Page 71 of A Sunwoven Ascent

“Kaldrek.”

He lifted his head to see Alaric and Cillian standing before him, Heidara still at his side. Only then did he register the weight of her hand resting on his shoulder. She had placed it there gently, not as comfort born of pity, but as solidarity, because she did not see him as weak.

Kaldrek’s eyes dropped to Alaric’s hand, once again full of loose soil. If the male mentioned that metallic scent one more time, Kaldrek thought he might lose the last of his restraint.

“I was trying to tell you before,” Alaric said carefully. “I think… I think something is beneath us.”

Kaldrek lifted a brow and let him continue.

“I know I rely more on instinct than proof,” Alaric said, “but the land feels wrong. It felt wrong before the attack. I think it was trying to warn me. And now we need to listen.”

He opened his hand and let the dirt spill back to the ground.

“They’re underground,” he said quietly. “We need to find the entrance.”

Kaldrek rose to his full height and studied him. There was no hesitation in Alaric’s eyes, only certainty. And right now, his instinct was all they had.

Kaldrek gave a single nod.

“Let’s go.”

***

Evelyne refused to close her eyes.

Sleep would have been mercy, a brief surrender to exhaustion, but she would not allow herself that weakness. Not after watching the young woman reduced to something less than human, toyed with like prey before a meal. The image refused to leave her mind and it infuriated her.

Evelyne shifted, inching closer under the excuse of adjusting her position, trying to get a better look at the marks climbing the girl’s arms and shoulders. Even in the dim light, she could make out faint lines, punctures, bruises, old scars layered over newer ones. But they were not fresh. No… they were already knitting back together. Not with unnatural speed, but faster than any human should heal.

That would explain it. Why she was still alive. Why they kept returning her.

Holden had not moved since the Noskari disappeared into the dark. He sat rigid beside her, the chains at his ankles gone slack, staring into nothing. Even when Evelyne tried to speak to him, he gave no answer. It was as though some part of him had retreated far inward, leaving only his body behind.

Then new screams rose through the tunnels, ricocheting off the walls from somewhere deeper in the dark. They did not last long. Evelyne could not tell whether those taken were dragged back in chains afterward or simply left where they fell.

Not knowing was worse.

She forced herself to think. They could try the chains again, all at once, with more force this time, but that risked drawing attention. And she would not give the Noskari another reason to make an example of the girl, or worse, to choose someone else.

Her eyes drifted toward the darkness where the creatures had vanished. As though her stare had called them back, two shapes peeled free of the black and stepped into the faint reach of her adjusting vision.

They had returned.

Her heart pounded so hard it felt ready to crack her ribs from the inside. The creatures moved their attention over the prisoners as though choosing from a feast, and then, slowly, as if savoring the fear thickening in the chamber, they drifted toward the young woman in the corner. Her trembling worsened at once. Beside Evelyne, Holden, who had sat locked in silence, suddenly snapped upright and loosed a deep, guttural growl that rolled against the dirt walls.

“Why can’t I shift?” Evelyne whispered urgently. She had tried—straining until her muscles burned and her bones felt hollow. “Can you?”

“No,” Holden muttered through clenched teeth. “These damned bloodroot veins are leaching the shifter magic. Every time I try, something pulls it back down.”

She felt it too, the dragging sensation in her blood whenever she reached for her magic.

One of the Noskari crouched and gripped the chain near the girl’s ankles. Its long, gray fingers traced the iron laced with hardened bloodroot fibers. The dark veins threaded through the metal seemed to loosen at its touch, responding like obedient tendrils.

The second creature seized the girl’s wrists as she tried weakly to resist.

Evelyne could not watch this again.

“Stop!” she shouted before she could stop herself. “Leave her alone. She is not your amusement, you fiends.”