Through Flame and Blade

Ch. 14 Out of the Dungeon, Into the Pit

*Chiara

Chiara hadn't survived this long to be taken down by a pack of disease-ridden flying demons the size of cats. She tightened her wings to let herself drop, to let them believe they had her, bringing them in closer and closer. They spiraled downwards in a dizzying drop.

With the wind in her face and feathers, she felt alive again.

No. Her existence would not end in this pit.

She passed the half-way point of the massive cavern. Lights faded. They were lower than her torture chamber of so many months with Logan.

She clenched her jaw against the memory of leaving him.

Not now.

As Pestilences crowded closer, clawing and tearing at her, she spread her wings wide, blinding them with angel's light and swung her blade. One angel with one knife didn't have much a chance against one hundred hungry lesser demons, but she would find a way out.

A male voice grunted, and a weight hit a wing.

Logan?

He fell past her, onto a thick cluster of screeching Pestilences. What the stars?

He was insane.

He clung to a dozen of the smaller creatures, using them to slow his descent, while he killed others, alternately swinging his heavy weapons. But they flocked to him. What was going on?

"Come on, you scabby pustules," he cried. "I'm here!"

This was it—her chance to escape...

Something held her back.

"Logan, there are too many. What are you doing?" she called. She didn't know why she cared. She should fly up and out of this place while she could.

The way he had attacked Lucius, though, saving her instead of cutting her wings... And how he drew the Pestilences away from her and towards himself.

By the Heavens, she had to get her head on straight—he was the enemy.

He was the enemy who was helping her.

And he was falling too fast. She had to make up her mind, and to do that, she had to know what he wanted by doing this. Gritting her teeth, she clapped her wings once to propel herself downwards, until she was directly above him.

"Your hand," she shouted, afraid to grab him while he swung a very heavy mace in every direction.

"I'm not done!"

"Your hand, now!"

The darkness grew thicker. She couldn't see the bottom of the pit, but she could sense—and smell—it getting closer. The chirruping voices of Pestilences swelled beneath them.

A thousand eyes opened in the black below, flashing green with reflected light.

"Hand, you idiot! Come on!"

He bellowed and those thousand eyes blinked. Strident cries pierced Chiara's ears and the flapping of leathery wings erupted. Countless Pestilences were rising. What in the name of all the stars above was he thinking?

His hand came up.

She grabbed his forearm, as he clasped hers, and at the same moment, she unfurled her wings flat to stop their fall.

His weight nearly tore her arm from its socket. Groaning under the strain, she beat her wings, once, twice, then quicker and quicker. Painfully, inch by inch, they began to rise. She let all her energy flow to keeping her wings moving.