Chapter 33: Ash’s Teeth

The thing walked closer.

Each step shook the basin like bone cracking. Not stone. Not earth. A rib cage snapping wider to let something crawl through.

Ash poured from its mouth. A tongue. A veil. A promise. My skin crawled like it already belonged to it.

Evelyn staggered to her feet. Blood painted her lips. Knife in her hand, useless against the size of it. But she grinned anyway. Grinned like a dog with broken teeth.

“One more round,” she rasped.

The ash-mouth turned its cracked face toward her, then toward me. That grin wasn’t hers. It was mine. It was Max’s. It was every grin that ever meant: I own you.

My sister pressed into my back, shaking. “Grace. Don’t—”

Too late.

I lifted the knife.

It pulsed white. My ruined arm burned up to the shoulder now. Skin cracked, smoking black. Each heartbeat a detonation. Every nerve screaming.

The thing opened its mouth wider. Teeth ground. Ash spilled in rivers. The spirals closed overhead, sealing us in. No sky. No way out. Only gray.

It wanted me to kneel. Wanted me to give in. Wanted me to remember how easy surrender tasted.

I laughed instead.

Because if it wanted to eat me, it’d choke on the bones.

The basin throbbed. The veins split wider, coughing lightless fire. Shapes writhed beneath the crust. Pale hands, faceless heads pressing against their prisons. All of them me. All of them waiting for me to give the word and let them out.

Not tonight.

The ash-thing lunged.

Evelyn darted left. Knife slashed across its thigh. Stone-flesh cracked, dribbled ash like blood. It didn’t slow. Just turned, swinging an arm as long as I was tall.

She flew. Hit the ground hard. Didn’t get up.

I screamed her name. Too late.

The thing faced me.

My sister’s fingers dug into my back. “Grace. Please. Don’t fight it. Please.”

I almost listened. Almost dropped the knife. Almost let the ash climb into me, eat the weight, carry it away. Almost.

But I remembered Max’s grin. The way he’d held power like a leash. The way he’d made me choose who to kill, who to leave, who to become.

Never again.

I charged.

The knife sang. It cut air, ash, silence. White fire trailed in its wake. I buried it in the thing’s chest. Felt the crack of stone, the burst of rot.

It screamed.

Not sound. Not breath. Ash. A howl that stripped skin from bone. My ears bled. My nose ran red. My teeth rattled loose.

But I held on.

The knife pulsed harder. It wanted deeper. It wanted the heart.

I shoved.

The thing’s chest split. Black veins lit like fire under its stone-skin. Each one pulsed in rhythm with mine. With the knife’s. With the canyon itself.

We weren’t fighting. We were merging.

And that terrified me more than death.

I tore the blade free.

The thing staggered back. Chest smoking, cracked open, but still moving. Still grinning.

Evelyn coughed blood, dragged herself to her knees. “Again!” she screamed. “Cut it again!”

I wanted to. But my arm—my arm was gone. Flesh stripped, bone showing through smoke. Knife still fused to my grip, burning brighter than the sun.

My sister sobbed. “Grace. Please stop. Please.”

The ash-thing lurched forward. Each step tore the ground wider. The basin collapsed around us. Veins split open, vomiting pale bodies into the air. My reflections, crawling, screaming, clawing at me.

I slashed them down. Cut faces that were mine. Hands that were mine. Futures that were mine. Each stroke burning deeper into bone.

Evelyn staggered up beside me. Shoulder dislocated, leg bent wrong. Still smiling. Still stabbing at shadows.

“Together,” she hissed.

The ash-thing roared.

Its arms opened wide, as if to embrace me.

And I stepped in.

The knife went up. Came down. Split its head in half. Ash exploded. The spirals above ripped apart, raining soot.

I thought it was done.

I was wrong.

The pieces reformed. Not slower. Faster. The cracks spread, multiplied. Dozens of mouths opened across its chest, arms, face. All chewing. All grinning.

And each one spoke in Max’s voice.

“Grace.”

“Grace.”

“Grace.”

Over and over, chewing my name like gristle.

My knees buckled. The basin tilted. The knife’s glow dimmed. My ruined arm gave way, snapping under its own fire. I fell.

The thing leaned down, mouths opening wider. The breath from them was ash. Sweet. Suffocating.

“Grace,” it whispered. “Come home.”

And for one heartbeat—I almost wanted to.

But then Evelyn screamed.

Not words. Just rage. She hurled her broken body onto its leg, stabbing, clawing, tearing. “Not hers,” she spat. “Not hers!”

And my sister—my kid sister—stood in front of me. Shaking. Crying. But standing. She lifted her tiny, bloodied hands and screamed at the thing. “You can’t have her!”

The ash recoiled. Just for a breath. Just enough.

I crawled back to my feet. Knife dim, arm ruined, lungs full of soot. Didn’t matter.

I swung.

This time, I didn’t aim for the chest. Or the head. I cut the ground.

The basin split open. Veins ruptured. Black fire poured out. The ash-thing staggered, mouths shrieking, as the earth itself swallowed it whole.

It fell. Screaming. Grinning. Gone.

The basin roared shut.

And then silence.

Just me. Evelyn bleeding beside me. My sister sobbing against my leg. The knife still pulsing, faint now, but alive.

I looked at the cracked sky above. Gray peeling back to darker gray. No escape. No end. Just another round.

Evelyn laughed, wet and broken. “We’re still here.”

My sister whispered, “But for how long?”

I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know.

All I knew was the knife still burned. And the ash wasn’t done.

Not yet.