32

Veril and Philia hurry together to the bedroom, then immediately return to the sitting room. Philia carries a heavy leather tunic with long sleeves of mail.

“It’s a little big,” the Renrian says, taking Fury from my hold, “but it’s more protection than what you’re wearing now.”

“Where’d you get that?” Olivia says, her eyes darting between the tunic and the window.

“That big trunk sitting at the end of the bed,” Philia says. “It’s Veril’s.”

“Olivia,” I snap, my heart pounding, “bring me my clothes.”

“I can’t.” Her brows crumple, and she whispers, “They’re outside, at our camp.”

My stomach drops. “Damn it, Olivia.”

Philia helps me shove my arms into the sleeves.

“Hurry, Phily,” Jadon urges, inching toward the door.

As she works, I notice symbols on the rings of chainmail.

“For divine protection,” Veril says, whispering as he touches my shoulders, my heart, and my head while Philia finishes the final clasps at the back.

I close my eyes, catching only a few words of his incantation. Mantle…light…shadowed abyss…beseech…unravel…triumph.

“They always roost in caves,” Jadon reminds me once Veril steps away. “Azzam Cavern in particular. It’s deep and dangerous and very safe for the battabies.”

“Why are they here?” Olivia cries, facing Veril.

The old man shakes his head. “Like I said, they’ve never come to my forest.”

“And how do you know all this?” Olivia asks, spinning to face her brother.

He flails his free arm in irritation. “Because I’m smart. Fuck. Can we stop asking questions and hurry the fuck up?”

“Calm down, Jadon,” I say, scolding him with my eyes. “She’s going as fast as she can.”

“What do they want?” Olivia asks.

“Food,” I say. “Tighter, Philia.”

Philia pulls the buckles of my borrowed armor tighter.

Olivia grips the windowsill. “What will make them go away?”

“Death,” I answer.

“If we don’t kill them,” Jadon says, “they’ll keep attacking until they kill us.”

“Tighter, Phily,” I demand.

Philia says, “But—”

“Do it,” I say, looking at her over my shoulder. “Please. Don’t worry about my ribs.”

Philia pulls the straps taut. “So you’re gonna follow them?”

Both Jadon and I nod and say, “Yes.”

“What if they lead you to Elyn?” Olivia whispers, her voice trembling.

Neither Jadon nor I answer that question. My throat is too tight to talk.

Bam! More wood splinters.

“They’re back.” Olivia’s eyes widen with terror.

My fingers burn, each thud against the cottage sending waves of heat through them. I squeeze Veril’s shoulder. “You do your enchantment thing but remember that we’ll need to be able to find you.” I push out one last shaky breath and rotate my shoulders. “Feels like I’m wearing every chain ever forged. But I’m ready.” I hold out my hand. “Fury, please.”

Veril passes me the longsword.

I tighten my grip around her handle and check that Little Lava is nestled in my ankle sheath.

Jadon reaches for the doorknob.

Bam! Bam!

Shit. That creaking sends shivers down my spine. Sounds like they’ve almost made it through the walls. We have to act now.

I focus on breathing and remind myself just how strong I am, that I survived the burnu attack even if it beat me up first. I’m here. I’m here .

“Breathe, Kai,” Jadon whispers.

“Yeah, yeah.” My hands burn hot. Fury’s pommel crackles in my grip.

Breathe-breathe-breathe…

“Let’s go,” I say, steeling myself for what lies ahead.

Jadon throws open the door, and immediately I stutter-step, caught off guard by the stench of shit, burning leather, and bile. Now I remember fighting these things.

The sky is dark, the daystar hidden behind a swarm of battabies circling high above the forest canopy. Only a few creatures rip through the trees to terrorize Veril’s cottage. My mind races and my fear grows as I realize that killing the battabies down here makes no difference—there would be scores of them left to finish the job.

“Let’s move away from the cottage,” I shout, just as a battaby spies Jadon and dives toward him.

Jadon swings Chaos and the battaby is split in two, dead before it finishes its first shriek.

Another creature watches us but doesn’t strike. As we move away from the cottage, another battaby joins, then another, circling, studying.

“Ready?” I whisper.

Jadon says, “Yep.”

Veril’s incantation unfurls across my mind, and the power of his words courses through me. Abyss…beseech…triumph…

The battaby dives. Right as the creature’s talons near my head, I pivot and swing. Fury slices across the battaby’s neck with no resistance.

The second beast takes a dive, and I pivot in the opposite direction. I swing Fury again, and the battaby crashes to the now-mucky dirt.

I dare to smile, but the threat is far from over.

The other battabies hang high, shrieking as though they’re communicating with one another. Jadon and I wince in pain from the sound. One battaby stays low, fluttering away and then fluttering close—but never close enough to be struck by our swords.

Should I use my wind now?

Or should I wait for them to come closer?

If I use my wind now and it doesn’t touch them, then they may learn that I’m limited, which means that they can strategize.

The cauldron of battabies lifts higher than before, dipping in and out of thin clouds, until the group clears the sky. One battaby remains behind, bobbing above us.

“We can’t kill him,” Jadon says, “not if we’re trying to find the roost.”

“You’re right,” I agree. “Look at its mouth.”

A bright orange wattle, like a rooster’s.

“At least it will be easier to see him,” I say.

The creature blasts its high-pitched chirp.

Both Jadon and I squeeze our eyes shut as the cry rattles our eardrums.

Rooster flutters higher…higher…and flaps into the forest.

“Ready?” Jadon asks.

Do I have a choice?

We trail the battaby with the bright-orange wattle, and our boots slip and squelch through battaby dung fouling the forest floor. Soon silence overtakes the woods, broken only by the flapping of the creature’s leather wings and our boots upon wet ground.

“We’re heading north,” Jadon says, head swiveling up and around.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, focused. “What are we doing once we’re at Azzam Cavern?”

“I’ve heard that the only thing that will destroy a battaby nest is setting it on fire.”

“So, we set a fire. And then ?”

“Use more fire. It’s a big place.”

The shadowy forest bends into impossible shapes, like letters of a forgotten tongue. All these trees, all these frenzied vines and twisted trunks and darkness and darker darkness. Just existing here requires that I trust my feet.

Straining my ears, I can still hear Rooster’s wings beating above us. “Really,” I say, “how do you know these creatures? Sunabi, cursufly, burnu, and now battaby?”

“There was a mage I knew,” he says, “and she had all these sketches of otherworldly tacked to the walls of her hut. She told me that she’d fought them all, once upon a time. That these creatures appearing together meant that the realm would soon come to an end.”

I look back at him over my shoulder. “Yikes.”

“No one believed her. People called her crazy.” He grins, keeping his eyes on the slippery forest floor. “I didn’t think she was crazy. Her prophecy scared me to death. So I memorized those pictures of the otherworldly—there were so many. She got kicked out with the rest of the mages. I never forgot her, though, or what she taught me, and so I trained extra hard because I didn’t want to die, because I was scared that the realm would end before I got to kiss a girl.”

My smile spreads. “And here you are, years later—”

“Chasing Number Ten on old Myrtle’s chart.”

“At least you’ve kissed a girl,” I tease. “That means the realm can now come to an end.”

Jadon snorts. “But I haven’t kissed the girl yet. Once I do, fuck it. Let it all burn down.”

I peek over my shoulder with a playful smile. “Let’s hurry up, then, so that you can kiss her.” I pause, then add, “ Then we’ll burn it down. Deal?”

“Deal.” This time, his gaze lingers on me. It’s the look he’s given me before that makes me heated and woozy. Now that we’re out of Veril’s cottage with its wards, I can hear Jadon’s thoughts again. “A kiss there,” he thinks. “A kiss there and especially right there.” He winks at me before he looks up to chase an end-of-the-realm flying beast.

This is my first time in a forest since that burnu fight. Chasing a battaby is not how I pictured my triumphant return to the woods. Though we aren’t in that part of this forest, I now dread any dark-green space that resembles the dark-green space where beasts left me shredded and bloodied.

Rooster shrieks and drops more crap.

We wince from the high-pitched cry and grimace because we’re being showered with flying shit. The trail has widened, and Jadon runs beside me.

“Can we get to the damned cave already?”

“You can say, ‘Hey, let’s take a bath together.’”

“She’d like that.”

“But no privacy.”

I can’t help but smile as I listen to him prepare for our next encounter.

Jadon takes his eyes off the battaby for a second. “Why are you smiling?”

My cheeks burn. “Just thinking about posies and ponies, puppies and peaches. Also, battabies with orange wattles.”

At the mention of battabies, his thoughts turn darker.

“I hope they’re okay at the cottage.”

We have to keep going—if we don’t deal with the battabies now, they’ll return to the cottage before Jadon and I do, knocking it down, succeeding this time, then attacking Philia, Olivia, and Veril, first by spitting acid at their faces, then by gouging their eyes.

Jadon and I have no choice but to move forward.

We’re surrounded by amber outlines of nighttime creatures that aren’t the battaby we’re chasing, their glows as bright as glass baking in a kiln. Rooster’s shrieks are louder than before. Other battabies farther away respond with their own cries. Soon we run up against a stream.

“We’re close to Azzam Cavern,” Jadon says. “It’s in the middle of this forest.”

There’s a gap in the earth that’s not big enough to walk through, but not so small to require dragging our bellies on the ground. Tangled roots make natural stairs, and I use them to scoot down into that gap and settle onto my hands and knees. Soon the roots of the trees above us space out, and I glimpse a well-lit forest just ahead. More crawling, more scooting and dragging, and just like that…

I’m free! I rest my hands on my knees and recover from all that exertion and from my burnu wounds barking at me again.

Jadon scoots out from the roots and easily rolls to his feet, like all that scooting didn’t set him back.

“You actually look refreshed,” I say, squinting at him.

“Oh, that?” he asks, pointing back at the tunnel. “That was child’s play. Didn’t even break a sweat.”

I grin at him. “I hate you.”

He wiggles his eyebrows. “Oh, Kai, do I make you miserable?”

“Absolutely. Guess we’re even.”

“The cave’s not much farther. Look.” Jadon points ahead to the swirling cloud of battabies disappearing into shrouded darkness.

We march forward, our boots crushing leaves and seedpods, marking our trail with the scent of licorice and sweet greens. Small motes of light, as soft as a song, drift through the canopy. Is this light from the daystar or the nightstar? I can’t tell, since I can no longer see the sky. But it’s beautiful, otherworldly. The quiet is punctured by shrieks and cries.

“Watch out,” Jadon says. “Don’t let your guard down just because we’re close. Look out for wolves that transform into burnu, birch trees that transform into sunabi, bears and snakes…”

And there it is—the small clearing right outside a cave. And there is Rooster, his orange wattle bright against his dark, leathery body, fluttering above the cave’s mouth, daring us to enter. We take a moment to stop and catch our breath.

“Welcome to Azzam Cavern,” Jadon says, crouching. “The worst place in the realm.”