Shadowborn

Chapter Thirty-One: Slave Thirteen

My body ached all over. I woke up on the cold hard ground with no memory of how I’d ended up there. Everything hurt like I’d been fighting, but who had been the one to kick my ass this time? Eve would never, and Ina and I were currently on good terms. Louis or Jon maybe? I couldn’t remember past the pounding in my head.

It was nearly ten minutes before I managed to push myself to my feet. My body felt heavy, like I’d picked up a sack of rocks at some point. I stretched, then winced. My left arm was fucked, and I had no clue how or why. I reached out for the wall I sensed nearby and took a step, only for something to crunch underneath my foot. I frowned, then kicked around a bit.

Bugs. Dozens of them. Hundreds. The ground was sticky with their innards and I couldn’t take a step without stepping on their crunchy carapaces. Spiders, all dead. Spiders? That jogged something in my memory. I remember killing them, but it was fuzzy. I shook my head, which was a mistake. My senses grew fuzzy and I had to brace myself against the wall to keep from falling.

“Ina? Maris? Jon? Any of you there?” I called softly. My voice sounded hoarse, like I’d been screaming. I needed to get back so I could find something to drink. I tried to remember how long it had been since the last supply drop off, but my head was so damned fuzzy. I must have hit it on something. Hadn’t Louis used to say that head injuries could cause memory loss?

I forced myself to start walking, fighting down the bile that rose in my throat. Whatever had happened to me, I had to hope that the others were alright. I needed to take care of myself first. I didn’t know where I was, so I picked a direction and started walking. Uphill seemed as good a choice as any.

I wasn’t sure how much time passed before I heard crying. I froze, listening as closely as I could. Faint sobs coming from somewhere up ahead. I couldn’t place them. They were too high pitched to be one of the guys, but not high enough for the girls.

“Hello?” I called softly.

The crying stopped. “I-is someone there?” A kid. He must’ve been a few years younger than me.

“Yeah, I’m here. Where are you?”

“I don’t know. It’s dark. Where are all the lights?”

I bit back a laugh. “Sorry, buddy, there’s no lights down here. Haven’t been for a long time. Come towards the sound of my voice.”

I heard shuffling. He was shorter than me by a significant margin, definitely not one of the other five. “Are you gonna hurt me?”

“No, kid. I won’t.” He got close enough that I could feel him in front of me and I reached out to where I thought his shoulder was. I touched something and he gasped, then he felt around blindly until he found my hand and grabbed it.

“I want to go home,” he said miserably.

Poor kid. Had the Valax trapped him? Had he wandered down here by mistake? He was lucky the bastards were so fixated on me and my friends, otherwise he’d have—

Wait, no, that wasn’t right. There weren’t Valax down here, were there? The kid must’ve been another one of Karn’s tests. I shook my head, but the confusion wouldn’t leave. I squeezed the kid’s hand. “We all do, kid, but I’m afraid that isn’t possible.”

He sniffled. “I’m scared of the dark.”

I winced in sympathy. I had been too, once. “It’s alright, I’ve got you now. You should come with me, I can take you to my friends.”

“Friends?”

“Sure, you’ll love them. Come on.” I started walking in the direction that felt most like up. The Door was at the top of the catacombs, and we’d set up our little base just a level down. “Eve is the biggest sweetheart there is. I’m sure she’ll take good care of you. Watch out for Louis, though. His dad was a soldier who didn’t come back from the war in too good a shape, so he’s a bit mean. He won’t—”

My voice died in my throat. That wasn’t right either. Louis wouldn’t hurt anyone. He’d died not long after we really started exploring down here. He’d put his foot on some unsteady ground and fallen. When we’d finally managed to find his body, his neck was broken. He’d died instantly.

“Never mind about him. Let’s just get moving, alright? I’m sure you’re hungry.” I was fucking starving. My last meal was among the many memories that I just couldn’t quite grab hold of.

“I miss my mom,” the kid whimpered.

“Was she nice?”

“No,” he said, surprising me. “She was mean all the time, and she hit me a lot, but at least it wasn’t dark.”

I squeezed his hand again. “I’m sure she misses you.”

“Not likely. She died.” He sniffled. “Owed money to bad men. They came to collect and she tried to run. I saw it happen. I’ve never seen someone die before. They shot her in the back with a crossbow. Then they sold me to the scary man and said it would pay my mom’s debts off.”

Damn. He stated it so matter-of-factly. “Yeah, I don’t have any parents either. That’s okay, though. You know why?”

I felt a faint shift in the air and instinctively knew he was shaking his head. “Because you get two families. One you’re born with. Some people get lucky with that one, people like you and me don’t.”

“And the other?”

“The other you get to choose. I chose mine. There are six—” were six, “—five of us. When we get back, you can join us.”

He squeezed my hand as hard as he could. “I’d like that. I miss having family.”

I was about to answer when I heard the sound of something scraping on stone. I rapped my knuckle on the wall and listened to the echoes. There was a gap just behind me, so I pushed the kid down. “Stay here, don’t move, don’t make a sound till I come get you.”

I stood up. “Jon? Maris? That you? Ina?”

No response, then I heard something snarl. I lashed out on instinct and my fist hit something hard. Hot liquid sprayed from the other direction, confusing me. There was an animal down here! I threw myself at the next noise I heard. I couldn’t let it get to the kid. Something cut into my leg and I swung at it. I hit something else and it fell back. Then I kicked out towards the next sound and something hard gave way under my heel. An impact on my back, but it was dull. Like the blow had been spread out along my entire backside. I spun and grabbed something hard and thin that cut into my palm, then yanked and slammed it into the wall. There was a hideous crack and another spray of disgustingly thick liquid, and whatever it was went limp. I tossed it aside, straining my ears for anything else.

Silence. I took a step and found more chunks of spider underfoot. I kicked around a bit. I’d only killed a handful of things, yet there were dozens strewn about me. My shadows must have taken care of them, but I couldn’t have much mana left. I needed to get back to Serena and the others before I bit off more than I could—

More than I could…More than…My…my what? The thought withered and died, lost to oblivion. I pressed my palm to the side of my head and kicked another spider corpse. What the fuck was happening? I hoped the others weren’t dealing with these things. Eve hated spiders. The last time she’d been bit by one—a tiny wolf spider barely bigger than a copper piece—she’d had Ina check her bedroll every night for months. Ina still checks them even though Eve—

Even though Eve died. That’s right. How could I have forgotten? A tunnel had collapsed on her. I’d sat with her for hours, half of her stuck under rubble too heavy for us to ever move. I could still feel her hand in mine. Her sobs. They’d crushed everything below her waist, and there was nothing to be done. She’d been so scared, but I’d refused to let her die scared and alone. I’d stayed until her sobs had stopped and her hand had gone limp in mine, then I’d stayed for hours longer.

How could I have possibly forgotten that? My head must’ve been more fucked than I realized. “Kid, you there?” I called.

I heard him scampering towards me. “I’m here!”

I reached out and grabbed him as soon as he was close enough, which made him cry out before latching onto my arm. “Come on, let’s get moving. Karn must’ve released a shitload of spiders down here. Sadistic fuck.”

“The scary man?”

I snorted. “Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it. He likes releasing things down here to test us. It’s why you need to stick close.”

He clutched me tighter. “When’s the sun gonna come up?”

I patted his hair. It was short and uneven. “Never, kid. Not down here. We gave up trying to count the days a long, long time ago.”

He sniffled again and we set off at a quicker pace. “Will you tell me about your friends? The one you mentioned before sounds nice. I’ve always wanted a big sister.”

“Yeah, Serena is amazing. One of the most caring people I’ve ever met.”

“You said her name was Eve.”

“I—I didn’t—” I slowed again. I had said that, hadn’t I? But Eve was dead. I must’ve meant…what name had I just said? Now I couldn’t remember. “Marion is sort of like the group mom,” I said instead. “She’s tough as nails and always fussing over everyone. She’ll be a better mom than yours ever was, promise.”

“Okay.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Then there’s Ina. If we get through this, it’s because of her. She’s our unofficial leader down here, so make sure you listen to whatever she says. Jon doesn’t talk all that much, but he’s reliable. He’s in rough shape right now, though. He got bit by something and it got infected, but we’ve gotta wait for the monthly supply and hope Karn was nice enough to leave us some medicine.”

The moment the words were out of my mouth I knew they weren’t quite right. There had been medicine outside the Door that morning, but when we’d rushed it back to Jon he’d already been gone. Faded away silently in the middle of the night without any of us realizing. Disturbed, I tried to change the subject. “Was your mom the only family you had?”

Another air movement, but I couldn’t tell if he was nodding or shaking his head. “My dad was a bad man. My mom said she didn’t want him, but he forced her. Then he left before I was born. Grandma and grandpa didn’t believe her when she said she never wanted to have a baby, so they kicked her out. It was always just me and ma, but she was always drinking. She’d hit me and say things like I ruined her life.”

I shook my head. The kid must’ve been twelve or thirteen years old and it sounded like his life had been rough from start to finish. I only hoped he wouldn’t meet his end down here like the rest of us. More movement. I used the same trick as before, but there was nowhere to hide the kid.

“I know you’re there,” I called, pushing the kid behind me.

“Fucking rats,” a man’s voice spat. I knew the voice, but I couldn’t place it. “Scurrying around in the dark. But the fucker who locked me down said I can leave if I bring one of your corpses. Unlucky for you.”

On the contrary. Of any of the kids for him to run into, I was the worst one. Nobody had adapted to moving in the dark quite like me, but there was no way for the man to know that. A criminal or bandit, probably. Karn liked to throw men like that down here to test us, but they were usually carrying some kind of weapon. A blessing in disguise if we were going to keep getting assailed by spiders.

He sucked in a breath to say something else but I threw myself at him. I hit him in the chest, but he must’ve been wearing armor. Cold and hairy and hard, it damn near broke my fist, but it still gave. I hit again where I thought his head would be and pain ripped up my forearm. I felt the warmness of blood pouring down, but there was no room to back off if I wanted to survive. I slammed my fists into the man until I found the unmistakable hilt of a weapon and ripped it out of his scabbard.

“Wait! Wait, don’t—”

I cut his head off with a single strike. It was his begging that jogged my memory. I knew this man. He’d been the first man I’d ever killed. The first of the criminals to be sent into the catacombs with a collar that suppressed their class. He’d found Maris all by herself and decided he’d kill her slow, but when Jon and I had heard the screams we’d come running. He panicked when we attacked and killed her before we could get to him. He’d hurt Jon in the process, but I hadn’t stopped until he was a bloody corpse beneath me.

I leaned over and retched. Whatever my last meal had been, it ended up splattered across the floor. Maris was gone, too, and she hadn’t died well. Maris, Eve, Louis, Jon. They were gone. Over the years they’d all died until it was just me and Ina.

Ina. She was alright. She had to be. She was the smart one. The leader. The one who’d kept us all together every time someone else had fallen. The one who was seemingly unshaken by every new horrible development. I had to find her. If Karn was up to something, she needed to know. I just had to remember where I was and how to get back to her.

“Coast is clear,” I called once I’d wiped my mouth off. My vomit hadn’t tasted right. I couldn’t remember what I’d eaten, but it came out…rotten.

I didn’t understand how the bandit that had killed Maris could be alive, but if he had anything on him then we needed it. I felt around for the corpse, prepared for the soft flesh slowly losing its heat to the cold stone ground. Instead I found the hard shell of a spider as big as I was. Bigger. I’d cleaved it in two, right where the thorax and abdomen met.

I bit back a growl. More Valax. They were coming at me in droves now. The colony wanted me dead. They were clearly pissed I’d killed their royal, but they were still organized. That meant another royal Valax was still around. Had it meant to isolate me from the others or had I thrown myself into a trap meant for someone else? Were they fighting a royal without me? Were they searching for me? I needed to find them in case it wasn’t just royals that lurked—

“Is he dead?” the kid asked, shattering my line of thought.

As quickly as it had come, the thought faded away. It had felt so important at the time that I tried to recall it, but to no avail. I reached back for him and guided his hand to my shirt so he had something to hold onto. I remembered how long it took me to stop trying to search the darkness with my eyes. It was months before I’d developed the general sense of my surroundings. I stood from the man’s corpse, glad the kid couldn’t see it. We needed to hurry back before…before…

Before what? I could still feel that sense of urgency, but I had no clue what the cause of it was. “Come on, kid.” I started back down the hall, more dead spiders crunching underfoot. Who’d killed them? Was there someone down here with a class? That could be dangerous. Something was done to the criminals sent down here, which actually gave us a fighting chance against them. One day I’d have a class, though, and I’d make Karn pay.

“They’re dead, aren’t they? Your friends.”

“Yes. Just Ina is left. Ina and me.”

“Why?”

“I wish I knew.”

We walked in silence for a while, then I stumbled. The ground pitched. I heard skittering The Valax were back, and they’d brought more guardians. I reached for my enhanced senses, but they weren’t there. I’d been poisoned. Magisbane. It was the only explanation. Magisbane and something else more potent. I lifted my sword and threw myself at the spiders before they could attack. My tendrils were still up, so I must have conjured them before I’d been poisoned. I had to get back to the others before they ran out of the mana I’d used to conjure them.

Carapace split under my sword and spiders died to my shadows. Something heavy slammed me into the wall, but I still managed to get my blade into its thorax. It went limp, and I kicked it away. My arm was on fire. I could still move my fingers, but if I wasn’t careful I’d snap the still-healing bone. Serena could fill my health pool, but it would take time for an injury like that to heal fully.

“I’ve watched people die, too.”

I shoved away the corpse of the animal before the kid could stumble over it. I remembered something attacking me, but my head was swimming again so I couldn’t quite think of what it was. It took way too much effort just to stand. Gods I was tired. “Your mom, right?”

“Yeah. She was the first. I didn’t understand, but the bad men made sure I understood. Then the scary man took me, and I saw more people die. Other kids. He killed my friend.” He sniffled. “She didn’t do anything wrong! Why did he kill her?”

I reached out and patted his head. “Sometimes bad people do awful things for reasons only they understand.”
“It’s not fair! Why her? It was my fault! He should have hurt me!” the kid wailed.

I knew the feeling well. Better than he could ever know. “Karn understands that sometimes, hurting someone isn’t the best way to control them. Hurting the people they care about is.”

“Then I don’t want to care about anyone!”

It was hard to argue. I felt like that most days. If you didn’t let anyone in, they couldn’t be ripped away from you. “Some people go that route, but it rarely ends well. Caring for people is a weakness, but it can be a strength, too.”

“It hurts. It hurts so much worse than anything else ever has. I can’t stop thinking about her. How do I make it stop hurting?”

If I knew that, then things would be so very different. “It never does, you just learn to carry the pain. Eventually, it becomes a part of you. Enough that you don’t even remember what it’s like to live without it.”
He was crying again, and I didn’t have the words to comfort him. I stumbled again. It was getting harder and harder to keep my feet from catching on the ground. Every step took just a little more effort than the last, and they were starting to add up. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep going.

“I’m tired. Can we rest?” the kid asked.

“We have to get to my friends. They’re probably worried about me.” I exhaled. “Rhallani is going to be furious, and Serena’s definitely not going to be happy with me.”

“I thought you said your friend’s name was Ina? That she was the last one alive?”

“She is. The others…the others died. That’s not…” I was forgetting something. Something important. My thoughts were a jumbled mess. I shook my head, but that only made me dizzier. It was starting to pound. There was a spot on my back, just above my right shoulder blade, that burned like it was on fire. My stomach heaved again, but I fought it down. I wiped my forehead, surprised at how clammy it was. Was I sick? Is that why I felt so fucked up?

“Maybe…” I stopped and leaned against the wall. My body was starting to feel so heavy. So very heavy. My eyes were so tired. I didn’t need to see, so I closed them. Even after all this time I still felt odd not having them open, even if they couldn’t make anything out in the pitch dark of Karn’s catacombs. “Maybe we take a breather. Rest for a bit. Let my head stop pounding.”

He made an uncertain sound. “Why don’t we just hide? We’d be fine, just us. At least then the scary man can’t hurt other people to hurt us.”

“I know it’s easy to think like that, but trust me when I say that isn’t the answer. When you’re alone, it feels like nothing can hurt you, sure. But sometimes it gets hard to remember why you’re fighting. Why you bother waking up each morning.” I cupped the kids head and pulled him into my side. “The pain of losing someone you care about is awful, but the pain of having nothing left to lose…”

I was tired. So tired. I had to get to Ina. I couldn’t lose her, too. Not after Hannah. Ina needed to meet Eliya. They’d be best of friends. Besides, I’d promised Eliya I’d survive phase two. It had been years since I’d seen her. Was she in another catacomb somewhere else? Was she fighting to survive just on the other side of one of these walls?

I remembered the first year I’d been down here. I’d been secretly searching for any sign of the other groups. I’d eventually given up, but me and Eliya had made a promise. The night before Karn had me and the other five in our group, we’d sworn we’d survive and see each other again. That had been the night she’d given me my name. Zaren. I needed to tell her that I liked it. That I owned it now. That it had become such a part of me that I didn’t even remember what my name had been before.

But I was so tired. So heavy. I couldn’t quite manage to take in a full breath. I felt a stabbing pain anytime I tried. My left hand was also getting harder and harder to close. Whatever I’d done to it, it was getting worse. And the weight at my back…

I let my back hit the wall of the tunnel and heard the sound of metal on stone. It didn’t make sense to me, but I was too tired to figure out why. I needed to catch my breath. To close my eyes and recover, then I could go find Ina. I was no good to her this exhausted. I started to slide down the wall, my legs all but giving out underneath me.

Then I felt stabbing pain explode from a point on the left side of my neck. Like someone was stabbing me with a hot poker. I cried out and the heat spread, driving painful energy back into my body. My eyes flew open, searching the dark for anything and everything. My senses exploded, and somehow the darkness seemed to turn red.

Skittering. The Valax. Another wave. I shouted for the kid to hide and lifted my sword. Dozens of the smaller ones, and more than a few big ones. Rushing at me from both sides. I threw myself to one side before I could get trapped in the middle. Sword and shadow kept them at bay, but I still felt dozens of bites on my legs. Cuts on my arms. Something sliced into my cheek. I roared and my shadows exploded outward. I tried to conjure more, but my skills were still denied to me.

Something bowled into me and my head bounced off the floor. I lashed out on instinct and my blade found something. All the while I felt the impacts reverberating down my shadows. I needed to get up before I was swarmed. Where was the kid? Was he alright?

My lapse cost me and something sliced into my leg. I went down again and my sword skittered away. I lashed out and my fist hit something solid. The impact was muted, as if I was wearing padded cloth around my hand, but whatever I hit still caved. I swung again and again, then my hand wrapped around something. I thought it might be my sword, but when I swung I realized I’d grabbed the leg of a large spider. It felt like it weighed nothing though when I hurled it into the hoard and heard the sound of carapace cracking carapace.

My foot hit a patch of blood—mine or the spiders’, I had no idea—and I slipped. Fangs sunk into my bad arm and pain flared through me, then it ripped me to the side and I slammed into the wall. My ears rang and I tasted blood, but I never stopped swinging.

I didn’t stop until I was sure the men that ambushed me were dead. They’d hurt Ina, but she’d gotten away. She was great at everything, just not fighting. She hated the idea of hurting people, even people that wanted to kill her. Now that the last of the men had fallen, I needed to find out which way she went. I took a step and my knee collapsed under me. I cursed and used the nearby wall to push myself up, nearly slipping and falling due to the slime that coated the walls.

She could be injured, and she might need my help to get back to camp. She couldn’t die now. Not when we were so close to our sixteenth birthday. Not when we were so close to seeing the sun again.

“Are you alright?” the kid asked.

I was glad he was alright. I was even more glad he couldn’t see me right now. I was in bad shape, but I could move. That was all that mattered. “Not really,” I answered honestly.

“What’s wrong?” he asked fearfully.

“You’re not the only one who’s lost friends, kid. I’ve only got two left, and one of them is probably dead. I haven’t seen her in almost three years now.”

“That’s a long time.” His hand found mine and tugged. I limped after him, glad to have a direction to go. My head was still spinning, and I didn’t recognize these walls. I didn’t know which way base camp was. I didn’t know a lot of things. “Do you miss her?” the kid asked.

“Every damn day,” I admitted. She’d been afraid. She was only one number under me, so she’d thought we’d get to go to phase two together. Twelve and Thirteen. Eliya and Zaren against the world. Of course Karn had split the groups right between us. She’d cried the whole night when she’d found out. Only by promising we’d see each other in phase three had I been able to get her to stop.

She hadn’t just been afraid for herself, either. She’d only just finished pulling me out of the darkness I’d fallen into after Hannah’s death. I spent the first month down here contemplating the irony of Eliya dragging me out of a metaphorical darkness only for Karn to plunge me into a literal one. I needed to see her again. To show her that I hadn’t fallen apart. That all the work she’d put in to saving me from myself hadn’t been for nothing.

“I miss my friends too. I miss my mom. Is that stupid?”

I chuckled, then winced when pain flared up my side. “No, kid. It’s not stupid. Even a shit mom is better than this hell.”

He squeezed my hand and I smiled even though my second wind was fading fast. We were walking uphill, though, which could only be a good thing. I just had to hope there weren’t anymore killers around. I was dead on my feet, and I didn’t know how many more I’d be able to take.

Hurry. I blinked and searched the room with my senses. Who’d said that? The only ones around were me and the kid, and I rapped a knuckle on the wall again to make sure. Nothing fleshy or cloth covered absorbed the echo, which meant we were alone. I shrugged.

Hurry! The voice was more insistent. It definitely wasn’t the kid, it sounded too feminine. I was starting to hear things in my exhaustion. My subconscious really wanted me to get into a shitty bedroll, apparently. I chuckled to myself just before I heard the scream.

“Zaren!” It was high pitched, like a screech. It seemed to echo off the walls, changing pitch every time. It was Ina’s voice. And it was Hannah’s. Eliya’s. Serena’s and Rhallani’s and Scarlet’s and Tiana’s and half a dozen others that I knew but didn’t know all layered over one another. Calling to me. A desperate plea for help.
Adrenaline surged. “Come on, hurry!”

I started running and the pain in my neck worsened. It had spread across the entire left side of my body, like half of me had been dipped in scalding hot water. It burned, but I didn’t have time to think about it. Someone needed my help, and I wasn’t going to be too late. Not this time. Not again.

I rounded a corner, the kid in tow, and stumbled to a stop in confusion. Light. I saw light. Dim, but flickering off the walls. Shadows danced and twirled violently as hundreds of somethings moved in front of its source, but it had been so long since I’d seen light of any kind none of it made any sense. Colors swirled and shapes flickered and twisted. I didn’t know what I was looking at.

“Wait here, at the edge of the light,” I told the kid.

I didn’t wait for an answer. I ran for it. It had been almost three years since I’d seen light. Three years of living in total darkness, relying on everything but my sight to survive. Then I saw who stood in the light and I skidded to a stop.

My senses told me that my eyes had to be wrong. They claimed that there was movement all around me, but I only saw two things in the center of the light that illuminated the small cavern in front of me. On the ground was a body. Bruised and bloody and unmoving. It was Ina. Then it was Eliya. Then Hannah. My vision swam and I saw the people I cared about lying there dead. Rhallani. Serena. Noelle. Above them stood a tall, thin man I’d spent my entire life hating.

Valethar Karn looked at me with a cruel smile. The blood still dripped off his knuckles from where he’d hurt my friend. He’d taken them from me. He’d taken them all from me. Fiery heat exploded through my body. My fists clenched and my chest felt like it was caving in. My gut roiled, and a scream ripped itself from my throat. A feral sound that could only come from a wild animal.

“KAAAAAAARN!”

# # #

This was officially the worst day of Rhallani’s life. She fought back the tears. The panic. Spiders surrounded them on all sides, and she wasn’t sure they were going to make it out of this one. Serena and Noelle protected them as best they could, but their injuries were building fast. Tiana had already taken as many mana potions as she dared, leaving them with perilous few, and from the pallid color of her flesh Rhallani knew she was running out of steam fast.

Her golem had disappeared under the onslaught some time ago, and she hadn’t seen it since. It was somewhere under the wriggling mass of spiders across the room. It moved every once and a while, jerking like the golem was still fighting underneath, but the it was as good as lost to them.

She clutched the blade in her shaking hands, the last line of defense between the spiders and Elisa. Elisa hurled her amazing spheres into the masses, and they erupted into flames or wires that tangled the spiders or glowing goop that seemed to slow them down or minty smelling mist that confused them, but her bag was getting lighter with each throw.

And while the five of them fought off the horde of spiders in the two to six foot range, the two giant ones hung back. Waiting for them to fall. Watching. They must have been ten feet tall, and Rhallani wasn’t sure they’d be able to take them on even if they managed to survive the horde.

Elisa threw more wire-wrap spheres. They exploded, wrapping dozens of spiders in their tough threads, and Rhallani ran forward to stab as many of them as she could before she had to jump back. A Valax lunged out and sunk its fangs into her arm and she screamed. She staggered back, holding the bleeding wound. If this was only half the pain from its venom, she didn’t want to know what the full blow would feel like.

They’d only lasted this long because of Noelle’s skill, [Sacrificial Lamb]. Any time one of them were injured, she took half the damage. Rhallani had figured it out, but since Noelle had more health than the rest of them put together they hadn’t been able to dissuade her from using it.

But even she was starting to flag. Her injuries were numerous, though her expression didn’t falter. She just kept hacking away at the waves of spiders with determination, even if there were tears on her cheeks. She wasn’t sure if anyone else had noticed, but Rhallani thought Noelle was taking Zaren’s disappearance harder than any of them.

Zaren. I’m sorry. She picked up her sword and swung at another of the spiders nearby, but she didn’t have the strength to do much more than make it flinch back. As soon as he’d disappeared, they’d set off after him. The only problem was that the phase spider could have taken him anywhere at all in the tunnels. He could be in an adjacent tunnel they’d have to backtrack for miles to get to. They all knew it, even if none of them wanted to say it. The odds of finding him were—

“KAAAAAAARN!”

It was a guttural scream that made her hair stand on end, but it was him. She looked for its source, a smile on her lips. When she saw him, her blood ran cold.

He was covered in blood. Red and green. His shoulders were uneven, like half his body was sagging, but she couldn’t make out most of his left side. Shadows wrapped around him, enveloping his left arm below the neck and most of his side. They whipped around him angrily with dark crimson undertones in the undulating black. His left hand was more of a giant claw, wrapped in so many shadows it was double its normal size and triple its length. The shadows that trailed from his back arced out to the side like a giant skeletal wing, and the shadows were even creeping up over his face. Across his back, still in its scabbard, was the cursed blade that he’d said would kill him if he used it too long.

Then she saw his eyes.

They were a furious red, but even from this distance she could see faint golden rings in his irises. Rings not unlike the ones in her own eyes. It made his glare look almost like a sunset. But his expression was the opposite of that. Twisted in rage while he snarled. She saw next to nothing of the man she loved in his face, and that terrified her.

He roared again and the spiders all surged towards him. The big ones, too. They were the first to reach him, but he attacked before they could. He didn’t move like a person. He lunged, low to the ground, and ripped into the nearest spider violently. There was no skill or precision. No nimbly avoiding the blows like she’d seen him do so many times now. He threw himself at the spider with raw aggression, ripping through its body in seconds like it was nothing.

Then the horde washed over him, and his shadows exploded outward. They were like a tempest of black and crimson tendrils that turned the spiders to mist. Bits of carapace exploded in all directions, scattering far enough that even Rhallani had to shield her eyes from the debris.

He screamed again. “I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!” He hurled himself at the larger spiders, and for the first time in her life Rhallani understood what it meant to say that someone fought like a cornered animal. Every motion was violent and sudden with no regard for his own safety. He ripped spiders apart with his bare hand and that terrifying claw. He didn’t bother dodging attacks, ignoring every spray of blood in favor of tearing through the next enemy. At one point he ended up with the long bladed forelimb of one of the larger spiders and he swung it like a sword, cleaving through the spiders he could reach.

The other of the ten foot tall spiders launched at him from behind, but the shadows lurched at it like they had a mind of their own. They launched out and wrapped around its forelimbs, pulling it in close and skewering it with spikes as thick around as Zaren’s arms. It screeched once, then went limp. The shadows hurled it aside and Zaren kept tearing through the other spiders like he hadn’t even realized it had been there.

Just when Rhallani thought the rest would be fairly easy for them to clean up, the ground exploded. A giant Valax, one as large as the one they’d found Zaren sitting on, emerged from a fresh hole in the ground. It let out a hiss that sounded more like a roar and launched at Zaren.

“COME AND FUCKING GET ME!” he roared.

His shadows lashed out, but this time at them. One hit Serena in the chest, then more red-tinged tendrils exploded from her back. Each one hit a different person, throwing them to the ground. Rhallani’s sword went flying, but before it could land something hit it. One second it was spinning through the air, the next it had been cut neatly into four pieces.

Something had sliced through the air. Something that would have killed all five of them. Panic filled her chest, but she needn’t have bothered. What must have been razor-thin threads wrapped around Zaren, but his shadows surged. Dark red flames erupted from him in lines, tracing the threads back to the giant Valax and burning them away. The flames spread across the back of the Valax’s abdomen where the threads must have connected, and it screeched.

It launched at Zaren, but he launched right back at it. It slammed its giant forelimbs down in a barrage, but Zaren met it blow for blow. The blades that had evolved to cut through solid stone were repelled by his shadow-wrapped strikes until he finally ducked one, then spun and slammed the back of his fist against it.

The limb shot forward, past him, and the spider staggered. It fell low enough that Zaren’s shadows could wrap around and haul it down. It reared back, but the shadows just carried Zaren with it. It tried to lurch to the side, but Zaren sunk his clawed hand into the joint where one of its forelimbs met the body. There was a sickening crunch and the limb sprang free, crashing to the ground. Zaren reared back and sunk his fist into the hole, then started ripping out chunks of spider innards. The royal bucked and twisted, rolling trying to dislodge him, but Zaren just stared slamming his fist into its eyes.

Finally, the spider lurched one final time and fell to the ground, still. Zaren staggered back, his shadows whipping around him once more, but the rest of the spiders turned and fled into the darkness. He roared at their backs, then fell to one knee.

Elisa slid to the ground with a whimper and Tiana fell to her knees, panting. Noelle looked to Zaren with a fearful expression, but Serena just sprinted at him with tears in her eyes. “Zaren!” she called.

Rhallani didn’t even have time to warn her.

One moment Zaren had been kneeling, swaying slightly, staring at the corpse of the Valax without seeing it. Then, as soon as Serena was only a few feet away, he moved in a blur. Her spear went spinning away and he swept her feet out from under her. She slammed into the ground and he was on top of her, his normal arm around her throat while his other hung limply at his side.

“Zaren, stop!” Rhallani cried.

There were teartracks in the blood on his face, but he made no sign he’d heard. “You aren’t real,” he said, his voice haggard. “You’re dead. I saw you die.”

“Zaren…” Serena said carefully. His hand was around her throat, but he wasn’t squeezing. That was good, at least. She put one hand on his wrist and reached up with her other to caress his face. Rhallani saw the golden glow of her skill activate, but with the extent of Zaren’s injuries she’d need more skin contact to save him. “Zaren, listen to me. I’m here. I’m alright.”

“You don’t think I know that!?” he cried. “I couldn’t do anything! I couldn’t do anything but watch when he killed you!”

“Zaren?” Serena asked, fear in her voice.

Rhallani crouched down to look into his face. His pupils were dilating. One was larger than the other. “He’s hallucinating! Serena, your skill!”

“It’s not working!” she cried. “It’s like it doesn’t recognize him as an ally!”

Shit shit shit shit. Think, Rhallani, think! The shadows were red. They’d turned red when he’d used the sword at Karn’s tower, hadn’t they? “Noelle!” She reached out without taking her eyes off Zaren and felt Noelle grab her hand. She ran around him, keeping out of reach from his shadows. Sure enough, when she got behind him, she saw the sword. The clasp was undone, and the sword was an inch out of the scabbard. Crimson tendrils poured out of it, meshing with his shadows.

“Noelle, can you get to the sword? We need to redo the clasp before it kills him.”

She nodded once, her panicked look shifting to one of determination. “Serena!” Rhallani called, “Keep his attention!”

“Zaren, look at me.”

“I know,” he all but whimpered. “I know what I promised, Ina. I failed you.”

The raw pain in his voice ripped at Rhallani’s heart, but she steeled herself and nodded at Noelle. “Go!”

Noelle darted forward, making no noise while she shot across the floor. Zaren didn’t move, even when she reached him. Rhallani worried the shadows might try to hurt her, but they parted as if welcoming Noelle in. She wrapped her hand around the hilt to shove it down, then the crimson tendrils shot up and wrapped around her wrist. She cried out, more in surprise than pain, then jammed the sword into its scabbard. The tendrils suddenly surged towards her and her body clenched.

Unable to stand by any longer, Rhallani leapt forward. Noelle groaned through clenched teeth while Rhallani fumbled with the latch, but she managed to lock it closed. All of the shadows collapsed and dissolved, dropping Noelle. Rhallani caught her before she hit the ground, landing next to Zaren. Noelle clung to her, her entire body trembling.

“I’m going to fix this, Ina,” Zaren said. “I made a deal. I’m going to do what I couldn’t before.”
Rhallani’s breath caught in her throat. Zaren had still never mentioned exactly what Allura had promised him, and she hadn’t asked. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to reveal it while he was being influenced by something.

Serena must have felt the same. “It’s alright, Zaren. We’re alright.” She let go of his wrist and pulled his injured arm to her breast. “You know me, Zaren. Let me help you.”

“Ina? You don’t…” He looked around the room, and his eyes passed right over where Rhallani held Noelle. “I…this isn’t right. I’m…not right. I’m…” he closed his eyes and shook his head. He swayed slightly, then his off hand started trailing the edge of Serena’s armor. Tracing its edges.

“Ina died. You aren’t her. I’m not…I’m not back in the catacombs. Karn is dead, too. I killed him. I killed him, Ina. I…” His hand didn’t leave her throat, but it slid over enough for him to run his thumb over the gem in the hollow of her neck. “Serena?”

A terrified sob wracked Serena’s body. Not scared of him, but of what he must be seeing right now. “That’s right, baby. It’s me. Come back to me, Zaren. You promised you would.”

He swayed, but he didn’t fight when she pulled him down on top of her. “I know, Ina. I know it was my fault, but I’m going to make up for it. I avenged you, now I can save you. I just need to get back to them first. To my friends.” He caressed Serena’s face, leaving behind a trail of blood. “I think you’d like them. I wish you could have met. I’m sorry. Sorry you never got to see the sun again.”

Serena slid her arms into his second shredded shirt of the day and held him close, activating her skill in full. She looked at Rhallani over Zaren’s shoulder with tear filled eyes. “Noelle?”

Rhallani looked down to where Noelle was shivering. She shook her head. “The sword did something. Like it’s magic was inside me. Rearranging my insides. It didn’t hurt, but it felt…strange.”

Rhallani helped her sit up. “Can you walk? We need to get Zaren out of here.” She nodded.

Tiana finally managed to stand, though unsteadily. “I can take Elisa, you two carry Zaren.”

Rhallani nodded, then moved to try and help Serena extricate herself from underneath him. He jerked, then looked around blearily. “Serena? Rhallani? Noelle? Where…” He tried to move and sucked in his breath. “The kid. Where…where’s the kid?” His gaze searched the room then stopped at a point in the direction he’d come from.

“What kid, Zaren?”

He slumped. “Hallucinating,” he slurred. “I was hallucinating.” He slumped, and Serena only just managed to keep him from falling back to the ground. When Rhallani reached for his face, he was completely unconscious.

“We need water. Lots of it. He’s covered in injuries and caked in blood and dirt and who knows what else,” Serena said.

“There was a cave we passed a bit ago. One that had an underwater stream cutting through it. I can purify the water with a simple spell,” Rhallani said quickly. “I can lead us back.”

Serena nodded. “Let’s go.”

Both she and Rhallani took an arm while an exhausted Tiana carried a terrified Elisa. As the only one not carrying someone else, an unsteady Noelle took the lead.

Tiana glanced at Zaren out the corner of her eye. “Once we’ve rested, we’re going to have to talk about whatever the fuck that was.”

Rhallani agreed, but she didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t reveal she knew almost as little about what had happened back there than Tiana did. That scared her more than anything else.