Bash snickers as he playfully shoves me away, but quickly takes my hand again.

  “You two are sweet,” Ego chirps from her place in the lead.

  Cato scoffs and mutters, “Too much sugar is bad for your health.”

  I lean forward just enough to catch Cato’s eye over Bash’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, big guy. I’ll make sure Bash gets his daily dose of protein to balance it out.”

  Bash

  Ego and Sakane lead the group along the abandoned tracks, and the echo of our footsteps in the empty tunnel makes me jumpy. Every noise in this place is a threat. Creaks and drips emerge from the darkness and put my nerves on edge, and I’m ready to be somewhere I can breathe again. My anxiety can’t handle this suspense.

  My stomach knots, but I try to keep my face neutral. Whatever stress I feel is amplified tenfold for Xeni. He’s worrying about escaping, but beneath that lies the nagging fear of his father that’s engrained so deeply it’s written on his bones. I don’t want to cause him any more worry than he’s already carrying.

  “What’s our next step?” I ask.

  Sakane keeps his voice low as he studies the map. “We’ve got another mile to go down here before we swap to the sewer again.” He glances at Cato with a smirk. “Ladder and manhole… your favorite.”

  Cato scowls at Xeni as if it were his fault he had to be carried, but Xeni is too stuck in his head to engage.

  We round a corner, and the tunnel opens into an abandoned subway station with tall ceilings and a wide expanse between the walls. A stream of moonlight shines down a set of stairs, casting shadows of bodies over the steps.

  Ego shuts off her flashlight, and I blink as my eyes adjust to the sudden darkness. The faint moonlight provides just enough illumination to navigate, though we step carefully.

  “Quiet here,” Ego whispers. “There are guards up top.”

  We stick to the far wall as we skirt past the wide stairwell, moving with careful steps to avoid unnecessary noise.

  An old ticket counter waits at the bottom. It’s a remnant of a world long forgotten, and beyond the shattered windowpane are a few empty liquor bottles lying on their sides. More deserted subway cars are parked here, and signs of life are littered around them. Discarded food containers crumple against the tracks, and worn blankets suggest this place has been used as a sleeping spot by someone.

  My senses go on high alert, every shadow a potential threat as I scan the darkness. We’re almost past the larger open area when my toe catches something solid. A glass bottle clanks, rolling across the concrete in an arc that echoes like an alarm in the stillness.

  We all freeze, the world narrowing to that single sound.

  Everything erupts at once.

  Shadows shift on the stairwell, and a guard jogs down the steps as we hurry to retreat into the shadows. We don't move fast enough, and he spots us in the gloom. His eyes flare wide as they sweep the group, but when they land on Xeni, a snarl twists his lips.

  “It’s him!” he bellows, the words ringing off the walls. Another body moves down the stairs behind him, flashlight beam slicing through the dark.

  We sprint into the next tunnel as they scream to others to follow. More voices join the chase, and a horde of footsteps pounds after us.

  “How far to the exit?” Xeni’s breath comes in quick, ragged bursts as we fight not to trip over debris in the blackness.

  Sakane answers with a grunt. “Too far.”

  “Where can we hide?” Xeni demands.

  The footsteps echo off the walls, seeming to come from every direction.

  “I don’t know!” Sakane shouts, frustration cracking his words as the noise grows.

  The open stretch in front of us seems to go on forever, and we all desperately search for somewhere to take shelter. Rocks crunch under our feet, and gravel kicks up, pinging off the tracks as we run. A light swivels around the corner behind us, stretching our shadows long and distorted over the old brick as we round another bend. Xeni takes my hand tighter, practically dragging me along as the soldiers keep pace.

  The path splits before us, and Xeni’s head whips back and forth as we approach the fork. “Which way?”

  “Uh, left… left!” Sakane shouts.

  We twist down the next tunnel. More debris clutters the railway here. Concrete barriers are strewn about, and an old subway car rests on its side against the wall. Pieces of it are charred, the metal coated in black soot while more hateful phrases decorate the walls. It brings with it a sense of dread that settles heavy in my gut.

  “It’s not far now,” Sakane yells from ahead, his voice strained as we fight to keep this momentum. “Two more turns, and—”

  His words are cut off as a door flies open. Harsh fluorescent light pours into the dark corridor like spilled bleach, flooding the space and illuminating the bodies that swarm into our path. Soldiers in decorated uniforms form a barrier, weapons raised and faces determined.

  Shoes scrape against the concrete as we skid to a stop, then spin to retreat, but the guards who’ve been chasing us from behind catch up. They cut off our escape with another wall of force.

  My eyes roam the shadows, searching for another place to hide, another corridor, a vent, anything, but I come up blank. The walls close in as I realize there’s no escape.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find you?”

  The voice is hauntingly familiar and chillingly unmistakable, filled with authority that demands obedience.

  One figure steps away from the others. Shadows obstruct his face, but there’s no mistaking the curved horns that sit like a crown atop the silhouette of his head.

  Xeni squeezes my hand once, hard, before releasing me and striding forward with deliberate calm. The light catches his hair and turns it silver-white, and exposes the sneering smile that’s so foreign on him.

  Another mask.

  One of defiance, carved from years of practice.

  “Your voice is a little rough, Father,” Xeni says, tone deceptively casual. “Are you under the weather?”

  Zadeus steps into the light with a sneer. “It's nothing I can't handle, I promise you that.”

  His calculating eyes fix on Xeni with the same possessive scrutiny that once shaped him, and the air is dense with the unspoken history between them.

  One of his guards steps closer, hand tightening on the hilt of his sword, but Zadeus halts him with a single raised palm.

  “This is between me and my son. You will not interfere.”

  “But, High Commander, sir—”

  “Stand down,” Zadeus orders.

  The guard drops to one knee, head bowed low in perfect, mechanical subservience.

  Xeni watches it with a bored tilt of his head. “Is this what you’ve resorted to? Forcing others to bend the knee because it’s the only way they’ll do it? You really have lost your touch, haven’t you?”

  “Insolent child!” Zadeus storms forward, the air around him crackling with unrestrained power.

  Xeni matches him step for step until they stand barely a foot apart, close enough to feel the heat of each other’s rage.

  “You never learned to respect your elders,” Zadeus sneers.

  Xeni’s smirk is deliberate, and his gaze drifts up and down his father’s frame with mocking appraisal. “No weapon?”

  Zadeus tilts his chin in challenge, horns catching the light. “I am the weapon.”

  Xeni’s hand slithers to the knife at his hip, fingers curling around the hilt.

  His father’s smirk mirrors his own, tracking the movement with cold amusement. “Now, son, I taught you better manners than this. We must keep our hands to ourselves.”

  The command rolls out like silk, and Xeni’s fingers freeze mid-motion, muscles straining against an invisible tether. His jaw clenches, the fight in him obvious in the flare of his nostrils and the subtle tremble in his arm.

  Zadeus steps even closer, voice dropping to a velvet murmur. “You always did have trouble following orders, didn’t you? That’s why you’re here now. You never learned to behave.”

  Xeni’s eye flashes with something dangerous, but his hand remains still, trapped by the compulsion.

  The silence between them thickens like it, too, is waiting for the next move.

  This is a game, after all, though it's been rigged since the beginning.

  Zadeus swipes his thumb over Xeni’s cheek. “This fight isn’t with you, son. It’s for you to watch.”

  He glances over his shoulder at his entourage. “Hold him.”

  A group of soldiers move to grab Xeni, gripping his arms and neck. A punch lands on his ribcage, and a kick knocks his knees out from underneath him as he hits the ground.

  I lunge forward, but Zadeus lifts a hand in my direction, and I freeze as Xeni screams my name. His father reaches with those long, elegant fingers that are so much like his son’s, and he tilts my chin higher.

  “Release me!” Xeni bellows with a shockwave of power, and the guards fall aside. Some hit their knees while one falls on his ass and another slams against the wall.

  Xeni’s rage makes his limbs quake as he storms closer, but Zadeus doesn’t pay him any attention.

  He tips my face back and forth, examining me from all angles. “Such a pretty one, and with such a beautiful mind. You were doing so much for my research, really. It is a shame it came to this.”

  “Don’t fucking touch him,” Xeni growls.

  Zadeus whirls as Xeni’s arm swings in an arc, his blade headed straight for his father’s neck, but he catches Xeni’s wrist mere inches away with a smug grin.

  “Oh, I won’t kill him, Xenesis. I’ll just enjoy the show.”

  The guards recover while Xeni’s attention is on his father, and they rush him again, dragging him back to his knees.

  Zadeus turns to me with a voice that rolls over me like smoke.

  “Take your friend’s knife, Sebastian.”

  Fuzziness overtakes my body with the command, that sense of floating in the clouds, but instead of the soothing edge I found in Xeni’s, this one is brambled and full of edges that cut down to the bone.

  My hand moves without my permission as Xeni’s face twists to panic, and my fingers defy my internal screaming protests as they wrap around the hilt of Cato’s blade. Strength I don’t usually possess pulls it away even as he fights me, and I wrestle free from his hold.

  “That’s it,” Zadeus encourages. “Do you feel how hard your heart is beating in your neck?”

  When I only bare my teeth, he bares his right back.

  “Answer me!”

  “Yes,” I grit.

  He nods as his lips ease into a smirk. “Good. Put the point there.”

  I’m glued to the cloudy depths of his eyes, no better than a puppet on his strings. The knife pushes into my neck until it indents the skin.

  “No!” Xeni screams, his power filling the room in an oppressive cloud as he shoves the guards away and scrambles to his feet. It drops his father’s influence on me long enough to let me meet his gaze.

  Guards surround him once more as a tear slips from my eye.

  The magic forces my attention back to its wielder, and the blade sinks deeper until I wince with the slice. A sticky drop of blood trickles down my neck, scorching against my skin.

  Zadeus tracks its path with cold fascination. “He makes you weak, Xenesis. You know what has to be done. You’ve known all along, haven’t you?”

  Xeni’s scream is closer to a wail as his father reaches forward to drag his thumb across my cheek, mirroring the way he’d touched Xeni moments before. The gesture is intimate, almost tender, and it turns my stomach.

  “Tell me, son,” Zadeus continues, eyes never leaving mine. “How much did it hurt, being separated from him? What will his death do to you?”

  The coercion burns like fire in my veins, and my limbs shake as I fight to pull my arm away, but the blade only slips deeper. The trickle of blood turns into a steady stream that warms my collar and drips onto my chest.

  My eyes flick to Xeni, tracking the clench of his jaw and sickly sallow of his skin as rage and helplessness war across his features.

  “I love you,” I whisper, the words torn from me in quiet defiance.

  Xeni takes a slow, gasping inhale that seems to freeze time.

  He closes his eye and throws his head back.

  His lips part.

  And he detonates with an otherworldly scream.

  Magic blasts out of him in an explosion that knocks me flat on my ass, the force snapping the chains of compulsion from my body. My grip on the knife releases, and it skitters across the ground, spinning away into the shadows.

  Xeni charges at his father with a fury that’s pure and unbridled.

  A storm given flesh.

  His eye is blazing, teeth bared, and every muscle coiled for violence.

  Zadeus snatches a sword from one of the guards, the steel singing as it leaves the sheath. The fight erupts in a blur of swinging metal and clashing blades that rings off the walls like tolling bells.

  Zadeus has the size advantage, with his longer reach is longer and heavier strikes, but he’s spent decades commanding rather than fighting. Those years of relying on others have made him sloppy. His footwork is lazy, and his guard slow to recover.

  Xeni lacks the span and bulk, but his shorter reach is made up for in pure desperation. He meets every strike with precision—dodging low, twisting under the blade, countering with quick, vicious slashes that draw blood across his father’s arms and chest. His movements are fluid, fueled by years of suppressed rage finally unleashed.

  They circle each other in tight, predatory loops, with boots scraping concrete and breaths coming in sharp pants. Zadeus barks a command for his soldiers to stay back, and they freeze at the edge, weapons raised but obedient.

  Everyone watches as father and son tear into one another.

  Every cut Zadeus lands over Xeni’s arms and face is answered with wounds of his own. Red lines bloom across pale skin, and the coppery scent of blood mixes with the stale air of the tunnels. Xeni burns with a fury that makes the shadows seem to retreat, his knife flashing as he presses the attack.

  Cato grabs my arm, pulling me toward Sakane and Ego, who huddle against the wall, but I don’t tear my eyes away from the fight. I’m keenly aware of the guards behind us, held at bay only by their leader’s command.

  Exhausted and bleeding, father and son circle one another in tight, weary loops, while their breaths come in heavy pants. Zadeus snarls, his voice rough and frayed at the edges.

  “You’ll never best me,” he taunts, though the words rasp with exhaustion. “You aren’t stronger than me.”

  “No,” Xeni says in breathless agreement, chest heaving as he straightens. His shoulders are squared despite the blood streaking down his arms.

  “But I’m stronger than them.”

  Xeni flings his blade aside, and the knife spins across the floor with a sharp metallic clatter.

  He spreads his arms wide, palms open, chest exposed.

  Terrifyingly vulnerable.

  Veins pulse under his skin, and static crackles as strands of his hair float.

  Zadeus only stares, a mild, condescending amusement curling his lips. He still doesn’t view his son as a threat.

  “Now,” Xeni commands in that deep, multifaceted tone that resonates through the room like thunder, rolling from multiple directions at once.

  Three blades flash in the dim light as they drive forward, plunging into Zadeus’s ribcage with wet, meaty thuds. The High Commander’s eyes widen in shock, mouth parting in a silent gasp as blood blooms dark across his chest.

  He’s suspended, held in place by the swords of his own protectors.

  Puppets controlled by a new master.

  Blood spills down the front of Zadeus’s armor to plunk in a puddle at his feet. His eyes move back to his son, and he opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.

  Xeni sways, limbs going slack, then collapses to the ground with a heavy, final thud.

  Bash

  “Xeni!” I bellow as I scramble forward to his broken form.

  The guards realize what they’ve done as Zadeus continues to gasp, but as the first draws his sword from his High Commander’s torso, the steady drip of his life force becomes a gush. The other two swords follow, pulling back with a wet slide.

  Zadeus stands there for a few heartbeats, propped up by nothing but stubborn will as blood runs down his torso. Then his eyes roll back, face slackening into something vacant, and his body collapses.

  For a long, frozen moment, the guards only stare at the fallen High Commander. Their weapons are still raised, faces blank with shock, as if the impossible has happened and they don’t know how to unsee it.

  “Come on, princess,” I beg as I toss Xeni’s arm over my shoulder, but he’s barely conscious. Sweat coats every inch of his skin, and he’s feverish and trembling as I drag him toward the others.

  “What do we do?” Sakane whispers as we huddle.

  A dozen guards stare at their leader as he takes his last breath, then their eyes move up to us as one.

  “They killed the High Commander,” one of them snarls.

  We step back until we hit the wall.

  There’s nowhere left to run.

  “I think I’ll take the pretty one for myself,” another taunts.

  “They’re all pretty. I bet the blue one fights more than the big ones, though.” He lunges for Ego but freezes, and for a moment, I can’t comprehend what I’m seeing.

  His face goes slack and blood sprays from his neck before his body thuds to the ground, head separated in a clean swipe.

  A monster like nothing I’ve ever seen before steps from the shadows beyond him.

  Shoulder-length gold-spun curls line his head, and his skin shimmers with the same metallic glow.

  He’s enormous.

  His gilded eyes move over our group as he flings the blood from his sword, then turns with a sweep. He cuts through the neck of the second guard that flanked the first, then focuses on us again.

  “Can you fight?” he asks in a thundering voice, his gaze dropping to Xeni groaning in my arms.