—INFIRMARY—

We went back to the infirmary. I watched him work, his hands moving with quick, practiced precision. The infirmary was a whirlwind of activity. Wilbur boiled petals and distilled their essence, then placed the opals in a fire until they glowed like miniature suns. The air filled with the sharp, acrid scent of the concoction as he mixed the ingredients in a careful ratio, his brow furrowed in concentration. The result was a series of small, crystalline bombs—each one glimmering faintly with inner fire.

By the time we were finished, exhaustion had settled into my bones. The weight of what we were about to face hung over us like a shroud. Our own brother, corrupted and monstrous

We sat in silence, each of us lost in our thoughts. The gravity of what lay ahead settled in, solid and unyielding. Facing the direwolves was one thing. But Ealhstan? The thought of striking down our own blood, of cleansing him with flame and steel, was almost too much to bear.

And yet, deep down, a fragile thread of hope wound through the fear. If we could purify him and save Ealhstan, then he would be part of us once more.

Even if that hope was the smallest of sparks, it was enough.

—MOUNT LHOTTEM—

Morning came, and already I felt wrong. The garth and granges were shrouded in a miasma so thick it hung like smoke in the air, twisting around us as if alive. I dispelled it, banished Blake, and gathered Harlan and Agate by the monastery walls, where the dawn light struggled to pierce the gloom. Their faces tightened as I spoke of the monstrosity lurking deep within Mount Lhottem. I told them that it was once our Brother Ealhstan, now something altogether different and dangerous.

When I told him about his size, Harlan’s brows shot up. “Bigger than me?” Harlan, the largest man in Rothfield, whistled low, surprise flickering across his rough-hewn features. “You monks never cease to amaze me.”

“More like worry us,” Agate murmured, her gaze lingering on Jerome, who stood beside her, cradling the bow she’d just handed him. Her fingers lingered on his shoulder, as if reluctant to let go. “Keep it with you, and remember what I taught you,” she said softly.

Jerome nodded, adjusting the shield strapped across his back. His voice was low but sure. “I’m stronger now. And Woodrow and Wilbur will be with me. Brother Ryne, too. He’ll look out for us.”

Her proud smile twisted something in my chest. It humbled me that Jerome thought of me as his protector, though I wasn’t sure I was worthy of it. But I offered him a reassuring nod, my hands trembling slightly at my sides, hidden beneath my cloak. “Stay safe, Agate. Pray for us. And keep those candles burning.”

The chapel doors closed behind me with a heavy thud, the sound echoing through the empty corridors like a benediction. Agate’s face lingered in my mind’s eye as I led Woodrow, Wilbur, and Jerome through the forest. I murmured a prayer, reaching out to the ancient trees that surrounded the monastery, pleading for them to show us the way. The branches above rustled, and the underbrush shifted, vines and roots responding to my call.

The ground seemed to breathe beneath my feet. Twisting roots burst from the earth, clearing a path through the forest’s dense tangle. The vines wound their way forward, leading us to a narrow, shadowed crevice that yawned wide like the mouth of some slumbering beast.

The air within was icy, seeping into my bones, but I cupped my hands and murmured another prayer. A flame flickered to life, fed by the gathered power of Gaelmar’s kindflame. The torch I carried blazed with warm light, chasing the cold away. “Stay close,” I whispered, guiding my brothers and Jerome into the mountain’s twisting depths.

The path wound ever downward, narrow and treacherous. Shadows danced in the torchlight, curling against the walls, and making eerie shadows. At each fork, I paused, feeling the tug of the forest’s guidance. My prayers echoed softly through the stone, dispelling the miasma that clung to every crevice.

Jerome moved carefully behind me, his grip on his bow tight. At one point, he stumbled toward what looked like solid ground, only for the path to abruptly end in a sheer drop. I pulled him back just in time, my heart pounding. “Watch your step. The mountain’s twisting itself, trying to deceive us.”

He swallowed hard, his eyes wide as he glanced over the edge. “Got it.”

We pressed on, the walls closing in until we emerged into a wide clearing. It was a cavern lit with an eerie, pale light that seemed to pulse from the stones themselves. Low growls reverberated through the chamber. Harlan and Jerome readied their weapons as I blessed their armor with trembling fingers. But the blue flames that licked at Claude’s swords didn’t appear. Instead, a faint shimmer enveloped them, like a veil of protection too weak to hold.

“They’re coming,” Harlan muttered, gripping his spear. He glanced at me. “Whatever you did for Claude, now’s the time to do it again.”

Wilbur stepped forward, stuffing a sticky, putty-like substance onto the arrow Jerome had notched. Jerome lit the arrowhead with my kindflame lighting the torch. When it struck one of the wolves slinking in the shadows, the creature yelped, flames bursting along its fur. It skittered away, igniting the others as they came in a wave, yellow eyes gleaming, teeth snapping in the darkness.

Woodrow’s daggers flashed, catching the light as he wove around us, striking at any wolf that drew too close. Wilbur hurled his mini-explosives, each detonation sending direwolves scampering back with yelps of pain.

We progressed down the path. “I’m quickly running out of bottles,” Wilbur shouted through the snarls and explosives.

“We’ll deal with that once we’re through here,” Woodrow replied, his voice tense but unshaken. His dagger arced out, catching a direwolf across the eye. It howled, stumbling back.

The beasts circled us, darting in and out like shadows come to life. Harlan stood at the center, holding the line as his massive spear cleaved through fur and flesh. Jerome’s arrows hissed through the air, each one trailing flames. And Wilbur, standing just behind, threw what few explosives remained, lighting up the chamber in flashes of red and orange.

But they kept coming. From the shadows, more appeared, snarling and slavering, their howls reverberating through the cave like a grim chorus. Harlan’s breath came heavy, each thrust of his spear slower than the last. Jerome was trembling, sweat dripping down his brow as he fired again and again. I could see the desperation in their eyes, and fear clawed at my own heart.

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“Ember!” I called. My companion darted forward, her small frame lighting up with a roar of flame that scattered the wolves. I drew the kindflame from her, spreading it into a shimmering shield that flared out, holding the beasts at bay. Ember sagged at my feet, panting.

“We have to move!” I shouted, scooping her up and stumbling toward a side passage. The others followed, covering my retreat as we plunged deeper into the mountain’s heart.

We stumbled into a second chamber, larger and more foreboding. Stalactites hung like fangs from the ceiling, and veins of luminescent crystal lined the walls, casting a ghostly glow across the rough stone. Harlan and Jerome stood guard while Wilbur approached the crystals, his gaze bright with recognition.

“Howlite,” he whispered. “It’s rare. And potent. If we can harvest it—” He turned to Harlan and Jerome. “Start mining. We’ll need every bit we can carry.”

The two soldiers set to work, their strikes echoing through the empty space. Wilbur’s voice was tight as he explained, “Howlite strengthens the base of our potions. I can use it to make better fortifying brews for Claude and the others. It’ll make them stronger, faster, and more resilient against the direwolves.”

A surge of hope flared through me, followed almost immediately by a cold, nauseating dread. As they chipped away at the crystals, a deep rumble shook the ground. We froze, our breaths caught in our throats.

The rumbling grew, a roar building up through the rock. Harlan moved to shield Jerome as Woodrow and Wilbur leapt to my side. Stones tumbled from above, crystals shattering as the very walls seemed to tremble with rage. The floor bucked beneath us. Then, with a deafening crack, the earth split open.

We were thrown apart, scattered across the cavern. Wilbur’s scream was swallowed by the darkness as a wall of rock crashed down, separating us. Jerome’s voice rose in a panicked shout, but it was cut off as another slab fell, blocking the way back. Dust and debris filled the air, and I coughed, scrambling backward until my back hit cold stone.

The mountain settled, the quake subsiding. Silence fell, thick and oppressive. I was alone, cut off from the others by a wall of stone. The darkness pressed in, suffocating.

“Wilbur? Woodrow?” I called, my voice a fragile thing, lost in the void.

Only silence answered as the blackness enveloped me.

—CAVERN—

I awoke in deep darkness. And Blake was awake—his presence coiling around me like a serpent. He murmured in my ear, an insistent, poisonous echo.

I forced myself to meditate, calling the sacred flame. “Be gone,” I hissed, and Blake screamed as the fire chained him back into silence, scattering his hold on me to smoldering ashes. But Ealhstan’s pull remained, drawing me upward like a puppet on strings.

Stumbling to my feet, I made my way through the labyrinthine cavern, the sound of my breath loud in the stillness. I reached the entrance, and a guttural roar reverberated through the stone, shaking dust from the ceiling. I felt the vibration in my bones. Ealhstan. The monstrous presence loomed ahead, twisted and feral.

Blake’s voice slithered back, taunting. “How delicious it will be to see your giant brother squash you like a gnat. What will he feel, I wonder, when he awakens to find you as nothing more than a smear on the ground, ground into pulp beneath his feet?”

I banished the specter of Blake again, heart pounding, and called out for Wilbur and Woodrow. Silence answered me, oppressive and heavy. A chill ran down my spine. I touched the ground and sent my senses questing outward.

To my horror, I found them.

Standing there, heads bowed, their postures tense and rigid. The vision of their dark states crashed over me. Wilbur’s body was contorted, fingers twitching against the stone walls like a spider testing its web. Woodrow loomed behind him, face blank, but I saw the tremor in his hands. They were barely containing themselves, barely holding back their monstrous forms.

When satiated, they would sleep through the dawn, but in the depths of hunger and darkness? They were lost.

And then I felt something else. A warm presence treading softly into the miasma-laden path we had taken earlier. My heart leapt, fear mingled with relief. Claude and his soldiers were there, following our trail of shattered bottles and broken arrows, tracing the ash-streaked path. My pulse quickened as I saw Claude crouch down, examining a fragment of Wilbur’s glasswork.

“No, Claude! Don’t follow the ash!” I screamed, but my voice was swallowed by the shadows.

His gaze locked onto a scrap of torn robe—one of ours. His eyes darkened as he spread from the men he was with. I watched him trail a different path, drawn by another marker: the tuft of Ember’s fur snagged on a rock, a boot print half-embedded in the dust.

Claude moved faster, darting toward my location. I strained, willing him to hear me, to turn back. But it was too late. He slipped through a narrow gap in the stone, closer now, his torchlight flickering at the edges of my vision.

Meanwhile, I saw the other soldiers clustered around the collapsed boulders, where Harlan and Jerome were trapped. Their shouts rang out, echoing through the cave as they heaved against the rocks, freeing them.

I wanted to scream, but all I could do was watch, helpless, as the boulders shifted, a few men managing to pry them apart. Harlan staggered free, his broad shoulders hunched with pain, but he pointed frantically.

“We have monks for company. They are trapped, too! We have to—”

He didn’t get to finish. A blood-curdling scream tore through the air, freezing them all in place. Claude was near me now, his breath coming fast and shallow as he set to work, using his strength to chip away at the boulders. I pushed from the other side, and with a final shuddering crack, the rocks parted.

We stumbled through the opening, embracing briefly in relief. But then the sound of snarling tore us apart.

“What’s happening?” Claude asked, his voice urgent.

I barely heard him over the screams of terror reverberating down the passageway. My heart dropped, and I knelt, touching the ground. The vision came to me in a rush. The soldiers who had sought to free my brothers, thinking them harmed, were now trapped in a nightmare.

Wilbur moved with serpentine grace, teeth flashing as he sank them into a man’s throat. Blood spurted, staining his chin as he fed hungrily. Woodrow stood over two others, a cruel smile on his face as he beckoned one closer, the other already crumpled at his feet. He slipped out of his robes, swaying hypnotically, drawing the remaining man toward him like a moth to a flame.

I shut my eyes, my chest tightening with grief. There was nothing I could do for those lost lives now.

It was midday. The sunlight should have brought clarity, but in this darkened womb of stone and bloodshed, it felt meaningless. The men were just laughing earlier, talking about families and children back home.

Claude rose, his face ashen. He realized what he thought happened: that direwovles had devoured the men from Rothfield town. He stared down the passage, listening to the last, wet gasps. “I liked them,” he whispered, the pain raw in his voice. “They told me about their children…”

He dropped his gaze, shoulders slumping with a defeat that felt like a knife twisting in my gut. I didn’t want to lie to him, but the truth would crush him. Woodrow and Wilbur would be horrified if they ever remembered what they’d done. But now wasn’t the time.

I grabbed his arm, shaking my head as tears stung my eyes. “It’s too late, Claude. They’re gone. You have to stay here and–”

“Like hell I will.”

Taking a breath, I made myself meet his eyes. All right, half-truth it is. I said, “Claude… you remember I told you I have brothers scattered around, right? One of them is here, in this mountain. He’s the one causing the earthquakes. His name is Ealhstan, and he’s… he’s not himself anymore. The miasma has changed him, twisted him. But somewhere inside, he still has a gentle heart.”

Claude’s gaze softened, confusion giving way to something like understanding. “What do we need to do?”

“Distract him,” I whispered, my voice trembling but steady. “Don’t approach him head-on. Just keep him occupied long enough for me to reach him. I’ll talk to him, try to remind him of who he is, like I did with Ember. Trust me. I can do this.”

Claude nodded slowly, his hand gripping mine. “I trust you.”

Together, we made our way through the single path, the torchlight dancing in the murk. Ember’s small form flitted between us, her fur a flash of warmth and light in the dark. We pressed on, deeper into the heart of the mountain where our brother awaited—a slumbering giant, and we, mere shadows at his feet.