Page 108 of Cursed Shadows 2

“Hold on!” Dare smacks his elbow out—and it connects the underside of Daxeel’s chin.

Glass shatters. The phial breaks in his mouth.

Nari’s blood is free on his tongue, mixing with his own.

The evate bond is soul and soul. But blood is of the body.

Rune grips onto Daxeel’s belt; Samick to his wrist, Dare to his hand. The black storm pulsates. It falters above, all around them, then sucks into itself like a sharp gasp.

Ridge throws himself aside. He lands hard on his back by the hatchlings. Head lifted, red eyes burning—but they don’t get another moment to move for him.

Dare shuts his eyes before it happens, before the cloud of Cursed Shadows implodes in on itself, then erupts with the force of a hundred volcanos.

They don’t feel the blast. Not as it destroys the chamber, annihilates the entire tunnel system, avalanches the cliffside, or blows through every contender still on the rocky shore…

Darkness like no other before it wipes the slate clean.

23

††††††

Prickles wave over the tar pool.

The surface doesn’t shimmer or ripple anymore, not even boil and bubble. Now, it’s like the needled claws of monsters are pushing up from under, trying to pierce through the veil.

It might worry me more if I wasn’t about to collapse into a fucking earthquake, because beneath me, the stand rattles with the same violence of the tremors assaulting the courtyard.

I’ve abandoned Aleana’s hand, and she now grabs onto my side as though a grip on me will somehow steady her if the stands come crashing down.

It’s the same as how I hold onto Eamon. For dear life.

My fist is twisted in the flimsy fabric of his shirt, my other hand reached out for the spine of the seat in front of me, nails cutting into the blackwood.

Curved against my shoulder, Aleana’s breaths shudder something hoarse and strangled. But I stay braced against the tremors beneath the stone of the courtyard.

Then her grated breaths hitch—and turn into a hollow cry.

My scream isn’t far behind her.

A tornado of darkness punches up from the centre of the tar pool.

A whispery breath escapes Eamon, like he’s too frozen to even cry out at the sight of it. But I cry out—and so does Aleana.

Monstrous.

It’s fucking monstrous, a whirling cloud of black smoke violently spearing through the portal—and it slams into the shadows of this land, thickening and blackening the eternal weight of darkness all around us.

Daxeel…

Maybe Caius.

I don’t know which, but one of them made it to the close of the first passage. One of them got their anchor. And this is the grim proof of that feat.

The darkness swells above the courtyard, it spills and pours out of the tornado that whirls so violently that my hair is whipping at my face and parchment snaps and flaps through the air.

The iilra, scattered around the pool, start to shiver with the quake. Their screeches split the air in two. But I can hardly hear their screams piercing through the rattles of the stands, the bangs and groans and creaks of the wood, or the cries from the spectators like me—the ones losing their nerve.

Cringed against it all, the only anchor keeping me grounded is Eamon. He steadies himself at my side, he doesn’t panic.

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