Into the Catacombs
The stone floor cracked beneath my feet and I grabbed for anything—Seraphine's arm, the wall, empty air—but gravity won and we dropped into darkness that smelled like old blood and older magic.
I hit water. Cold enough to stop my heart for three beats. My lungs seized. Something grabbed my collar and hauled me up, and I broke the surface gasping, Seraphine's face inches from mine, her eyes reflecting light that shouldn't exist down here.
"Breathe," she said. Not a suggestion.
I breathed. Tasted copper and salt. The water came up to my chest, maybe deeper where Seraphine stood because she was shorter but her feet found purchase somewhere mine didn't. Elara surfaced beside us, ice already forming around her hands, little crystalline daggers that cast blue light across stone walls carved with symbols I didn't recognize.
"Where—" I started.
"The catacombs." Seraphine was already moving, pulling me toward a ledge. "Beneath the palace. They have not been opened in two centuries."
"Great." I hauled myself up, water streaming from my clothes. "Love a good tomb. Very comforting."
Elara climbed out with more grace than I'd managed, which wasn't hard. Her ice-light showed a corridor stretching in both directions, walls lined with alcoves that probably held bodies once. Now they held shadows that moved wrong.
"The dragon," I said. "Did it—"
"It bought us thirty seconds." Seraphine was checking her belt, cataloging what she'd lost in the fall. One knife. Her backup dagger. The communication crystal she'd been carrying. "Kross will have sealed the palace by now. Every exit will be guarded."
"So we're trapped in a two-hundred-year-old mass grave with a psychotic archmage hunting us." I wrung water from my shirt. It didn't help. "This is fine. This is a totally normal Tuesday."
"It is Seventhday," Elara said.
"I was being—never mind." The bond pulsed, faint but steady. I could feel them both, Seraphine's controlled fury and Elara's calculating calm, and underneath that something else. Fear, maybe. Or the beginning of it. "The dragon. Someone sent it. Someone who knows what Kross is planning."
"Someone who wants us alive." Seraphine started down the left corridor without waiting for consensus. "Which means we are valuable. Which means we are also expendable the moment that value diminishes."
I followed because standing still in a flooded catacomb seemed worse. Elara brought up the rear, her ice-light casting our shadows long and distorted against the walls.
"You are thinking too loud," Elara said.
"I'm thinking the normal amount." But she was right. The bond carried more than emotion now. Fragments of thought. Impressions. I could feel Seraphine's mind working through tactical scenarios, discarding options, calculating odds. Could feel Elara's attention split between the corridor ahead and something else, something she wasn't sharing.
"The bond is strengthening." Elara's voice echoed off stone. "Faster than it should. The surge when Kross revealed his intentions—it accelerated the integration."
"Integration." I didn't like that word. "You mean it's getting harder to tell where I end and you begin."
"I mean we are becoming something the summoning was never designed to create." She moved closer, her ice-light illuminating symbols carved into the wall. They looked newer than the stone around them. "These markings. They are containment wards."
Seraphine stopped. Her hand went to where her knife should have been, found nothing, settled for a fighting stance that looked just as dangerous. "Containment for what."
"Demons." Elara traced one symbol with a finger that didn't quite touch the stone. "This entire section was used for binding rituals. The kind that require... sacrifice."
The water behind us rippled. Not wind. Not current. Something moving beneath the surface.
"We need to move," I said.
"We need to understand what we are walking into." But Seraphine was already backing away from the water, her eyes tracking movement I couldn't see. "Elara. The wards. Are they still active."
"Some of them." Elara's ice-light flickered. "But wards decay. And if something has been bound here for two centuries—"
The water exploded. Not up. Sideways. A wave that hit the corridor wall and kept going, defying physics, defying sense, and in the water I saw faces. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Screaming without sound.
"Run," Seraphine said.
We ran.
The corridor branched and Seraphine chose left without slowing, her boots finding traction on stone slick with algae and worse things. My lungs burned. The bond screamed warnings I didn't need—danger behind us, danger ahead, danger in the walls themselves.
"There," Elara gasped. "That alcove. The wards are stronger."
We dove into a recess barely large enough for three people. Seraphine pressed against one wall, I took the other, Elara squeezed between us. Her ice-light dimmed to almost nothing. The water-thing flowed past, faces still visible in its mass, mouths open in eternal screams.
It didn't see us. Or it did and the wards held. Either way, it kept moving, following the corridor deeper into the catacombs.
"What the hell was that," I whispered.
"The Drowned." Elara's voice was barely audible. "Prisoners who were executed by binding their souls to water. They cannot die. They cannot rest. They can only—"
"Hunt." Seraphine's hand found my wrist. Her fingers were ice-cold. "The palace uses them as a final defense. If we are down here, Kross has activated every security measure the royal family possesses."
"So we're not just running from Kross." My heart was trying to break through my ribs. "We're running from two hundred years of magical war crimes."
"Yes."
The bond pulsed. Stronger this time. I felt Seraphine's pulse against my wrist, too fast, and Elara's breath on my neck, too shallow. Felt something else. A connection forming that went deeper than emotion or thought.
"Jake." Elara's hand touched my chest. Not intimate. Clinical. "Your heart rate. It is synchronizing with ours."
I focused. She was right. Three hearts beating in the same rhythm, the same pattern. Not close. Identical.
"That's not normal," I said.
"Nothing about this bond is normal." But Elara didn't move her hand. "The summoning was designed to create loyalty. Obedience. Not... this."
"Not what."
She met my eyes. Hers were silver in the dim light, pupils blown wide. "Not fusion. We are not supposed to become one entity. We are supposed to remain separate, with you as the anchor point."
"But we are not remaining separate." Seraphine's grip on my wrist tightened. "I can feel your fear. Both of you. Can feel Jake's confusion and Elara's calculations and my own tactical assessments, and they are bleeding together until I cannot—"
She stopped. Took a breath. When she spoke again, her voice had that military precision back, every word a weapon. "We need to break the bond."
"We can't." Elara's hand was still on my chest. "Not without killing all three of us. The integration has progressed too far."
"Then we need to control it." Seraphine released my wrist. "Before it controls us."
The water in the corridor rippled again. Different pattern. Something else was coming.
"We cannot stay here," Elara said.
"We cannot keep running blind." Seraphine was already moving, checking the alcove walls for hidden passages. "There has to be another way out. The catacombs were built with escape routes. The royal family would not trap themselves."
"The royal family had magic." I pressed my hand against the wall, feeling for seams, for anything. "We have one ice mage, one soldier, and me."
"You have more than that." Elara's ice-light flared brighter. "The bond. If we are truly integrating, then we should be able to share more than emotions. We should be able to share abilities."
"That's insane."
"Test it." She held out her hand. Ice crystals formed in her palm, delicate and sharp. "Feel what I am doing. Not just the emotion. The action itself. The magic."
I focused on the bond. Felt Elara's concentration, the way she pulled cold from the air and shaped it into form. Felt the pattern of it, the structure.
My hand tingled. Not cold. Something else. I looked down and saw frost forming on my fingertips.
"Holy shit."
"Do not lose focus." Elara's voice was tight. "You are borrowing my magic through the bond. If you break concentration, it will backlash."
The frost spread to my palm. I could feel it now, the cold responding to intention, shaping itself into—
Pain. White-hot and immediate. The frost shattered and my hand felt like I'd shoved it into a furnace.
"Slowly," Elara said. "You are trying to force it. Magic is not force. It is persuasion."
"Great. I'll just politely ask the ice to not burn my hand off."
But I tried again. Slower this time. Feeling the pattern instead of grabbing for it. The cold came easier, formed into a small crystal that looked nothing like Elara's elegant constructs but didn't explode either.
"It is working," Elara said.
"It is dangerous." Seraphine had found something in the wall, a seam hidden behind centuries of grime. "If Jake can access your magic, what else can he access. What else can we access from each other."
"Everything." Elara's voice was quiet. "Eventually. If the integration continues, we will have access to everything. Memories. Skills. Thoughts we do not speak aloud."
The crystal in my palm melted. I looked at Seraphine, saw her face in the ice-light, saw the moment she understood what Elara was saying.
"No." Seraphine's hand was on the seam, nails digging into stone. "That is not acceptable. I will not—"
"You will not have a choice." Elara moved closer to the wall, examining the seam. "None of us will. The bond is not asking permission."
"Then we find a way to stop it." Seraphine pushed against the wall. Something clicked. A section of stone swung inward, revealing darkness that smelled like old paper and older secrets. "After we survive the next hour."
We went through. The passage was narrow, barely wide enough for single file. Seraphine led, I followed, Elara brought up the rear with her ice-light. The walls pressed close enough to touch both sides with my elbows.
"Where does this go," I asked.
"The royal archives." Seraphine's voice echoed strangely in the confined space. "If I am reading the architecture correctly. They would have built escape routes to the most valuable locations."
"Books." I tried not to think about the tons of stone above us. "We're escaping to a library."
"We are escaping to information." Seraphine stopped. The passage opened into a chamber lined with shelves, books stacked floor to ceiling, some so old the spines had crumbled to dust. "Information Kross does not want us to have."
Elara's ice-light illuminated titles in languages I didn't recognize. Some I did. History of the Summoning Wars. Theoretical Applications of Soul Magic. The Ethics of Binding.
"He kept all of this." Elara pulled a book from the shelf, pages crackling. "Every record of what the summoning does. What it costs."
"He kept it because he needs it." I moved deeper into the chamber. More shelves. More books. And at the far end, a desk covered in papers, ink still wet in the well. "He's been researching something."
Seraphine reached the desk first. Her hands moved over the papers, sorting, categorizing. "These are ritual diagrams. Summoning circles. But not like the one that brought you here."
"They are worse." Elara was reading over her shoulder. "These are designed to summon multiple people. Dozens. Maybe hundreds."
The bond went cold. Not temperature. Something deeper. I felt Seraphine's horror and Elara's dawning understanding and my own sick realization.
"He's going to do it again," I said. "The summoning. He's going to bring more people from Earth."
"Not from Earth." Elara's finger traced a line of text. "From the future. From your future. He is going to summon everyone who would have existed in the timeline you came from."
"And then what." But I already knew. Could feel it in the bond, in the way Seraphine's hands had gone still on the papers. "He's going to kill them. All of them. To make sure that future never happens."
"He is going to unmake an entire timeline." Elara's voice was hollow. "Billions of people who have not been born yet. Who will never be born if he succeeds."
The chamber was silent except for our breathing. Three hearts beating in perfect synchronization.
"We have to stop him," I said.
"We have to survive him first." Seraphine gathered papers, folding them into her belt. "These diagrams. If we can understand how the ritual works, we might be able to—"
The door at the far end of the chamber opened. Not the passage we'd come through. A proper door, wood and iron, and standing in the doorway was a woman I'd never seen before. Dark hair. Darker eyes. Robes that marked her as palace staff, but the way she held herself said something else entirely.
"You found it faster than I expected," she said. Her voice was familiar. Wrong, but familiar. "I suppose I should not be surprised. The bond does make you rather efficient."
Seraphine's hand went to her missing knife. "Who are you."
"Someone who has been waiting a very long time for Jake Mercer to arrive." The woman stepped into the chamber. Behind her, I could see more corridors, more passages. "Someone who sent a dragon to save you from Kross. Someone who knows exactly what he is planning and how to stop it."
"Why should we trust you," I said.
"Because I am the one who summoned you in the first place." She smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "And because I am the only person in this palace who knows the truth about what you really are."
The bond screamed warning. Seraphine moved, Elara's ice formed in her hands, and I felt power surge through the connection between us, felt it building to something that would tear the chamber apart—
"I would not do that," the woman said. "Not if you want to save Kira."
Everything stopped. The power. The movement. My heart.
"What did you say."
"Kira val Serin. Your third bond-mate. The one Kross has been keeping in the eastern tower." The woman's smile widened. "The one who is currently dying because someone finally decided to break her demon contract."
The woman's name was Seris val Moraine and she moved through the palace corridors like she owned them. Maybe she did. Maybe everyone down here in the forgotten places owned something the people above had lost.
"Keep up," she said. Not looking back. "The contract is killing her slowly, but slowly is still killing."
"You said breaking the contract would kill her." I was running to match her pace. Seraphine and Elara flanked me, both ready for a fight that hadn't started yet. "Why would someone break it if—"
"Because Kira asked them to." Seris took a turn that led up, stone stairs worn smooth by centuries of feet. "She has been bound to that demon for six years. Six years of it feeding on her magic, her life force, her soul. She finally decided freedom was worth the cost."
"What cost." But the bond was already showing me. Seraphine knew. Had heard rumors. A demon contract could be broken, but the binding went both ways. Break it wrong and both parties died. Break it right and only one did.
"Her sister," Seraphine said. "The contract is keeping her sister alive."
Seris glanced back. "Very good. Yes. The demon offered Kira a deal six years ago. Bind herself in service and her sister would survive the wasting sickness. No cure. Just survival. As long as the contract held."
"So if Kira breaks it—"
"Her sister dies." Seris stopped at a door marked with wards that made my eyes water. "And Kira has to live with that choice. Has to know she chose her own freedom over her sister's life."
"That's not a choice." My hands were shaking. "That's torture."
"That is the nature of demon contracts." Seris touched the door. The wards flickered and died. "They are designed to ensure no one ever breaks them. The cost is always too high."
The room beyond was small. Sparse. A bed, a chair, a window that showed nothing but stone. And on the bed, Kira.
She looked worse than when I'd seen her last. Skin gray. Lips blue. Breathing in shallow gasps that sounded like drowning. The demon mark on her wrist was bleeding, black ichor that stained the sheets.
"Kira." I was at her side before I'd decided to move. "What did you do."
Her eyes opened. Still that impossible violet, but dimmer now. Fading. "Jake. You are... alive."
"Barely." I took her hand. The one without the mark. It was cold. Too cold. "Why did you break the contract. Why didn't you wait, we could have found another way—"
"There is no other way." Her voice was barely a whisper. "I have looked. For six years I have looked. The demon made sure of that."
"Your sister—"
"Will die." Something in her eyes broke. Not tears. Something deeper. "I know. I have known since the moment I asked Seris to help me break the binding. But I cannot... I cannot serve it anymore. Cannot let it feed on me while I pretend I am still human."
The bond pulsed. Not the connection to Seraphine and Elara. Something new. Something forming between me and Kira, thin and fragile and growing stronger with every second I touched her.
"The bond is trying to establish," Elara said. She was standing at the foot of the bed, her face unreadable. "It recognizes her as the third point. It is attempting to complete the triangle."
"Will it save her," I asked.
"I do not know. The bond was not designed to heal demon corruption."
"But it might." I looked at Seris. "You summoned me. You know how this works. Will the bond save her."
Seris moved to the window. Looked out at nothing. "The bond will try. Whether it succeeds depends on how much of Kira is left to save."
"That's not an answer."
"It is the only answer I have." She turned back. "The demon contract is breaking. The bond is forming. Both processes are fighting for the same space in her soul. One of them will win."
"And if the demon wins—"
"Then Kira dies and you lose your third bond-mate before you ever truly had her." Seris crossed her arms. "And the bond between you and Seraphine and Elara will be incomplete. Unstable. It will eventually tear all three of you apart."
Kira's hand tightened on mine. "Do not... let it be for nothing."
"It won't be." I didn't know if I was lying. "You're going to survive this. We're going to figure it out."
"Jake." Seraphine's voice was quiet. "Look at her wrist."
I looked. The demon mark was spreading. Not just bleeding. Growing. Black veins crawling up her arm, across her shoulder, reaching for her throat.
"It is fighting back," Elara said. "The demon knows the contract is breaking. It is trying to take as much as it can before it loses her."
"Can we stop it."
"Not without killing her faster." Elara moved closer. "The mark is tied to her life force. Remove it and she dies. Leave it and she dies. There is no good option."
"Then we make a bad option work." I looked at Seris. "You broke the contract. You must have known this would happen. What's the plan."
"The plan is to let the bond do what it was designed to do." Seris pulled a knife from her belt. Not a weapon. A ritual blade, covered in symbols that hurt to look at. "The bond connects souls. If it connects to Kira before the demon mark kills her, it might be able to burn out the corruption."
"Might."
"I am not in the business of guarantees." She held out the knife. "But I am in the business of giving people choices. Kira chose freedom. Now you choose whether to help her claim