CHAPTER 160: THE LOST CAUSES

Draken

The tunnel creaked. A low, wet sound. Not wind, not stone shifting—something else.

Vesper froze beside me, one hand on the torch while I kept mine near the hilt of my blade. The sound came again, faint, almost like breathing.

Perhaps a groan, or like someone trying to climb up.

Not ours.

I tilted my head. "Did you hear that?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Not comforting."

I grunted. "Let’s keep moving."

The path wound downward, deeper than I expected. The further we walked, the more the pressure built in my ears. It was getting warmer, too. The walls of the tunnel glistened with dampness, and the stone beneath our feet had grown slick with moss or mold.

"Feels like this tunnel was meant to keep going down forever," Vesper muttered, her voice bouncing faintly off the curved ceiling.

I glanced at her. "You thinking what I’m thinking?"

"That this is no longer a temple tunnel? More like a chute?" she replied.

"Yeah." I didn’t like it. But stopping now wasn’t an option.

We pressed on until the path narrowed, and soon we came to a collapsed section—jagged boulders piled across the way, too tight to climb through.

Vesper handed me the torch, then cracked her knuckles. "Well, I guess we’re not turning back."

I held the torch up, lighting the rocks so she could see.

She smirked at me. "Are you going to help?"

I stepped back just a little. "I know you’ve got it."

She didn’t disappoint. With a growl, she dug her hands into the pile and began shoving the rocks aside like they were made of chalk. The ground trembled faintly under her strength, stone cracking and tumbling in echoes.

In minutes, she had opened up a narrow passage. The tunnel beyond curved sharply, the walls almost too smooth—too intentional.

"Let’s go," She said

We entered.

Then the ground tilted. Sharply.

"Wait—" I started, but it was too late. My boots slipped and the next second, gravity claimed us both.

!!!

We slid.

It was a long slide—angled, twisting, almost designed to carry us downward at increasing speed. Wind rushed past my ears. The tunnel glowed faintly from the torch still clutched in my hand, but shadows rushed along the walls like flickers of movement.

"Should we fight it?!" Vesper shouted over the wind.

"No point!" I called back. "Wherever it leads, we’re going anyway!"

She didn’t argue.

The tunnel brightened. At the far end, I saw light—natural light. Sunlight.

We shot out like arrows loosed from a bow. The ground rushed up to meet us, but both of us landed on our feet, boots skidding slightly against the rocky floor.

I looked up. The tunnel mouth was behind us, half-hidden by a slope of jagged rocks.

But it wasn’t the exit that made me go still.

It was what stood before us.

!!?

We were far away from the outskirts of the city, but deep within a vast valley surrounded by impossibly high mountains—natural walls that kept this place isolated, hidden from everything and everyone.

And the valley wasn’t empty.

There were people here.

Humans and demons. Thousands of them

Or what had once been.

They wandered in slow, staggering patterns. Their skin was ashen or bruised with a sickly hue, and from the mouths of many of them dripped a thick, black liquid—corrupted, mindless, aimless.

Vesper stepped closer to me, whispering, "Is that...?"

"Yes," I answered, my throat dry. "It is."

***

Aelin

The underground air was cold—damp and metallic, like something old and long-forgotten had been buried here and left to rot. Draegon stood beside me, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, jaw clenched. I didn’t blame him. I could barely move.

In front of us, inside the largest cell I had ever seen, they swayed.

Twenty—maybe more—men and women, though calling them that now felt... wrong. They moved like marionettes with cut strings, limbs dragging behind them, heads lolling in unnatural angles. Some stared blankly ahead with eyes that didn’t blink, others walked in slow, lazy circles, as if pacing through some invisible memory they’d long forgotten. Their bodies were thin but not starving, as if sustained by something that shouldn’t be able to nourish anything.

They looked dead.

They felt dead.

The cell that held them was built like an arena—massive, circular, sunken deep into the earth, and yet... it had sunlight pouring in from slits high above, like a god had reached down and torn open the roof just enough to make the contrast worse. Light on dead things. Warmth that couldn’t reach them.

It made my skin crawl.

Lazelle was crouched near the edge of the enclosure, outside the cell, examining one of the infected who had been separated from the group and restrained. There were three guards with her. She wore her usual white coat, stained now at the sleeves with black blood I wasn’t sure was fresh. Her hands moved deftly, but her face was tired. Older than usual.

She pulled away from the man’s chest with a long exhale, standing slowly. Then she turned toward us—toward Draegon, Vesper, and me—and said nothing.

Draegon took a step forward. "What’s wrong with them?"

Lazelle didn’t speak right away. She looked back at the restrained body behind her, then at the rest still wandering the arena like ghosts. Her mouth was tight when she answered.

"They uh- these people are gone for good."

"What do you mean?" I asked

"The black milk," she said. "It’s eaten them alive. Or, more accurately—" she glanced at me, voice flat "—it’s eaten their brain."

Vesper frowned. "So... their brains are corrupted?"

Lazelle shook her head slowly. "There is no brain left. Not really. Not a functioning one. The tissue has liquified in places. Same with their hearts. There’s nothing human left inside them. Only the shell. The movement you’re seeing is leftover impulses—like a corpse twitching long after death. These people are... walking dead."

A chill unfurled in my chest, slow and cold, then spread through my limbs like frostbite.

"And you’re saying there were thousands of people in the valley?" Draegon asked Draken

"Yes," The older of the two nodded

I couldn’t look away from them. I watched one of the women stumble into another—neither reacted. No expression. No awareness.

Just... emptiness.

I remembered asking once—days ago—what happened to the ones who couldn’t absorb the black milk. To the unlucky, the vulnerable. No one had ever given me a clear answer. Because no one knew then

But now I did.

And I wished I didn’t.

"I thought it might kill them," I whispered, more to myself than anyone else. "But this..."

This was worse. So much worse.

Death would have been mercy.

At least the dead don’t wander, mindless, without even a soul left to scream.