Shadows (Wicked Princes #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

My blood iced. “Chitter hounds!”

"Pull!" Vetle roared beside me, his voice raw with desperation. “Fight!”

The vines jerked violently as the column beneath us shuddered. I stumbled forward, nearly pitching off the bridge as the vines dragged at me. Vetle's arm locked around my waist. He hauled me back against him, then dragged us both forward.

Behind us, the remaining fae on the column scattered into the air, wings beating frantically. The ropes went taut in their hands as they flew, adding their strength from above. The vines fought their flight.

On the portal side, chaos erupted.

The chitter hounds burst from the mist in a tide of clicking legs and snapping skeletal jaws.

Their elongated bodies skittered across the barren ground, heading straight for the cluster of survivors.

The children screamed. Guards rushed forward, weapons drawn, forming a protective line between the creatures and the vulnerable.

Baza launched himself at the nearest hound, his blade flashing as he drove it into the creature's skeletal head. Black ichor sprayed across the ground. Another hound leaped over her, jaws spread wide, and Candice was there, her own sword catching it mid-air.

Osric shouted something and leaped into the pit with the portal. The other children surged toward the pit.

The marble chunk? It was gone?

My brain struggled to process as my foot slipped. The chasm below swam and spun as lightning cracked again.

My legs burned. Every muscle in my body screamed for me to stop, to collapse, to let the darkness take me. The draining sensation pulsed again, stronger this time, and I cried out as something vital inside me tore free. My vision vanished completely for a heartbeat.

Vetle's arm tightened around me, his shadows surging weakly around us both. "Stay with me, Sabine. Just a little farther." His voice cracked in my ear. He tilted his head back. “Pull! Fly! Go!”

"Keep pulling! No one stop! " Gehn bellowed from behind us. The others took up the cry as well, grunting and bellowing.

"Fly. Fly!"

Shaking, I forced my foot forward. Just another fifteen feet to go. One step at a time. Then another. It felt as impossible as three hundred feet. Each step was like wading through deep water, the weight of the vines and the draining magic pulling us back toward the column.

More chitter hounds poured from the fog.

One lunged at Maltric, its jaws clamping down on his arm.

He roared, driving his blade through its skull even as blood streamed down his sleeve.

Another warrior grabbed a fallen guard's spear and thrust it through another creature's exposed spine, splitting bone.

"Faster!" someone screamed. “They keep coming!”

The column groaned behind us, the fissure widening with a sound like the world splitting open. Chunks of stone broke away, tumbling into the chasm's depths. The bridge shook beneath our feet. A fissure spread in front of me.

No! My stomach lurched. I didn’t even know where to look anymore.

A chitter hound cut in front of the bridge, jaws snapping. It put one of its eight legs on the bridge. The added pressure made the stone spiderweb, but the horrid creature lowered its head and growled.

Vetle snarled back in response. He straightened, standing between it and me.

A sharp crack split the air. I twisted my head in time to see a massive fissure racing up the column's length, splitting it like an axe through dry, rotted wood.

The chitter hound's jaws opened wide, a guttural clicking growl rising from its throat as it advanced toward us. My legs strained to hold up against the pressure of the vines, terror choking me as Vetle's arm tightened protectively around my waist.

Then a bright yellow and blue arrow punched through the creature's skull.

The chitter hound's legs crumpled beneath it, and its massive body tipped sideways, sliding forward. It tumbled into the chasm without a sound, swallowed by the hungry darkness below.

I whipped my head in the arrow’s direction toward the portal, my heart hammering.

Enola.

Clad in her etched golden armor with a great purple crest on her head, she stood balanced on a wooden ladder that jutted up from the portal pit, her bow already nocked with another arrow.

Another chitter hound spotted her, shook its head and charged.

A grim expression on her face, she loosed another arrow, and it sang through the air to bury itself in the second chitter hound's skull.

"Enola!" Her name tore from my throat. She’d come!

She didn't respond, already drawing another arrow and shooting another beast. Then she leaped from the ladder with fluid grace, landing in a crouch on the barren ground.

Behind her, more figures climbed from the portal pit—her soldiers.

They poured up like water surging from a fountain, attacking the chitter hounds at once.

I would have laughed with relief if not for struggling just to stay upright and move forward.

The soldiers moved with practiced efficiency, spreading out to engage the creatures. Steel clashed against bone. Battle cries mingled with the clicking screams of the hounds. Enola moved through the chaos like a dancer, her arrows finding their marks with lethal precision.

Behind us, the column gave another violent shudder. The crack widened, splitting with a sound like thunder. Stone ground against stone in a terrible grinding roar.

"Move!" Vetle's voice rasped in my ear, dragging my attention back. "We have to move now! Fly! Go!"

I forced my legs forward, each step an agony of effort. The vines constricted tighter, and the draining sensation pulsed again, threatening to drag me under. Only Vetle kept me upright, kept me moving.

The fae pulling the ropes from above shouted to one another, their wings straining as they fought to maintain their grip. More had joined them now, a dozen at least, all of them pulling with desperate strength.

Another step. Then another. Still another eight feet to go!

Cracks spread like lightning, shooting beneath my feet down the remnant of the bridge to the solid ground again.

No!

One moment solid stone pressed against my feet, and the next there was nothing. My stomach ripped into my throat as I plummeted, the scream ripping from my lungs lost in the howling wind.

Vetle clamped tighter around me as we plunged, dropping fast—fast—too fast—the chasm's hungry darkness rising to swallow us.

His wings beat frantically, fighting against the downdraft that clawed at us from below. Each stroke was weaker than the last, his body trembling with effort. The vines dragged us down, the wind shrieking past.

Aerithyn's face materialized in the swirling darkness below—massive, translucent, desperate. Her mouth opened in a mind-numbing wail that vibrated through my bones.

A raw scream tore out of me as Vetle's wings strained, each beat more labored than the last. The vines constricted tighter, and another wave of draining magic pulsed through us both.

He shuddered, his grip loosening for just a heartbeat before he tightened it again.

Then he shot us toward the side of the chasm instead of straight up.

I understood and reached out, groping for a handhold. My fingers scraped against rough stone, finding a shallow crack. I dug in, my broken hand screaming in protest as I tried to help anchor us. Vetle's wings beat again, and he dragged us upward and then struck the stone fully.

The impact drove the air from my lungs. Pain exploded across my shoulder, but we'd stopped falling. For now.

Vetle snarled in a last attempt of strength and forced his wings down harder and then up, ripping into the air.

I snagged the coarse rock, digging my fingers into the side and gripping with my feet.

The dress snagged and tore. Adrenaline shot through my veins as I crawled up the wall.

Vetle moved along with me. His wings shoved down and pushed us up again. The vines tugged and constricted.

The split column shook again, dust rising and choking us.

A hand seized my arm. I looked up, gasping for breath. Enola leaned over the edge on her knees, her expression grim. “Let my friend go!” She snarled at Vetle.

He bared his teeth back, but I gasped. “No, Enola—no! He’s—” I struggled to breathe, unable to speak clearly. He's mine! I love him!

Her brow furrowed, but she gripped me tighter.

Vetle growled. “If you want to save your friend, pull her up!” He thrust his wings down again.

Enola's grip on my arm became iron. She braced herself and heaved backward with all her strength, dragging me up over the crumbling edge. My shoulder wrenched again as I scrabbled for purchase. Vetle pushed from below, his remaining strength channeled into one final thrust of his wings.

The column collapsed, crashing into the palace side and crumbling away in a great arc of dust and silt.

I tumbled onto solid ground, gasping, the vines still wrapped around my waist. Vetle landed beside me in a crouch, his wings drooping, his face pale beneath the stitches. Blood seeped from multiple wounds across his body.

I barely had time to breathe before Vetle grabbed me again, his clawed hand wrapping around my good wrist. "Up," he rasped. "We have to get farther up."

Together we scrambled higher onto more solid ground, away from the crumbling edge.

The vines dragged behind us, their grip loosening—just slightly, but enough that I could draw a full breath and pull on them.

Enola moved with us, her hand still on my shoulder, her eyes scanning the chaos around us.

The vines didn’t try to grab her though.

More vines spread up and along the edges of the chasm, tugging and wrenching.

I staggered to my feet, my lungs burning as if I’d inhaled smoke.

The vines trailed from my waist like leashes, slick and pulsing with the same draining magic clawing at my veins.

Each movement felt like dragging through tar.

My fingers slipped on the rock, the grit biting into my palms as hot blood streamed down the back of my legs.

Vetle’s hand splayed low on my back, steadying me. His stitched jaw clenched as his wings trembled, their skeletal edges glinting faintly in the blood-moon light. Shadows bled from him in ragged wisps, twitching as though even they were exhausted. Blood streamed from us both.

The ground beneath us juddered with a low, rolling boom—like a drumbeat deep in the earth. Dust sprayed around us, turning the air into a haze.

The vines around my waist loosened suddenly, slithering away from us both and spreading out.

I gasped, my lungs expanding fully for the first time in what felt like hours.

The draining sensation ceased, leaving me hollow and trembling but free.

The vines dug down into the chasm walls and solid ground on both sides.

Then the world shattered.

Above, a massive form lunged down, almost too big to comprehend—Chaori, his outline jagged with lightning and the light of the blood moon, his great arms reaching.

A blinding flash of grey, black, silver, and white erupted from the chasm below, arching up toward the sky as a massive shape surged upward, breaking through the final bonds and reaching toward the heavens.

The air itself vibrated as the earth shook.

Aerithyn and Chaori locked around one another, their translucent forms colliding in a fierce embrace.

He pulled her close, her face burying into his shoulder, his hand curling protectively around the back of her head as hers wrapped around his neck.

Both looked into one another’s faces, their visages terrible and beautiful at once, hard to look upon and yet impossible to turn from.

Then they looked down at us and swept their hands over the cracked earth, and light engulfed us all.