CHAPTER 28

  We ran. All of us back in our base bodies, pounding up the angled corridor inside the Spire.

  Saving every scrap of power, infusion, and Breath was the only smart move left.

  Kael’s healing had thankfully ripped Nerida’s venom out and sealed the holes, while also replenishing my fatigue. He made me feel like I had been fully rejuvenated again. I was thankful for that, I would need to be ready for anything if we run into more trouble.

  Are we ready to fight a sibling? Fern asked.

  We have the sword, and we were able to expose the Urn Fragment last time… there’s no excuse now. I said.

  The spire shuddered. A deep, concussive boom rolled up from below, followed by a rain of grit and fist-sized chunks of stone.

  “She must be ramming the pillar,” Raine shouted over the groaning foundation. “She could be trying to crack it.”

  “Surely she would not bring the whole spire down,” I yelled.

  Another impact hit. The floor jumped under us, and more dust sifted down like filthy snow.

  Behind us, something much sharper joined the thunder.

  CLIIICK CLIIICK

  The sound of spikes tapping and scraping on stone. Igi-igi was clawing his way up after us.

  “Do not worry about that,” Kael called back. He and Rasa were running over the floor with unnerving grace. Their feet barely seemed to touch the ground. But what concerned me was the fact that the two old men were leaking blood.

  I glanced closer, and my stomach tightened. A thin line of red traced down from one of Kael’s nostrils, joining the smear already drying on his upper lip. Rasa had two trails of blood falling from his ears, glistening in the ceiling crystal light.

  “Kael, Rasa,” I said, turning back while I ran. I tapped my nose. “You’re bleeding. Your nose, and ears.”

  He reached up, wiped his sleeve across his face, and looked at the stain. “Ah,” he chuckled, though it came out ragged. “Yes. Using Breath so much does that sometimes.”

  “How much have you used it in this few hours since we last saw you?” I asked, concerned. Another boom made the wall shiver, and another wave of dust fell. Behind us, the heavy skitter of Igi-igi’s limbs on stone was growing louder.

  Kael must have seen my expression. “Igi-igi injured your friends quite a bit. We both needed to use Recovery, and quickly. And Rasa’s resonance takes a good deal of energy too. But stop worrying young man. We are here to make sure you all make it through,” he said.

  I swallowed hard.

  The corridor pitched again, harder. Somewhere below, rock screamed.

  “Rasa,” Kael said, looking over his shoulder.

  “I hear him,” Rasa replied.

  He pivoted mid-stride, running backward without losing speed, long beard whipping over his shoulder. One hand went to the wall. A low note thrummed out of his chest.

  Stone bulged out of the corridor wall like bread dough rising, then tore free in slabs. They slammed down behind us, filling the tunnel from floor to ceiling, creating another wall separating Igi-igi from us. Dust billowed behind us, and the taste of stone filled my mouth.

  “The walls will not hold him long,” Rasa said, turning forward again. His face was ash-pale, and another droplet of blood rolled down his face, falling into his beard.

  Ahead, the Forgemen ran in twin files, shoes padding against stone, and red sashes snapping behind them. Leace ran in front.

  “Hey!” Mel shouted to her. “Shouldn’t we use Mask? Maybe he will lose us in the dark.”

  Leace didn’t slow. “At this point, both of them are on a rampage. It’s better to keep running and lose them in the Third Tier.”

  “Guru Rasa, Kael, give them a refresher!”

  Rasa and Kael looked at eachother before Kael sighed. “Fine. Teach them,” he said. “I will complain later.”

  Leace clapped once. “Listen up!” she shouted. “I’m going to give you one more review on Pulse. Mel and Erik I told you before we left, but nerves were high, and before we run into the Siblings again, I need you prepared. I am not repeating myself, do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am!” we yelled—some of the old Academy military habits didn’t die.

  “Good.” Leace took another breath. “Pulse. Five minutes. For those five minutes, you are three to four times as strong, and fast as you’ve ever been. When it ends, you’ll drop, especially if you are transformed. So be weary of your time. If you push too hard, you will collapse. Only when death is the alternative do you push that hard.”

  She continued. “This is not Mask. Mask calms you, and hides you. Pulse does the opposite. You slam your breath into yourself. In through the nose, hard, then, push your belly out. You’ll drag your diaphragm back like you are trying to punch your own spine. Every inhale and every exhale, you push and breath with repeated, forceful breath.”

  She mimed the motion with her hands, over her stomach. “While you breathe, you pull energy up, faster and faster until your hands buzz and your lips go numb and your heart feels like it will climb out of your throat. That is how you know you built up enough energy. Urge it inside you until the light explodes. Then, you have five minutes to make an opening…”

  “Opening for what?” Tevin managed, breath now coming in ragged gasps. He was stubbornly keeping pace with Zenobia and Ruriel.

  “For Erik,” Leace said without looking back. “For that, Ashsteel blade to land a killing blow. Expose and open the chest of the Siblings for the Ashsteel to find the Urn Fragments.”

  The corridor quaked again, and another section of stone collapsed somewhere behind us.

  Igi-igi had broken through another one of Rasa’s walls.

  After Leace’s reminder, it seemed everyone was prepared to use Pulse. A fight was coming. We could feel it. Igi-igi was too close.

  We ran, winding up the Spire while its foundation groaned underneath us. The only sounds we heard were our feet, our breath, the distant roar of the flood and slams of Nerida, and the relentless scrape of Igi-igi’s spikes carving through Rasa’s barriers.

  Finally, Leace shouted.

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  “Doors!” she called.

  Two massive slab doors of black iron, set into the Spire’s hallway stood closed in front of us. An enormous “III” was carved above them in deep, clean strokes.

  “The Third Tier,” Kael said, voice hoarse but with a flash of joy. “Push!”

  Leace and Mel hit the doors first. Mel did not waste time. She erupted into her Pangolin form, scales snapping into place along her arms and back. She drove her shoulder into metal, and it groaned, giving way, inch by inch.

  “Help us!” Leace shouted.

  Tevin, transformed into his Third Form, and slammed his beetle body into the door. The hinges shrieked, slowly opened scraping along the stone floor.

  We all rushed in, and closed the heavy metal doors behind us. “Back up,” Rasa said softly. Another low chant rumbled out of him. And a layer of stone flowed up from the floor like water, covering the metal doors before hardening inplace.

  “That should keep him gnawing for a while,” Kael said, forcing a grin.

  He dabbed at his nose. More blood came away. I winced and turned around. We were in a massive chamber now, the size of an large indoor arena.

  On the other side of the room, yawned a darkness so thick it almost looked like a solid wall of black, if not for the two pinprick flames that flared quietly on the far wall, framing another set of doors with “III” carved above them.

  From beyond the new wall Rasa put up, the Spire vibrated with a distant thud. Faint tapping, like a distant pickaxe, followed.

  “He is already testing it,” Rasa said. His voice, usually so smooth, now rasped. “We must not linger.”

  “Agreed,” Leace said. “Come on.”

  She pulled a small yellow crystal from between her teeth and breathed on it. The stone flared white, flooding the room with harsh, cold light.

  I sucked in a breath.

  We stood in the middle of a stone army.

  Like an art exhibit dedicated to the military, the room was filled with statues of armed men. They filled the square chamber in precise ranks—ten by ten by ten, stretching from where we stood all the way to the far wall. Bare-chested men, carved from dark stone, stood frozen with spears held upright. Their faces were blank and perfect, identical down to the angles of their jaws. Each pair of eyes stared unblinking at the door we had just sealed.

  Sora drew her bow, and nocked an arrow. “What the—”

  “Easy,” Zenobia said, raising her hand. She stepped forward cautiously, letting the light spill over the nearest figure. “They are statues. Just statues.”

  Up close, it was clear. The men were carved, not flesh. But the detail was unsettling—down to the twist of rope on their sandals, and the faint ridges of muscle on their stomachs, they looked too real.

  BOOM.

  The floor shook under our boots, and small chunks of stone fell from the ceiling.

  “How many times is she going to ram this place?” Nanda murmured.

  “Until she gets bored or it falls on our heads,” Mel said.

  “It will hold,” Leace said. “The Spire holds up Paradize. It wouldn’t be able to be brought down by her, even in her monstrous form.”

  Another impact. The crystal in Leace’s hand flickered as dust rained down on it.

  “We keep moving,” Raine said. “Gurus, can you continue or do we need to carry you?”

  “We can walk,” Kael said. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Blood ran in twin tracks down his cheeks. “For now.”

  We wound our way between the stone ranks of statues. The only sounds were our own labored gasps, the muffled bellows of Nerida slamming into the spire, and the grinding sound of Igi-igi picking at the wall.

  Kael’s cough broke the quiet. It started as just a light cough, but then turned into a full-body hack. He doubled over and fell to his knees. Blood spattered the stone floor.

  “Guru Kael,” Leace said, turning back, crystal light casting harsh shadows across his face.

  “I am fine,” he wheezed.

  Tevin stepped in without waiting. “Get on,” he said, dropping to one knee and offering his broad back.

  Kael waved him off weakly, stood up, and then swayed back to his knees. Rasa caught his arm, and together he and Leace eased him onto Tevin’s shoulders. Kael’s small hands clutched at the beetle armor.

  “Apologies,” he murmured into Tevin’s shell. “Seems I may have overdone it.”

  “You’ve done so much already, please take it easy,” Tevin said as he stood.

  “Go,” Leace said.

  We pressed on.

  The impacts from Nerida’s slams came faster now. Two in quick succession. The air felt thicker as dust fell and floated around us in a haze. Each slam sent a fine spray of grit sifting down onto our hair and shoulders, pattering quietly off our clothes. We were almost hald way through the room though.

  “Leace,” Kael croaked from Tevin’s back. “Look.”

  His hand lifted, and his fingers trembled, as he pointed up.

  Tevin lowered him to the ground, and I followed Kael’s gesture.

  High above us, half lost in shadow, something swung from the ceiling.

  At first, it was just a glint. Then, as Leace shifted the crystal, the light caught it—a diamond-shaped chandelier, the size of a man’s head, shimmering and swinging from a rusted hook.

  “Uh,” I said. “Leace?”

  She didn’t slow. “What? It’s just a chandelier.”

  “Leace,” Mel barked. She had stopped dead, still in her Third Form.

  Nanda spoke up. “Shine the light higher,” he said.

  Rasa turned his head, following our line of sight. Whatever he saw there made his composure crack.

  “Run,” he snapped. “Now.”

  Leace frowned. She lifted the crystal high and took a step away.

  The beam of white light speared up into the dark.

  The glass glittered, and with the light directly on it, I saw it was a container. Inside, water sloshed, catching the glow with a sickly sheen.

  The Spire shuddered again. And the container swung against the rusted hook. The ceiling around the hook crumbled a little and dust fell. Another slam into the spire made the tiny hook anchoring it squealed.

  “Shit, move!” Leace shouted.

  We did.

  Everything after that happened in a brief moments.

  The glass container with water inside, fell.

  I felt the Chimera surge up inside me instinctively before I even consciously called him, and I entered my Third Form.

  Mel threw herself backward, her plated feet scraping stone. Sora transformed and her wings burst from her shoulders in a spray of feathers. She lunged forward, reaching for the falling glass.

  Sora’s hands closed around it for half a heartbeat.

  Nice—

  But it slipped from her grasp, and tumbled past her.

  “Raine!” I shouted.

  She was already moving, storm-light crackling around her mid transformation and she flew, but the vial fell faster past her hands.

  Nanda’s legs coiled and released. He rapidly transformed into his ape Third Form. His legs snapped him forward like a launched spear, and his two extra arms snagged Leace around the waist hauling her away from the center of the room.

  Tevin wrapped his massive arms around Zenobia and Ruriel, and turned around hunching, and making himself into a living bunker.

  I couldn’t catch the glass in time, so I simply grabbed.

  Rasa’s collar bunched under my left hand, and I hooked my other arm around Kael and heaved, wings beating. We lurched backward as the center of the room rushed away beneath us.

  The container hit the floor, and it shattered with like a thousand wine glasses breaking at once.

  Water exploded outward, and a puddle spread across the smooth stone, racing out between the rows of statues, soaking the toes of their carved feet.

  The Spire trembled again, but not from the outside, but from in this room.

  The puddle bubbled, and darkness bloomed in the water. A shadow twisted, and thickened with oil, climbed out from it. The liquid rose with it, clinging to it in sheets, as if someone were pulling a creature out of mud.

  Nerida surged up in a screaching roar.

  She was taller than in the treasure room, a towering thirty-foot column of coiled muscle and scale. Her tail slapped wetly against the stone, throwing up fans of cold water, and all four arms arched above her, fingers tipped in claws like swords. Four eyes burned black in the dim room.

  Then, she laughed.

  “Oh, my clever little rats,” she purred. Her voice was somehow louder and softer all at once, filling the chamber and curling in my ears. “Did you truly think I would not have one more surprise?”

  The surrounding statues cracked.

  Thin lines spider-webbed across their surfaces. Stone flaked away in chunks, thudding to the floor. Beneath the crumbling shells, pale skin, tan skin, and dark skin gleamed. Men stepped forward from their rock prisons, flexing their hands, and lifting their spears. A hundred stone soldiers woke in unison, shedding fragments of their cages like snakes sloughing skin.

  “This is it,” Leace breathed.

  We did not need telling twice.

  The Forgemen spread out, circling the room. Mel’s Pangobadger plates hugged together as she lowered her center of gravity. Tevin’s Beetle shell settled into a braced stance, Zenobia and Ruriel tucked behind him began transforming themselves. Ruriel burst into his snow leopard form, while Zenobia took on her Third Form, the Orchid Mantis. Sora hovered above, bow drawn, wolf eyes hard, and Nanda, with his four arms flexed, puffed out his Ape form chest.

  Nerida turned slowly, eyed the sealed door behind me, the ring of transformed warriors, and the gleam of the Ashsteel in Fern’s mouth. Her eyes—those four burning coals—widened.

  “There you are,” she said. “My little thief. How about you try cutting me again?”

  Behind me, Fern swayed with the blade held firmly in his mouth. The low hum of it thrummed through my bones.

  “Let us end this,” I said.

  Kael sagged against Rasa’s shoulder and the two stepped back towards the outer wall.

  My own hands curled into fists. Last time, Lightcutter didn’t cut deep enough. This time, I planned to rip her chest open with my hands.

  All around us, my friends drew in deep, sharp breaths. Their chests expanded, then snapped tight, Breath ran through their bodies, and inside their energy built.

  Leace’s voice cut across the still room. “Remember what I said. Five minutes.”

  We had outrun a flood, and two demigods.

  Now it was time to kill one.

  Nerida raised her hand and her soldiers charged, while we activated Pulse.