“What?” I can’t tear my eyes away from the approaching valkerax, but I can see him grin out of the corner of my eye.

“It’s a swear beneathers use when they drop something expensive. It means ‘damn the ground.’ Much more fitting than ‘ox balls’ in this case, don’t you think?”

He’s so calm, even here. Especially here. Our back-and-forth eases just a fraction of my nerves; the valkerax is so close now we can smell its rotting breath, the strength of it vibrating the dirt free from the ceiling in great clumps. We stare down death, flickering in and out of oil lamplight. It’s huge. I knew it was huge this whole time, but seeing it now, in the light…it’s so incredibly enormous, it feels like ten times a giant. It’s the color of old ivory laced with blood. And it’s not going to stop.

In this moment, Evlorasin is the thing that brought the world to its knees a thousand years ago.

But in this moment, Malachite is the thing that has hunted Evlorasin for a thousand years.

Malachite pushes me out of the way and makes a great leap at the approaching valkerax, sinking his blade into Evlorasin’s open mouth. Evlorasin rears its upper half, suddenly in pain, white feathers from its mane flying, the momentum throwing the rest of its long body forward. I barely manage to avoid the thick coils of white muscle as they fling past me. A flood of white scales crash into the celeon guards, who thankfully all have the incredible reflexes to dodge in quick measure. Faster than any human, they spread out in the seemingly impossibly small tunnel and descend on the valkerax, jousting with its flailing body parts before I’m even on my feet again.

I spot Malachite perched atop Evlorasin’s back, huge double-handed swings of his broadsword biting into the valkerax’s thickly armored spine. I aim down the sights of the crossbow, right at Evlorasin’s rearing throat as it tries to get Malachite off, but suddenly I feel the air grow hot again, and I manage to get behind Evlorasin’s mouth just as the valkerax belches forth another gout of white-hot flame, scorching the walls I was standing in front of not moments ago to ash and cinder. The heat has nowhere to run, baking into the dirt, and I watch the dry walls collapse in on themselves, completely burying one, two—too many celeon.

“Move!” I shout at a celeon close to me, but she’s too busy stabbing at Evlorasin’s feet to see the earth behind her shift, surge forward, and bury her whole.

It hits me then; Evlorasin is not trapped in here with us—we’re trapped in here with it.