There was no time to delve into what had happened. Shoving aside his spiraling questions, Sarilian forged dawnflame into dulled versions of his armor and spear, gritting his teeth at the extra effort even those simple spells required here in the Dusklands. Aiming for the woman, he lunged forward.

The tip of his spear passed through shadowed air as duskflame blurred her chest. She spun lithely around the blow, jamming her daggers into his breastplate. Black cracks spread across its lustrous surface, but his armor blessedly held.

He swung the shaft of his spear out, hoping to stagger the Infernal, but again she evaded the blow.It’s like fighting a Light-blinded ghost, he thought as dual impacts in his back marked another pair of swift strikes.

Abandoning all subtlety, he channeled his dawnflame into a fiery burst centered on him. The blast caught the female Infernal, momentarily staggering her. Before she could recover, Sarilian stepped in and slammed the blunt end of his spear into her skull, reinforcing the blow with extra dawnflame. She crumpled at his feet like a sack of potatoes.

Searching the corridor, he found Malorg had easily overwhelmed the other guard, pinning him against the wall. “Wait!” Sarilian shouted as Malorg raised a dagger to the man’s throat. “Don’t kill him!”

Malorg stilled, his blade poised. After a brief pause, he jerked a nod and stabbed the dagger into the man’s side instead, dropping him. “He’ll live,” Malorg said at Sarilian’s questioning glance. His gaze flicked between the guards. “Thanks forstopping me. I’ve spent so long killing voidspawn that I forget not all beings are equally deserving of death.”

Sarilian dismissed his spear to conserve dawnflame and set about repairing his damaged armor. “We all have a duty to fulfill. They were merely performing theirs.” He furrowed his brow. “Though I wish I knew what happened. One moment, we were fine. The next, I was erupting with duskflame.”

“I think I know,” Malorg said, his voice grim. “Pelorak’s curse. Some portion of it must remain in you and the other Celestial dignitaries—enough, at least, to channel a spell through.” A grimace marred his face. “This is my fault. I should have considered the possibility sooner.”

“It’s fine.” Sarilian’s gut twisted at the thought of someone like Pelorak exercising any degree of control over him. “You’re not the only one to forget about it. Is there anything you can do to ensure he doesn’t pull another stunt like that?”

“I can suppress the curse again, like I did back at my apartment. Here.” Malorg pressed a hand to Sarilian’s chest. Sarilian shivered at the tingling duskflame that sank into his bones. “That should do the trick…though I fear the damage has already been done.”

Unease festered within Sarilian. “He knows we’re here.”

Malorg nodded, his expression hardening. “Which means we need to hurry.”

He held out a hand, which Sarilian quickly took.Here goes nothing.Even bracing himself, duskwalking still flipped his stomach. The maze-like dungeon blurred past them as they flitted along the floor like a stone skipped across a pond.

Word of their escape must have gotten out because the guards seemed to be on high alert. Several times, Malorg swerved to avoid an Infernal patrol, losing any pursuit with a series of zig-zagging turns. Sarilian vaguely recognized their surroundingsnow—they were closing in on the stairs leading to the surface. Of course, no doubt that’s where resistance would be strongest.

Sure enough, they eventually turned a corner to find the large, open room marking the dungeon’s entrance. A good dozen Infernals stood arrayed around the base of the staircase, with more positioned higher on the steps. Malorg materialized them out of sight in the corridor.

“Now what?” Sarilian asked, keeping his voice low while he refashioned his armor and spear. “Can you duskwalk us past them?”

The squirming knot in his chest grew when Malorg shook his head. “Not without leaving us too vulnerable to counterattack. Our only choice is to fight our way through.”

“But there’s so many of them!”

“And the longer we wait, the more of them there will be.”

Sarilian expelled a breath. Malorg was right. They couldn’t afford to delay—not if they wanted to escape before every Infernal in Twilight swarmed the Citadel looking for them.

But a dozen foes presented a challenge for even someone of Malorg’s prodigious skill, especially when his sole ally couldn’t fight at full strength. Unless…

Excitement thrummed through Sarilian as he spun to Malorg. “Do you remember that time we hunted voidspawn together?”

A furrow appeared in Malorg’s brow before abruptly clearing as his eyes widened. “You mean to utilize our combined magic to fight.”

Sarilian shrugged, his lips parting in a grin. “Why not? It might give us precisely the edge we need.”Or backfire spectacularly when we lose control of our magic,he thought but didn’t say.

Malorg sighed and shook his head. “I suppose there’s no sense keeping it a secret any longer, and our previous efforts were promising.” He raised a hand crackling with power. “Very well—let’s see what duskflame and dawnflame can accomplish when they cooperate.”

A handful of minutes passed as they prepared. Sarilian only hoped their efforts proved worth the delay.

When they’d finished, shadow laced his armor and spear along with a conjured shield, lending all three a dark sheen that stood in stark contrast to their usual bright gold. Malorg’s daggers appeared similarly altered, glowing with their own burnished light. A slew of extra dawnflame-infused blades lined a strap he’d formed across his chest.

“Ready?” Sarilian asked, hefting his shield and spear.

Malorg gave a silent nod in confirmation, and Sarilian took a steadying breath.Here we go.

They moved in unison, Sarilian charging around the corner in a blaze of black-slicked dawnflame while Malorg slipped silently along the wall as a living shadow. For several heartbeats, the gathered Infernals stared at Sarilian, struck dumb by his sudden appearance. Then, they burst into motion.