Page 154 of Soul Forge

Something constricted around her waist, and then Vel’s feathered wings were in her view, and she was looking up at the sky. Somehow, even with his injury, he’d caught up to her.

The impact was hard enough to rattle her bones, sending stars bursting across her vision when she bounced along the hard-packed sand and rock, coming to rest a few feet away from where she landed. She laid in a daze for what felt like hours, too winded to move.

When she finally remembered where she was, she sat up slowly and looked over at Vel. He was on his hands and knees, his wings battered and twitching in pain. Blood dripped onto the sand, pouring from his nose and mouth. From the way his chest heaved, it was obvious he’d sustained serious injury. It was a miracle he was even conscious.

Elda crawled over to him on her hands and knees, legs still too wobbly to stand. She laid a hand on his shoulder while he coughed, spitting more blood into the sand. The sight of himwheezing and agonised made her heart pound in her throat. He sat back heavily and turned his head to study her.

“Hurt?” he grunted. She shook her head. “Good. I think...I collapsed...a lung.” He pressed a hand to his chest and grimaced, the runes at his neck glowing when he drew on Sypher’s power and healed some of the damage. “Always hurts when I have to do it to myself,” he muttered, but his breathing was even again.

“We’re too late,” Elda realised, looking over at the last place she’d seen Lillian. The ledge the fae had landed on was empty. “She’s gone.”

“Let her go. I’m done killing myself trying to catch her,” he muttered.

“We have to go after her,” Elda insisted.

“Like fuck we do,” Vel snorted. “She made her choice. If she wants to go on a one-woman crusade to attack the Corrupted, that’s up to her. I think you’re insane for chasing her this far.”

“We can’t just leave her!” Elda argued.

“You realise that we’re in deep shit if Lillian’s portals wake the demon in that mountain, right?” he asked. “It will smash its way out, and the only way to stop it will be to put it down. Do you know how hard it is to put down a two-hundred-foot-tall monster?”

“I don’t!” the princess shot back, “but Idoknow how screwed we are if we lose a wielder, Vel. I’m anovice! You and Gira can’t take on an army of demons and the Corrupted alone, and you know it!”

“I’m not risking a fight with a Behemoth for a woman I’d much rather behead!” he snapped. “Especially notthatBehemoth. Ose is–”

He froze, mid-rant, and turned slowly to face the mountain. Elda felt a faint, ominous vibration beneath her hands.

“Awake,” Vel finished, visibly sagging. “Ose isawake.”

“What do we do?”

He shrugged. “Die, probably.”

“I’m serious! We need a plan!” she yelped, scrambling to her feet. The tremors grew, rising until they rivalled an earthquake. Chunks of stone began to detach themselves from the mountain, sending plumes of sand flying into the air wherever they landed.

“I have to kill her,” Vel groaned. “If Ose reaches the cities, there’ll be nothing left of them.” He sighed and rolled his neck, turning to face the mountain and looking back over his shoulder. “I spend my time shackled, Varro. I’m amiable around you because the angel always has some sort of influence on me, even if he doesn’t realise it. To beat this thing, I need to shut the angel out as much as I can.”

Fear prickled Elda’s scalp. “What are you saying?”

“My shadows are loud. It’s not always easy to resist their call. Sypher will still be there to try and help me regain myself, but if I can’t come back from this, kill me.”

Before Elda could ask what he meant, his head jerked to the side, neck rolling as he unleashed more of his demonic nature. A wave of undiluted energy rolled off him, the metallic taste she remembered from the first time she’d met the demon settling on her tongue. The veins around his eye spread down his throat, his injuries healing effortlessly when his sharpened teeth lengthened into fangs. Shadows rose from his skin like smoke when his umbramancy was finally allowed to flourish.

Elda backed away, her brain screaming at her to run, to get away from the thing that wasn’t Sypher or even the Vel she knew. She made sure to get out of his peripheral vision, fearing that he’d see her and forget the Behemoth altogether. She felt shame at being afraid, but it was overridden by her alarm.

A huge hand tipped with long, skeletal fingers burst from the summit of the mountain like a volcanic eruption, sending dust and rock soaring upwards. The whole structure began to crumble, raising enough sand to darken the sky and cast thedesert into a temporary shadow. Elda threw an arm up to shield her eyes from the grit, turning away to avoid breathing it in.

When the sand finally settled and the rumbling stopped, a creature taller than the mountain stood before them. Its frame was slender and elongated, skeletal ribs showing through stretched skin. Its arms were so long they hung down past its knees, giving it an incredible reach. From its head sprouted two massive horns, curving upwards, almost forming a circle. It took a moment for Elda to realise the red pinpoints of light decorating those horns wereeyesplaced there so the disproportionately small head could be entirely dominated by a wide, fang-lined mouth.

Ose opened her maw and shrieked, the sound striking a bass so low it made Elda’s teeth hurt. She clapped her hands over her ears, but she could still feel the thundering boom of Ose’s voice in her bones. It was so loud that it put pressure on her lungs, vibrating through her ribs until they ached.

Vel opened his mouth and screamed right back, the inhuman sound echoing its own concussive force towards the towering Behemoth. Ose rose to the challenge, stepping out of her rocky bed to meet him. He took off with such force that the wind from his wings buffeted Elda back a step, streaking towards the Behemoth like lightning now there was no passenger on his back. Silhouetted against the sun, it was easy to mistake him for an angel.

Elda unhooked her bow from her shoulder and sighted Ose, pulling the string back as far as it would go. She let the arrow that appeared gather energy, feeling it build inside her as Irileth fuelled it until her whole body buzzed with power. She released it before Vel could reach the Behemoth, watching it streak through the air and shatter against her massive chest. Ose howled at the ice encasing her ribs, the howl becoming a scream when Vel immediately blinded two of her sixteen eyes.

“What the fuck are youdoing?” a voice hissed, and then Elda’s vestige was yanked from her grasp. She whirled to find Lillian staring at her in horror, the bow clutched in her fist.

“Helping him! What does it look like I’m doing?” Elda snapped, reaching for the weapon that Lillian held too high for her to grab.

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