The shockwave from Reyha’s strike rolled through the grove like a living thing, shaking every leaf and stone in its path. It plunged into the roots beneath the soil, slid up through the bark of ancient trees, and rippled across the still water in trembling rings. The earth shivered underfoot, as if listening.

  The first rune surfaced slowly, molten silver bleeding from the grain of a smooth trunk.

  Others began to stir and awaken, crawling into sight across roots and stone. Each one pulsed brighter than the last, their light spilling over the grove in rhythmic waves. The air grew heavier with the scent of wet soil and rain, damp enough to cling to the tongue, like breathing through a storm.

  A low groan came from the ground itself. Roots as thick as ship masts tore free of the earth, throwing clods of soil into the air. They writhed and curled like serpents before striking. The nearest corpse didn’t even have time to scream before a root snapped its legs and dragged it down. The crack of splintering bone echoed through the grove, followed by the wet tearing of soil closing back over it.

  Vines erupted next, green coils bristling with jagged thorns. They whipped through the air in wild arcs, searching for more prey. One swept low toward Angel, the air hissing around it.

  She twisted aside, the vine missing by a hand’s width, and drove the steelwood staff into the temple of the closest undead. The blow sent the body spinning, limbs flailing as it crashed into the roots. Without slowing, she pivoted, heel smashing into the chest of another.

  A vine caught her ankle before she could recover. She snarled, planting the staff into the dirt and vaulting forward. The vine ripped free a chunk of her boot before the thorns could bite skin. Her lip curled in disgust as she landed.

  Lightning crawled across a nearby rock, igniting a sigil that spat sparks in every direction. The stone blazed white, then burst in a sharp flash that swallowed two more corpses. They fell in smoking heaps, the scent of burnt flesh curling through the air and coating the back of the throat.

  From the heart of the grove, something massive began to rise. Stones shuddered and rolled toward each other, pulled by an unseen will. They locked together with deep, grinding notes like glaciers breaking apart. Moss draped over shoulders the size of wagons, and gemstones glimmered in clusters across its chest. Two eyes opened, glowing blue beneath a ledge of rock. The elemental straightened, towering over the fight, and stepped forward with a soundless tread that ended in thunderous impact.

  Its first swing scattered a wave of undead, corpses thrown aside as if they were paper. The second strike split a bandit corpse in half, both pieces sliding to the dirt in wet thumps.

  Xander lowered his head and charged. His horns slammed into a corpse’s chest with a crack of ribs, lifting it clear from the ground. The momentum carried him into one of the glowing rock totems. Power surged through him in a blinding rush. His muscles locked, tail lashing once before stillness claimed him. Light poured down his horns, across his spine, and into every limb.

  The glow hardened. His hide thickened and turned the dull gray of mountain stone, every hair fusing into a rough surface. Yet he moved as though the transformation weighed nothing. His next strike shattered an undead completely, bones and rotting flesh scattering in a cloud of dust. Every step left a crater.

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  The ground beneath him cracked with the strain, fissures racing outward. One split under Valerik’s feet, forcing him to leap aside as a skeletal hand clawed up from the gap. He drove a dagger into its skull before it could rise fully. The bone shattered in his grip, sharp edges cutting his palm, but he ignored it.

  Valerik’s daggers flashed again, cutting through a shambling corpse with a quick slice, then shoving it back into the thorns before spinning to open another from throat to stomach.

  “I was hoping for a quiet evening,” he muttered, yanking one blade free and driving it up into the jaw of a lunging attacker. The corpse’s teeth snapped shut an inch from his face before he shoved it away.

  Dante blinked at him, still pale and sluggish, but standing. One of the undead sprinted toward him, arms reaching.

  Then its movement suddenly slowed, just for an instant.

  The air thickened around the corpse like invisible syrup, just long enough for Dante to notice it and stumble aside quickly.

  Then it jolted forward, making up lost time with its pace. Only to miss Dante by inches.

  Valerik’s dagger caught it in the back a heartbeat later.

  “Try not to die again,” he added toward Dante, who had fallen down in the dodge.

  Kaiya stood at Dante’s other side, helping him up.

  Then both hands glowing, she pressed her magic into a flat stone. It softened and stretched in her grip, reshaping into the crude outline of a sword with a jagged, crumbling edge.

  She caught the next attacker’s blade on it, sparks snapping as stone met steel. She shoved the corpse back and cut low, the improvised sword splitting its legs before the edge fractured further.

  A vine lashed toward her. Dante reached without thinking, and the vine slowed down just enough for her to bat it aside before it could wrap around her arm. She spared him a quick glance. He raised his shoulders in reply, sheepish but alive.

  Angel dropped low beside them, sweeping her staff across the knees of another corpse before rising into a sharp elbow strike. She fought like a storm in tight streets, every movement sharp, ugly, and efficient. Her staff cracked across a skull, then she spun it in a tight arc to jam the butt into the ribs of another attacker. Her breath came ragged, but her eyes burned.

  The elemental crushed three more in its grip and hurled them into the vines, where they were torn apart. Xander gored another straight into a root wall, leaving it impaled and twitching. Reyha’s magic poured through the grove in pulses, igniting sigils, snapping roots like whips, and sending lightning racing from trunk to trunk.

  A sigil flared too brightly near the edge of the grove, then sputtered out, its light replaced by creeping shadow. The forest’s decay surged into the gap, black rot spilling across the soil in seconds. The air grew colder, heavy enough to burn in the lungs.

  For every corpse they felled, more stirred at the forest’s edge. The grove’s light was dimming. Shapes shifted in the shadows beyond the treeline, their eyes faint and hungry.

  “This will only get worse,” Valerik said, voice low.

  Reyha’s jaw tightened. Her gaze swept the ruined grove, the statue-still elemental, the faintly glowing roots. “I stay,” she said.

  Kaiya stepped forward, stone sword still in hand. “You need to…”

  “No. This grove will not be left undefended. Go. Vayne will hold for now. I will hold here.”

  Reyha handed Kaiya a broken stone shard, a piece broken off the stone elemental. A sigil etched into it, already burned out of power.

  “How will a spent rock help?” Angel muttered.

  Reyha turned to her. “We are all but shards of something greater. Yet we still have purpose.”

  Then she grabbed a few gemstones from the dirt. She gave them to Angel. “But you may find use in these as well.”

  Angel took them carefully, as if they were fragile glass. She stared at them, her throat tight. Growing up on the streets, she had never even imagined this much value in front of her, let alone held it.

  “I… don’t think I’ve had this much in my hands before.”

  Silence followed, heavy as the cold. Then Angel turned first, staff tapping against the roots as she headed toward the forest’s edge. Trees began to bow and bend apart to open a pathway out.

  One by one, the rest followed.

  Kaiya stopped at the path, her heart heavy, and looked back towards Reyha.

  Reyha did not watch them leave. She was already walking toward the elemental, pressing glowing hands against its chest. Lightning danced around its stones, reigniting runes scattered across its body.

  The stone behemoth turned towards the horde of bodies, and charged. Trampling and crushing as many as it could underneath its massive weight.

  Xander let out a low whine and bowed his head. His stone skin began to fall apart, slowly, pebbles dropping to the ground with each step.

  The grove’s sigils faded as the party’s footsteps vanished into the forest, hoping to outrun the curse. Praying Vayne may offer them safety.