MasukDariusEvery time I screamed, Valerius smiled. He was feeding of my pain, if he couldn’t take my blood, I reckoned he relished in the pain that was oozing from me.“You have remarkable endurance, Darius,” he said, leaning over the glass basin that remained stubbornly empty of my blood. “But the nerves can only handle so much before they simply... shut down. We’ve reached that point, haven't we?”He wasn't wrong. My body felt like it was floating in a void of white noise. The agony was so constant it had become a background song. I couldn't feel my hands anymore. I couldn't feel the chains.But what I could feel was the ground itself. It started as a tremor, a subtle vibration in the bone-walls of the floor. All of his men remained oddly still, unbothered, almost like they didn’t notice a thing as well. Valerius didn't notice it at first.Then, the floor cracked and a fracture raised across the floor till it split the pillar in two. The smoke that circled over our head began to whirl v
KaelThe air inside the Old Vault didn’t just smell like blood; it smelled like old blood: the kind that had soaked into the stone centuries ago and never truly dried. My stomach rumbled with the bad feeling because of the way I yearned to break out from here to save Darius. I don’t know where those bastards had taken Darius too, but I had an awful feeling. I reached out through the bond, but I felt like I was hitting the end of a road, there was absolutely nothing and my heart dropped for a second as fear slammed into me.What have they done to him? “Aveline, I can’t feel him anymore,” I said, the fear seeping into my voice.“Who?”“Darius…” my voice dropped off the octave as I paused to try again.“I’m sure it’s the cave, don’t worry, he is still alive,” she said. Why would she said that if she didn’t think he was dead?My torch flickered, the flame dancing in a draft that felt like a dying man’s breath. Beside me, Aveline was silent, her hand hovering over the hilt of her blade.
DariusThe first thing I felt was the cold. It wasn't the natural cold of a winter night; it was a sterile, leaching frost that seemed to settle in my joints and stay there. I tried to move my arms, but the familiar clink of heavy chains stopped me. I opened my eyes, and the world was a blur of velvet red and flickering candlelight. I was in a high-ceilinged room, my arms stretched wide and chained to two obsidian pillars. My feet barely touched the floor. “Ah, the guest of honor finally joins us.” I turned my head, the movement sending a spike of pain through my skull. Valerius was sitting in a high-backed chair across the room, swirling a glass of dark, viscous liquid. He looked refreshed, his clothes changed, his pale skin glowing in the firelight. “Where is Kael?” I rasped. My voice sounded like it had been dragged through sand. “The wolf?” Valerius smiled, showing too many teeth.“I imagine he’s currently being digested by the hoard we left him with. He was always a bit
KaelThe forest was a maze of shifting shadows and the smell of rot. Every time a branch snapped, I was spinning, my claws out, ready to shred whatever demon had followed us from the ruins of the pack. But there was nothing. Just the wind and the suffocating weight of the silence. “Kael, you need to slow down,” Aveline gasped from behind me. She was clutching her side, her face a ghostly white in the moonlight.“You’re leave-tracking. You’re going to blow your heart out before we even reach the ridge.” “I don't have time to slow down!” I barked, not looking back.“The longer we’re out here playing hide-and-seek with the trees, the longer Valerius has his needles in Darius’s veins. You saw them, Aveline. You saw how they took him!”The image was a recurring nightmare, looping behind my eyelids every time I blinked. Darius, his head lolling back, that pale, leech-bastard’s hand in his hair. The helplessness of it was a weight, a stone in my gut that I couldn't vomit up. “I saw,” s
DariusThe air in the Great Hall was a toxic cocktail of sulfur, rotting meat, and the cold, metallic scent of vampire speed. I tried to stand, but my legs felt like they were made of water. Every time I reached for my magic, the portal behind me pulsed, a rhythmic suction that felt like it was trying to pull the marrow from my bones. “Stay down, Aveline!” I shouted, throwing a bolt of grey-blue fire at a meat-thing that was trying to scale the pillar she was leaning against. The spark was weak, but it was enough to send the creature scurrying back into the shadows. Across the room, Kael was a blur of silver-grey muscle and fury, locked in a death-grip with the Greater Demon. The beast was massive, its hide like cooling lava, and as they thrashed, the floorboards screamed and splintered.Kael’s jaws were buried in the demon's shoulder, his claws shredding violet flesh, but for every wound he dealt, the portal spat out three more scavengers. “Kael!” I screamed as a second Greater
KaelThe explosion didn't end with a snap. It ended with a sickening, wet thud as the white light collapsed, throwing us back into the debris. My ears were ringing, a high-pitched whine that drowned out everything else. I tried to push myself up, but my left shoulder was useless, hanging by a thread of shredded muscle and sheer stubbornness. “Darius?” I coughed, tasting copper and ash. I looked toward the center of the hall. The portal hadn't snapped shut, it had just... changed. Instead of a clean tear, it was now a jagged, weeping wound in the air, dripping black soot onto the floorboards. The bone-faced thing was gone, but the door was still ajar. And things were coming through. They weren't shadows anymore.They were physical. Small, spindly creatures with skin like raw meat and teeth that looked like needles scrambled out of the darkness, hissing as they hit the floor. They looked they were here for a meal and they had been starving for years. “Kael... look out!” Avelin
ELENAThe air in the study was thick with the scent of old parchment and the faint, medicinal sting of the salve I’d used on my neck. Luca was standing at the tall floor-to-ceiling window when I entered. He didn't turn around. He always stood there, positioned perfectly to oversee the courtyard and
DariusDrew scrambled through the window, looking like he’d gone ten rounds with a mountain lion. There was a nasty gash above his eyebrow, and his clothes were torn and dusty. He looked around the room, taking us all in. He saw me, then Aveline, and finally his eyes landed on Kael. He let out a lo
KaelThe pain cursed through my entire frame. It felt like steel burning through me and someone had poured lava into an open sore in my body and the liquid was burning its way down. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on letting the process run faster because I had a feeling that someone lik
Darius“How much further do we have to go?” I asked, the balls of my feet already starting to burn from the distance we had walked. She didn’t say a word, just steadily forged ahead, crushing the twigs under her weight. I sighed, heaving a tired sigh once more and followed in her steps. We walked a







