The captain appeared, black blood decorating his chest in a diagonal spray. His sword dripped with it.
“Leave most of the fighters here to defend the flyer and deal with the last of the cupra. Get two fighters. We’re going after Krastin.”
Thadd nodded.
Soon, Mal, Rhain, Thadd, and two fighters—Trist and Carvia—were running across the rocky landscape.
They dodged the lava pools, and the thin rivers of molten rock that crisscrossed the rocks.
Ahead, lay a foreboding rock formation. Black rocks arched up, sharp, pointed, and curved. They almost looked like the bones of some long-dead, giant creature.
There was no sign of the transport, or Krastin or Poppy.
But there were hexids.
A pair of the creatures loped out of the rocks. With a roar, they charged. Thadd chopped one down with his deadly sword. Rhain raised a palm and let off a pulse of energy.
The other hexid flew into the air and crashed down. The other two fighters ripped into it with their weapons.
Where the hell did Krastin go? Mal searched the rocks.
“This way,” Rhain said.
“Look.” Mal paused. There was a mouth of a cave that headed down into the ground under some rocks.
Into dark, impenetrable black.
“Did they go in there?” she asked.
Rhain nodded.
“We can’t go in there.” Thadd scowled, his sword resting up on his shoulder. “We have no idea what beasts are in there. It could be teeming with hexids and cupra.”
Mal spun. “I have to find Poppy. She’s alive and that asshole has her.”
“She’s a trap,” Thadd said.
“You stay here then.” Mal moved forward.
A flurry of curses echoed behind her, but the men and Carvia followed.
Mal’s sword glowed silver, giving enough light to navigate. Rhain’s swords gleamed red, Thadd’s was gold, and Trist and Carvia’s weapons were orange.
The rocky walls were black and jagged. Mal saw something in them and gasped. Old bones, fossils of long dead animals.
“Creatures that died in the Radiance,” Rhain said.
The tunnel opened into an enormous cavern. Their light didn’t penetrate far enough to see, but she felt a sense of enormous space.
“Do you feel anything?” she asked Rhain.
His brows drew together and he was tense. “No.”
She took another step into the darkness and heard a growl. She froze.
Suddenly, two lights blinked on in the black.
Her chest locked. Not lights.
Eyes.
Gleaming eyes, like a sheen over oil.
A hexid.
More of them flickered on.
Dozens of them.
Mal lifted her sword, her heart thumping in her ears.
There were too many of them. There was no way they could fight them all and no way they could escape. The hexids would chase them down.
Thadd cursed. “No one ever listens to me.”
Rhain’s face was what she was starting to recognize as his king mask—cool, inscrutable.
She wanted to find Poppy, but she didn’t want Rhain and his people to die here either. Energy began to pool around her. She called it to her. She had no idea how she was doing it, but it felt right.
Fueled by her emotions, the energy gathered around her, growing. She gasped. It felt so powerful. It made her feel powerful.
“We need to go,” Thadd said.
“As soon as we move, they’ll chase us,” Rhain said.
Suddenly, several hexids launched forward.
They loped in, powerful bodies sprinting fast.
“Charge,” Rhain yelled.
With a cry, Mal swung her sword. She sliced and stabbed, and saw other charged weapons glow brightly as the others fought. Rhain’s red kilwar swords were a thing of breathtaking beauty. Thadd’s sword looked like molten gold.
The first wave of hexids lay dead around them.
“Trist,” Carvia cried.
The trim man had a glowing orange dagger in one hand and the other hand pressed to his shoulder. Blood seeped through his fingers from a nasty gash.
He made an annoyed male sound. “It’s fine.”
Carvia met Mal’s gaze and rolled her eyes.
“Well done, Overlord.”
The voice had them all whipping around. The power in Mal hurt, still growing, but she wrestled it down. A man stood on a rock, two hexids crouched beside him like pets.
It wasn’t Krastin. Mal frowned, scanning the cave. No Poppy either. This tall, blond man was a stranger.
She heard Rhain suck in a sharp breath. He stared at the man, his jaw working.
“No matter how hard you fight, you will lose.” The man smiled and spread his hands. “Give in to the might of King Zavir. It will be so much easier for you.”
The man’s skin looked burned on one side of his face. He had some sort of Zhylaw implant embedded in his neck. It looked new, the skin still red and raw around it.
“Rhain?” she asked quietly.
“He’s Zhalton.” Dark sorrow in his voice. And rage. “He’s one of the dead from the Renkitis Outpost. We never found his body.”
Her stomach cramped into sharp points. Krastin had taken this Zhalton man and twisted him into a puppet.
“I will never stand at Zavir’s side.” Rhain’s voice echoed in the cavern. “And I will avenge you.”
The Zhalton man shrugged. “He has a lot more planned to persuade you and your brothers, Overlord.” He lifted a hand.
More hexids flooded out of the darkness. Hundreds of them. No, thousands.
They all howled, the sounds deafening.
Mal backed up, the others doing the same.
“There are too many,” Thadd yelled.
“We fight,” Rhain said grimly.
They’d all die. Mal watched Rhain lift his swords, his handsome face awash in red light.
Trist threw a dagger. It hit a hexid in the eye and the beast stumbled, tripping over several others.
The hexids would rip them to shreds. The thought of Rhain bloody and dying made her chest hollow out.
The energy in her swelled. She gasped. Oh, man, it hurt. She felt like she was on fire inside.
She shoved her sword back in its sheath and walked forward.
“Mal!” Rhain yelled.
She threw her palms up.
A giant wall of energy flared into existence between her and the hexids.
The creatures slammed into it, and it shimmered. But they couldn’t get through.
Ow, that really hurt. Every hit reverberated through her.
“Auroras above,” Thadd muttered.
On the other side of the energy wall, the altered Zhalton stared at her, wide-eyed.
“Mal?” Rhain moved in close behind her.
“Go.” She had no idea how long she could hold it. She could feel the power draining out of her.
Every ram of the hexids weakened the wall.
“I can’t… Hold it much longer. Go.”
He stepped closer and she met his silver gaze. She wished she’d kissed him again. Gotten to spend more time with him.
“Promise me you’ll find Poppy,” she said.
He nodded.
“Now go.”
His face twisted, and she felt his hand stroke down her back. She closed her eyes and absorbed the touch.
Then he stepped away.
Mal’s awareness faded, her vision blurred.
The throb of her heartbeat was like a drum in her head, and she felt fluid leaking from her ears. Probably blood.