CHAPTER 798: THE RAVENS CALLED (3)

"This isn’t just rock anymore," Irin said softly. "It’s more like... skin."

Rhaen grimaced.

"To pass, we cut," she said. "But if we cut, it will notice."

"Then we numb it first," Irin said.

She shrugged off her pack and carefully unstrapped the sealed black cylinder from her back. Runes crawled across its surface like slow lightning.

"Carefully," Thane said.

Irin rolled her eyes slightly but positioned the core at the base of the "door." She whispered a short chant. The runes on the cylinder shifted, rearranging themselves into a different pattern.

The air grew heavier.

A faint, sickly purple light seeped out from under the cylinder and into the stone.

"Demon mana," Irin murmured. "Enough to confuse the local flow for a moment. Not enough to wake anything deeper."

Rhaen drew her short blade.

"On three," she said. "Cut and push."

They braced themselves.

"One. Two. Three."

Rhaen’s knife slid into the "flesh-door" with disturbing ease. The stone parted like gristle, warm and resistant.

The whole passage shuddered.

Thane cursed under his breath, slapping new runes onto the walls to stabilise the surge.

The demon-core pulsed. The vibration dulled, as if a thick blanket had been thrown over a drum.

"Now," Irin hissed.

They shoved.

The opening stretched, reluctantly, barely wide enough for them to squeeze through.

The dungeon did not stay fooled for long.

A prickling wind shot through the passage, stinging their skin. Tiny shards—like glass dust—whipped through the air.

"Cover your faces!" Sera shouted.

They threw up arms and cloaks.

Marek, at the rear, coughed once.

Rhaen glanced back and saw the fine spray of shards slice across his throat.

Blood blossomed, dark and sudden.

His eyes went wide. He clamped a hand to his neck, but the shards had cut deep and fast.

Sera lunged toward him, but the narrow passage and the storm of shards made movement slow.

"Go!" Marek choked.

Blood spilled between his fingers. His legs buckled.

Rhaen swore and grabbed his shoulder, hauling him forward with as much force as the cramped space allowed.

He made it halfway through the opening before his strength gave out.

His body sagged, blocking the gap.

The storm howled around them.

"Rhaen, we need to clear it!" Thane yelled.

She knew he was right.

Jaw clenched, she shoved harder.

"Darec!" she snapped.

Despite his ruined leg, Darec wedged himself behind Marek’s body and pushed with everything he had.

Something in Marek’s spine cracked.

His body slid through and tumbled onto the other side.

The shard-storm eased, dwindling into a bitter, stinging wind.

They stumbled after him, choking, eyes watering.

On the other side, in a slightly wider tunnel, Marek lay still.

Sera dropped to her knees beside him, hands glowing.

"Please," she whispered.

Her light seeped into his torn throat and came back dim.

She sat back after a moment, shoulders shaking.

"Too much," she said. "Too fast."

Rhaen closed her eyes

for one heartbeat.

"Two gone," Darec said quietly.

"Two," Rhaen agreed.

The tunnel ahead pulsed faintly, the mana hum deeper now.

By the time they reached its end, everyone was bruised, cut, and half-burned by mana lash.

When the floor suddenly fell away into a vertical shaft, no one was surprised.

The shaft breathed upward.

Standing at its lip, Rhaen felt a steady current of mana rising like hot air, flowing past her face.

The walls dropped away into dim blue light.

Thane peered down, lips moving as he counted the rhythm of the flow.

"Updraft," he said. "Mana-based. It will fight anyone trying to go down."

"So we fight harder," Darec said.

Thane shook his head.

"Not with our muscles," he said. "With physics."

He knelt and began anchoring rune-plates around the rim, each one flaring briefly as it fused to stone.

"What are you doing?" Rhaen asked.

"Building a column," Thane said. "A stabilised flow down the middle. It won’t be perfect, but it’ll be less murderous than the edges."

He scratched a final glyph into the stone and sat back, sweating.

"Test it," Rhaen said.

He dropped a small stone into the centre.

It fell, wobbling, then steadied. It sank out of sight.

"No scream," Marek would have said, if he were still there.

Rhaen set her jaw.

"I go first," she said.

She adjusted her straps one last time, checked that her blades were secure, then swung her legs over the edge and dropped.

The mana updraft hit her like a warm wind. For a moment she felt weightless.

Then Thane’s column caught her.

The pressure pushed at her chest but did not throw her back. She slid down, pressed against invisible walls, hands brushing the shaft sides to keep her centred.

Her boots hit solid ledge with a jolt. Pain shot up her knees.

She staggered, caught herself against the wall, and looked up.

A circle of pale light marked the shaft mouth far above.

"One," she called, voice echoing.

Darec came next.

His descent started well. Halfway down, the updraft shifted, eddying as the dungeon pushed against Thane’s stabilisers.

He slammed sideways into the shaft wall.

Bone crunched. His already-damaged leg twisted at an ugly angle.

He grunted, teeth bared, and tried to grab at the rune column again.

The mana flow bucked.

He spun out of the stabilised zone and vanished into the blue haze below.

He hit something hard. The sound of impact was sickening.

Rhaen winced.

"Sera!" she shouted.

The healer dropped after him without hesitation.

For a few seconds, Rhaen saw her shape sliding down the glowing column.

Then the dungeon shuddered.

The updraft surged. The stabilised path warped.

Sera’s body twisted. She was flung sideways into raw mana.

Light flared around her in a brief, blinding burst.

Her scream cut off halfway through.

Rhaen’s hands clenched uselessly at her sides.

"Thane!" she yelled upward. "Hold it!"

Thane’s voice floated down, strained.

"I’m—trying—"

The glow of his runes flickered.

"Get down here!" Rhaen shouted. "Now!"

For a moment, nothing moved.

Then Thane’s silhouette appeared at the shaft rim, small and tense. He hesitated, then jumped.

He fell in a controlled slide, one hand trailing the shaft wall, eyes narrowed as he adjusted the runes on the fly.

The column steadied for a heartbeat.

Then the dungeon pulsed.

Mana hammered into the updraft from below, a sudden, vicious surge.

The stabilised path snapped like a rope.

Thane jerked, his body contorting. Light and dust swirled around him.

He was there, then gone, torn apart in a whirlwind of energy.

Bits of cloth and something darker drifted down, burned to ash before they hit the bottom.

Silence followed, thick and complete.

Rhaen stood alone on the ledge, chest heaving.

Up above, the shaft mouth glowed faintly. No more shadows moved across it.

She realised, slowly, that there was no one left to come down.

Darec. Sera. Thane. Marek. Korr.

Gone.

The weight of it pressed on her shoulders like a physical thing.

Kael’s ravens, she thought numbly. All but one.

For a heartbeat, she considered trying to climb back up. To scrape her way along the wall and hope the dungeon didn’t swat her like a fly.

Then she pictured the map in Kael’s war room. Ashen River’s pulsing mark. The League’s cold machines. Silvarion’s quiet forest queen. The Concordat’s painted caravans.

If she crawled back with empty hands, their names would be chalk on a stone at best.

"If we fail, we die as criminals," she whispered.

Her voice shook once, then steadied.

"If I’m going to die, it won’t be empty-handed."

She turned her back to the shaft and limped into the tunnel.

The passage beyond the shaft opened into a rocky niche.

A faint breeze stirred the air, carrying the tang of raw mana and something like damp stone.

Rhaen stumbled into the shadows and sank to one knee.

Pain flared in her ribs—the fall had cracked something. Her left arm burned where mana had licked her skin. Her head rang with a dull, constant throb.

She dragged herself farther into the niche until the mana wind lessened.

"First, live," she muttered.

Her pack felt too light without the others’ gear beside it.

She pulled out one of Sera’s small leather pouches and uncorked it. A sharp, bitter smell rose from the salve inside.

"Sorry, Sera," she murmured.

She smeared the salve over the worst of the burns. The skin cooled, the angry red fading slightly.

Next, she peeled back her shirt and pressed fingers along her ribs.

Three spots sent stabbing pain up her side.

"Cracked, not shattered," she said through her teeth. "Good enough."

She took a strip of cloth and bound her chest tight, wincing with each breath.

From another pouch she pulled thin, square patches inked with tiny runes.

Kharadorn pain-dampening stickers.

She slapped one over her temple, another near her ribs.

Warmth spread through her skin, followed by a gentle, distant feeling, as if the pain belonged to someone else in the next room.

Her hands still shook.

She closed her eyes.

In her mind, she saw them one by one: Korr’s startled face as he turned to crystal. Marek’s blood on the flesh-door. Darec’s broken body disappearing into the haze. Sera’s light flaring and going out. Thane, swallowed by the dungeon’s tantrum.

"I won’t waste the price you paid," she whispered.

The niche swallowed her words.

After a few minutes, her breathing steadied. The tremble in her fingers faded.

She opened her eyes and checked her gear.

Half her demon-steel blades were gone, lost in the climb and fall. The heavy axe Korr had carried was missing, somewhere up above with him.

She still had two short blades, one long knife, three throwing knives, a coil of rope, one silence talisman, one small mana potion, and an emergency flare rune she would only use if she wanted to call every predator in the dungeon to her location.

"Not ideal," she said. "But then, this was never going to be ideal."

Quiet fear whispered at the edges of her mind.

She had been alone on missions before—scouting, infiltration, assassinations—but always with an extraction plan, always knowing that, somewhere, her team waited.

Here, she was truly alone.

The fear sharpened, turning into a thin, clear edge.

You’re an elite, she told herself. This is what you were shaped for. Walk.

She pushed herself to her feet.

The tunnel sloped downward for a dozen paces, then opened abruptly.

Rhaen stepped out onto a ledge and stopped.

The first floor of Ashen River stretched out before her like a broken world.

Terraces of stone dropped away in layers, streaked with veins of dimly glowing crystal. Rivers of liquid mana flowed through carved channels, twisting and merging, some falling off the edges into glowing mist.

Bridges—some intact, some broken halfway—spanned chasms here and there. In the far distance, she saw a cluster of structures that might once have been buildings, now half-melted into the cavern floor.

And farther still, like three watching eyes, glowed the faint circles of portals—red, blue, and green—suspended above a shattered plaza.

Rhaen exhaled slowly.

"Hello," she whispered. "You’re uglier than they drew."

She crouched and pressed a rune-marked stone against the ledge under her boots.

The rune flared once and sank into the rock, leaving a faint, dark sigil behind.

"Starting point," she said. "In case any idiot ever pulls me back here by spell."

She studied the air.

The mana here moved in visible currents, like smoke or water. Some streams flowed steadily. Others eddied, forming small whirlpools of light.

Natural cover dotted the terraces—pillars of stone, jagged outcrops, broken arches.

She scanned the ground near her ledge.

At first, she saw nothing unusual. Then, as her eyes adjusted, she noticed faint lines on the stone. Pale, irregular curves, like scuff marks or old scratches.

She frowned.

"Mana stress lines?" she muttered. "Or just wear?"