The week had flown by far too quickly, but it had been a gift to be together, even if only for a short while. We had long-term plans, and we all understood that our separate pursuits of strength would be vital to our success.

  Dusk and I traveled to the far edge of Fayrwynn, emerging near the boundary where cultivated elven lands gave way to untamed wilds. From there, we headed out to cull monsters before they could encroach on the smaller, more vulnerable elven settlements scattered beyond the forest’s protection.

  As we crossed the boundary lines of elven territory, the air subtly changed and my interface flared to life for the first time in far too long.

  New Quest: (1/2)

  Rescue the fleeing Umbral Initiate from the Labyrinth of Ending.

  Reward: Tier Two Path Choice

  The translucent map updated instantly, a clear direction pulsing with quiet insistence.

  Without hesitation, Dusk and I took off at full speed. She plunged beneath the surface, and I followed, the earth parting around us as we tore through stone and soil straight toward the marker.

  Excitement surged through me, elated at this opportunity I had waited so long for.

  I finally had a chance to grow tangibly stronger.

  Rescuing someone who might become an ally only made the quest more worth completing.

  I had no idea what an Umbral Initiate or the Labyrinth of Ending was. But I knew they were my way forward.

  My path beyond being a Child of the Deep.

  —

  (Pov Skithara)

  I had been running for days. My legs were failing.

  Each step sent a spike of pain up through my calves and into my hips, muscles screaming as if they might simply tear free. The stone beneath my boots was slick with condensation and old blood, my footing uncertain as the passage twisted and narrowed.

  Behind me, the chitters grew louder.

  Not the mindless skitter of normal vermin. These were labyrinth prowlers. Too many legs moving in practiced rhythm, claws scraping stone in a way that made my skin crawl beneath my battle gown. They were hunting me, and they knew I was weakening.

  I stumbled and nearly went down, one hand slapping against the cavern wall to keep myself upright. The stone was cold and damp, vibrating faintly with every movement behind me.

  No. Not yet.

  I dragged a breath into my lungs, sharp and burning, and reached inward — past the exhaustion, past the fear — to the thing coiled inside my veins.

  The shard power answered instantly.

  Heat flared beneath my skin, black veins burning like molten lines as umbral aether surged at my call. I screamed as I hurled a death bolt upward, the recoil rattling my bones. The spell struck the ceiling with a wet, cracking boom, and stalactites sheared loose, plunging down in a thunder of stone.

  The passage behind me collapsed in a choking cloud of dust and screams. The monsters’ high-pitched, shrill, abruptly cut short as bodies were crushed beneath falling rock.

  Silence followed for a heartbeat, and a flame of hope flickered.

  Then the stone began to move.

  Claws punched through gaps in the rubble. Mandibles clicked. The chitters resumed, muffled but undeterred.

  I staggered back, vision blurring at the edges. The shard pulsed eagerly, urging me to draw deeper, to burn hotter. My hands shook as I forced myself forward again, boots dragging now rather than running.

  I hated it. Hated how easily the power came. Hated how much it wanted this.

  Each breath scraped my throat raw. My chest felt too tight, ribs aching with every expansion. The labyrinth pressed in around me, walls closing, passages narrowing as if the stone itself wanted my soul.

  A turn. Another descent. The air grew colder, heavier, tinged with rot and old magic. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears, too fast, too loud.

  I couldn’t die here.

  Not in the dark. Not as one more discarded initiate, bones added to the maze.

  I pushed on, half-running, half-falling, fingers trailing along the wall to keep myself upright. Somewhere ahead, I felt a difference in the stone. A shift in pressure. An opening, maybe. Or a lie meant to draw the desperate forward.

  I didn’t care.

  Behind me, the hunters broke free of the collapse with a shriek of stone and fury.

  I bit back a sob and ran.

  —

  Dusk and I surfaced just outside a narrow, hidden cave. From the outside, it was nothing more than a crease in the rock, half-swallowed by roots and shadows. The kind of place the forest would quietly forget.

  Just inside, a stone door waited.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Runic script covered its surface, the carvings nearly lost beneath layers of ivy and thick vines. Moss clung to the grooves, damp and cold. If not for the map marker burning insistently in my awareness, I would have walked past without ever knowing it was there.

  I stepped forward and raised my astral claws.

  The foliage came away easily, vines snapping and peeling back with soft, wet sounds. Leaves fell at my feet, releasing the sharp green scent of crushed growth. Beneath it all, the stone was smooth and pale, etched with elegant runes that pulsed faintly with dormant aether.

  It was beautiful and ancient.

  I traced the lines with my hands, scraping away dust and compacted debris, following the symbols as if they might tell me how to open the door. As the last of the grime cleared, something caught my attention.

  There were channels, thin grooves carved into the ceiling and floor, both clogged with rubble and packed earth. I knelt and cleared them one by one. The moment the final obstruction gave way, aether began to trickle through the channels like liquid light.

  The runes began to slowly ignite as the power flowed. A soft hum filled the cave as the symbols flared brighter, their glow spreading outward. The door itself seemed to grow, stone shifting slowly, as if it were waking from a long sleep.

  When the movement stopped, a palm-shaped indent was shining at the center of the door. I hesitated only a moment before placing my hand against the stone. Pain exploded through my palm.

  A needle of stone shot out without warning, punching straight through my hand before I could even flinch. It retracted just as quickly, slick with my blood. I gasped and staggered back, clutching my hand as the wound sealed itself almost instantly.

  Then an ethereal, detached voice whispered through the stone.

  “Welcome, Umbral Initiate, to the Labyrinth of Ending.”

  As the last syllable faded, the door split down the center. Stone groaned against stone, the sound deep and grinding, and the cave trembled as the massive halves slowly pulled apart.

  Darkness waited beyond.

  As the door finished opening, the voice spoke again.

  “Escape and become one with the Umbral, or perish and feed the never-ending darkness.”

  I stared at the passage, my pulse quickening.

  Apparently, I had just become an Umbral Initiate myself. Hopefully, the quest wasn’t to save me.

  I had no idea what was happening, but I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

  I did not plan to die here.

  “Let’s go, Dusk,” I said, my voice steady as I looked at her. “The marker’s straight ahead.”

  I was grateful to have my bonded companion with me. She was once a normal Oreowl, given to me by my mentor, Asher. Now, she had been transformed through our bond.

  She no longer had wings, and her body had elongated into something that mirrored both wyrm and owl, her form elegant yet powerful. Four clawed limbs pressed close to her sides, and her feathers had hardened into something like scales, streaked with pale lightning lines that matched the scars across my own body. The left wing she had once lost was now reborn as a pale, clawed leg matching my own pale limb.

  Her face had changed, no longer the rounded, gentle shape of an owl but the sharp and commanding visage of a beaked wyvern. Rows of fine, razor-edged teeth lined her mouth, glinting faintly in the unseen light.

  She nudged my leg, a low rumble vibrating through her chest, and we broke into a run, disappearing down the tunnel. I trusted my tremor sense to warn me of whatever waited in the dark ahead.

  The Labyrinth of Ending was just a new beginning.

  —

  (Skithara Pov)

  I hated myself for doing it, but I raised a dead creature.

  It obeyed my every command, a slave bound to my will. That truth clawed at my soul. I had been a slave for too long myself, forced to bend beneath the will of masters who saw me as nothing more than a tool.

  But this was the only way I could survive.

  I lay across the back of my undead beast as it carried me through the winding tunnels. Miles blurred together in the dark. The labyrinth stretched on without mercy, its passages folding and twisting until direction lost meaning.

  I knew there were many exits, but I had not discovered one.

  I had crossed paths with some initiates, and there were monsters, puzzles, traps, and corridors that looped back on themselves.

  Now, though, I was being tracked and hunted by a group of rival initiates. They came after me, following an injury I sustained in my last fight.

  I only outpaced them because of the corpse beneath me, its tireless limbs scraping stone as it ran. They were fast and relentless. Close enough that I could feel their combined aura pressing in.

  Then suddenly the tunnel ahead widened.

  The passage opened into a vast cavern. I had crossed through many chambers like this before, but everyone was different.

  This one had a massive door that was carved directly into the far wall. Intricate runic script spread across its surface like a woven tapestry of stone. As we burst into the open space, torches along the walls flared to life one by one, flooding the cavern with flickering light.

  And with the light, the footsteps that had been following for so long stopped. I paused, waiting to see if it would begin again, but there was nothing but silence. I turned back toward the door.

  They may wait to see if whatever is here kills me.

  Before the door stood a pedestal.

  At its center was a shallow slot, shaped unmistakably for a hand.

  I slid off the undead beast as we drew close and nearly stumbled. My body was healing, slowly knitting itself back together, but exhaustion clung to every movement. My muscles trembled as if they might finally give out.

  The Labyrinth of Ending had been crafted by the Ancient Umbral. Its doors opened only to initiates, or to those who had passed its tests.

  I knew what this pedestal would do.

  Placing my palm within it would open the door. What waited beyond could be a vast treasure, a horror I had no hope of defeating, or an exit I had been searching for since the moment I entered.

  There was only one way to find out.

  And I was running out of luck.

  I walked toward the pedestal, each step measured. I gripped its cold stone edges and drew in a slow breath. Then I exhaled and pressed my hand into the slot.

  Every torch in the cavern went out at once.

  Darkness swallowed the room, but my eyes adjusted quickly. Pale green light began to seep through the runes carved into the door, their glow intensifying as the stone groaned and trembled.

  The doors began to open.

  They pulled inward, inch by inch, and a chill crept up my spine as if something unseen had just noticed me.

  I summoned my soul-bound scythe into my hands, aether singing faintly as it took shape. With a thought, I ordered my undead beast forward, placing it between me and the opening doors.

  The moment the doors fully parted, every torch reignited.

  This time, they burned with the same pale green light as the runes.

  I did not need the light to see what stood beyond.

  A Nightwalker.

  Tall. Faceless. Draped in tattered green robes that hung as if untouched by air. In one hand, it carried a lantern glowing with the same sickly light that filled the chamber.

  Terror wrapped around my heart in icy tendrils.

  Without warning, the creature seemed to inhale, though it did not move and had no face. Every torch in the room bent toward it, their flames stretching unnaturally. The lantern flared, then burst apart.

  Laughing skulls spilled out.

  They danced through the air, circling me again and again, their hollow laughter echoing off the stone before they shot away in every direction. They smashed into walls and floors throughout the cavern.

  Where they struck, bones began to emerge.

  Skeletal figures peeled themselves from the earth, clawing free from walls or crawling up from the floor as if the ground itself were surrendering them.

  I clenched my jaw.

  Accepting my fate, but refusing to meet it quietly, I willed my scythe to split. The blade separated into twin sickles, joined by an ethereal chain of death aether.

  If I was to be harvested, I would make the reaping costly.

  I sent my undead beast charging forward and dashed back, unleashing everything I had left. Steel and aether sang through the air as I cut into the rising dead, harvesting until either the Nightwalker fell…or I did.