Chapter 29
The sound followed us through the halls low and hollow, as if a ribcage itself had learned to sing. It pressed against my ribs like a second heartbeat, too sharp to be human, too steady to be alive.
Kael’s grip bruised my wrist as he dragged me faster.
“Don’t look back.”
But I did.
One by one, the torches guttered, each flame snuffed as though something breathed them out. The dark spread like oil, and in it bones gleamed. Skulls strung into a necklace. Ribs threaded into a crown.
And then her.
The Huntress stepped into view as though she had always been walking beside us, cloaked in ash, bone-white leather stitched with sinew clinging to her body like a second skin. Her bow was taller than me, carved from something that pulsed faintly, alive. The string glistened like spu
