She wasn't just guiding us. She washoldingus. That low violet hum from the iron plain, the tether she'd thrown aroundour minds, she hadn't dropped it. Not for a second. She'd been carrying it for hours. Maybe days. However long this place measured time.
We weremassive engines of destruction running on empty, and she was siphoning her own soul into our tanks to keep us turning over.
Aria,I whined, trotting up to nudge her hip with my nose.Rest. You need to stop.
"Can't," she said, not looking at me. She kept her eyes fixed on the bone map she held in her metal hand. "If we stop, Thane sinks. If we stop, Kaelen goes dormant. We walk."
You smell like burning metal,I told her.
"I'm fine," she lied.
She wasn't fine. She was losing color. Her flesh side was pale, the veins standing out in stark blue relief, while her metal side looked... stretched.
We marched.
The landscape didn't change, but the feeling of it did. The silence grew heavier, denser. It felt less like an empty room and more like a mouth closing.
My instincts were screaming. The sensory deprivation was making my brain manufacture threats. I saw shapes in the peripheral vision, things made of smoke that vanished when I turned my head. I heard theclick-click-clickof claws on metal that weren't ours.
I started to drift. I ranged out to the left, following a scent that smelled like rain. It wasn't real, it couldn't be, but I needed it to be real. I needed something clean to fill my lungs.
I trotted faster, moving away from the group. The grey fog swallowed them up terrifyingly fast. Just twenty feet away, and Kaelen’s massive bulk was just a shadow.
Flynn.
The voice wasn't Aria's. It was the rain scent.
Come here, little wolf. We have rabbits.
I stopped. My ears perked up. Rabbits? Warm, beating hearts? The hunger cramped my stomach, a sudden, violent ache. I hadn't eaten in... what? A thousand years? Three days?
I took a step toward the darkness.
Come hunt,the whisper promised.No cages here. Just teeth and meat.
It sounded so good. It sounded so easy. Just let go of the Prince. Let go of the guilt. Be the beast. Beasts don't have to save the world. Beasts just eat.
I lowered my head, a growl building in my throat. I could feel the change rippling through me, the simplifying of my thoughts.Run. Bite. Kill.
"Flynn!"
The shout was harmonic, metallic, and furious.
A rock bounced off my skull.
I yelped, spinning around, snarling.
Aria was standing ten yards away, her arm extended. She had thrown a chunk of loose iron ore at me.
"Get your furry ass back in formation!" she yelled. Her eyes were blazing, one violet and one amber and gold.
The spell broke. The scent of rain vanished, replaced by the sterile vacuum of the Underworld. The rabbits were gone. I was standing on the edge of a fissure that dropped away into absolute blackness. One more step, and I would have fallen forever.
I scrambled back, tail tucked between my legs, shivering violently.
I... I heard...
"I know," she said, her voice softening as I slunk back to her side. She didn't hit me again. She reached out and grabbed myruff, twisting her fingers into the fur. She yanked me down until my giant snout was level with her face.
