Page 76 of A Sunwoven Ascent

A familiar growl cut through the tunnel. And another answered it.

Hope flared violently in her chest.

Kaldrek? She reached desperately through the bond, even as blood filled her mouth.

Silence. The bond still felt thin, but not gone.

Then they came. A surge of monstrous wolves flooded the chamber, barreling past her in a wave of fur and anger. The first among them had a coat she would recognize anywhere—Holden. He barreled into the Noskari with a savagery that shook the walls.

And the fight truly began.

Chapter 35

The tunnel swallowed all light the moment they stepped inside. Kaldrek moved first, shoulders nearly brushing the dirt walls as he guided them deeper into the suffocating dark. He forced his breathing to steady, though his chest felt too tight for air. Alaric followed close behind him, one hand grazing the wall for balance, and Heidara brought up the rear. Alaric did not possess their wolf-born night sight, and Kaldrek adjusted his pace accordingly, though every instinct screamed at him to run.

He hated these tunnels.

The last time he had traveled through one, he had nearly lost Evelyne. He could still see her in his mind, trapped behind a fallen wall, bloodied, fighting off one of the horrors born from Vaelora’s magic. They had peeled themselves from the walls like living rot. Bat-shaped demons born of bloodroot corruption. He remembered the terror of hearing her struggle against something unnatural, something that should not exist in this world.

The walls around him now bore the same signature.

Bloodroot veins ran through the dirt like diseased arteries, twisting across the tunnel floor and overhead, threaded so deeply into the land it was as though they had grown there. Kaldrek could not still his thoughts. Every few steps he reached for the mate-bond on instinct, desperate for even the faintest spark of Evelyne. Nothing steady answered him, only a thin, distant tremor of something wrong. He set his jaw and kept moving.

Then—

Immense pain.

It hit him like a blade sliding between his ribs.

He staggered half a step before catching himself against the wall. The sensation was sharp, burning, raw. Not his own.

Evelyne.

Relief and fury collided violently in his chest.

“She’s alive,” he rasped, voice thick with emotion he could not entirely suppress. “We’re close.”

He swallowed hard. Even saying it hurt. He could feel her pain like an echo in his own blood, and it nearly drove him to his knees.

Heidara’s voice cut through the tunnel behind him. “To the right. I hear something.”

Kaldrek didn’t stop. He pivoted toward the faint sound of distant growls and claws scraping against stone.

They ran.

The tunnel curved sharply, and they passed a small chamber on the left. Kaldrek’s eyes swept it in a single glance—and then he froze. A woman lay slumped against the wall, barely conscious, her body folded inward as though she no longer had the strength to hold herself upright. A man stood close beside her, positioned between her and the corridor as if prepared to shield her from anything that might return. The iron that had once bound her lay broken at her feet, twisted and discarded, but she was far too frail to stand on her own.

“Is it safe?” the man asked hoarsely as they approached. “The… the male. The wolf. He told me to stay with her until it was safe. Are they gone?”

“Who?” Kaldrek demanded.

“I don’t recall his name,” the man said, glancing nervously toward the shadows. “But he freed us. She… freed us. He’s leading—”

Alaric stopped so suddenly beside Kaldrek that his breath caught. “Holy hells,” he whispered. “Who is that?”

Then he stepped closer, crouched, and stared at her face.

“Aurelia?” His voice cracked.