CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The dappled sunlight warmed her face as Rose took a much-needed swig from her waterskin and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. It was always hottest during the afternoon in the Aswiyre Forest, when the air sweltered from the midday sun—but luckily the tangles of branches high above provided ample shade. Still, it seemed that spring had no place in Axaria. Summer was already well on its way.

A muffled, eerie quiet filled her head. Usually, birds searching for mates flitted above, their keening chirps accompanied by the soft rustle of leaves and the distant flap of wings. But not today. Rose tried to enjoy the silence, but she should have known it was more of a menacing omen than anything comforting.

Their little hunting party shuddered to a halt before the trunk of a towering fir tree.

“Are those …” Eadric trailed off.

“Claw marks,” said Harry. “Though never in my life have I seen markings from an animal so big.”

“Might not have been an animal, then,” Rose murmured.

“Big marks mean big claws,” said Orion, brushing two fingers across the shredded bark.

Rose’s heart skipped a beat. She pointed past the fir. “Look over there.”

Not more than fifty paces ahead, the ground dipped deep into a wide ravine. She could just make out the entrance to a yawning cave hidden in the gloom of three uprooted trees propped atop it like matchsticks. The waterlogged loam leading up to the cave mouth was scattered with a trail of white twigs. Rose squinted. With a sickening lurch, she realized they weren’t twigs at all, but bones, picked clean.

They all froze as a guttural growl ripped from the inside of the cave.

“Demon,” Eadric breathed. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, we should go back and get the others,” Orion whispered. “That thing is probably massive.”

“We outnumber it four to one,” Eadric argued, even while staring at the trail of bones. “What if it moves somewhere else? We’ll have lost our only lead.”

“It’s clearly been camped here for at least a little while. I think it’s worth—”

Harry held up a hand, silencing them. His nostrils twitched as he sniffed the air, eyebrows furrowed. Then the blood drained from his face. “We have to get out of here. Now.” Despite his hushed voice, the command was sharp and unyielding. “Orion’s right. We’re not facing this thing with just the four of us.”

“But—” Eadric protested.

“I get that you want its head,” Harry hissed. “But if you wish to keep yours, we need the others.”

Rose tightened her grip on her bow, an arrow nocked on the drawstring. The fletching was coarse and comforting between her fingers, ready to fly into the inky black depths of the cave the moment she drew the bow taut. “The faster we can round them up, the faster we can come back here and put an end to all of this.”

“But—”

The creature in the cave growled again.

“Asterin put me in charge of this team, Eadric,” Orion snapped. “And I am not going to disappoint her.” Quieter, he added, “Not again.”

A tense beat passed before the captain gave in at last. “Homeward bound, then.”

When Orion burst into the clearing with the others right on his heels, it only took Asterin a single look at their faces for her ice, weaving intricate patterns between Quinlan’s flames, to disintegrate.

Training was over.

“You found the demon,” said Asterin. Her stomach leaped at the glimmer in Orion’s eyes as he nodded, a sharp exhale tearing through her. She sprinted for the front door and pounded on it with both fists.

Luna opened it, a book in hand and one eyebrow arched. “It’s unlocked, you know.”

“Demon,” said Asterin.

The book slipped from Luna’s hand. “They found it?”

“Hurry.” Asterin strode toward the trees, hearing Luna scrabble with the door behind her. Blood buzzing, she nodded at Orion. “Lead us there.”

Quinlan’s fingers snagged her wrist. “Asterin, let’s not be hasty.” He turned to his cousin. “What did the demon look like?”

“Well, we found these huge claw marks, larger than those of any predator,” said Rose. “And a trail of bones leading to their owner’s cave.”

“So you didn’t actually see the demon itself?” asked Quinlan.

Rose shook her head. “But demon or not, we need to investigate.”

Harry led the way westward, more familiar with the forest’s sprawl. Asterin’s palms itched with the craving for long-anticipated vengeance. She could almost feel Amoux’s thirst, waiting for blood. She kept herself occupied by running through the list of ways she had dreamt of since Corinthe to make the demon suffer, ignoring Quinlan’s warnings that it might not even be the demon, but rather just some lesser creature, like the wyvern.

“All I’m saying is, don’t get your hopes up,” he said.

“I heard you the first dozen times,” she bit out, her pace quickening.

Quinlan easily caught up to her. “Just don’t do anything rash, brat.”

She scowled, struggling to fight down the animosity she knew he didn’t deserve. “Quinlan, how would you feel if some beast invaded your kingdom, massacring everything in sight?” Her voice wavered. “Corinthe has been wiped off the map.”

“I would be desperate for revenge,” Quinlan said, raising an eyebrow. “And rightly so. But please, if only for my sake, remember that your mother sent legions of trained guards to take down this thing … and they all failed.”

At last arriving at the fir tree, Asterin struggled to keep her jaw from dropping. The bark on the trunk had been mauled to ribbons—each claw mark at least the length of her torso and two fingers thick.

Quinlan let out a low whistle. “I’m still not convinced it’s the demon, but I admit that whatever made these could do some serious damage.”

Rose pointed up ahead into the dip of a ravine. “That’s it. That’s the cave.” And just as the Eradorian had described, a trail of bones, leading to the entrance.

“We can’t go down there,” said Quinlan, scrutinizing the steep walls of the ravine. “If it corners us while we’re trying to scramble back up out of the sides …”

“Then we’ll draw it out from here,” Asterin replied, the omnistone warm in her hand. She kept Amoux sheathed. To get close enough to land a hit on the demon would likely be suicide. She glanced at the others, flanking her on both sides with their affinity stones and their weapons brandished. “Ready?”

Quinlan, at her right, gave her a firm nod.

Asterin took a deep breath, determination heating her blood. She thought of the endless hours she had spent training with him and released a ragged exhale.

She summoned her magic and sent a torrent of razor-sharp fragments of ice into the darkness of the cave.

A second passed, and then—

A mighty, enraged bellow exploded forth, scattering the birds from the treetops above. Dull booms rocked the ground, as loud as cannon blasts. Asterin’s heart kicked into a gallop when she realized that they were footsteps.

She counted to five in her head as a dark shadow loomed within the cave, growing closer and closer to the light. Fluorescent eyes glared at her from the darkness.

The breath rushed out of her lungs in one long whoosh as the creature finally emerged.

In all honesty, Luna felt a little disappointed.

She had imagined that the demon would be a lot … bigger.

It was certainly ugly, though. Matted gray fur covered the top half of its sinewy, four-legged body. Silver scales ran down its torso, ending in a thick, reptilian tail. Its paws were monstrous things, with claws matching the size of the markings they had discovered on the fir tree. Among a row of needlelike teeth were two elongated fangs, dripping a bright fuchsia. Its eyes fixated on each of them in turn, brimming with purple hatred.

“Hold … hold on,” Asterin stammered as the creature lumbered out of the cave. “That man, that witness—Crawson. Crawson said … red eyes.” The creature’s steps grew louder, and Luna had to fight the urge to cover her ears. “And black fur. And wings.”

It took the others a long moment to process Asterin’s words.

Luna’s voice squeaked. “So … that’s not the demon.”

Harry clapped a hand to his mouth. “No, that’s a dybrulé.”

“Impossible,” Orion said. “Dybrulés went extinct centuries ago.”

Luna gulped as they all began backing away. “Apparently not so extinct.”

The creature roared at them, clawing up the sides of the ravine. Quinlan held up a hand and the dirt walls loosened, causing the creature to slip back to the bottom.

“Somebody kill it,” said Orion.

“We can’t kill a supposedly extinct creature!” Asterin exclaimed.

“Then it’s going to kill us!” Quinlan yelled.

Asterin shook her head. “We are not killing it.”

“Then we run?” Luna asked anxiously. “Can we run now?”

“Running sounds quite good to me,” Eadric agreed.

“We cannot outrun a dybrulé,” Harry told them.

Quinlan nodded. “We stay and fight it, then.”

Asterin glared at him. “No. We came to defeat the demon, not kill innocent beasts living peacefully in the forest.”

“An innocent beast that’s about to eat us alive!”

“Wait!” Harry cried. “I read somewhere … a long time ago. Dybrulés are fire spirits.”

“So we could douse it in water?” Orion asked. They all turned to Rose—except for Harry.

“No,” he said, “we would need a much larger body of water.” His eyes lit up just as the dybrulé let out another roar, the tip of its gigantic, ridged head just appearing over the crest of the ravine. Luna caught sight of its frothing maw, pulled back in a snarl, and gulped. “A lake. There’s a lake nearby. Follow me, and run as if your life depends on it.”

“Won’t be too difficult,” Quinlan said, thrusting out an arm. Chunks of earth tumbled down the lip of the ravine, burying the dybrulé up to its neck.

Together, they broke into a wild sprint, trusting Harry to lead them through the unfamiliar terrain of the forest. Not a minute later, an earth-shattering bellow exploded behind them. Luna stumbled and nearly lost her balance, only just recovering as heavy thumps shook the ground.

“Do dybrulés eat humans?” Quinlan yelled.

“I’m not sure, and I’d rather not find out,” Harry gasped. He surged forward in a burst of speed, leaving the rest of them no choice but to press on faster.

They thundered through the forest, whipping past a blur of branches and leaves. Luna’s blood pounded in her ears, louder than a drum. She didn’t dare look back, petrified of what she might find behind her.

Despite its size, the dybrulé was definitely fast. It trumpeted another roar at their backs. Definitely fast, and definitely gaining on them.

“Almost there,” Harry shouted. “When I say jump, jump!”

“Why are we jumping?” Rose shrilled.

They suddenly broke through the trees, the soil beneath Luna’s feet giving way to loose shale and wet pebbles. A sparkling expanse of water stretched out before her.

“Jump!”

She only noticed the strange, greenish tinge to the water after her feet had left the ground, her heart plummeting to her stomach as she plunged into the icy lake. The water closed over her head, bubbles swarming to the surface. In a frenzy, she paddled so deep that her ears popped, terrified that the dybrulé might leap in after them. Spots of light flashed across her vision as her hands hit the bottom of the lake, stirring up clouds of sediment. Panic seized her. Was she running out of air already?

Trying to right herself only dredged up more muck, until she was totally blind and disoriented. Had the dybrulé retreated yet? Were the banks in front of her? Which way was the surface?

Finally, the sediment settled. But as her legs scissored through the water, her movements grew sluggish. Eyes wide, she craned her neck, heart jolting as she took in just how far the surface was. In her panic, she realized too late that she had forgotten to conserve air and watched helplessly as a stream of precious air bubbles escaped her lips.

Her skin began to tingle, intensifying into a needling sensation that spread all over her body. She writhed, pressing her palms into her temples as a hot stab of pain raced up her spine and into her skull.

Luna choked in a mouthful of water, lungs seizing and muscles convulsing. Her heart thudded in her ears. Swim, damn it. Fuzziness crept into the corners of her vision. Dark cocoons of shadows arced toward her from the lake bottom like ink spilling across parchment, and she felt their cold wetness slithering up her legs in ribbons of silk. From the cocoons emerged black butterflies, their wings slicing through the water.

Her friends were nowhere in sight.

No one would save her.

Come to us, the shadows whispered. The butterflies forced her arms open in embrace. We are yours, and you are ours.

When they attacked, her mouth opened in an agonized scream no one would hear. Her skin stretched, her bones compressed and shifted. Pain was all she knew.

Then in her mind, she saw Asterin on her knees, fighting the yellow-­eyed demon with everything she had, willing to die to protect her and Rose.

For Asterin, she would try and hold on.

But it hurt, hurt so badly that Luna wondered if it was wrong for her to surrender. The darkness beckoned to her again. Come to us. We will be one and the same. Succumb, and we will make you remember.

Remember what? Luna thought.

And as though the words were an invitation, the shadows tightened their hold on her and dragged her into the oblivion below.