The Hunt

Bethniel squatted between folded roots and hunted for Meylnara’s mind. It was like grasping at dust motes in the dark, her thoughts slipping into a void. She tried to remember everything Selcher had ever told her about Listening. It wasn’t supposed to be something you could learn to do, or do at all if you weren’t born with the ability. But Bethniel had to pry into Meylnara’s mind and wrest away her connection to the forest. She must do it to save Vic and send her home. She had no choice.

The knot of Kragnashians protecting Meylnara passed, pushing through the trees. A conflagration roared in its wake.

Elesendar, the destruction of the forest was starting.

She stumbled after them, trying to stay out of sight and keep ahead of the blaze behind her. Sparks flew forward on the wind, igniting other trees and shrubs. Meylnara’s mass rolled away, moving fast. Rising off the ground, Bethniel flew ahead of it and landed in a small hollow surrounded by messernil. The turf felt firm under her feet, and when she glanced behind her, she saw the hollow had lengthened. The blood drained from her head, and she swooned with vertigo. Grasping a trunk to steady herself, she Heard Meylnara.

She Heard the wizard’s pain. The burning trees tore at the rogue like the sharp bite of an unscratchable itch.

She Heard the wizard’s strategy. Meylnara herself was firing the forest. It was like digging after a splinter with a knife—it hurt yet had to be done. She would trap the Council within their own encampment. No more supply lines would get through, and they’d starve. When the drudges were gone, she would kill the wizards one by one until she found the One who carried the child, and she would keep her until the babe was born. The fire tore at her—it sizzled on her skin and hair—but it had to be done.

Slowly, afraid she would lose the connection, Bethniel removed her hand from the tree. Meylnara was still there, jabbering about her plans, talking to her People. Bethniel could not see the protective knot through the trees, but she knew where it was. Facing that direction, she stepped backward, her foot finding smooth turf. Another step. Another. Five steps more, and she bumped into a tree trunk. Glancing quickly over her shoulder, she saw the path veer left. She adjusted her course and Listened again, trying to find a way to pry Meylnara’s essence from the trees.

The forest made a path for her, leading her on a course that kept her in front of Meylnara’s People. She walked and Listened and learned. Meylnara desperately wished she was Kragnashian. She despised her own reeking species, which stole lands that had once belonged to the People. Small and weak, humans bred and spread like vermin. They had been invited guests on this world, but within three generations they had dug deep roots into the land, and within five they’d forgotten they’d even come from somewhere else. Deep in Meylnara’s thoughts, Bethniel felt the rage as if it were her own.

Yet the forest burned. It cried, a thrumming that vibrated through her soles, up her calves and into her thighs. The fiery itch drove Meylnara mad, and she screeched and scratched her neck, her arms, her scalp, scoring bloody trails with her nails. Within the mass, the People massaged her with their tendrilled legs, but it did not assuage the pain. And yet, Listening, Bethniel realized Meylnara had no idea the forest was aware of what she had done and that it was determined to destroy her.

Fresh tears spun down Bethniel’s cheeks. Meylnara couldn’t be killed without a Sacrifice. A protest blubbered out of her nose, and she swiped at long, ugly ropes of mucus. Why did she have to do this?

To save the ones you love.

She sucked in a shuddering breath and shoved mortal terror into the box. She would do this. For her brother and her sister. For her mother and all the people of Latha. Of Knownearth. She had to. It’s what Father would have done. It’s what Thabean did for me.

The day stretched like a yellow ribbon as Bethniel sought a way to take Meylnara’s soul. Each time the Caldera tribe attacked, Meylnara emerged from her protective knot until her People repelled the assault. Each time, brush thickened around Bethniel, driving her into the protective folds of a massive tree trunk. The forest echoed with screeches and trills, chitinous scrapes, thumps, and thuds as huge bodies collided and fell. Meylnara sent fallen trunks barreling into her Caldera enemies, exchanged lightning and fireballs with the Council wizards. When each sortie ended, the rogue sank within the protection of her People, the forest path would open, and Bethniel would move again.

As the afternoon wore into evening, Bethniel glimpsed Council wizards zigzagging overhead, spraying fireballs into the canopy. Embers rained, and Meylnara grew increasingly distraught, her People harried by the Caldera tribe, her body flayed by the burning trees.

The hours stretched, and the sun sank toward evening. Bethniel’s throat was dry as paper, her limbs shook, her head spun. Her vision blurred; one tree became two, two rocks four, but she kept on, rifling through Meylnara’s thoughts, looking for the key that would let her insert herself where the souls of the trees belonged.

Beneath the canopy, green-tinged light melted into black shadows. A soft exhalation pricked her ears.

“Highness, the Kia led us to you,” Lillem said, carrying a pike dripping Kragnashian blood. Pallid and beaded with sweat, Gustave stumbled behind him. The bandage over the pirate’s stump was an ugly brown, but the sword in his left hand was coated in green slime.

Her breath caught, and she thumbed the steel-tipped blade of Lillem’s pike. The wizards had more metal than she knew existed in Knownearth. Hissing, she shook blood onto the grass and sucked the sliced thumb. “It’s very sharp.”

Lillem’s eyebrows pinched together, but his mouth softened. “It hurts less when it’s sharp.”

“Is this how you’ll help me end it?”

“It is, Highness.”

“I still don’t know how to do it. I need more time,” she said.

“You will have it.”