Chapter 5 Through the crypt's mouth

The sun barely kissed the horizon when Ryker and his rogues slipped through the frost-covered brush toward the forgotten mausoleum buried beneath the southern cliff.

Ivy choked the old stonework, and snow blanketed the ancient runes scrawled across the entryway. Most of Blackfang had forgotten this place existed. But Ryker hadn't.

He helped build it.

"Stay sharp," he whispered, his voice a rasp in the cold. "The wards here are old. Faint. But Kaida might've reinforced them."

Dax and two others moved to the crypt entrance, brushing aside dead vines. The door creaked open, revealing a narrow stairwell spiraling into darkness.

"Smells like rot and regret," Orren muttered, drawing his blade.

"Good," Ryker said. "Then we're close."

They descended, one by one, until the forest light was swallowed and only torchfire remained. The air turned heavy, laced with the weight of memory. Dust drifted like ghosts.

The walls bore the names of old alphas, long since entombed. Ryker's fingers brushed the stone beside him, landing on a familiar engraving: Theron Blackwood - his father.

He stared a moment too long.

"Keep moving," he growled.

But the past followed him, silent and suffocating.

Above, Kaida stood in the observatory tower, eyes trained on the southern woods. She could feel the tension rippling through the land, like a bowstring drawn taut.

Magic was fraying. The deeper wards - the ones they buried beneath the keep - were trembling.

She closed her eyes.

He was here.

Kaida turned toward Thorne, who stood stiff beside her. "Send the Nightbinders to the crypt path. Now."

Thorne hesitated. "You swore we'd never use them again."

"I lied."

He dipped his head and left, the door slamming behind him.

Tessa appeared moments later, almost ghost-like.

"You remember what happened last time we unleashed them," the girl said softly. "They don't stop once the killing begins."

Kaida gripped the edge of the map table. "Neither will he."

Tessa nodded slowly. "Then this is the part where someone breaks."

Down in the tunnels, Ryker could feel the energy shifting. The walls pulsed. Not with light - with warning. Arcane symbols hidden beneath moss and mildew flared faintly, then dimmed again, like dying embers.

"The wards are waking up," Dax said. "Kaida knew you'd come this way."

"She always did know me too well," Ryker muttered.

A sudden whine of steel-on-stone echoed ahead. The rogues halted. Ryker raised a fist, and all fell still.

Movement.

Something was coming.

"Positions," he whispered.

From the darkness beyond the curve of the tunnel came a sound - not footsteps, but dragging. Slithering. Wet. And then they appeared: three Nightbinders, their cloaks black as pitch, faces masked with bone, eyes glowing with sickly green fire. Their presence chilled the air, turning breath to ice.

One stepped forward, speaking in an ancient tongue. A command. A curse.

Ryker didn't flinch.

"You brought back the death mages, Kaida?" he growled, stepping forward. "That desperate already?"

The Nightbinders struck.

They moved like smoke, like shadows given blades and hate. One lashed a whip of spirit flame toward Dax, who rolled under it, barely avoiding a scorch of soul-fire. Another hurled a shard of bone-magic, piercing the chest of a rogue behind Ryker.

Ryker didn't blink.

He charged.

Steel met spell. Claw met corruption.

He tore through the first Nightbinder with a roar, his dagger plunging deep into its ribs. It shrieked - not in pain, but fury - and dissolved into ash.

The second one tried to snare him in a net of soul-thread, but Ryker's wolf surged beneath his skin, pushing through.

The cursed magic burned, seared his arms, but he didn't stop.

"You think you know pain?" he snarled, grabbing the mage's face and slamming it into the stone. "You don't know what it means to lose."

When the last Nightbinder tried to flee, Orren ran it down and gutted it with pleasure.

The tunnel fell silent again, save for ragged breathing.

"Casualties?" Ryker asked.

"Two dead," Dax said. "One wounded bad."

Ryker's knuckles were torn, his muscles aching. But the barrier on his wolf was almost gone. He could feel it. The heat beneath his skin. The wild thing pacing again.

"She's scared," he said aloud. "Kaida's running out of moves."

Dax frowned. "She sent those things knowing they'd kill her own men if they had to. That's not fear, Ryker. That's resolve."

Ryker turned toward the tunnel's end - where a faint breeze whispered through the cracked stones ahead.

"No," he said. "That's guilt."

Back in the keep, Kaida stood at the Night binders' altar, her hands shaking as she washed the blood from her palms. The cost of dark magic was steep, and tonight... she felt it.

"They've breached the first barrier," Thorne reported behind her.

Kaida nodded. "Seal the inner gates. Prepare the mirror chamber."

Thorne's eyes widened. "That's a last resort."

"It's time."

Ryker and his rogues emerged into the old catacombs just beneath Black-fang's main hall. Dust fell in waves.The corridor opened before them like a beast's mouth - black, quiet, waiting.

But Ryker didn't hesitate.

He had come to take something back.

Not just weapons.

Not just honor.

But himself.

And if Kaida stood in the way?

Then she'd burn with the rest of them.