Chapter Fourty-One

The laughing of The Devourer shook the cavern with the thunder in the marble. Slow gray clouds drifted clouds of dust down off the ceiling. Silas did not move. Elara was aware of the tension in his hand in gripping hers--tight, steady, controlled. A warning was given silently as his fingers pressed once against her palm. Stay behind me. The monster came forward. With each step it broke the ground under its claws. Its wings dragged after it, and scraped the stone with a very rough metallic sound. With each movement of the limbs broken chains clinked against its limbs. Elara made herself draw breath. The object resembled a nightmare made of shadow. The carcass of a wolf, though much bigger than an Alpha. Its coat was dog-like and dark and shaggy. The scars were like war lines across its chest and shoulders. And its eyes… Her red eyes flamed like living fire. They stayed fixed on Silas. The Devourer, the Devourer, the Devourer, said slowly, The last Alpha. Silas pulled his

Chapter Fourty-Two

The rock at the feet of Silas snapped. There was a sharp sound dividing the cavern. Elara had a glimpse of a second when he felt his hold slipping. Silas! cried she, ringing down into the darkness below. Her frame was slightly hanging across the empty abyss. Stones which had loosened down slid between her legs, and went into deep black below. Silas drew his grip tighter still. His fingernails were clenching tighter round her wrist. I have got you, I said clenching my teeth. But the earth beneath him was shaking. There was another crack that crossed the rock where he was. The Devourer was cowering at the point of the floor thus fractured, with its red eyes shining with silent delight. You can not keep her always it rumbled. Silas ignored it. He continued to be obsessed with Elara. “Look at me,” he said. She raised her head, and could hardly manage to take her breath. “I’m here,” she whispered. Dust fell down above them and the cavern kept on shaking. The old warrior w

Chapter Fourty-Three

The ground cracked again. There was a thin line which was divided over the rock on which the Devourer had been pulled down. Elara froze. Silas moved instantly. He came to stand in front of her, and his body was tensed and his shoulders were squared to the cracking earth. In the background, tiny boulders were sliding on the floor of the cave. The flicker of the light of the ancient guardian was violent. No, no, it said, but in a sharper voice. Elara stared down at Kian. His breathing was now weak. Blood was soaking in the front of his shirt, and it was dark and spreading over the stone under him. Kian, she prayed, harder and harder against the wound. “Stay with me.” His eyes opened slowly. Their inner silver shine was gone. They were normal again, dishevelled, human. He was like her brother, as he had never been before he had come into the cavern. “Elara…” he murmured. “I’m here,” she said quickly. His eyes had moved a little higher than her shoulder. Toward Silas.

Chapter Fourty-Four

Elara felt her hand clenched by Silas. The contact was firm. Warm...Real. Elara felt lost the moment that the cavern was tearing itself open. She forgot the monster reaching its way out of the soil. She had forgotten how the blood was soaking into the rock beneath the body of her brother. All she felt was Silas’s hand. It was the same hand which on the first night had thrust her aside. It was the same hand which had treated her as a stranger, as a burden. Now it grasped her like it counted. She had a trembling finger. “Silas…” she whispered. He did not immediately look at her. His gaze was fastened on the expanding crevice of the ground whence the Devourer was pushing himself back into the cave. The huge shoulders of the creature broke through the broken floor and Stone shattered. The Devourer laughed deep in his breast. “Yes,” it rumbled. “Hold her close, Alpha.” Its red eyes were gleamed with wicked delight. It will add agony to the conclusion.

Chapter Fourty-Five

The light was coming through the earth as a pulse. Once. Then again. The cavern shook to the sudden stroke. The claw of the Devourer would have been within inches of the face of Elara. Its red eyes tightened, and the silver light had broken through the broken rock beneath its eyes. It was the first time since its appearance out of the prison the monster hesitated. “What… is that?” it growled. Elara felt it clearly now. The root. But not the broken prison root that the guardian had talked of. This was deeper. Older. The power passed through the earth and directly into their relationship between her and Silas. She felt it pouring fire and ice into her chest simultaneously. It was the hand of Silas that clenched around hers. He was on the ground behind her, cursing in a hoarse voice, Elara. “Move.” She didn’t. The Devourer looked closer and its hot breath blew on her face. You ought to have run, it said to him. Elara looked directly at its red burning eyes. “You’re af

Chapter Fourty-Six

Elara trembled while looking at him. It was Kian. Her brother. It was the same boy that she had lost everything to save. But the fact was told her by the silver in his eyes. The one she had saved was no longer her brother before her. The ground did not just shake. It rose. Turning slowly up around the ignited dagger, Stone lifted himself, as though something in the cavity had snorted out, in centuries unknown. Elara felt it with the soles of her feet--vast old-fashioned movement. The stone that was at the blade broke open and Silas pulled her back. "Elara Away from it!" With a fall against his side, her heart was jumping with the dust flying off the ceiling. Lightning fissures caused their way through the cavern floor. Her brother was looking peaceful over the torn ground. Almost… pleased. What you have done, you have not done, said the old silver one, no longer like that of a woman of soothing voice, but like a woman of warning voice. Her brother cleaned dust off his