Page 7 of Demon's Prey

A glass globe encases the necklace, but I don't hesitate. Grasping a heavy stone paperweight, I bring it down with all my strength. The globe shatters, shards raining down as I snatch up the choker.

"Narina, what are you doing?" Mariel hisses. "We have to keep moving!"

But I'm lost in the crimson depths of the jewel. It calls to me, secrets whispering just beyond my grasp. I raise the chain over my head?—

The storage room door crashes open. Snarls and heavy footsteps echo around us as orcs pour in, wicked blades drawn. A tall, pale figure follows, features chiseled in arrogant disdain.

"Well, well," the dark elf sneers. "Trying to steal from us?"

I clutch the choker tight, meeting his gaze with defiance. Mariel moves to my side, trembling but resolute.

The dark elf's lip curls.

"Seize them."

The orcs surge forward. I duck a wild swing, lashing out with my fist. Bone crunches beneath my knuckles as I catch one in the face. Chaos erupts as Mariel and I fight with desperate fervor.

An opening presents itself when an Orc and a Dark Elf collide, the two races not used to fighting together. It might be our only chance.

"This way!" I shout.

We sprint for the door, orcs roaring at our heels. The auction hall blurs past in a whirl of color and sound. I spot the exit ahead, a sliver of dusky forest visible beyond.

Almost there?—

A piercing cry rings out behind me. I whirl just in time to see Mariel crumple, an orc's arrow protruding from her back.

"No!" I scream, the world grinding to a halt.

Mariel's eyes meet mine, pain and fear etched into her features. But there's something else too - a fierce determination. With a trembling hand, she points towards the exit.

"Go..." she rasps, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. "Find...your sister."

Tears blur my vision as I shake my head violently. I can't leave her here, not like this. But Mariel's gaze is insistent, pleading. Gritting my teeth, I give her the barest nod and turn towards the beckoning forest, every step feeling like I'm being torn apart.

The first arrow strikes me as I burst into the tree line, a fiery lance of agony lancing through my shoulder. I cry out, stumbling, but don't stop. Can't stop. Mariel's final wish echoesin my mind, driving me onward despite the black spots dancing in my vision.

Tree branches whip my face as I plunge deeper into the ancient woods, my harsh pants the only sound aside from the pursuit crashing through the undergrowth behind me. Another arrow thuds into the trunk beside me with a dull thunk. Too close.

I careen around a moss-covered boulder, the path opening up into a small clearing. And there, at the far end, the ground drops away into an abyss, the opposite cliffside a hazy smudge in the distance. A dead end.

Skidding to a halt, I whirl back the way I came, but the dark elves are already emerging from the tree line, bows trained on me. Escape is cut off on all sides. I'm trapped.

One of the elves, his cruel features twisted into a sneer, raises his arm, fingers flexing around the bowstring.

The arrow takes me in the meat of my thigh. White-hot agony lances through me as I crumple, leg buckling beneath the impact. I pitch backwards, the world tilting sickeningly as the void yawns up to swallow me.

In those final moments, endless and fleeting all at once, a lifetime's worth of memories flash before my eyes. Mariel, her life's blood seeping into the cold stone. The weight of the token around my neck, now forever lost to the ashes of my village.

And my sister's face, her expression frozen in a look of anguished farewell as she disappeared through the portal, the path to the demon realm sealed behind her.

I'll never see her again.

The thought reverberates through my mind, an inescapable truth, as the cliff's edge crumbles beneath me and I'm cast into the endless plummet.

4

DAZIRUS

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