Chapter 7The Mountain's Hunger

The tunnel narrowed until Rissa's shoulders scraped both walls. Behind them, rocks shifted and fell—Vance digging through the collapse, gaining.

"Faster," she hissed.

Kellan stumbled ahead, one hand pressed to his bleeding arm. The scratch from the mine entrance had already blackened at the edges, veins of corruption crawling toward his elbow. He didn't complain. That scared her more than the howls.

Dorian brought up the rear, flashlight beam dancing across walls slick with moisture. The air changed—thicker, heavier, carrying a scent like burnt metal and rotting vegetation.

"It knows we're here," Kellan said.

Before Rissa could answer, the wall to her left *split*.

Black tendrils exploded from the crack—not roots, not vines, but something *wrong*. They moved like serpents, glistening with an oily sheen, each tip tapering to a needle-sharp point. One lashed toward her face.

She ducked. It scraped across the stone where her skull had been, leaving a smoking groove.

"Dorian! Watch—"

He was already moving, swinging a broken piece of pipe he'd scavenged. The metal connected with a wet *thunk*, and the tendril recoiled, hissing like a living thing.

More emerged from the ceiling. The floor. Cracks they hadn't noticed.

Kellan screamed.

Rissa spun. A tendril had wrapped around his ankle, yanking him off his feet. He clawed at the stone, fingers scraping for purchase as the corruption dragged him toward a fissure in the wall.

"Hold on!"

She lunged, grabbed his wrist, and pulled. The tendril tightened, and Kellan's face went white with pain. Black veins spread up his calf, disappearing beneath his pant leg.

Dorian brought the pipe down again and again, until the tendril snapped with a sound like breaking bone. The severed end twitched on the ground, then dissolved into black vapor.

Kellan gasped. His leg was already swelling, the corruption pulsing beneath the skin.

"Can you walk?" Rissa asked.

He nodded, but his eyes were glassy. The Moonstone was in him now, deeper than before.

They ran.

---

The tunnel opened into a cavern so vast the flashlight couldn't find the ceiling. Stalactites hung like teeth, and in the center, a flat altar of stone rose from the ground, slick with moisture that glowed faintly blue.

"No," Rissa breathed.

But the illusion was already forming.

The air shimmered. The cavern walls dissolved, replaced by the pack compound's main hall. Torches flickered. And on the altar—

*Elara.*

Her sister lay bound, wrists and ankles tied with rough rope. Her face was pale, her eyes hollow with exhaustion. Standing over her, knife raised, was Vance.

"Rissa." His voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. "You did this. You abandoned her."

The knife descended.

"NO!"

Rissa's wolf surged. Claws burst from her fingertips. The world sharpened, colors bleeding into infrared, and she was *moving*, leaping toward the altar with a snarl that tore from her throat—

A hand caught her wrist.

"Rissa. Look at me."

Dorian's voice. But she couldn't stop. Elara was *right there*, and Vance was going to—

"Look at the edges."

She forced her eyes to obey. The altar's glow flickered at the corners. Flickered, and bled into gray.

*It's not real.*

But it felt real. Her sister's scent. The sound of rope creaking. The metallic tang of Vance's blade.

"I can save her," Rissa whispered. "The stone can give me the power. I can—"

"No." Dorian pulled her close, his chest against her back. "That's what it wants. You give in, you become its host. And then Elara has no one."

The illusion wavered. Vance's form rippled, and beneath it, she saw the cavern again—the altar empty, the walls bare.

But the whisper remained.

*Join me. Save them all. You only have to let go.*

Rissa closed her eyes. Breathed. The wolf receded, claws retracting, fangs shrinking.

When she opened them, the cavern was empty.

Elara was gone. Vance was gone. Only the altar remained, silent and waiting.

"I almost—" Her voice cracked. She looked at her hands. They were shaking. "I almost killed him. I almost—"

"You didn't." Dorian's grip on her shoulder steadied her. "You're still here."

Kellan leaned against a stalagmite, sweat beading on his forehead. "The river," he said, pointing with a trembling hand. "There."

Water rushed in the distance. Rissa followed his gaze and saw it—a dark channel cutting through the far end of the cavern, wide enough to carry them.

"Current's fast," Dorian said, playing the light across the surface. "Could take us miles."

"Or drown us," Rissa muttered.

But she was already moving toward it.

---

The river was cold. Colder than anything she'd felt, the kind of cold that seeped into bone and refused to leave. Rissa tested the edge with one boot, and the current nearly pulled her in.

"It's deep," she said. "Kellan, can you swim?"

He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the water, and his lips moved soundlessly.

"Kellan?"

"He's praying," Dorian said grimly. "That's a bad sign."

A howl echoed from the tunnel behind them. Close. Too close.

"Get in the water," Rissa ordered. "Now."

She grabbed Kellan's arm and pulled him toward the river. He resisted for a moment, then nodded, the glassiness in his eyes clearing.

They waded in together. The cold stole Rissa's breath. The current grabbed her legs, and she gasped, fighting to stay upright.

Then the water began to glow.

At first, just a faint shimmer—like moonlight trapped in amber. But it spread, intensifying, until the river around them pulsed with blue-white light.

"The stone," Kellan whispered. "It's in the water."

Behind them, the tunnel collapsed with a roar. Rubble crashed into the river, sending waves that knocked Rissa off her feet. She went under, swallowed by freezing darkness.

*Down. The current's pulling me down.*

She kicked, broke the surface, gasped. Dorian was beside her, one arm around Kellan, who had gone limp.

"Swim!" Dorian shouted. "Don't stop!"

The glow intensified. The water *pulsed*, like a heartbeat, and Rissa felt the Moonstone's presence all around her, a vast pressure trying to crush her from within.

*Give in. Let me in. I'll keep you warm.*

She swam harder. The current dragged them through a narrow passage, the walls scraping her shoulders. Ahead, she saw nothing but darkness and the ever-brightening glow.

The stone was flooding the tunnel.

And somewhere behind them, Vance was still coming.