After nearly a week spent in Clayton, the company had succeeded in locating and securing two further Ailbean keys.

  Their days had been dedicated to skulking through the tenebrous and noxiously foetid veins of Clayton’s mine network, while their nights were mostly spent recovering from the experience in the Clayton Inn and Tavern.

  This modest success had been achieved largely – though none of them stated it aloud – by virtue of Ethan’s singular aptitude for sensing the bluecaps. Lyra continued to bristle whenever anyone used the term, claiming it “infantilised the aetheric intelligence,” though that never seemed to deter the rest. Even so, her objections had not precluded a near-embarrassing deluge of praise toward Ethan during the first few days. Praise which she delivered with increasingly theatrical fondness, both underground amid the filth and in the rare moments of fresh air above.

  Ethan accepted her approval in silence, his expression calcified into the same dispassionate calm with which he greeted battle, snowfall, and the price of bread. Beneath the surface, however, he experienced the rare and fragile sensation of pride.

  But naturally, such fortune could not last. It never did.

  Their early momentum slowed to a crawl. The third key remained elusive, hidden somewhere within the subterranean sprawl. By the fifth day – three full days since the penultimate key had been found – the group’s patience was nearing collapse. Tempers frayed. Jokes died at the root. Idle conversation turned to argument, argument to insult, and insult to silence.

  The mines themselves bore no small share of the blame. The endless procession of narrow, stifling tunnels; the hollow clang of picks on ore; the way noise echoed infinitely in the dark, as though the stone itself whispered just out of reach.

  The mind suffered, one way or another.

  And then came December. The early winter frost did not stop at the surface – it slithered down through the bedrock and into the tunnels. Ethan noted the way condensation now plumed from their mouths with each breath like chimney smoke. The warmth one might expect from an underground chamber packed with labourers never materialised. The opposite, in fact. The cold had grown bold enough to creep beneath their layers, to worm into joints and marrow.

  Even with his Elsian silk cloak – its thermostatic properties keeping him comfortable – he was forced to wear leather gloves, lest his digits freeze solid with frostbite.

  And yet, bafflingly, the refuse – urine and faeces smeared across rock and beam – never seemed to freeze. No ice to mask the stench. No reprieve from the rot.

  "This fuckin’ mine’s fuckin’ cursed, I fuckin’ swear it," Simon muttered, head twitching at every echo like a rat waiting on the snap of the trap.

  "Aye, well," Mary had replied, arms folded and breath fogging before her lips. "Cursed with piss, ain’t it?"

  Lyra, trying her best not to throttle either of them, had offered hope. “One more day of recuperation,” she said, brushing rock dust from her cloak, “and I shall once again be able to expedite our efforts with aetheric practice.”

  She was suffering from what she termed “aetheric withdrawal” – the consequence, apparently, of rousing an artefact that had slumbered ten thousand years. According to her, the toll was not physical but spiritual – a strain upon the incorporeal wellspring of her ‘soul’, as she called it.

  A polite way of saying she was too magically hungover to be useful.

  Ethan was no more patient than the rest of them. He had walked the same four branches of tunnel so many times that he could map them in his sleep. The dreadful novelty of their depths had long since curdled into tedium. His boots had slipped in the same patches of slime. He had ducked beneath the same splintering beams. And all the while, that same damned warmth – a faint, almost magnetic pull in the direction of the last key – remained just beyond reach. Always the next tunnel. Always the next turn.

  He halted, suddenly, at a fork in the path. Drew a breath through his nose. Held it. Counted to ten.

  The air is less foul here, if only marginally. Fewer miners, I suppose. Fewer excrement-slicked walls. Fewer sulphur-laced breezes. Still enough to turn the stomach.

  “It’s moving again,” he growled, voice taut with cold fury. “That thrice-damned fart o’ a fuckin’ wisp is movin’ away from us. Again.”

  That made it the third time today. They had already traversed this mine level’s length twice over – each circuit delivering little more than bruised knees, scraped foreheads, and the ever-worsening suspicion that the key itself was mocking them.

  “I say we call it in for the day,” Warren intoned, tugging his damp cloak tighter about his shoulders. “Tomorrow, Lyra shall be restored. She shall draw the key to us with magical artifice, and we may leave this pit. Tonight, let us rest.”

  Muted groans of agreement followed. Not out of defeat, but out of bone-deep exhaustion. Their honour could survive one more night in the cold. Their joints, less so.

  “God-fucking-damn it all,” Ethan snapped, slamming his boot against the nearest beam. A puff of dust rained down, coating his shoulder in a fine grey ash.

  “You are correct,” he said abruptly, preempting Warren’s inevitable sermon. “Let us return. I need–”

  The laughter stopped him.

  High-pitched. Malevolent. Playful in the way children’s sometimes is, as they prepare to drown a pigeon in a bucket.

  It echoed through the stone with uncanny clarity. And beneath it, subtly at first, the sound of rushing water. Not from above or below – but from within the walls themselves.

  Ah, bollocks.

  “Flee not so swiftly, sweet hearts of flesh,” purred a voice from the dark ahead.

  “On your guard!” Ethan barked, sabre already half-drawn. The others startled into readiness, save John, who had moved to Marcel’s side the instant the first giggle rang out.

  “Thou need’st not quake so, darling Ethan,” the voice cooed again – this time with a sensual cadence so unnervingly precise it scraped like a knife down his spine. “My sisters and I come but to parley...”

  She emerged.

  The shadows coiled about her like living silk, slipping off her body with feline grace. She advanced no further than the edge of their lantern light, where the glow touched only her outline – a woman, perhaps five and a half feet, her figure soft, full, and unashamedly nude.

  Each time the lantern flickered, a fresh pattern of motes shimmered across her bare flesh – pale, smooth, and entirely unmarred by dirt or blemish. She gleamed like starlight glimpsed in a wine goblet.

  Gooseflesh spread over Ethan’s arms, his eyes igniting into translucent blue. Aether, stemming from the monstrosities.

  Korrigans.

  What he saw through the lens of darkvision was markedly different from what the others beheld.

  She was pale, yes – but too pale. White as bone. More like Lyra than himself. Her features were bold, nearly elvish in their angular precision, framed by an oily black mane of hair not unlike his own. And her eyes – twin lanterns of infernal red – were fixed directly upon his.

  She radiated the kind of allure that set fire to the senses. A predator’s grace. The promise of pleasure beyond mortal comprehension.

  And, for those foolish enough to accept the offer, a death equally unimaginable in its agony.

  "Come hither, mine dear ladybird…” the korrigan moaned, voice soaked in sin. She leaned forward – one hand toying indolently with her breast, the other slinking between her thighs with languid purpose.

  “You tempt me not, succubus! Depart this place at once!” Warren’s voice cracked like a lash. He yanked a silver cross from beneath his shirt's collar and held it aloft. The motion, and its attendant shout, served as a clarion, snapping the others from their vacant enthralment. Weapons were drawn with varying haste and competence; eyes darted along the stone passages, alert for the arrival of her spectral sisters.

  The korrigan’s sultry simper soured into a sneer. She straightened, posture rigid with disdain, and hissed, “I should not tempt thee if thou wert the last stallion that trod the mortal earth, priest.” She spat the final word as though it had offended her tongue.

  Ethan felt it then – a discreet yet insistent pull behind the navel, the presence of warmth within his ribs. He had come to recognise it as the tell-tale signature of an Ailbean key.

  She had the final key. Of that, he was now certain.

  “You carry the bluecap,” he said plainly. “What is your price?”

  Her burning gaze slid from Warren back to Ethan, like a cat deciding which meal to toy with first. Full lips curved into a smile – far too wide for the structure of her face – and she began to laugh, low and melodic. It was a laughter perfumed with delight, with just enough pleasure to slip past the ear and settle like warm oil behind the eyes. It had a calming quality to it, something that nudged the blood and teased the muscles into relaxation.

  Ethan's eyes flashed brighter.

  Were it not for Warren’s second invocation – louder this time and punctuated by scripture – it might have taken hold entirely.

  But the laughter did not end with her. New mirth rose behind them, two voices this time. They lacked the first monstrosity’s musicality, replacing it with a raw, guttural edge. Ethan pivoted, spine taut. He felt the aether pressing on his skull from all the tunnel forks around them, cutting off retreat. A textbook encirclement. Amateurs attacked from one direction. Professionals used three.

  “Thou art as an arrow, mine leman,” cooed the korrigan, her voice now pitched to honeyed clarity. “Piercing truth’s marrow with no more than words. But let us indulge thy appetite for negotiation. I offer thee an accord.”

  As she spoke, she lifted one hand to her navel, palm poised in the empty air beside her abdomen. With a flick of the wrist, she tore a sphere of blue fire from the void. The orb hovered just above her palm, bobbing gently like a lazy ember. Its light caught her form in cyan hues, illuminating her curves with just enough definition to elicit fresh gasps from the party.

  John, Simon, even Marcel – their breath hitched in unison. Lyra’s mouth parted, whether in awe or envy it was unclear.

  The korrigan’s body was bait, and they were already halfway down the hook.

  Ethan, by contrast, stared directly at her forehead. A discipline drilled into him by old instructors who had seen too many young men lose their heads to things with plump tits and round arses.

  “Remain steadfast!” Warren’s voice echoed, iron-shod. He turned his back on the lead korrigan, cross raised in the opposite direction, watching for her unseen kin. “Hold fast against the whore’s enchantments!”

  The korrigan rolled her eyes. An unguarded, human gesture. Ethan took quiet satisfaction in it but gave no outward sign. He kept his expression ironclad.

  “Uh-huh,” he said flatly. “You’ve some lovely breasts for an ambulatory corpse, but let us not mistake them for leverage. What is your offer?”

  Her crimson gaze brightened. “Thine indifference is poorly feigned, Ethan…” His name rolled from her tongue like silk. “Thy heart pounds as a stallion at full gallop. Thy blood sings, thy breath shortens, and lo… thy galligaskins bulge with desire.”

  A second voice shrieked behind them, mocking and shrill: “So do the priest’s! Oh, yes, the priest's!”

  Laughter erupted again, this time frenzied and overlapping, as though the very walls were chuckling at their expense. Ethan did not flinch. It was a base tactic – overwhelm the senses, distort the judgement. It worked better on townsfolk and footmen.

  Mary winced, took a long side-step, and joined Lyra, who stood transfixed, her brow furrowed in an expression Ethan could not quite place.

  “Fuckin’ charming,” Ethan muttered. He cleared his throat, and the laughter subsided as though on cue.

  “Thou art frightfully brusque, leman,” the korrigan purred. She trailed a finger down her side, moaning as if his disdain itself pleasured her. “So be it. Mine offer is such – I shall part with mine Ailbean key, should one man of thy company remain here… with us. Forevermore.”

  Her smile widened until it seemed her cheeks might split. Then she slowly, deliberately, dragged her finger across the semicircle of adventurers, as if selecting her meal.

  Laughter rose again. Giddy, chaotic. The sound of hungry things in the dark, delighted by indecision.

  “Yer barkin’!” John snapped, though his voice cracked. His sword dipped slightly. Sweat traced a line down his cheek.

  Marcel looked as though he had been plunged into ice water. His pallor turned chalk-white and his lips moved, muttering nothing of substance. Lyra trembled beside him. Mary whispered empty assurances, but her own fingers trembled on the hilt of her blade.

  “I shan’t hasten thee, mine elegant liefjes,” the korrigan sang. Her hand curled in a beckoning gesture. “Draw lots, bribe, beg… we care not for the process. Only the outcome.”

  Simon swayed forward, one foot dragging unbidden across the stone floor. His eyes were glassy, locked on the korrigan’s light.

  “We have all the time the dark allows…”

  Ethan stepped forward.

  “I shall go.”

  The silence was immediate. The laughter ceased. Simon halted mid-step, blinking rapidly. Warren gasped. John’s jaw went slack. Mary looked at Ethan as though he had begun speaking in southern tongues.

  “What?” She asked, her voice rising in pitch. “Ye daft? They’ll kill ya!”

  Ethan shrugged. His tone was matter-of-fact. “We require the key. Someone must retrieve it.”

  He crouched and placed his lantern on the jagged granite, then returned his sabre to its sheath. His left hand, however, slipped beneath his cloak and into a recessed pocket. His fingers closed around a small pewter flask, its base wax-sealed, innards layered with fine partitions. Within: water, powdered quicklime, black powder – separated by wax, and connected by a singular cord. A contrivance from the Mademoiselle’s syndicate. He had been warned it burned as hot as a forge, and half as patient.

  A contingency, he thought. Tolerable odds, if I throw it away quickly enough.

  He had no desire to die in this lightless oubliette. But he was not above letting them believe otherwise.

  “Oh, Ethan…” moaned the korrigan, her hand alighting over her chest. The expression she wore – feverishly wide-eyed – might have passed for sincerity, had it not been smeared with unwholesome desire. “I did know thee to be after mine own heart the moment thoust entered these rayless halls. But nary did I expect thy sacrifice to come so freely.”

  “Sacrifice?” Ethan replied, voice level, expression static. “A mischaracterisation. I am the only man in the world capable of handling the three of you and emerging intact.”

  His words did not merely amuse the korrigan – they delighted her. Her lips parted in a ragged gasp that bled into a licentious cackle. The noise peeled from her throat like wine gone sour. Her sisters attempted to echo it, but lacked the symmetry and poise, and the effect was feral rather than seductive. Predators in borrowed finery.

  “Three? Sharp eyes to match thy edged wit,” the korrigan purred, hand slipping once more between her legs. “Ah, but I shall savour every morsel of our embrace…”

  Ethan offered no repartee and strode towards her. Slowly. Left hand under his cloak, still clutching the flask.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  To the untrained observer, the movement might have seemed confident. But his gait was coiled with tension, like spring ready to snap. The korrigans tittered in response, a chorus of anticipation bordering on hysterics.

  He halted two paces from her. The lantern-light behind cast his back in soft golds while she remained steeped in shadow – though not to his eyes. Monochrome vision revealed her in sharp definition. Every curve, every pore, every minor twitch of her crimson irises as she met his gaze.

  Returning the look was easier said than done. Up close, she was nearly perfect. Anatomically, biologically – obscenely so. Her bosom rose and fell in exaggerated tempo; her skin was a faultless ivory; the swell of her hips marked the sort of feminine ideal that could ruin lesser men.

  Ethan forced himself to raise his right hand.

  He did not speak; his jaw had locked beneath the effort of restraint. Yet the meaning of the gesture was clear enough. He wanted the key. Nothing else.

  The korrigan smiled again – genuinely, perhaps, or with the best facsimile a walking corpse could conjure. He thought, for the briefest flicker, that she admired him.

  The moment passed.

  She took his hand. Guided it. Not to the bluecap, but to her breast.

  It met his palm like a warm fruit. Her erect nipple pressed hard enough against the glove that he could feel it through the leather. Her smile deepened.

  From behind her emerged the sisters. Two silhouettes bled from the shadows with serpentine grace, stepping around their matriarch to flank Ethan. They mirrored her beauty uncannily – same build, same eyes, same lips parted with hunger. The red glow of their irises locked on him with unyielding intensity.

  Their hands moved next. Fingertips traced the lines of his face, down to his neck and shoulders, under his shirt, over the scars marring of his torso. Every touch bloomed like fire. Every caress scraped at his will. Their breath warmed the side of his neck, their thighs rubbing his, and a low sigh of pleasure rippled between them.

  Ethan gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. “The key.”

  He tore his right hand from the lead korrigan’s chest and drove an elbow backwards into the ribs of one sister, shoving the second aside with a shoulder. They hissed and drew back, not in pain, but in insult.

  The lead korrigan’s smile dissipated. “Ethan,” she murmured, breath trembling, but not with fear. “Most resolute ser to tread this broken sphere. To resist such temptation so fiercely – mine sisters and I are… struck.”

  The glint in her eyes, however, never truly left. She stepped forward, brushing her sisters away like jealous courtiers. “But it matters not, mine leman… for thou shalt be ours forevermore.”

  She pressed her lips to the side of his neck – soft, quick, maddening – and drew away with a smile as gentle as it was grotesque. Ethan glanced down. The bluecap was now resting in his right hand. Still pulsing faintly, still docile.

  He looked back up. She was watching him again, head tilted slightly, like an artist awaiting a patron’s verdict. She beckoned with a wink, expression dripping with promised abandon.

  The urge to surrender – to let the cold, sweet pleasure of death take him – was immense. It swelled within his chest and threatened to drown all thought.

  Then – finally – a faint voice. Distant, thin, but recognisable, buried beneath layers of blood and fire and memory. His father’s last words as he bled to death at his feet, clawed upward from the pit of his thoughts, followed immediately by the image of his broken form.

  It washed over him like Aury ice-water.

  His vision cleared. His hands flexed. The korrigans sighed as one. Their expressions soured. Less seduction, more autopsy.

  He did not break eye contact. Instead, he tossed the glowing bluecap over his shoulder. It floated through the gloom and landed squarely in Lyra’s waiting hands.

  “Our accord is fulfilled,” the korrigan said, licking her lips with relish. “Come now, mine honeyed leman. Cometh with us, and taste pleasures thou shalt never again find upon Aerda.”

  “So. It. Is.” Ethan rasped. His voice was hollow as old steel.

  His left arm emerged slowly from the folds of his cloak, palm out, holding the flask crosswise – Its unassuming pewter shape the last thing the korrigans would see in beauty. They blinked, bemused, as though he were offering them a drink.

  The blonde one reached for the flask, fangs gleaming beneath her grin.

  Ethan exhaled once, lips pressed thin, and yanked the cord.

  The wax seals broke. Water struck quicklime. A violent hiss – then fire bloomed like a furnace flaring to life. The black powder caught and burst, propelling the contents violently outward.

  The world erupted in conflegration.

  A jet of white-gold flame exploded from his hand, swallowing the korrigans in the blink of an eye. The flask superheated immediately, its pewter base dripping molten slag.

  The explosion had no sympathy for human flesh – the heat surged into his glove, through it, and into the meat of his palm.

  The flesh cooked. Ethan screamed – a raw, involuntary sound that rebounded from the stone and came back multiplied.

  His skin blistered. His nerves lit up in fiery sequence, then went suddenly numb. The stench – his own flesh, charred beneath the glove – hit his nostrils harder than any korrigan’s enchantment ever could.

  But it worked.

  Whatever mental enchantment they placed on him collapsed like a shattered lens. The sudden blaze erupted through the tunnel, reducing all to blinded disarray. The korrigans shrieked as one, stumbling back, arms thrown up against the alchemical flare. Their skin – once smooth and gleaming – began to flake and shrivel. Where the burning mixture touched, their glamour peeled away like burnt paint. Flesh curled like old paper under flame, revealing the cadaverous desiccation beneath.

  Their glorious tresses – ebony, copper, and gold – dulled, thinned, and fell in smouldering swaths. Their mouths split wide. The once-even teeth now jutted out in brown, jagged clumps – rotted, irregular, fungal. Monstrosities revealed as they were, at last.

  Ethan moved.

  One fluid crouch, then a twist, leg whipping out – and all three collapsed to the ground. Sparks clung to their writhing bodies, sizzling and popping their desiccating skin.

  He tried to throw the flask.

  It would not leave him.

  The metal had fused to his hand. The pain surged again, a wave of white noise pulsing under his skull.

  No time to dwell.

  No time to scream.

  Adrenaline narrowed his vision into a spearpoint.

  He turned.

  Four great strides and he reached the others, seizing his lantern in one swift motion. The metallic casing scorched his fingertips, but he did not stop. With a grunt of grim effort, he flung the lantern overhead. It spun once – twice – then shattered against the rock beside the korrigans.

  Glass, oil, and flames. The fire took immediately, catching the oil and spitting orange tongues in all directions.

  “Wind – now!” Ethan’s order cracked the air like a whip as he looked to Lyra.

  To her credit, the pale elf responded at once. Both hands extended forward, fingers splayed like a dancer at the final pose. The aether in the air bent to her will. Cloaks billowed. Hair lifted. A pressure built in the tunnel like a held breath.

  And then the exhale.

  A tremendous gust surged forward, catching the scattered oil flames and whipping them into a roiling cyclone. The fire rolled over the korrigans in a hungry wave. Their screams became something no longer recognisably human – high, broken, and reverberating. The scent of seared meat now overpowered all others. No one lingered to savour it.

  "Run!" Ethan bellowed, and they obeyed without question.

  John led the charge, boots thudding across stone with the thunder of someone used to running from death. Ethan took the rear, casting frequent glances behind him, measuring the shadows for pursuit.

  None came.

  He grasped the half melted flask with trembling fingers, braced himself – and tore it free.

  The skin came with it.

  It made a sound like sanded parchment ripped in half. His vision went white. He nearly collapsed. But the danger was real and immediate, and panic overrode agony.

  He flung the blackened remains away and pressed on.

  Behind them, the chase began: furious howls, inhuman shrieks, the thunderclap of taloned feet against granite.

  The group did not pause. Terror clawing at their backs replaced fatigue with something far more persuasive. They moved like the damned.

  Yet it could not last.

  In less than a minute, signs of strain became unmistakable. Warren’s steps grew irregular, his breath a high whistle of desperation. Simon stumbled into the wall, then again. Marcel wheezed as though his lungs had been carved hollow.

  Ethan slowed just enough to bark, “Haud! We walk it.”

  The command was stripped of sympathy but heavy with Aury brogue.

  They obeyed. Limping. Tripping. Pressing on in dreadful silence.

  The noise of water had abated – their path no longer within the korrigans’ ritual ground. That, at least, was a meagre mercy.

  “Blades out,” Ethan snapped, unwilling to risk another surprise. “Warren, John, take point. Rest o’ ye, ‘round Marcel.”

  His gaze swept over them again and again, scrutinising each flank, each shadow, every inch of their environment. His aether sense was in tatters – scrambled by the korrigans’ sorcery and now reduced to static. Worse still, a migraine pounded behind his left eye, spreading tendrils of pressure from temple to jaw to the base of his skull.

  Every sound a hammer-blow.

  Every footfall an offence.

  The pain in his palm, however, was exquisite. Blisters had formed and ruptured; flesh torn, nerves exposed. The wound bled freely, but the pain held him grounded, if barely.

  “Some... fuckin’... bargain,” Simon wheezed, dragging his hand along the jagged wall.

  “Haud yer wheesht an’ walk it,” Ethan snarled, northern lilt unfiltered. He did not even notice.

  They fell silent at once.

  “Haud,” Ethan ordered, raising one arm. All halted. “Watter aheid. Stey tegither. Ah’ll scoot it.”

  “Alone?” Lyra asked, a sliver of trepidation slipping past her otherwise composed mask.

  Ethan turned and stared her down. His eyes, still aglow with residual aether-light, seemed carved from fire-opal. That look silenced her more effectively than any word could. She swallowed whatever thought had followed.

  He cast his provisions sack aside. The weight would slow him. Passing Warren, he snatched the lantern from his belt.

  His hand shook. Blood slicked the brass. His jaw clenched as the pain surged anew.

  It did not stop him.

  Sabre in one hand. Firestarter in the other. He moved forward like a revenant – wounded, scorched, yet unyielding.

  The sound of water swelled as he progressed – first a trickle, then a flow, culminating in a rush. The corridor narrowed. Moisture clung to every surface. A fine mist clouded the air, dampening his hair and dripping from the cavern ceiling. Small rivulets ran in erratic lines along the stone.

  The lantern remained at his back, darkvision unhindered, breath misting in the cold void.

  His blade gleamed faintly, every drop of water on its edge catching what little light there was.

  He scanned.

  Left. Right. Above.

  Every corner dissected.

  Every hollow catalogued.

  Then – a shadow stirred.

  From the left – his injured side, naturally. No warning. No hiss. No whispered charm.

  Smart, Ethan thought with grim appreciation, even as he turned into the strike.

  The tunnel exploded into motion.

  Ethan pivoted sharply on his heel, turning counterclockwise. His sabre rose in time to parry the incoming strike. Steel clashed with claw in a bright, metallic ring that reverberated through granite and galena. He answered with an upward slash, diagonal and forceful, but the swift-footed creature bounded back, evading the cut by a whisper’s breadth.

  Another presence descended upon him from behind – he felt its movement instinctually before he saw it, the familiar pressure of a second ambush. A low sweep aimed at his legs.

  He sidestepped, but the inertia invested into his previous strike betrayed him. The correction came too slow.

  Pain flared white-hot across his right calf. Flesh opened beneath sharp claws, the wound shallow yet exacting. He dropped to the cavern floor, tucked his shoulder, and rolled – an act equal parts avoidance and necessity. Another slash hissed past above him, raking empty air where his neck had just been.

  Had he delayed a second, he would have lost the leg – or his head.

  They moved into flanking positions: one to the fore, the other at his rear.

  Pincer formation. Clever, but predictable.

  Still mid-roll, he extended his left arm and brought it down hard. The korrigans surged forward in unison just as the lantern met granite. Pain shot through the whole appendage but the glass burst on impact, igniting the oily sprays as they splashed out.

  Both korrigans screamed – one in startled fury, the other in blistered agony as the spray seared her dessicated, wiry skin.

  Neither bore the marks of the trio he had wounded earlier, but that held no consequence. He would kill them still.

  With a push from his crouched position, Ethan sprang forward and cleaved horizontally across the nearer korrigan’s abdomen. The blade bit deep, parting skin and muscle alike. Her howl fractured into a strangled shriek as coils of intestine slid from the opened peritoneum. She collapsed to her knees, clutching at her entrails in a futile gesture of preservation.

  Even for one of her breed, such a wound was not survivable. He assessed her as finished and turned – pivoting cleanly with the momentum of his strike.

  The pistol was already in his hand – smuggled in, against the baroness’ warning.

  He had drawn it mid-turn, concealing the action behind the korrigan’s silhouette. The barrel rose to meet the other korrigan, who staggered blind and shrieking, one hand shielding her light-scorched eyes.

  She sensed his intent, perhaps through some primal instinct, and began to retreat. Too slow. Too late.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The report cracked like thunder. In the tight confines of the subterranean tunnel, the blast ricocheted off stone and flesh alike. The glare of gunpowder briefly painted the tunnel in stark colours – then silence descended, save for the tinnitus howling in his ears.

  The pistol's recoil numbed his injured palm and the weapon slipped form grasp. He dropped to one knee, disoriented, balance compromised. Agony coiled around his skull, an iron vice tightening with every heartbeat. His sabre trembled in his grasp as he stabbed it into the remains of the first korrigan, using the corpse for stability.

  His vision blurred. The tunnel warped, edges swimming. Bile rose up his throat and dribbled from his lips, his body too drained to even retch. After several seconds, equilibrium returned – marginally.

  He spat, extracted the sabre and sheathed it – after three failed attempts – then picked up and holstered the pistol with equal effort. He had no confirmation of a kill beyond the shot and his certainty.

  But his certainty had always been enough.

  Arrogant? Certainly. Possibly suicidal. But he did not second-guess it now.

  His eyes, half-blinded by the pistol shot, adjusted to the dim light of the burning oil puddle and beheld the scene in full.

  Two corpses – both unmoving, both different from the previous trio.

  Both his.

  He exhaled, long and slow, the air misting. A breath neither triumphant nor relieved, merely necessary. Then, limping, he turned toward the faint promise of lantern-light, drawn not by hope but by the dull obligation of survival.

  The others remained huddled there, doubled over, palms pressed against ears. The shot had battered them as well. Even now they reeled beneath its percussion.

  "It’s done," Ethan announced tiredly.

  Or he believed he had. The words left his lips, but he heard nothing. His own voice lost beneath a roaring void of white noise assaulting his ears.

  Lyra was the first to recover. She raised her head, eyes searching. When they found him, she gasped aloud. Or so he presumed.

  His face was scorched with tiny burns, blood mingled with soot on his cloak, sick stained his stubbled chin. Smoke coiled lazily from his hair. His wounded leg dragged with every movement.

  Combined with the ghastly glow of his eyes, the image was grotesque – more corpse than man.

  She tried to speak, but recognition dawned mid-syllable. She too, had gone deaf.

  Panic sparked across her expression.

  Ethan raised a hand and pointed to his own ear before it could settle.

  Mouthed two words: No sound.

  Shook his head.

  Finally, he gestured toward the others and beckoned to follow.

  Surprisingly, Lyra interpreted him instantly, applying herself to the task. The fear in her posture did not vanish, but she bent it to purpose. She moved to each of the others in turn, rousing them with silent touches and sweeping motions. Except for Marcel – who flailed in mute, useless confusion – the others grasped the situation with minimal fuss.

  They clustered around Ethan.

  He gave a curt nod, turned–

  And collapsed.

  His knees gave way without warning, and he caught himself with his hands before his face met stone. Pain lanced up his injured hand once more.

  Vision narrowed. Breathing hitched. Sweat dripped from his brow and mingled with the blood dripping from his nostril.

  Simon and Warren moved first. They descended on him from either side, each draping one of Ethan’s arms over their shoulders. The difference in their heights made the formation awkward and imbalanced, but effective enough.

  Ethan made no protest. They carried him forward, toward the tunnel’s next dark turn – one leg hopping, the other dragging, the mark of a man whose life still burned hot, if only barely.

  “Much obliged...” Ethan muttered with a hoarse croak. Neither Simon nor Warren could hear him, yet both turned towards him with lopsided grins.

  They passed the site of the skirmish in sombre procession, the shifting glow of their lanterns – now numbering only five – overwhelming the sputtering fire puddle to reveal a tableau of carnage. Two korrigan corpses lay strewn five yards apart, grotesquely still, like discarded tripe.

  The first, disembowelled, had curled into herself like a dying spider – her limbs pulled in, her viscera extruded in gently steaming ropes across the jagged stone. Congealing blood pooled dull and red beneath her, the edges already drying to rust. The second had fallen flat upon her back, arms askew and throat blasted open. The centre of her neck had been annihilated entirely, exposing a ruin of splintered vertebrae and shredded tissue. A fine spray of blood and bone decorated the floor behind her like a hasty brushstroke.

  Now able to observe them with lantern light, Ethan noted the shift in their physiology with a clinical eye. Magically-induced ageing had stripped away the grotesque allure their sisters wielded. Gone were the supple hips and buxom forms. These specimens wore their corruption openly: clawed fingers blackened and gnarled, skin drawn tight like parchment over birdlike limbs, abdomens bloated with retained blood or bile, breasts deflated into wrinkled sacs, and pelvic bones jutting like mast booms beneath folds of leather.

  The others made every attempt to avert their gaze, but one could not un-smell death. The metallic stench of spilled blood mingled with the acrid tang of burnt powder and the foul frowstiness of ruptured guts. Marcel, for his part, did not even attempt composure. He retched noiselessly but – fear outrunning nausea – refused to stop walking, instead staggering forward while vomiting in motion. His boots, trousers, and shirt bore the indignity in full.

  They reached the pillar chamber some minutes later. Warren and Simon hauled Ethan to its centre, where he dropped gracelessly to the flagstone floor and began rummaging through his provisions bag as soon as John deposited it next to him. A diminishing trail of blood marked their path, the stone streaked crimson behind them.

  He extracted a bandage from the sack and began wrapping his leg with stiff, awkward movements. The bleeding was already abating – too quick for natural human healing, but also not quick enough to be lifesaving without rapid aid.

  “We shall make camp here,” Ethan declared, voice gravelled and dry. Though his ears still rang like parish bells, he could now hear himself again – an improvement he assumed extended to the rest. “John. Are you aware of any passages to the surface that bypass watercourses?”

  John scratched his cropped scalp, the light from the lantern catching the creases in his brow as he searched his internal map. His eyes moved in small, calculated shifts. Eventually he spoke.

  “Aye, there's one,” he said at last. “But it winds through a knocker gaff, see. Nasty buggers, them. Ain’t keen on folk stumblin’ in. Us pitman lads give ‘em a wide berth.”

  Ethan nodded slowly. “It shall suffice.”

  His leg bandaged, he hissed through his teeth as he began tearing away the remnants of his glove from the mauled hand.

  “Mary, do you have any food left?”

  Mary blinked, seemingly startled by the sound of her name being spoken. She reached into her bag and emerged with the expected half a sandwich, holding it forth as though offering tribute.

  “Ya hungry?” she asked, though her tone was flat and her gaze unfixed – shock having filed down all the sharp edges of her awareness. She resembled a marionette still moving on momentum alone.

  “No,” Ethan’s first attempt to wrap his burned hand proved futile. One-handed bandaging was still as annoying as he remembered from his adolescence, from the years spent training in the wilderness.

  Warren, having observed his labours long enough, moved to assist. He squatted down with a huff and began tying the gauze around Ethan’s hand, meaty fingers surprisingly dexterous.

  I suppose one learns more than the Lord’s Prayer in Oaleholder College.

  Ethan gave a curt nod of acknowledgement before turning back to Mary. “Give it to John. John – you are to reach the surface and deliver report to the baroness. Inform her that Lord Stonewater remains among the living, if not wholly fragrant, and that we require resupply. Food. Water. Spirits strong enough to sterilise wounds. Understood?”

  “Aye, that I can do.” John stepped forward and accepted the sandwich. “But what the devil am I to do wi’ this half-bitten scrap, then?”

  “Food – yes,” Ethan muttered, right hand pressing against his brow. “Bargaining. Offer it to the knockers upon arrival. Present more upon your return journey. Bring no other soul into these tunnels, or they may attack. If they are as superterranean animals, they are likely to be territorial. Superstitious. Idiotic.”

  He was prattling, and the end of his speech slurred words into one another as the cumulative weight of pain, blood loss, and fatigue took its toll. Even his posture betrayed him – shoulders slackening, spine wavering like a reed in wind.

  “Sound,” John affirmed with a slow nod. He tucked the sandwich away, then turned toward the tunnel mouth. “You watch over our young baron, aye? Keep him from gettin’ mashed, Mister Harbinger.”

  There was a hint of something there in his voice – perhaps even something positive. Ethan made no comment.

  With the others watching in silence, Ethan reclined slowly onto his side, using his mostly empty provisions bag as a makeshift pillow. His face lost none of its severity even as his eyes slid shut.

  “Secure the perimeter. Wake me upon John’s return.”

  He drew in one long, deliberate breath.

  He did not finish exhaling before the torpor claimed him.