Listening for footfalls, Rannock shifted toward the side wall. Low light flickered from lamps set inside cast-iron holders bolted to the walls. Deep shadows seethed between pools of illumination. Eerie echoes. The quiet chant of voices came from far away. Very medieval. No magic in the lantern flames, though. A pain to maintain. Which meant someone filled the lamps with oil on a regular basis.
The Blind Witch’s minions, maybe. A group that might already be making the rounds.
Narrowing his focus, Rannock scanned for any life forms. No human sweat on the faint breeze. Muted witchling magic. The shifting stench of rotting flesh in the air. Lots of bad vibes, but little to be concerned about right now. All was quiet. No one but him and his brothers inside the long corridor, or the ones connected to it.
Dragon half aligned, magic at the ready, Rannock rolled his shoulders, shrugging off the last of his discomfort. He glanced to his left.
Ice-blue eyes stared out of the shadows.
Without making a sound, he followed Levin’s lead and conjured more gloom. Musty air swirled around him. The cloaking spell deepened. As he disappeared inside a web of invisibility, Rannock sidestepped, putting his back to the wall. Looking both ways, he met Kruger’s yellow-green gaze, then shifted focus. He tipped his chin at Tempel. Earth dragon mojo up and running, he raised his hand. Index finger against his mouth, he shook his head, warning Rannock not to use mind-speak.
Good call.
The quieter, the better. Less chance of detection that way. More time for reconnaissance. Better odds of grabbing the TriHexe and making it out of the witch’s nest with all his scales intact.
Using hand signals, Rannock called the play and, staying low, moved down the corridor. Intuition bubbled to the surface. His dragon half filled in the gaps. Magnetic force seeped into the hollows like plaster poured into a mold, then solidified, supplying him with a layout of the subterranean complex. He drew the map to the front of his mind and, using foreknowledge to his advantage, navigated the twists and turns.
One corridor spun into the next, some full of hand-carved pictographs depicting battles fought before Christ was born, others plain, with rough walls. Pausing on the lip of a large vestibule, he re-scanned and crept down a shallow set of stairs, past towering pillars, under a gilded coffered ceiling, deeper into the enemy lair.
Taking the steps two at a time, he mounted the other side. Bracketed by columns, he stepped onto the landing. He glanced at the wall acting as a dead end. Two choices—go left, or turn right. Looking one way, he went the other and—
The chanting increased in volume and tempo.
Flames in the hanging lanterns blew out.
Bright blue light washed in, coming from the opposite end of the corridor.
Squinting, Rannock shuttered his night vision, protecting his light-sensitive eyes, but kept moving. Floating like sprinkles in the air, the brilliance expanded, showing him the way. He followed the shimmer. The corridor ended, dumping him onto the lip of a balcony.
Wide and deep, the mezzanine ran around the outside of a circular chamber. Voices rolled up from down below, echoing beneath a domed ceiling. More delicate gold work on smaller Corinthian columns. Different murals on the walls—battle scenes from a Fae war fought over a millennium ago. A brutal mix of two different kinds of magic in the room, one light, the other dark.
Crouched in the shadows, Rannock searched the balcony for the enemy. No witches on the upper level, just statues of vicious-looking Foo Dogs staring down into the chamber. Moving slowly, Rannock slid onto his belly. Flat on the floor, he army-crawled toward the railing.
Bright light burned brighter. Voices raised in worship grew louder. The stink of black magic tightened its grip on the room.
His dragon half reacted, recoiling in disgust. Bile touched the back of his throat. Clinging to control, Rannock swallowed the burn and stopped at the edge of the balcony. Kruger and Tempel on one side of him, Levin on the other, he peered through slots in the banister, down into a large, Romanesque amphitheater, and—
Nearly got blinded.
With a silent curse, he turned his head away.
Seeing spots, he closed his eyes, reset his shields, then looked back toward the object stationed on the lowest level, in the center of the theater floor. Set on a high stand inside a pentagram drawn with chalk on black marble inlay, resting on a bed of solid gold, a crown of interconnected hexagons shone with piercing intensity. Three were large, anchored by four smaller ones resting between them. All burning bright. All losing power.
His attention shifted to the female standing a safe distance away.
Naked, a red robe pooled on the floor at her feet, long black hair falling over her sickly pale skin, a witch raised her hands toward the TriHexe. Blue light pulsed. Magic bled from each hexagon as she chanted, invoking a draining spell. Her minions gathered around her, some seated in the stands, others bare and kneeling in a circle around her and the TriHexe. Heads bowed, males and females swayed together as they repeated her words, and she sucked Rathbone’s property dry.
His focus returned to the TriHexe. Metal exoskeleton. Simple construction. The power to destroy worlds contained inside it.
His eyes narrowed. As a Metallic, he should be able to touch it without dying. The metal alloy in his blood would protect him if he made contact. Or at least should—in theory. No way to know for sure, but…
Maybe if he conjured a container to put around it. Constructing a carrying case might buy him the time he needed, protect him during transport, just long enough for him to fly back to Savannah and set it in Rathbone’s hands.
Needing to be sure, Rannock tapped into the TriHexe’s energy. He poked around the edges. A wave of soothing magic surged, ebbing into flowing current. Drawing the rich scent into his lungs, he shifted through molecules, tasting the vintage, trying to identify the source of its power.
The chanting grew stronger.
The TriHexe flickered.
His packmates tensed beside him.
Rannock understood the reaction. The TriHexe was so powerful, it could kill his kind, obliterate him with a single pulse. And yet Rannock didn’t stop. He mined the energy, sipping it like fine Scotch. Dissecting, cataloguing, discovering its flavor as he explored the immense energy.
The magic inside spooled into three different threads.
His nostrils flared.
Fucking hell.
The scent of Shadow Walkers. The trio’s signature was everywhere, written in code inside the TriHexe, under the dome, seeping up the stairs, along the balcony into the corridor behind him.
The insistent pulse invaded his muscles and bones. His tension eased, and realization struck. Rannock shook his head. Even after having met the Rathbone and his brothers, he never would’ve guessed. But magic didn’t lie… and the source of the Shadow Walkers’ power spoke volumes.
Older than the Fae and Elven races, the Triad Rathbone commanded helped hold the world together. Weavers of experience, in a sense. Healers of psyche, in another. A warrior race, keepers of every species, the maintenance crew who ensured the electrostatic bands ringing the planet—source of all living things, and the energy that nourished Dragonkind—kept humming.
Nearly extinct, few remained in the world. Which explained a lot—like why humans were forever at each other’s throats and the earth slipped deeper into the grip of environmental disaster every year.
Frowning, he glanced at his brothers-in-arms.
Intense yellow-green eyes met his as Kruger shook his head.