Page 140 of Fated In Forever
“You are entirely no fun at all.” Blake snarked, his face brightening as Eldric joined us. “You got some books tothrow at our enemies? Or are you planning to talk them to death today?” He asked, without a shred of decency.
“We’re about to go to war, Blake,” I admonished sternly, before Eldric could say a thing.
“I know,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Oh, trust me, he did,” Riordan said, triple checking his weapons, sounding like a long-suffering younger brother. “He’s always like this before a battle. Chatty. Insufferable. A total pain in the ass.”
“Hey, you’re the one who said you couldn’t wait—and I quote—to see monster Malachi hand Ravok his ass on a silver fucking platter.” Blake waggled his eyebrows again. “End quote.”
“Fuck you, Blake.” Riordan thumped his hand down on my mate’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go kill something, that will take the edge off.”
The rift wasa roaring hole in the sky, the ley line was wide open, spilling a steady trail of iridescent magic into the sky, most of which was immediately sucked into the rift, which made it gape wider.
Bodies of thralls littered the ancient stones, their unnatural forms twisted and broken. Knightsguard moved among the wreckage, tending to their wounded, Nash calling out orders, his expression grim.
“Where's Ravok?” Blake demanded, his fangs extended as he scanned the area. He took one look at that rift, thedark magic spilling out of it, and shielded me with a wave of his hand.
“Gone down below, along with that half-rotted sidekick of his,” Nash swiped a streak of black ichor and red blood—hopefully not his—off his face. “They overpowered us, then disappeared into the tunnels about five minutes ago. Malachi went after them.”
He shot me a look of apology. “I tried to get him to stay, I did, but he looked like he had a score to settle.”
“How long ago was that? Did any of the thralls follow? What do you mean half-rotted?” Eldric demanded, peppering Nash with questions, his eyes flicking to the opening to the tunnels, the piles of bodies stacked around it.
My blood turned to ice. A lot could change in five minutes. People could die. We were five minutes too late, and now Malachi was down in those tunnels facing Ravok and Romulus. Alone.
“They’ve gone to the silver pool,” I said suddenly, the realization hitting me like lightning. “That's what he's after. The portal to the Underworld.”
Riordan's expression darkened. “According to all recent reports, the pool is corrupted. Unusable. How will Ravok ever…”
“I don’t know,” I interrupted, “but that’s where he’s heading.”
I went over everything from our last interaction and…
“Romulus. I saw red magic, when he tried to spool up his power in the bunker. Bright red, like Aria’s used to be. If he could somehow mimic witch magic…then he can open the portal to the Underworld.Fuck.”
“He needs more than stolen magic, Evie.” Riordan reminded me as we threaded our way through bodies and injured guards. “He needed your blood last time,” heslanted me a pointed, sideways look. “Which is a compelling reason for you not to go down there.”
“Very compelling,” Blake added.
“Extremelycompelling,” Eldric chimed in, like he couldn’t help himself, and who asked him anyway?
“Now I do kind of wish we’d left you at home,” I grumbled. “Maybe Ravok figured out he doesn’t need Silverwood blood after all.” I said, thinking out loud as we approached the stairs leading down to the tunnels. “Or maybe he found another…source…that he…fucking hell.”
I stopped in my tracks, my brain latching onto something that had never made sense.
“This is why he’s kept my uncles alive. Fortheirblood.” I raised a hand as Blake went to argue. “I know it’s corrupted now, but even tainted, it would still be Silverwood blood, right? It would still stem from the source, and maybe that’s all he needs?”
I closed my eyes and reached out with my consciousness, searching for Malachi's familiar presence. There—deep beneath the mountain, his signature was a beacon in the darkness, fierce and determined but tinged with something that made my heart clench with fear.
“I can feel him,” I said. “He's in the heart of the mountain, at the pool.”
“Then that's where we go,” Blake said grimly. “I’ve been down there often enough, we can dematerialize.”
“I’m with you,” Eldric agreed. “Just tell me where to land.”
“But what would we be dematerializing into?” Riordan cautioned. “Outside the portal room, the center of that intersection. That’s our target. Close enough to gauge the situation, far enough away we’re not in the middle of another battle, because we don’t want to end up between those two.”
