Page 124 of Fated In Ruin

Ravok had found his power source.

There was a ley line beneath this mountain.

I'd rarely encountered them, these invisible rivers of magical energy that crisscrossed the earth. This one was particularly powerful, its resonance making my teeth ache and my vision blur at the edges.

No wonder these passages were steeped in magic.

A shiver of horror went through me at the implications of what this meant. “Ravok, you bastard,” I muttered under my breath, picking up the pace. “Always one fucking step ahead.”

I headed for the room with the demonic portal, the one where the ley line had ruptured, and was leaking magic into this realm. Whether Aurelius had broken the line purposefully or this had happened naturally didn’t matter.

The fissure of the ley line had created intersecting boundaries between our worlds.

The pulsing blackness was caused by two powerful realms colliding.

If Ravok figured out a way to tap into that power…

The doubt that had been gnawing at me all day began to bite. I’d planned to drag Ravok into that portal and ending him, or, at least, to removing him from Evangeline’s world, and trapping him in another.

But he planned to harness all that power to become a god.

Which meant, as fucking usual, he was already ahead of me and I was stuck playing catch up.

My carefully crafted strategy was unravelling by the moment, and then the ceiling suddenly collapsed, razor-sharp stalactites plummeting downward. Only reflexes and a quickly erected shield of glamour saved me, while sharp, stone spears shattered against the floor, razor sharp fragments blocking the tunnel, cutting me off as I was driven forward.

Into another intersection, toward another choice that wasn’t a choice at all.

To my right, that dark portal to oblivion pulsed with malevolent power, contained in a polished, circular room that was the closest thing to hell I’d ever experienced.

But to my left, the Maker's bond became a painful tug that bordered on agony. Ravok knew I was here. He was pulling on our connection deliberately, trying to drag me to him, eager for our confrontation.

I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of obedience.

I went right.

55

MALACHI

Torchlight flickered over the tunnel’s walls as they widened into a natural cathedral, its high ceiling lost in darkness. More of that phosphorescent mold clung to the smooth walls, that eerie diamond-like sparkle reflecting off a perfectly still pool in the chamber's center. I could barely breathe, the ley line's energy was so strong, the air in here reeked of misery and death. A subtle aurora shimmered in the air, drifting upwards like smoke, rippling with enough power to make the walls tremble.

Suspended above the mirror-like pool, pulsing with evil, hung a sphere of darkness, large enough to swallow me whole. That shimmering magic leaking from the ley line fed a constant stream of energy into the portal and this time, what was on the other side of that portal didn’t call to me.

Instead, something hungry watched, as if there were a million eyes inside, every one of them fixated on me. Waiting for what came next.

This was what Ravok was after.

He was planning to harness this broken power to somehow remake himself into…something else.

What, I didn’t know.

I didn’twantto know, because I was going to kill him before he could.

I took one last look at that dark portal and turned on my heel, heading toward Ravok, preparing for our final confrontation. The glamour encasing my hands gleamed in the strange light; my magic pulsed in time with the waves of energy traveling through the ley line beneath my feet.

And hidden deep inside my cloak was a secret weapon, something I’d been saving for a very long time. Without Evie’s dark fire to destroy my Maker, ancient, primitive magic would have to suffice.

“I wondered when you would arrive, Malachi.”

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