Selene covered Kaela’s retreat, glancing back just once to make sure Darron and Yukon had made it. When she saw them scrambling onto the stone, she couldn’t help biting back a smile, her heart hammering with renewed energy.

  She saw the same expression mirrored on Kaela’s face—and even on Bront’s.

  Lyria looked more worried, of course, but Selene knew that deep down she felt it too.

  Not because they were certain they would win. Not because any of this was enjoyable. But because, despite the impossible odds—despite the fear and the corrupted horde crashing down on them—they had absolute faith in their companions, their bonds, and the will to keep pushing forward no matter what.

  Yukon had that too.

  As Selene fell back into the spearhead once more, pushing forward with the others and cutting down anything that dared slip toward the casters at the center of the formation—her mind dared to wander back to only a few weeks prior.

  That uncertain ranger who’d made a fool of himself on day one, who had insulted her companion before learning the full story. The very same one who had joined them in that tense battle against the Fell shaman, despite her party’s rejection.

  He had come so far in so little time.

  Her smile hardened as she thrust her rapier through a watcher that slipped through a chink in the line.

  She remembered Tilver’s Crossing. Lyria’s kidnapping. The fear. The paralysis. The grief and anger that had left her frozen when decisions mattered most.

  That was the first time Yukon had truly stepped up.

  She hadn’t said it then—hadn’t even known how—but she’d needed it more than she’d realized. And she appreciated it more than he would ever know.

  Selene had always been in charge. She’d always been the one making decisions. She was the oldest of four, and with parents that died far too young, responsibility was never a choice for her, it was a given. So when Yukon covered for her weakness that day, when he took command while she faltered, he’d unknowingly allowed something in her—coiled impossibly tight—to loosen, just a fraction.

  And he hadn’t stopped there.

  When Elledor came for Lyria. When they’d tried to leave Yukon behind in Lanton. When he uncovered Night’s Reach’s dark secret—he always put himself in front of danger. Maybe it was immaturity. Maybe it was a reckless need to save others.

  Whatever it was, Selene needed it.

  She risked a glance back toward the ruins, where Darron and Yukon were sprinting toward the left spire.

  Her blood ran cold.

  At the exact moment she looked, Yukon was launched from the building beneath him, a three-story drop yawning below—

  Her breath slammed back into her chest as Darron caught him, hauling him back onto solid stone.

  Relief barely had time to bloom.

  A white-hot pain tore through Selene’s lower right side.

  Her eyes dropped.

  A spear jutted from her abdomen.

  A husk—long-limbed, its weapon longer still—had slipped through during her momentary distraction, driven the spear clean through her, and ripped it free just as quickly. It was cut down an instant later by someone ahead of her.

  Selene never saw who.

  Her knees hit the ground.

  The world roared back into motion—screams, shouting, someone calling her name. Lyria, probably.

  Her hands came up on instinct, pressing against the wound.

  When she pulled them back, they were slick with dark red.

  My first arrow sailed true, forcing the Fell sorcerer to wrench its hand away from the pulsing crystal embedded in the stone. I couldn’t hear a spell—no chant, no incantation—but as it waved its hand through the air, something shifted.

  The arrow struck an invisible wall of force and was blasted away at the last possible instant.

  “Tch—!”

  I reached for another shaft.

  Five left.

  One explosive tip.

  Before I could draw, the sorcerer retaliated—its hands snapping together as it conjured a shrieking sphere of sickly green energy and hurled it down the spire toward me.

  I dove left.

  Stone collapsed where I’d been standing an instant earlier. The Fell magic detonated on impact, blasting rubble and dust into my face and sending hairline fractures spiderwebbing through the already-ruined floor.

  I rolled, came up on one knee—

  —and through the dust, I saw Darron.

  He was climbing hard, boots scraping against ancient stone, reaching for a handhold that simply wasn’t there as the spire narrowed toward the sorcerer’s platform.

  No hesitation.

  —Thunk!

  My arrow buried itself just above his outstretched hand.

  Darron grabbed it without slowing, hauling himself upward as if the shot had been planned. The sorcerer’s crimson face twisted in disbelief—its focus shifting away from me—as Darron swung up over the edge, daggers flashing silver in the Fell light.

  I had to give him credit.

  For a bronze-rank, Darron was fearless.

  Their clash was brief and brutal. Steel flashed. The sorcerer twisted and slipped aside by inches, each dagger strike missing by a breath. Then it snarled, thrusting both hands forward—

  A thunderous blast erupted point-blank.

  Darron was hurled backward off the platform.

  My stomach dropped.

  I squinted down through the choking dust, searching desperately as he vanished from sight. For half a heartbeat, there was nothing—

  Then I saw it.

  A thin line of cord snapped taut in the spire's shadow. Darron swung once, dazed, but holding fast.

  Relief flooded me—cold, sharp, fleeting.

  I forced my face into something crueler. A smile tugged at my lips but I masked it beneath a scowl, deliberate and theatrical.

  The sorcerer saw it.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Its expression twisted into a smug sneer.

  I nocked two arrows at once.

  My eyes flicked down—Darron was already climbing, fast. I gauged the distance. The timing. Drew my bow skyward and held.

  Then fired.

  Both arrows screamed straight up into the air.

  The sorcerer’s head snapped back, eyes tracking them on instinct—

  That was when my third arrow came.

  It rocketed toward its face in a dead-straight line—the same trick I’d used on Bront during my preliminary duel. Fast. Direct. Merciless.

  The sorcerer sensed it at the last moment. Its gaze snapped forward, a burst of force erupting from its outstretched hand—

  The arrow shattered against an invisible barrier.

  Without missing a beat, the creature refocused upward. A guttural incantation tore from its throat as a shield of writhing Fell runes flared into existence above its head.

  My two arrows slammed into it an instant later.

  The sorcerer turned back toward me, a triumphant smile beginning to form—

  In the same moment, a shadow appeared behind it.

  Steel whispered.

  Darron.

  Twin daggers plunged into either side of the sorcerer’s neck.

  I finally exhaled, breath ragged as I watched the green light gutter and die in the Fellborn’s eyes. Its body went slack, collapsing in on itself.

  One down.

  Energy pulsed outward immediately and the spire shuddered violently.

  I forced my gaze back to the battlefield below, deliberately avoiding the burning stare of the remaining sorcerer across from us—one that now carried the weight of its fallen counterpart. The air itself seemed to strain around it.

  Below, the masses of Fell husks and creatures began to falter.

  They staggered. Slowed.

  Murasa’s light was gaining purchase.

  Some of the creatures froze entirely, swaying as if drunk. Others turned aimlessly, snapping and clawing at the nearest thing—friend or foe alike.

  A reluctant smile tugged at my lips.

  Our hunch had been right.

  I squinted, trying to pierce the chaos within the spearhead formation. Smoke, magic, bodies—everything blurred together. I almost missed it.

  Almost.

  I drew on a sliver of Lunae’s power, just enough. The world sharpened as my eyes shifted from green to blue.

  And my heart dropped.

  Selene was on the ground.

  Lyria stood over her, spells flaring wildly as she fought to keep the tide at bay. Barton knelt beside Selene, golden energy pouring desperately toward her abdomen.

  She was hurt.

  Badly.

  “Darron—!” I shouted up the spire, panic bleeding into my voice. “It’s no good—we’re out of time! We need to take down the other sorcerer. Now!”

  He nodded, already moving to the edge of the spire, eyes scanning the ruins for a path—anything resembling a chance.

  But as we both looked toward the remaining sorcerer, the truth settled in.

  We’d have to climb down.

  Find another route up.

  It would take far too long.

  A laugh echoed inside my skull.

  Unprompted, unbidden. It made my skin crawl as though maggots had burrowed beneath the surface.

  It stretched.

  Low. Wet. Like molten magma.

  “Foolish humans…”

  Before I could react, a beam of volatile energy erupted from the blackened doorway of the stepped pyramid—a comet of pure hellfire that screamed through the air and slammed into the spire.

  The stone exploded.

  “DARRON!” I screamed.

  Smoke and rubble swallowed everything. I couldn’t see him. Couldn’t hear him.

  Panting, I wiped sweat and grit from my face as my muscles screamed in protest—fatigue sinking deeper than before, heavier than it had any right to be.

  I looked again toward the pyramid.

  The laughter echoed again, louder.

  The pain was immediate—white-hot and splitting, as if my mind were being torn in two. I collapsed to my knees, clutching my head as my vision swam.

  My eyes darted wildly between the pyramid, the remaining spire, and the battlefield below.

  I had to act.

  Now.

  I brought one leg up to kneel atop the trembling stone, steadying my balance. My hand flew to my quiver, fingers closing around the final arrow.

  Red-feathered.

  Explosive-tipped.

  I nocked it before the dust had even begun to settle, and drew back, pulling on every scrap of Tenebrae’s power I could still muster. I focused inward, dragging it out of me like venom from a wound.

  Tenebrae swirled hungrily in my chest.

  Black smoke coiled around the arrowhead. Crimson energy crackled along the bowstring like lightning as I drew to full extension. Stones lifted from the ground around me, gravity itself bending beneath the strain of it.

  I took aim just below the crown of the far spire—

  —and released.

  The arrow tore through the air before the straining sorcerer could react.

  Impact.

  The explosion bloomed violently, but it was swallowed almost instantly by black flame. Red energy veined through the stone in frantic, crackling flashes as the tower shuddered—then gave way.

  The spire collapsed in a roaring cascade of ruin, the sorcerer’s bellow lost beneath the thunder of falling stone.

  I fell next.

  The bricks beneath my knees threatened to give way at any moment—but I could hardly bring myself to move. My limbs practically refused to answer.

  Fresh pain tore through me.

  Not the sharp, fleeting kind—but something deeper. Fundamental. As if the marrow in my bones had begun to boil, as if my body were being hollowed out from the inside.

  Lunae’s voice came swiftly, stripped of all warmth.

  “Yukon—you are nearing your natural limit. Should you draw upon our power again, your physical form may be consumed entirely...”

  I clenched my teeth and forced my head up, eyes dragging back toward the stepped pyramid. A sickening realization began to sink in.

  This wasn’t over.

  Not even close.

  And I was running out of something far more precious than mana.

  As if in response, the air changed.

  It thickened—grew heavy. Each breath became a labor, my lungs struggling as gravity itself seemed to double… then triple. The world pressed down on me from every direction.

  Something was wrong.

  No.

  Something had arrived.

  From within the pitch-black doorway of the pyramid, a presence emerged.

  First—eyes.

  Burning green. Deep. Ancient.

  Then a silhouette that swallowed the light around it.

  The creature that stepped into view stood easily ten feet tall. Its muscles rippled beneath its skin, layered with fibers far denser than any living being I had ever seen—power made flesh. Blackened spaulders rested on its shoulders, sparse armor clinging to a frame built for slaughter. In one massive hand, it carried a twin-tipped bident of black metal, green runes pulsing along its length like a living thing.

  When its face emerged from the shadows, my heart stopped.

  Skin the color of fresh blood.

  Horns rising into twin, jagged points.

  And a smile—

  —not cruel.

  Not enraged.

  But knowing.

  A demon.

  A creature pulled from nightmare and myth alike. Said to dwell in the deepest, blackest pits of the Fell dimension. Generals of chaos. Harbingers of annihilation.

  Its presence alone was oppressive beyond reason. Simply looking at it made my eyes burn, as though scorched by unseen flame. My chest seized—I couldn’t draw in a full breath no matter how hard I tried.

  Then its gaze found me.

  Locked onto me.

  The pressure intensified instantly, pinning me in place like the world itself had chosen a side.

  Those burning green eyes didn’t just see me.

  They saw what resided within me.

  And the demon smiled wider.

  It was only then that I realized it had gotten exactly what it wanted. By showing me the illusion of Lyria’s execution—by forcing me to burn through every scrap of strength I had—the power meant to stop this monster, Lun and Ten, my power, was all but spent. Burned down to embers.

  I had fallen straight into its trap.