Page 52 of Song of Night

My consciousness slips away.

* * *

When I come to, I am slung over Kieran’s shoulder. He’s walking down a tunnel. It is dark except for two purple orbs of magic that float on either side of him. I can see the slim, shadowy figure of Vyrin walking a few steps ahead.

Which means…

My heart climbs into my throat and I thrash when I feel the weight of the shadow demon’s eyes on me from where he walks directly behind Kieran. The cold touch of his dark, ancient magic makes everything in my body scream.

Kieran deposits me unceremoniously onto the floor of the tunnel. I push up onto my elbows and glare at him. “She’s awake,” he says.

“I can see that,” Vyrin says in an oily tone. He pauses only a moment, then continues walking. “It’s time to get to work, Zara. Lead us to the source of Night’s magic. Unless you want my pet to take a little taste of you…”

The winged beast’s mouth widens unnaturally as its jaw unhinges and it reveals rows of gleaming teeth, long and thin like knitting needles. I scramble backwards away from it. I’ll have to play along for now, until I can think of something…

I climb to my feet and stride ahead of Vyrin. “I need to use my magic to see the path,” I say in warning before summoning a ball of purple light into my hands.

“I’m glad you can be agreeable,” Vyrin says with a smug sneer.

Kieran narrows his eyes as he watches me, but he says nothing.

I focus on my magic as I had before, not sending it anywhere but just sensing Night and the glow of magic within the city. We’re beneath the church I’d been heading to when Kieran intercepted me. Intercepted us. My throat tightens, but I shove away thoughts of Asher and whether he’s alive.

Kieran must have told them where we were headed, and they’d clearly found their way into the tunnels beneath the city. The tug I now feel isn’t north, south, east, or west, it’s down. I picture the obsidian stairs in my head. Somewhere below us, that’s where the goddess is trapped. Somewhere very deep beneath the earth. Do the tunnels even lead that far?

But right now, it doesn’t matter. Because I have no intention of leading them in the right direction.

The sparks of an idea begin to form in my head. A terrible, reckless, dangerous idea. An idea formed of desperation.

“This way,” I say, and we continue down the path, heading west, away from the church.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

ASHER

I awake in total darkness to the sound of howls of mourning.

My eyes blink open and at first I think I’m blinded, because I can’t see anything. My entire body is one massive point of pain. Moving slowly, I roll over just enough to see the soft glow from two of the wolves a dozen paces off. They’re standing over the body of the third. It must have snapped its neck in the fall. The pack leader and the other both roll back their heads and let out slow, resonant howls that echo through the air.

I have no idea where I am.

Memory surges back then, asserting itself over the peril of my situation. Kieran has Zara. He’s taken her to Vyrin. I can still hear my name, ripped from her throat as he carried her off into the night sky.

Thoughts of vengeance and murder pulse red behind my eyes, but I’m in no position to swear to avenge Zara. I can barely move, and my leg is most definitely broken. Not clean through, but fractured for sure. It feels like a hot poker being shoved into my knee every time I try to sit up.

Slowly, my eyes adjust to the darkness. The glow from the wolves helps a bit, too. Gradually, the outline of rocks appears in the distance, boulders really. Some that form spikes at the top. It smells of water and clay. I must be in a cavern beneath Night. Deeper even than the tunnels we traversed.

I finally manage to sit up, biting through the agony that lances my body as I do. Had I not been Daemonium, I would not have survived such a fall. But even so, I’m lucky. We are not immortal, after all. Not entirely.

Summoning my magic, I send a bit into my leg, enough to heal the fracture. I climb to my feet and walk to where the wolves stand over their fallen friend. The leader looks up at me with sorrow in his glowing eyes, flames flickering from his mouth. Anyone who ever said that animals do not feel the same depth of emotion as people is a fool.

I call magic again, a ball of it in my hand so I can see my way around. I send it high above my head, feeding it more energy, enough to illuminate the cave around me in a soft lavender glow. Turning this way and that, I try to ascertain if there’s any way out of this place. Other than the hole in the earth I fell from.

The cavern seems to have solid walls on all sides but one. That side continues further than my light reveals. I pull the ball of magic back to me to conserve it, dimming it so I have enough to guide my way only. Then I begin to walk.

I reach the end of the cavern in less than five minutes. It intersects with a tunnel that runs both ways as far as I can see. But there’s also something that continues on the other side of the tunnel.

A set of obsidian steps leading down into darkness.

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