Chapter 48

After bidding farewell to Saejin and the Named Mothers, the three Unclaimed pressed once more into the Deep Nether, leaving the steady hum of the spherical Anima lantern behind them.

The darkness reclaimed them in layers, first as shadow, then as something almost stronger, the void all-encompassing and infinite as they moved from one fractured landmass to the next, stepping across misaligned seams of stone or clearing narrow gaps where the pieces had drifted apart.

The Deep Nether felt restless now, charged in a way it hadn’t before, which made sense to Pyre considering the realm collapse had yet to begin. Occasionally, light tore through in violent pulses from the distance, throwing the terrain into sharp silhouette one moment and bleaching it into stark clarity the next.

In the distance, a storm of black wings circled something flashing bright and erratic.

“Not great,” Marrowsven said, who remained at the front while Balefor focused on his enhanced senses.

“Scavels again,” Pyre said. “That’s the last thing we want out here.”

The flock of scavels wheeled and dove, their bodies folding and unfolding as they fed on whatever had fallen from the sky. Each time the light flared, Pyre caught the glint of the embedded Anima crystals inside them.

“Not that direction, thankfully,” Balefor said, adjusting course without hesitation. “Though a few of those crystals would be useful. You saw what Irix did with them. That sarcophagus wasn’t light, and she lifted it.” He nodded ahead. “Still, we stay on this path. It’s smarter. And it keeps us moving in the right direction.”

“That’s the most important part at this point,” Marrowsven said.

“Agreed,” Pyre said. “We are past the middle of nowhere.”

Balefor laughed. “We passed that point an hour ago.”

Marrowsven’s eyes scanned ahead while her body moved with eerie looseness. “If we continue this way, we’ll reach something; that, or we’ll see the main piece of the realm come down, and we can gauge what to do from there.”

“Were there any other banners you recognized around the Unmoored’s last location?” Balefor asked Pyre. “Aside from the Butcher’s Court and the Heavenly Host. Eh. I should have paid better attention.”

Pyre went still for a moment, replaying what he’d seen just before the fight with the Synod. “The Farbound Delegation. I saw their banner as well.”

“Ah, that one. Lyra has a sponsorship through them,” Balefor said. “Maybe we have another friend out here after all.”

“Let’s hope that’s the case,” Pyre said.

They stepped onto another stretch of land, this one darker than the others. The rock dipped in shallow bowls and rose again in low ridges, creating pockets of shadow so dense they seemed to swallow even the intermittent flares from above.

Balefor tensed mid-stride, his nostrils flaring. “Mirthbeasts,” he said, lifting his greataxe slightly and angling the blade toward the dark.

Pyre narrowed his eyes, forcing himself to adjust to the gloom. At first he saw nothing—only uneven ground and the rolling wave of shadow.

Then he saw the mirthbeasts, just as Sura had warned. Their sheep teeth caught what little light there was, pale arcs suspended in the dark. Laughter came a heartbeat later, high, jagged, and disturbing.

The mirthbeasts did not stalk.

They rose from where they had been resting, black-furred bodies unfolding from the ground, shoulders hunched and hips low. Their teeth flashed as their jaws opened too wide.

There were at least twelve of the monsters, the pack picking up its pace as it casually approached them, confident that the three Unclaimed would make a quick meal. They formed a line and circled quickly, which brought a strange grin to Balefor’s face as he bared his own teeth in response.

“Well, then make your attack,” he roared, startling the closest mirthbeast as he stomped toward it. “Come on, then!”

A smaller beast launched at him, its forelimbs stretched forward, claws extended.

Balefor met the creature with a single, brutal swing. His greataxe carved through fur and bone alike, and the mirthbeast snapped off mid-shriek. It split and tumbled, landing in a heap at his feet.

The others howled—not in fear, but in bizarre delighted rage.

Pyre answered with motion.

He moved toward the closest pair, flames spiraling along the cracked edge of his Sigil.

One mirthbeast lunged low. Pyre pivoted, bringing his fiery blade across its back. The flames caught instantly, racing along its fur. The creature shrieked and tried to scamper away. It slid across the dark stone, fire trailing as the creature collapsed in a twitching heap.

Pyre took another one down only for a bigger mirthbeast to spring toward his flank.

Marrowsven intercepted it. She dropped to one hand, her body folding under the arc of its leap. As it passed overhead, she twisted, her spine bending as she flashed her bone blade upward at a cruel angle, piercing the beast through the throat. She rolled with it as it fell, withdrawing her Sigil in the same motion.

Two more rushed Balefor.

He stepped into them, not back. His greataxe rose and fell in wide, efficient arcs. One beast lost its foreleg. The other caught the haft of his weapon in its jaws, reflective teeth scraping against metal.

Balefor snarled and drove his knee into its chest before ripping the axe free and bringing it down with both hands.

Pyre burned another that tried to dart behind Marrowsven. The creature’s laughter dissolved into a wet choking sound as flames consumed its face. He felt the heat swell, felt the Deep Nether respond to it, and forced himself to keep control as he moved onto the next mirthbeast.

Marrowsven hamstrung another and finished it before it could rise.

Balefor took one’s head, then caught the next by the throat as it leapt. He drove it into the stone and ended it with his axe.

As quickly as they had descended upon the Unclaimed, the mirthbeasts were dead. All aside from one, which turned and fled, its laughter thinning into the distance.

“It will draw attention,” Balefor said immediately.

“On it.” Marrowsven sprinted low and fast, then launched toward the monster, twisting in midair to drive her bone blade down at an oblique angle between shoulder and spine. The strike hammered it into the stone, where the beast thrashed once, then went still.

She withdrew her weapon, looked back toward them, and nodded.

“Let’s move,” Pyre said quickly to Balefor. “Scavels will follow.”

They joined Marrowsven and broke into a jog, then into bounding strides, using the Deep Nether’s warped gravity to their advantage.

Pyre felt the tremor of wings somewhere behind them and didn’t look back until they cleared the next landmass and finally slowed.

The ground curved inward here, forming a shallow basin of dark stone. Its edges rose on all sides, forming a natural amphitheater that opened toward the distant glare of the collapse.

“Stop,” Marrowsven told Balefor as he took a step forward, his eyes scanning something just beyond whatever horizon could be constructed out of the Deep Nether. “Look.”

And there, on opposite sides of the rim, were exactly what they had been searching for.

On one side, a mirror-bright standard shimmered even in the low light. The surface of it seemed to catch and distort the surrounding chaos, reflecting fragments of light in muted, disciplined flashes.

“The Farbound Delegation,”Pyre said.

“That’s one that is close to the Unmoored,” Balefor said. “What about the other banner? He motioned to the narrow black banner rimmed in red. I’ve seen it. I’m certain.”

“Hectacomb,” Marrowsven said. “They offered to sponsor me. They believe conflict and sacrifice drive existence. I couldn’t accept that.”

“Are you sure they’re not the Synod of Yore?” Pyre asked her. “It sounds like something they’d believe.”

“They aren’t far off.”

“Then let’s angle toward the Farbound Delegation, then,” Balefor said, glancing at Marrowsven. “You still haven’t told us what made you reject the Butcher’s Court.”

“They worship the Hunger,” she said point-blank.

“They worship it?” Pyre asked as they moved cautiously along the rim, staying low.

“They see it as a god-like apex predator,” she replied. “One to aspire to.”

The words settled heavy in Pyre’s chest as light flared again overhead. “Anyone who’s survived the Hunger knows it’s nothing to worship. It’s ruin. Madness. Death.”

“In some ways, it fits,” Balefor said. “Worship and fear have always gone hand in hand, and calling it sacred makes it easier to look past what it actually is. But you’d know their doctrine better than I would, Marrow.”

“You’re close,” Marrowsven told him. “At least from what I was told. I’m sure they dress it in finer language, but it amounts to this: the Hunger destroys realms for our benefit. That is their creed.” She paused. “I don’t know which is worse—believing that, or treating the Hunger as some distant inevitability, as other factions do, and choosing not to look at it at all.”

“They’re both equally bad,” Pyre said, barely able to quell the anger building in his chest.

“I can’t argue there,” Balefor told him, “but things have been this way for longer than we can understand, since the First Gods destroyed the First Realm. These kinds of belief systems have a way of compounding through inertia.” He paused and looked ahead, toward the Farbound Delegation banner. “Let’s see how this goes and hope that Lyra is there to run interference.”