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Gripping the back of Farryn’s legs, I spun for the exit and pounded concrete, wishing I could’ve used my wings, but the corridor was far too narrow for their full span.
The thudding from before trailed after us, as we rounded another corner. Like some kind of sick joke, the exit sign glowed ahead, indicating we’d reached the end. I plowed through the door, up the staircase, and back through the first floor of the asylum.
A roar echoed from behind us. The beasts were closing in.
The air raid alarm grew louder, more intense, warning of the portal’s closure.
We passed patients who screamed and stumbled down the hallways, trying to get away from the horned humanoids who raced after us. Over my shoulder, I watched one of the goats swipe up an older man, ripping his head from his body on a tearing sound of wet meat. Still holding the man’s torso, the creature crouched beside the wall and chewed at the neck stump.
I swung my attention toward the path ahead.
The edges of the portal shimmered mere yards ahead, growing smaller as we approached, and I unfurled my wings, taking flight.
Vaszhago followed suit, trailing after me.
The two of us shot through the narrow gateway only seconds before it zapped and flickered, as if to seal itself.
The doors to Infernium slammed shut behind us. At the sound of clanking I turned, hovering in the air to see the door knockers bounce with what must’ve been a hard hit from the other side. Not a soul inside the asylum would have been spared by those things. “Get as far away as you can!” I shouted to Vaszhago, and he shot off into the air, still carrying the boy in his arms.
After shifting Farryn to one arm, I held my other hand out, and an intense heat traveled down my wrist, gathering in my palm. My wings tingled with the power, every feather charged with enough vitaeilem to wipe out all of Nightshade, if I were so ambitious. A silvery glow framed the edge of my eye, and I lifted my hand to bolts of jagged light that flickered through my fingers, primed for destruction.
I drew back my fist and slammed it through the air. Bolts of lightning struck down over the asylum and on a flash of blinding white light, the structure exploded into a mushroom shaped fireball that shook the ground and shot a radiant surge of heat, more intense than that of hellfire. I turned away from it, my wings shielding Farryn from the flames that blasted over us. The blaze quickly retreated, sucked into the ground, as if by some invisible vacuum.
The darkness overhead lifted to the bright overcast of Nightshade. The ash which rained down from the sky disappeared with the last vestiges of Eradye. Only black dust covered the ground where the asylum once stood, and beyond it, the Obsidian Mountain stood unaffected.
I touched down in the ravaged courtyard of the asylum and strode toward the half-cocked gates whose seared metal gave off white curls off smoke.
Adimus still waited for us on the other side. A look of relief claimed his face, but only for a moment before it turned to concern. “What happened to her?”
“I need you to bring her back. Now.”
Adimus looked to Farryn and back to me. “What happened?”
“She sipped the elixir given by Venefica.”
The way his shoulders sagged sent a shock of alarm through me. “Do you have the key?”
Suspicion sat thick in my gut. “I closed the portal, didn’t I?”
He held out his palm, flicking his fingers. “Give it to me. I will take it to the heavens to keep it safe.”
“I will give it to you only when you bring her back.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“Make it possible, or I swear on the ancients, I will open that portal again and unleash hell on all the realms!” I stepped toward him, the tension in my jaw so rigid, my teeth nearly cracked. “Bring her back, or you will know my wrath!”
“We cannot do that! She belongs to the witch now!”
Eye on his, I backed away. “Then, it is the witch who will own the key to the portal.”
His gaze widened, and when he lurched toward me, he paused mid-step on a pained outcry.
I turned to see Vaszhago’s hand outstretched toward him. His powers must’ve strengthened on leaving the labyrinth.
“You … do not … know … what this will bring!” Adimus struggled to speak as the paralysis took hold of him.
“I know exactly what it will bring. I just walked through it.” I shot up into the air, carrying Farryn in my arms, and flew over the mountains of Obsidia to where the entrance of the witch’s lair stood.
