The first sound Valen heard was not his own breathing. It was someone else’s, ragged and desperate and too fast. A wet, choking rhythm cut through the darkness before his eyes even opened.

  Hah-hah-hah-hah.

  He stirred awake with a throbbing head. The first thing he saw was Luken. The mage was already awake, curled on the ground a few feet away with his back pressed against the jagged cave wall as if trying to push through stone to escape. His knees were drawn tight to his chest. His entire body trembled with violent spasms that made his teeth chatter audibly.

  Luken’s breath hitched in his throat. He was trapped in a loop of shallow gasps that starved his lungs. Both hands clawed at his sternum. His fingers hooked like talons and dug through the linen of his shirt as if trying to tear open his own ribs. His face was bone-white and sheened with sweat. His eyes were wide and fixed on something in the middle distance.

  “No,” Luken choked out. “No, don’t. Don’t touch—”

  Valen pushed himself up. The fog of his own dream shattered instantly. He saw smoke and flames and Eddena’s lips on his forehead. “Luken?”

  He moved toward him, reaching out.

  Luken flinched so hard his skull cracked against the stone. “Don’t!” The word came out as a strangled bark. His gaze snapped to Valen for a moment before sliding away, unseeing. “It’s. There’s something inside. I can feel it moving—”

  Tar was there. The minotaur had moved with surprising silence for one so large, dropping to his knees beside Luken. He didn’t speak. He never did. His massive hands, each one broad as a shovel, closed gently around Luken’s shoulders. He was not grabbing or restraining but holding. Anchoring. He pulled the trembling mage against his chest.

  Luken stiffened, then collapsed into the embrace. His gasping face pressed against Tar’s shoulder. The minotaur’s hand came up to cradle the back of Luken’s head. He made a low rumbling sound, neither growl nor words, but a vibration that seemed to travel through bone rather than air.

  Valen froze with his hand still outstretched. He had never seen Tar touch anyone gently before. He remembered that Thal had raised the minotaur. He had taught him by example how to hold the broken and the lost.

  “It’s alright,” Valen said quietly. He settled back on his heels. “You’re here, Luken. We’re here.”

  Luken’s right hand spasmed and dove into his pocket. He pulled out the silver compass. It was Maira’s compass, the glass cracked. He clenched it so tightly that the metal edges bit deep and drew blood. He pressed his bloody fist against Tar’s shoulder.

  Slowly, Luken’s breathing began to slow. The trembling changed from convulsive to fine. He stared at the blood on his palm mixing with the silver of the compass. He squeezed it harder.

  “I’m,” Luken swallowed. His voice was muffled against Tar’s shoulder. “I’m alright.”

  He wasn’t. Tar didn’t let go. He held on until Luken’s hand stopped trying to dig through his own chest. Only then did the minotaur ease his grip. His large hand moved to Luken’s back in slow, steadying circles, the same way Thal had held Tar once when he was young and frightened.

  Valen turned to check on the others.

  That was when he saw her.

  Nyra lay on the ground nearby with her head resting on Thal’s massive lap. The Nephilim sat with his back against the cavern wall, utterly motionless. His right hand, massive and thick-fingered, was buried gently in Nyra’s short white hair. He stroked it slowly, methodically, running from crown to nape like a father checking his child for fever.

  Nyra was drenched in sweat. Her bronze skin glistened. Her linen shirt darkened and plastered to her shoulders. Her chest rose and fell in short, sharp jerks. Her left hand moved against her thigh, tracing small circles. Two clockwise. A pause. Then two counter-clockwise.

  Valen stared. For a moment, he didn’t see the cave. He saw the smoke-blackened silhouette of Eddena. He saw Rose, twelve years old, her laughter bright before the flames came. He saw a younger Nyra, barely more than a girl, ducking through the doorway of that dilapidated hut where he had been waiting to die. He saw the rusted dagger in his grip. He saw the stale bread she had placed between them, not as charity, but as a challenge. Eat. You’ll think clearer on a full stomach.

  Now here she was, still fighting battles he couldn’t see.

  Thal’s eyes lifted. The Nephilim met Valen’s gaze. His golden eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, ancient and knowing. He did not stop stroking Nyra’s hair.

  Valen nodded, a slight dip of his chin.

  Nyra gasped. Her eyes snapped open wide, red and feral. Her hand shot out, grasping for a weapon that wasn’t there. Her fingers closed on empty air.

  “Jal,” she choked out. Her voice cracked between octaves, child-high and adult-low. “I can’t. I can’t exhale—”

  Her left hand kept moving. Two clockwise. A pause. Two counter-clockwise.

  Thal’s hand stilled on her head. His massive fingers pressed down gently but firmly, a grounding weight.

  “Breathe,” Thal rumbled. His voice was like distant thunder. “The storm has passed, little shadow.”

  Nyra’s gasping hitched. Her eyes focused. The red haze cleared and she saw Thal’s face above her, then the cave, then the others. She realized her position, her head on his lap and his hand in her hair. Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t flinch away immediately. She finished the spiral. One long, shuddering exhale seemed to empty her lungs of something dark and heavy.

  She sat up and wiped sweat from her face. Her other hand fell immediately to the haft of her axe.

  Luken had managed to push himself upright, though he remained seated against the wall. Tar hadn’t moved far. He still knelt beside Luken with one massive hand resting on his shoulder.

  Valen looked between them. Luken trembled against stone. Nyra was drenched and gasping. Thal’s hand still hovered in the air where her hair had been. The cave felt too small. The darkness pressed in with the weight of everything they had just witnessed. Valen’s own hands were shaking. He found himself reaching for his sword. His fingers closed around the hilt and he adjusted and readjusted his grip as if checking that it was still there, still solid.

  If we sit here in this silence, he thought, we’ll drown in it.

  He swallowed hard. He forced his shoulders back. He painted the grin on his face like a layer of shielding varnish.

  “Well, well,” he said. His voice cracked slightly before he steadied it. He gestured vaguely at Thal’s lap and at the way the Nephilim’s massive hand still lingered in the air. “Didn’t realize you had such a soft side, Thal. Who knew our stoic giant had the makings of a doting father?”

  Thal didn’t look up. His hand withdrew slowly into a fist at his side.

  “She was cold.”

  The silence that followed was absolute. Even Valen’s smile faltered.

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  Tar grunted, a low sound, and the spell broke.

  Nyra’s head snapped toward Valen. She wiped sweat from her jaw and snorted.

  “You’re one to talk,” she muttered. Her voice was hoarse. “Sitting there looking like a drowned rat with delusions of charm.”

  “Drowned rats are famously charming,” Valen countered. His voice was softer than before. His hand stayed on his sword hilt and his thumb rubbed the worn leather of the grip.

  Luken swallowed hard. His voice was barely audible, raw from the gasping. He looked at Thal. “What was that?”

  “The Spine,” Thal said. His tone was grave. “It digs into your soul. It pulls out your pain and forces you to face it. The pain is always real.”

  Valen frowned. His earlier humor faded completely as the residue of the flames licked at the edges of his mind. “Twisted, huh? So it wasn’t all real?”

  Thal shook his head. “Some parts were. Others were shaped by the mountain.”

  Nyra was silent. Her left hand clenched as she stared at the ground. Tar let out a low guttural grunt.

  “He’s right,” Thal said. “You’ve made it through. The Spine isn’t done with you yet.”

  They gathered their gear in silence. Thal took the lead. His massive frame blocked what little light filtered down. Nyra followed with her axe resting on her shoulder and her left hand brushing her thigh occasionally. Tar walked behind her. His hooves crunched against the stone. Luken followed him with his right hand buried in his pocket. Valen brought up the rear. He watched the way Luken’s shoulder twitched with every other step. His own fingers never stilled on his sword hilt.

  The Maw opened around them as they descended. It was a cathedral of bone and fused Empyrean scale. The ceiling vaulted into darkness overhead, hundreds of feet high and lost in shadow. They followed a peripheral path, a ledge winding along the edge of the main cavity. It was a space so vast that Valen could not see the far wall.

  The walls were wrong. Empyrean scales, obsidian and iridescent, had fused with the limestone. They created a mosaic that shimmered in their torchlight. At first, Valen thought it was static, just another grotesque feature of the Spine. Then he saw the tremor.

  A patch of scales to his right, embedded in the wall, rippled. It was just a slight shiver, as if a breeze had passed over them. There was no breeze here. The air was stagnant and heavy with sulfur and the copper taste of old magic.

  Valen’s thumb stopped rubbing his sword hilt. He gripped it tight.

  “Did you see that?” he whispered.

  Nyra had slowed. Her axe was lowered but ready. She stared at the wall ahead. “The floor,” she said quietly. “It’s breathing.”

  Valen looked down. The stone beneath their boots was not stone. Not entirely. It was carpeted in overlapping plates of hardened Empyrean hide that had fused with the rock. They were shifting. Rising and falling with a slow, tidal rhythm. Inhale. Exhale. The mountain was alive and they were walking across its lung.

  Luken stopped walking. Valen heard the sharp click of the compass glass as Luken’s hand tightened in his pocket. The mage studied the scales near his face. He tilted his head to observe how the stone and scale merged without seam. “The fusion is complete,” he murmured. His voice was hollow with wonder and revulsion. “Bone and stone, indistinguishable. It’s not dead. It’s incorporated. One organism. A gestalt.”

  Tar rumbled, a low note of agreement. He stepped closer to Luken and rested one hand on the mage’s shoulder.

  Valen kept his blade sheathed, but his hand remained on the hilt. He adjusted his grip every few steps. The walls around them were no longer stone but something else entirely. They were a ribcage of fused Empyrean young, the bones grown into the limestone, the scales twitching with involuntary muscle spasms. It was like walking through the veins of a sleeping god.

  They reached a narrow fork. The left path descended toward a vast, dark opening that breathed cold air and the stench of sulfur. The right path narrowed, leading to a tight fissure barely visible in the rock face. Thal stopped. His massive frame blocked their view of the main chamber beyond.

  “There,” Thal said. He pointed to the fissure. “Through there. Quickly.”

  Valen stepped forward. That was when he saw them.

  Eyes.

  Behind Thal, in the vast dark of the main chamber, two slits of pale, milky white opened. They were vertical pupils glowing with a sickly luminescence. Each one was larger than a wagon wheel. They blinked, slow and deliberate. Valen felt his blood freeze in his veins. The eyes were not the golden, reptilian gaze of a dragon. They were too human, too aware, filled with a hunger that was ancient and infantile all at once.

  “Thal,” Valen whispered. His voice was barely audible. “Behind you.”

  The scream that followed was not a roar. It was a chorus.

  It started as a bellow, a guttural basso profundo that shook dust from the ceiling. Layered over it, harmonizing with it, were the screams of human voices. Dozens, hundreds, high and shrill and desperate. The voices of children cried out in agony and terror. It was the sound of the unborn, fused and aware, screaming through the throat of the beast.

  “Run,” Thal bellowed. He shoved Nyra toward the fissure. “Now!”

  The eyes vanished, replaced by a wall of flesh and scale rushing toward them. The fifth head was massive. Its skull was armored in fused bone plates. Its jaws unhinged to reveal rows of teeth like broken tombstones. It filled the tunnel opening and moved faster than anything that large should move. It was a freight train of meat and hate.

  Thal turned to face it. He planted his feet wide and raised his massive arms to meet the charge.

  The head struck.

  Thal caught the lower jaw with his left hand and the upper with his right. The impact drove him back three feet. His boots carved trenches in the stone floor. The Hydra’s momentum slammed into him, but he held. His muscles bunched and swelled. His golden eyes blazed with effort as he forced the jaws apart, holding them open with raw, impossible strength. Drool the consistency of tar spilled from the beast’s gums and hissed where it struck the stone.

  “Move,” Thal grunted. His voice strained with effort. “Get inside!”

  Nyra didn’t hesitate. She threw herself into the fissure. Her axe scraped sparks from the rock. Tar followed, pulling Luken with him. Valen backed toward the gap. His sword was finally free of its sheath, but he couldn’t look away from the tableau before him. Thal stood alone against the maw of a god, holding back the darkness with nothing but his hands.

  “Go,” Thal roared.

  Valen squeezed into the fissure. They crawled single file through the dark. The passage was so tight that Valen’s shoulders scraped raw against the stone. Luken was ahead of him, breathing hard with his hand still clenched around the compass in his pocket. The air was thick with dust and the smell of sulfur.

  The wall to their left exploded.

  Stone and scale burst inward as the Hydra’s head punched through the side of the tunnel. It had circled around, or perhaps the tunnel was simply another vein in its body. The head filled the space and blocked out all light. Its milky eyes fixed immediately on Luken.

  It stopped, inches from the mage’s face.

  Valen saw Luken freeze. His hand remained in his pocket, but his breathing stopped entirely. His chest was motionless. His eyes were wide and reflecting the beast’s pale gaze. The Hydra’s nostrils flared, snorting steam that smelled of formaldehyde and rotting flowers. It inhaled, tasting Luken’s mana and his density and his corruption. A low sound rumbled from its throat. It was not a growl but a purr, obscene and maternal.

  “Luken,” Valen whispered. His voice shook. “Don’t move.”

  The head drew back, preparing to strike.

  Thal moved. He surged forward from the rear, shouldering past Valen in the tight space. The Hydra drew back, its jaws unhinging to swallow Luken whole.

  The Nephilim raised both fists and brought them down into the floor of the tunnel with a thunderous crack.

  Stone shattered. The calcified shell of the passage collapsed under the impact and was pulverized by the blow. The ground simply ceased to exist beneath them. It opened into a chasm of broken rock and dust.

  “Down,” Thal bellowed.

  Tar lunged forward. His massive arms encircled Luken, pulling the motionless mage against his chest as they plummeted. Valen tumbled through darkness, bouncing off stone and scale, until he hit the ground hard. The wind was knocked from his lungs. He rolled and came up in a crouch with his sword raised. His ears rang with the aftermath of shattered stone.

  They were in the main chamber.

  Tar stood nearby with Luken cradled against his chest. The mage gasped and stirred. His face was pressed into the minotaur’s shoulder as he drew ragged, desperate breaths.

  Valen looked up.

  The Hydra’s body filled the space. It was a mountain of fused corpses that defied anatomy and reason. Valen’s mind struggled to process what he was seeing. Legs, dozens of them, sprouted from the creature’s flanks at impossible angles. Some ended in claws. Others ended in hands with fingers splayed and twitching. Arms emerged from its spine, waving in the air like feelers. The bones were fused at wrong angles.

  Four massive stumps rose from the thing’s shoulders. Each one wept a clear, viscous fluid that pooled on the cavern floor. The stumps twitched and spasmed. The ghosts of the missing heads still tried to strike at enemies long gone.

  The body itself had a tear running down its flank. It leaked ropes of intestine that pulsed with their own peristaltic rhythm. Above it all, suspended from the ceiling by cords of fused sinew and scale, hung a canopy of ribcages. Empyrean chest cavities were opened and pinned like obscene lanterns. The bones creaked as the creature breathed.

  The fifth head reared above them, swaying. The human voices still leaked from its throat in a wet, gurgling chorus. It looked down at them. It looked at Luken, still held in Tar’s protective embrace. It opened its jaws wide enough to swallow them all whole.

  Thal grabbed Valen’s collar and hauled him to his feet. The Nephilim’s knuckles were bleeding. White dust from the pulverized stone coated his arms up to the elbows. “Run,” he said. His voice was hoarse and his arms trembled with exhaustion. “Run now.”

  Valen’s feet were rooted to the stone. He could only stare at the ribcages overhead, at the legs sprouting from the creature’s back, at the impossible geometry of the thing that had been born from nightmares and fused flesh.

  His thumb found his sword hilt. He rubbed it and rubbed it.

  The Hydra screamed again. It was the voices of the unborn, demanding to be whole. The battle began.