Page 59 of Bonded By Stone & Blood

"Together," she says quietly into my chest.

31

SABINE

Athin, dark line splits the far cavern wall from floor to ceiling, so clean and precise it looks almost intentional. I frown at it, my mind reaches for an explanation, then the fissure in the far cavern wall simply opens with a crack, and they pour through it like smoke given teeth.

"Tovian—"

His name barely clears my throat before an iron weight slams into my back, driving me away from Tovian and into the stone floor face-first. I taste blood instantly.

The drakestone chain hits my wrists like frozen iron. My limbs go sluggish. My thoughts blur at the edges. I claw at the nearest gargoyle and get a fist to the side of my head for it, and the world tilts hard to the left.

A crash. A snarl. I twist against my captor's grip and catch one clear image through the chaos: Tovian mid-lunge, wings half-spread, fury blazing off him like heat off forge-stone. He stops dead when he sees the chains already locked around my wrists.

Then he sees who's standing at the back of the fissure, directing the operation and whispers a word: "Rael?"

The name comes out as though torn from a wound. Low and hollow and utterly destroyed.

The gargoyle in question—slate-skinned, lean-faced—meets Tovian's eyes without flinching. "My Alpha."

Tovian moves. He actually moves, throwing off two of the vanguard with pure force, nearly reaching this Rael before the third chain drops across his shoulders and the drakestone does what drakestone does. His knees hit the cavern floor.

Vorgrym's roar tears through the caves somewhere behind us. Too late. All of it, too late.

They drag us up through the mountain in the pre-dawn dark.

The old cathedral emerges from the fog the way a nightmare does—slowly, then all at once. Gothic arches stand broken against the pale sky like cracked ribs, their stone blackened by age and fire.

And watching from every crag, every broken parapet, every ridge of snow-laden stone—thousands of rival gargoyles. Still as statues. Waiting.

Vultures, I think. Every last one of them.

Tharros stands at the altar.

He is enormous. Larger than I remembered. His pale granite skin catches the first grey light of dawn and his broken horns cast jagged shadows across the fractured floor.

"Bring them forward."

I am shoved to my knees on the altar stone. The cold bites through my trousers immediately. Tovian is forced down beside me, still straining against the drakestone chains, and the sound he makes low in his chest when he sees me kneeling sends a chill through me.

Tharros begins to speak. His voice carries—projected, deliberate, meant to reach every clan watching from the crags.

"Centuries ago," he says, spreading his arms wide, "you were told a story. Humans betrayed the Ashwing. A corruptcommander sold his Alpha to the enemy. Two treacheries colliding by accident." He pauses. Smiles.

The silence from the assembled clans is absolute. Beside Tharros, Tovian remains anchored in a heavy, ancient stillness—a landslide held in place. He does not roar; he sediments his rage, his claws leaving jagged furrows in the altar’s stone as he anchors himself against the urge to shatter the world.

"I built this war," Tharros says, the pride in his voice almost obscene. "I have always looked down on you, Tovian. You were the blight on our lineage—an Alpha who taints our culture by treating cattle as equals. Humans are not partners. They are subservient property, tools to be siphoned and discarded as we see fit."

Tharros flicks a wrist.

Flora moves with the blurring speed of a striking viper. She drives a serrated blade into Rael’s back. The commander gasps, the sound of a lung collapsing, and drops to his knees. Before his blood can even hit the floor, Flora’s blade sweeps in a cold, silver arc.

Rael’s head separates from his shoulders with a heavy thud.

He gestures to what is left of Rael, the Ashwing commander who had once stood at Tovian’s side. "Rael was gullible. He believed the fantasy of owning this valley unchallenged.”

"I made Rael whisper our 'true' intentions to Sevrik Mourne," Tharros continues, stepping over the cooling corpse. "The foolish priest helped us seal the cavern, never realizing the blade swings both ways. While Tovian slept, I ravaged Blackstone Valley. I imprisoned the young, dragging them away in chains to keep the Stone Sleep at bay while I harvested other settlements. My goal was never just a coup. It was the restoration of gargoyle supremacy. The absolute dominance of our blood over their breath."