Page 110 of Cursed By the Dawn

Instinctively, I lowered my chin, avoiding his gaze.

Raelion’s hunger pulsed from him as though it had a life of its own.

Estaroth was equally malformed—his serpentine body coiled around the ruins, fur bristling as his wolflike maw snapped at the air with rows of ragged canines. Everything about him felt wrong. His limbs, like Raelion’s, cracked and re-formed, an unstable nightmare given flesh. A slow, shuddering snarl passed from Estaroth’s chest, and the air around him warped—as though the Dream Realm itself was bending in revulsion at his presence.

I whipped my head around, searching for Elliot.

But he was nowhere to be seen.

“I will see you again,” I promised to the wind. “I swore I’d see you again—and Iwill.”

When Raelion and Estaroth found us, they bellowed in realm-shattering rage. Their claws tore at the sky as they reached for us. For our wings, for our minds, for our souls.

“Let me in!” Raelion roared, his voice like an explosion of glass against my skull.“LET ME IN!”

Pain lanced through my head, burrowing fast and deep. I screamed as my vision blurred. It was like standing in the eye of a storm and trying to be still with bones made of feathers and skin made of paper. The sheer force of his will pressed against me, trying to dig into the deepest recesses of my thoughts.

To unmake me from the inside out.

I tasted blood, sharp and tinged with shadow, as my nose bled.

Erebus and Mithras screamed, too,roaringin defiance at Raelion’s mental onslaught. Shadows and light churned violently around us, desperate to shield us.

“Don’t youdarelet him in!” Mithras snarled, his golden eyes burning. He swung his sword in a wide arc, blocking one of Estaroth’s many lunging arms.

“I should be tellingyouthat,” Erebus bit out, twisting in midair to dodge Raelion’s snapping jaws. Raelion’s fangs were mere inches from Erebus’s throat, thunder booming from his maw. A quick slash of Erebus’s sword broke a row of Raelion’s teeth, but they re-formed almost immediately. “Damn you,” he snarled at our enemy.

Raelion turned on Mithras and me next, his form shifting, darkening. His edges blurred between shadow and storm, a writhing mass of embodied Corruption. We braced ourselves, preparing for the impact as I drew my blade—but Erebus was faster. He slammed into me, then Mithras, knocking us out of Raelion’s reach.

“Neither of you is allowed to die,” he growled, his rough voice edged with something close to fear.

Mithras barked a short laugh. “Same to you, lord of shadows. Though I suspect the stars have already carved my fate in stone.”

Erebus’s jaw tightened. “That may be. But I don’t think they’re finished writing.”

We soared higher, power swelling as we unleashed wave after wave of darkness and light. The sky itself trembled, our strikes chiselingthrough the air with crackling ferocity. The impact of our magic sent shock waves through the battlefield, ripping through the remnants of demons. Below us, the Weavers and dreamers cheered, pushing harder.

Cracks formed in Raelion’s and Estaroth’s massive bodies.

The first cracks were small, thin like hairs. But they spread rapidly, growing, widening. Webbing across their bodies from their skulls down to their claws. They roared, screams shaking the sky. Black ichor seeped from their wounds, oozing like liquid death, and yet still they fought.

Their rage was unrelenting.

The Corruption within them fought to hold them together, their limbs stretching, warping. Desperate to refuse the inevitable. They shuddered as the Corruption in their cores began to unravel regardless.

“Let us in!” Estaroth howled, his voice a fractured, keening wail. His serpentine body convulsed; his wolfish face distorted. Still the cracks deepened, plunging into his body. His voice wormed its way into my ears, echoing a demonic chorus of voices that were not his own.

Whispers, screams,sobsof the dreamers he had consumed.

I let out a cry of anguish, reaching for Erebus’s hand. His hand closed around mine, our fingers interlocking in unyielding resolve. Mithras took my other hand, forming a trio of unbreakable power. Light and shadow, woven into one. One power drew out the demons’ Corruption; the other destroyed it. Despite the horror, despite the nightmare before us, we stood together.

Unbroken.

“This ends now,” I cried, furiously gnashing my teeth. “They’ve taken too much.”

The Maker had shown us the way. We would end this. Now.

Together, we channeled every ounce of strength we had, pouring our power into one final strike. A surge of pure radiance and abyssal night crashed into Raelion and Estaroth, their forms seizing, cracking, slanting. I willed my shadows to thread between Erebus’s darkness and Mithras’s light, further cementing the two. And with a world-shattering rumble, the demons burst.