All Chapters of Bloodied Ashes: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Lira (POV)The hallway shudders awake, and the doors rip open. Guards pour out, snarling, shouting, and flashing weapons under the sick torchlight.It doesn’t matter. Kael tears into them like the nightmare they feared was only a myth.The first guard lunges with a spear, and Kael snaps the shaft in half without slowing down and drives the jagged end straight through the man’s throat. Blood sprays thick and black into the stale air.He shoves the dying body forward into the next guard, bones crunching under the force.Another guard screams and charges, but Kael catches him by the wrist and twists until bone snaps like wet twigs and drives his forehead into the man’s skull with a crack that rattles the stones.The man drops dead with a sickening thud.A third tries to run, but Kael catches him by the jaw and wrenches, the sick rip of bone and tendons snapping as the jaw tears free in his hands. The body drops and twitches once, then nothing. Blood pools fast, slicking the stones, paint

Lira (POV)The corridor narrows and twists. It buckles into a stairwell resembling the ribs made of stone arching like the cracked spine of something long dead and calcified.Each stone step is carved with old magic—runes so deep and jagged they look like they were gouged in by claw, not hand. In between them sits teeth. Real ones. Wolf fangs. Human molars. Bone shards lashed into the stone like a mouth waiting to close on the first idiot stupid enough to climb.The walls ooze black moisture. The air stinks of rusted blood and old rot.Kael halts at the base of the stairs, his shoulders flexing under his shredded jacket, breath steaming from the wreckage of him. I limp up beside him, ribs grinding with every shuddering breath.The runes hiss. And I swear the teeth grind.A low, wet sound shudders through the stairwell—like stone trying to chew.It’s a trap. A living, blood-drinking trap. Kael grunts low, almost approving. “Charming.”Footsteps echo behind us—slow, steady, organized. W

Lira (POV)The blood still smokes on my skin. The Pit already swallows the screams.We don’t pause. We don’t breathe. We just bleed forward, deeper into the rot, chasing whatever thin thread of survival still snarls in our bones.Beneath my bare feet, the stones slick with blood, still warm from bodies that forgot how to hold it. It burns — cuts — every nerve screaming where torn skin kisses stone.The air gnaws at the gashes in my ribs, dragging the stink of rot deeper into my marrow. Even the walls hum low, drunk on the kill as if the Pit itself is sucking at the spilled blood like marrow from broken bones.The tunnel narrows again—crushing inward, ribs of shattered stone grinding above our heads like the broken cage of a dead god. The ground slicks underfoot — blood and worse, grinding raw into my skin with every step.My breath claws at the freezing air, every inhale slicing down my raw throat like razors.Kael shoves ahead, cutting a vicious path through the stinking dark. He mov

Lira (POV)We crash into the open chamber like spilled blood.The heart of the Pit. The place it was bleeding us toward all along. The ceiling arches high and black overhead, hung with chains and carcasses that sway in the fetid, breathless air. The floor is a cracked, rotten mosaic of bone and blood.In the center, a pool. Not water. Not blood. Something thicker. Darker. Alive. And around it? Figures. Dozens of them.Twisted shifters, broken wolves, witches stitched into monstrous parodies of flesh. All turned inward, heads bowed, hands clawing at the floor like they’re praying to something too hideous to name.Their mouths move. Not in prayer. In hunger. Waiting. The Pit built this. Built them.Kael skids to a halt at the edge of the pool, chest heaving, jaw locked.The prisoner stumbles in behind us, blood slicking every step.I stagger to Kael’s side, the shard shaking in my hand.The air hums with power. With expectation. It doesn’t want us to fight. It wants us to kneel. To offe

Lira (POV)I don’t remember falling. Just the snow—blinding, bitter—biting into my face and legs as the Gate of Teeth slammed shut behind us.Kael is already moving. Not stumbling. Not gasping like the prisoner behind him.He lands like a beast thrown from the mouth of a god. Steam pours from his shredded leathers. His shoulders roll back. His eyes are already scanning the Wilds like they belong to him.They don’t.Nothing belongs to anyone out here except the cold.The prisoner lands harder. One leg gives. He snarls and staggers back to his feet with a grin like he’s proud of it.The Pit groans behind us. The ground trembles. The trees scream.Kael doesn’t wait.He grabs my arm, jerks me up hard enough that my knees scream, and growls into the wind, “We run.”I try. I do.The first few steps nearly kill me.My legs buckle on the third. My ribs stab inward like snapped teeth. Blood soaks down my side and streaks the snow underfoot in bright, hot spatters.Kael notices. Of course he do