'If we are to live, we must go now,' Peregrine said, appearing beside Bethany as if drawn from the air 'Only a reprieve—here lies no pardon. Yet even so, we must take it; there will be no second chance.'

Bethany's breaths rose and fell in sharp, uneven crests. Her white, buttoned shirt clung sodden to her skin, sweat running from forehead to boots, bathing her in chill discomfort. Her pulse beat like a cornered beast; exhaustion pressed into her shoulders, and trepidation weighed upon her heart.

She was no prophetess, nor Listener—whatever that entailed. Yet she was an Inheritor all the same, chained to the Dungeon's will. From the moment Sedrick unloosed his hidden might, the heft of their world's desire had filled the arena. As if the sea had drowned the land, she was submerged within it—gleaning through intuition what oracles and seers would claim by revelation.

They had to flee.

Yet—

She could not, would not, abandon Sedrick to die alone.

'Then you will die here too,' Peregrine whispered, as if answering the thought she had not spoken. 'Even as he struggles he is already lost—I see it. Honour his sacrifice; leave with us.'

Bethany's teeth found her lips, biting down as she tightened her fist. She wanted to scream, to cry, to rage and lash out—condemning the cowards who had not lent their aid. Had they all fought as one, perhaps they might have prevailed. If they had worked together, the Abomination could have been overcome.

She knew it was a lie. A grief-spun retelling, searing anguish with ire as she watched her Lieutenant—her friend—die before her eyes.

Even united, they would have stood no chance. The chasm dividing Soldier and Champion was too vast to be crossed. Even now, as Sedrick drove the Abomination back, displaying a strength nigh unheard of for his rank, she knew he could not win. His life was burning away with might, and still he was destined to fail.

Time was all he had bought—time, and the chance to get away.

And had she not been the one to stay the others' hands? She had not even wanted Eudora to intervene. Her life was hers to throw away, but if she fell, some had to remain to see the mission through.

Her anger was not rational—she knew that deep inside. But knowing and feeling were two worlds far removed. And what she felt was the injustice, that Sedrick would die while Peregrine, Caspian, and Aurelia had borne no scar… It burned like magma through her veins, searing her heart with noxious rage. She longed to release it.

'Not for nothing, Captain, but respect my dying wish,' Sedrick called, his rapier's edge blurring from sight as a flurry of fearsome thrusts bore down upon the Abomination's guard.

Though he moved with unnatural speed—vanishing to the right, then bearing down on the monster's left—Bethany could tell he was slowing. Where at first he struck with phantom thrusts, his blade too swift for the light to catch, its edge now betrayed his faltering. Where he had driven the Abomination reeling back, now it held its stance. It would not be long before he came undone. The window for escape he had pried open would soon slam shut.

The base of Bethany's spear rapped against the floor. She tightened her grip against trembling hands. There was no other choice, and she knew it. Even so, the next words burned like bile as she forced them out.

'Carry those who cannot walk. We leave through the tunnel.'

The echo of her command had yet to break against the cavern wall before her forces moved to obey. In a flurry of motion they gathered what they could—spilled tins, torn satchels, scattered vials—stuffing them into sacks that still held intact. Their boots drummed across the stone as they marched. Those nearest to where Sedrick held the line cast quick glances his way before scurrying out of range. They arranged themselves in clustered order, moving with restrained haste toward the arena's edge.

A few lingered where Harper Cartwright lay. Tentatively, they made to lift her, then paused. Her skin was seared raw; the modest healing had done little to mend the damage. With a spike driven through her heart and a voice roughened by grief, Bethany gave the command to leave her. Another ghost she would endure.

Some Dungeon-Spawn lingered, but none dared inch from their place along the cavern's rim, lest they provoke the Dungeon's will and its Abominable enforcer, even with its blade still locked in battle.

Her forces filed into the tunnel until only Rexford remained beside her at its mouth. Her tear-glazed eyes lingered on the battle beyond. Her fist thumped against her chest in an Enforcer's salute. She drew an ivory sleeve across her eyes, soaking grief into duty. Then, without a word, she stepped into the tunnel.

The ground rumbled beneath her boots, stones clattering as she trod. She glanced back. The world was turning—the tunnel grinding and shifting out of place, its entrance sealing beneath a veil of stone. When only the faintest slit remained, Sedrick fell. He sank to his knees, the silver aura around him guttering like a candle in the wind. Yet just before the tunnel sealed shut, a wisp of mist slipped through the narrow gap.

****

The antre was like a colosseum, a stone-walled ring enclosing the buried space, arching at the roof and closing as a dome. Cerulean crystals illuminated the underground, their dim, pale light seeping into Havoc's Core. Hidden from the night-sun's glow, he had thought he would be disadvantaged—forced to conserve the spiritual mist. But he was wrong. A smile crept across his lips at the misjudgement.

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This arena was meant for him.

Bones tumbled from towering piles, mountains of the dead clattering to the stone, like a ghoulish storm. The grind of shifting rock rose above the din, the ground and walls turning as one. Tunnels that honeycombed the chamber twisted closed; new paths broke open.

Flanked by Naereah and Anton, Havoc stood upon a shifting ledge of broken stone, gazing down as the world spun around him. Below, a horde of Dungeon-Spawn cowered. Their talons scraped at the walls with pitiful urgency, as though clawing for escape.

Bodies lay strewn across the floor—some cleaved clean, others crushed, entrails slick and dark. Among the bone piles, hollow faces stared with sightless sockets, ribs split so organs pooled black. It was a theatre of death, and wherever Havoc looked, the stage went on.

His gaze fell upon the arena's centre, where a woman lay—her scorched priestess robes clinging to a flame-ravished form that seemed one with the dead. Yet from his vantage, Havoc saw the faint rise and fall of her chest.

Near the woman knelt a man, and over him loomed an armoured figure that blotted out his face. The figure—the Abomination—rested a great blade upon the man's shoulder. A murmur of speech lifted to the air, fading incomprehensibly before it reached Havoc's ear. Yet when the kneeling man replied, even without words, Havoc knew that tone—the same frolicsome lilt who had dreamed beside him through his years adrift.

A storm thundered through his veins, his muscles coiled—poised to leap. But he mastered the surge. Another monster stood before him, and he would meet it with his wits intact.

'Can you save her?' Havoc asked, his gaze flicking to Naereah.

'I think so,' she said after a pause. 'It will take time—I won't be able to help you fight.'

Havoc nodded once.

'Can you save him?'

Naereah's black eyes flicked toward him. Her lips parted, then pressed shut again. She said nothing—perhaps sensing the question had never been meant for her.

He did not need to look closer to know the truth—Sedrick was a dying man. Havoc had felt his own soul torn apart, and from that pain he had learned to recognise the same fracture in others.

I can hold him together, came the Captive Spirit's boast, as I did with you, my boy. But it will not last—and not until we're through with that thing, it added, voice curling with contempt.

'Keep her safe at any cost,' Havoc said, glancing at Anton as his frame began to swell with beastly might.

'You needn't even ask' Anton shot back, his voice roughened with irritation.

With no further word, Havoc sent forth the Traveller's Crow. He laid a hand upon each companion's shoulder, and together the three of them vanished.

****

Sharp pain crunched at Gloria's abdomen. She pressed a palm against her womb, willing the spawn to be still. Even with potions and charms, her labour could not be delayed. The child of the beast was ready to meet the world—and Gloria was eager to feed her to it.

In truth, she did not know the child's sex. There were ways to scry such details, but she had not bothered. What gain was there in knowing?

It was not as though she would raise the wretched thing. The offspring of her husband? She would sooner twist its cord about its throat, still its breath, and cast the body to the birds.

Her skin still crawled at the memory of the conception. That she allowed that man atop her—it would not be soon forgiven.

Her nails dug against her showing, pointed and sharp, her mother's blood spilling down to her waist. Yet the Vampir's Heart beat within her chest, and the wounds sealed shut the moment after.

'Something wrong?' Florentia jeered with arch-amusement.

'Nothing at all, my precious thing,' Gloria replied, a tight smile fixed to her lips as her viperous gaze swept the urchin from head to toe. 'If I am to be truthful, I must confess I am eager to be rid of this leechling—and to return to my darling's bed. Our Prelate's progeny will birth fine heirs of our Sect. Of that, I am certain.'

The urchin's face twisted into a scowl. Back straight, shoulders squared, Gloria savoured Florentia's outrage as though sipping a lightly steeped tea.

Small comforts like that almost made it all worthwhile—the hours on foot, the brief, restless nights, the steep climbs and plunging falls; dreary sights and noxious fumes, all while delving ever deeper through catacombs that refused to stay still. Tunnels folded in on themselves. Chambers once traversed came round again, space itself seeming set against their progress, until hours pacing stretched into days.

Now they waited before a titanic door. Beyond it lay the beating heart of the Reach. Dungeon script spiralled outward in a tight circle etched across the stone, marking the entrance.

Their seers had collapsed the instant they gazed upon it—eyes rolled back to their whites, bodies convulsing as tongues Gloria could not place spilled from their lips.

She had not needed their sight to know they had found what they sought. Yet, for all their efforts, the door would not shift from its place.

They burned incense, gold, and silver; recited prayers with reverent grace; shed their blood upon the writing—going so far as to slay a virgin kept for this hour, her pious red pooling at the threshold.

Nothing had worked. Nothing would shift it.

Yet on the third day of waiting, something changed. The door still stood fast. The trickle of Champion-Spawn kept Octavia occupied, their incursions unceasing, if brief. But as they made ready to rest that night, the seers spoke—with one voice, and not their own.

'He has come.

They shall wait.

Salvation or undoing will be fated amongst themselves.'

Their seers were very proud of their translation—interpreting with glee what had needed no deciphering.

The Reach was heavy with the Dungeon's will. Their impertinent world, it seemed, desired competition—holding them fast, awaiting the challenger's arrival.

'Havoc Gray,' Gloria hummed, a finger resting on her upper lip.

Had the Drake not been restrained, Theodor would have been her first guess. But she had faith in her lover's prowess to keep the creature out of play.

That left only one—the one who had drawn Amheus' interest, the man he believed had slain her sister. Gloria did not hold it against him; she and Sylvia had never been very close. Yet she was curious to know what had caught her lover's eyes—those eyes should have been for her, and she would rid him of the sight.

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