Casteel moved as fast as bottled lightning, thrusting his sword into the chest of the skeleton and piercing the lump of dirt. The skeleton shattered, sword and all, breaking apart into dust. “Like that?”

“Oh,” Vonetta replied. “All right, then.”

I turned as Kieran shoved his sword into the chest of one. There were about a dozen holes behind us—a dozen skeleton guards halfway out of the ground. Another image filled my mind, one not of my mother but of a woman with silvery-white hair—the one I’d seen in my mind while I stood in the Chambers of Nyktos. She’d slammed her hands into the dirt, and the ground had cracked open, bone fingers digging their way out.

“Her soldiers,” I whispered.

“What?” Casteel demanded.

“These are her—”

Free from whatever hole it had literally crawled out of, one of the skeleton soldiers rushed toward me, lifting its sword. Slipping the dagger free from my chest harness, I snapped forward, thrusting the blade into the mess of throbbing dirt. The skeleton exploded as another took its place. Behind it, another skeleton soldier lifted its sword. Kicking out, I planted my boot in the soldier’s chest, pushing it back into another. Casteel shot forward, stabbing his sword into the dirt heart of the one closest to him. I spun, slamming my dagger into the chest of the skeleton, wincing as the blade nicked bone before hitting the heart.

“Cutting off the head does not work,” Emil shouted, and I turned to see a…a headless skeleton tracking the dumbfounded Atlantian. “I repeat. It does not work!”

Vonetta whirled, thrusting one sword through the chest of a soldier, and her other blade through the headless skeleton. “You,” she said to Emil, “are a mess.”

“And you are beautiful,” he replied with a grin.

The female wolven rolled her eyes as she spun, taking down another as Emil shoved his sword into the chest of one coming at him.

Casteel shoved a soldier back as he jabbed the sword through its ribs. Behind him, a soldier raced toward him. I shot past Casteel, stabbing the creature in the chest—

The ground trembled once more. New geysers of dirt erupted, streaking into the air. “You have got to be kidding me,” Kieran growled.

I spun around, heart thudding as…hundreds of eruptions happened across the barren ground, from the side of the Mountains of Nyktos, all the way to the stone women. These soldiers were faster, tearing out of the holes in a matter of heartbeats.

“Good gods.” Vonetta stumbled back into Emil. He steadied her before they turned to stand back-to-back.

A skeleton soldier ran forward on bony feet, sword raised. Its jaws unhinged, opening wide to reveal nothing but a black void and the sound of screaming wind. The force blew my braid back and tugged at my tunic.

“Rude,” I muttered, nearly choking on the scent of stale lilacs.

Black, oily smoke spilled from the skeleton’s mouth, thickening and solidifying as it poured to the ground, forming thick ropes that slithered forward—