They were going to die. Scratch that - they were going to be buried alive beneath a thousand tons of earth, and then they were going to die. That was all Jasper could think as he accelerated toward the top of the pit, racing against the colossal landslide of rock and dirt headed on a collision course toward them.

  Darkness closed in as the oncoming avalanche blotted out the light of the orbs that had filtered down from above as he tried and failed to go faster. 200 feet from the top. 100 feet. Then it was upon them.

  Jasper spun to the side as a boulder twice his size plummeted past him, but there was nothing he could do to avoid the torrent of dirt and pebbles that rained down on him. But he was close, so close to safety. He watched as a colossal foundation stone tumbled from the distant ceiling and, with a shuddering groan, wedged itself across the corner of the pit. The ancient stone cracked and groaned as the full pressure of the landslide continued to bear down on it, but the narrow shaft of air sheltered beneath the rock was their shot at safety.

  Clutching Ihra and Tsia in a death grip, Jasper fought toward the opening, the seconds it took him to reach it feeling like an eternity as he saw cracks begin to spread across the smooth face of the massive foundation stone. Come, hold on, hold on.

  The waves of dirt fell away as he broke into the shaft of air protected beneath the rock, but Jasper's spirits sank as he got closer. The cracks along the boulder's face quickly deepened into full-fledged canyons that promised a complete collapse. They had a few seconds, if that.

  He blinked furiously, futilely trying to clear his eyes of the dirt and grime that filled them, as he searched for an exit. Sadly, no fairy path opened before them, and the only way forward he saw was the narrow gap between the rock and the edge of the pit. If we could get over the edge, we might be free of the landslide's path. It was a faint hope, but it was the only hope, and Jasper surged forward again, plunging into the streaming dirt before the cracking boulder above them collapsed.

  But Jasper had underestimated the landslide's strength. In an instant, the three fell 100 feet as the sheer weight of earth dragged them down. The dirt was everywhere. In his eyes, his mouth, his nose, in his goddamned lungs. He struggled desperately as he felt Ihra and Tsia begin to slip out of his hands, as they were dragged deeper into the pit, and the usually lethargic spectral wings beat with a frantic urgency they had never shown before, but they were powerless before the onslaught of dirt.

  Desperation ignited as they were dragged toward the bottom, and a single thought crystalized in his mind. I won’t let them die.

  Jasper didn’t notice as his soul ignited, as blue flames rippled across his body, as the spectral wings solidified and grew, burning with such intensity that the dirt raining down on them was vaporized. He surged forward, each beat of the wings catapulting him through the earthen downpour like a salmon leaping up the rapids. There was nothing, nothing save for an endless torrent of dirt - and then dawn broke.

  The pale blue light of the Fey’s greeted them as they burst through the downpour and, when Jasper finally caught a glimpse of himself, he realized what he was doing. He cut the connection to his soul instantly and, overextended, promptly blacked out.

  “Selene’s Grace.” Ihra landed on her knees, spitting out mouthfuls of dirt between heaving gasps as she fought the urge to black out. She groaned as she flexed her shoulders, feeling her skin pop and crackle from the burns that covered them - while Jasper’s subconscious had been aware enough to keep the flames away from his hand lest he burn his friends, the heat he’d generated had been so overwhelming they’d been burned anyways. She couldn’t begrudge him for it, though, as he had saved their lives, but that didn’t make the burns hurt any less.

  Brushing the dirt from her eyes, she rose gingerly, still struggling to catch her breath, and looked around for Jasper. He was conked out on the ground, unmoving, but her vision was sharp enough to detect a subtle rise and fall of his chest. He’ll be fine, she thought and moved on to Tsia, who was crouched on her hands and knees, coughing and spluttering.

  “About time.” Ihra jerked her head upwards as the durgu's called down to her, and she paused in surprise when she saw that they were somehow standing in the middle of a wooden barricade that she was quite certain hadn’t been there when they descended into the pit. Did the scout make this?

  She looked up in time to see the durgu prince swing his axe down, striking at something hidden from view below the walls, and when the axe swung up a moment later, dark green ichor ran down its head. “Could use your help,” he grunted.

  "Got it." By some miracle, her bow still dangled from her back, and as Ihra stumbled to her feet, she dragged it free. She cursed as the drawstring brushed across her scorched flesh, tearing free a patch of skin, but raced toward the barricade resolutely.

  “Wait! Grab the torch first-” S?ams?a?dur staggered backward as the platform beneath his feet was chopped away by a massive glaive, and he lost his footing as the glaive nicked his calve. As he fell backward off the wall, Ihra caught her first glimpse of the enemy.

  Beautiful was not a word she'd usually use to describe an enemy, but it was fitting. The elaborate, gilded helmet they wore was shaped like a lion, complete with a plumed mane that did nothing to hide the fair black hair that spilled across their shoulders, their delicate jade skin, and their high and haughty cheekbones. Yes, they were almost beautiful - if not for the inchoate rage on their face and the gleam of madness in their eyes.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  As S?ams?a?dur fell, the Fey swung his glaive again, aiming it at the durgu's manhood. She loosed the half-strung arrow with little hope of reaching him in time, but the scout beat her to the punch.

  Erin's face was pale and drained, and his entire body shook like a leaf as he raised his arms and willed the wood into motion.

  Time seemed to slow as chaos unfolded around her. S?ams?a?dur plummeted toward the ground, the Fey’s glaive just a few inches from his waist as the broken wall turned liquid. The Fey slipped forward as the wood swirled around him and recrystallized a second later, trapping the Fey half in and half out of the wall.

  Erin was out of the fight, falling to the ground as he clutched his head, but Ihra surged forward, knocking the glaive aside as she snatched an arrow out of her quiver and, with a savage snarl, thrust it through the Fey's eye.

  “Tsia, little help,” she barked out as S?ams?a?dur hit the ground with a groan. Her eyes flicked to the torch the prince had mentioned, but she had no chance to grab it before a green body pulled itself over the wall. She fired on move - one arrow to the throat, another to the eyes - as she leapt onto the small platform Erin had created in time to shove the Fey over with a quick thrust of Aphora’s misericorde.

  She felt the static in her hair and closed her eyes as a bolt fell from the sky, blinding the soldiers used to the darkness of the tunnel, and took the opportunity to shove another stunned Fey over the wall as Tsia fired of a pair of wind blades that sliced through the soldiers in the front row with vicious effectiveness, gaining them both a bit of space.

  Ihra fell into a fugue as the battle raged, firing arrows faster than she could even aim at the surging mass of bodies in front of her, while Tsia rained down spells. Dimly, she heard S?ams?a?dur mumbling behind them but couldn’t spare a moment to look. She couldn’t see as he crawled over to the torch and dagger, nursing his severed calf, and lit the fire, but there was no missing the results.

  Screams filled the air as a red mist erupted from the ground. The Fey's struggles ceased as their armor and flesh began to slag off wherever the corrosive vapor touched them, and their madness turned to terror. A horn bellowed above the fray as the Fey turned to flee, a booming baritone that filled Ihra’s heart with the wild desire to throw herself off the barricade and slaughter her way through the crowd - a desire she resisted - but the horn could not stop the soldiers’ flight.

  The survivors cast their weapons aside as they fled the expanding mist, too terrified to notice the woman waiting to greet them. The shadows around her twisted as they passed, pulling them to her and binding them just long enough for her to sink her daggers through their throat, while those that escaped her snare fell to a hail of arrows and lightning.

  Only a handful reached the tunnel, stopping for nothing as they fled into the darkness.

  As Jasper returned to consciousness, he reflexively cast Circle of Forgiveness. The spell was almost second nature by now, and a wave of relief washed over him as most of his pain ebbed away - but not the ache in his chest.

  He sat up, rubbing his chest with a frown, and looked around, trying to remember what had happened. He remembered the landslide, the crushing avalanche of dirt that had threatened to bury them all alive, but it was clear that they had somehow escaped. He just couldn't quite remember how.

  He took a quick catalog of the party and relaxed as he realized that everyone had survived. Ihra, Tsia, and S?ams?a?dur were slumped against a broken wooden wall a few feet away from him while Nissila?t hovered over a clearly injured Erin. Nothing my spell can't fix, if need be. “What happened?” He coughed as he tried to speak, spitting out a mouthful of dirt.

  Ihra opened her eyes, greeting him with a weary smile. “Nothing much. We fought off an army while you took a beauty nap,” she said wryly.

  His chuckle turned into a cough as he spat up more of the dirt clogging his lungs, along with a bit of blood. “My momma taught me never to skip nap time," he raised out. "But seriously, how did we get here? The last thing I remember was falling.”

  Ihra’s lips tightened. “You did what you had to,” she replied glumly, and after a moment’s confusion, Jasper understood.

  “Damn it, I did soul magic again, didn’t I? No wonder I feel like I downed half a bottle of tequila.”

  He grimaced as she pointed out the obvious. “We would have been dead if you hadn’t.”

  “Guess so,” he agreed and let the matter drop. He wasn’t thrilled to have burnt his soul, but he doubted it had been long enough to do any real damage, and even if he had, Ihra was right - the alternative was decidedly worse.

  “So…what now? We did what the goddess wanted, right?” Tsia spoke up.

  “Yeah…no,” he corrected himself after a pause. “She wanted two things: destroy the ritual site and take some statue with us when we leave.”

  “What statue?” Ihra questioned. “Don’t tell me you mean the one in the temple.”

  “I don’t know,” Jasper closed his eyes, rubbing at the pain in his chest as he pondered the question. “She said if we destroyed the ritual site, she’d handle the rest, but…”

  He left his sentence unfinished, knowing it was unwise to criticize a deity that might very well be listening in. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t pissed.

  Bele?t-Imtu had screwed them every step of the way. She’d forced them into helping her, misled them on what to expect, and had very nearly gotten them killed. And now, after all of it, he still wasn’t sure how to complete her quest.

  “Uh, Jasper-” Ihra’s voice interrupted his fuming. “That wouldn’t be the statue she was talking about, would it?”

  He had to twist around to see what she was pointing out. A two-foot-tall statue was perched precariously on the edge of the pit. The statue had its back to him, preventing him from seeing its face, but a long, slender spear was clutched in its hand just like the one at the temple.

  Please let it be this simple. Grumbling, he rose to his feet and stalked over to the ledge. He bent down, keen to flip it over, and grunted as it resisted his efforts. How bloody heavy is this thing?

  Gritting his teeth, he finally pried it up and got a good look at it. It was definitely a statue of the Fey goddess, but he still wasn’t sure if it was the right one. Why does she have to be so damn mysterious… Then his thoughts stuttered to a pause as the world around him began to melt..