The tendril recoiled, releasing the magenta rodent, and with its freedom, it squeaked triumphantly. With one look back at Amma, it spread its arms and dove off the branch, sailing through the air with that excess skin pulled taut like wings, and it disappeared into the canopy.
“Sorry,” she said to the flower, and continued upward.
Enveloped wholly in the liathau’s smell, Amma stretched arms overhead, trying to loosen her aching shoulders. She’d climbed a bit more and had to be close, so she took a break up against a limb that bent upward. There was relief in her muscles at the shifting pressure of the limb on her back as if someone were giving her a massage.
But trees didn’t rub backs.
Amma twisted around and nearly fell right out of the tree. A plated body slithered past, as thick as her torso as it undulated away. Mesmerized by its length and the muscles rippling under the green scales, she stood stupidly for far too long, and then there was a hiss.
Tongue, jaws, fangs. Amma screamed and ducked, scrambling over the branch and away from the snake whose head was big enough to swallow her whole without even unhinging. There was a blur of movement beside her, and she jumped away from it, across a gap in the branches. Amma landed on a thinner branch that bobbed under her weight, arms flapping to stay aloft, bare foot sliding and then catching.
Heartbeat in her throat, she crouched low just as the snake struck out over her head. Its sinuous body caught onto the branch that was her next target, and she changed course, springing away and toward the trunk of the liathau. Which, of course, left her nowhere to go.
Amma spun, grabbing the strap of her crossbow and pulling the weapon over her shoulder. Releasing an arrow from where it was stored beneath, her hands worked on instinct as her eyes followed the snake coil slowly over dark brown bark and between pink and red leaves until it pulled the entirety of its monstrous length up and away.
Back pressed to the trunk, Amma gulped at the air fast and hard, crossbow lifted, ready in arms that somehow remained steady. She scanned the leafy canopy, a spattering of colors the huge creature too easily blended into. The birds had scattered, but there were other sounds, louder than they should have been, and then silence.
Maybe it had gone. Maybe the snake had only been frightened, and would leave her be.
Or maybe it was determined to make Amma its next meal.
Amma shrieked again as the diamond-shaped head dropped down just before her, unhinging jaws and striking. She squeezed with precision, though, and her arrow connected with the thing’s throat. The snake stopped mid-strike, its hiss cut off, dropping, but not dead.
Sprinting away, Amma grabbed for another arrow. There was a branch, one that was too far up to jump to, but she tried anyway, kicking off the trunk, and somehow there was bark beneath her feet. Like steps forming themselves as she went, the tree molded itself to where she needed to be as she dashed upward and slammed another arrow into place. Beside her, the snake struck out again, and she squeezed off another shot mid-run, this one less measured, and it didn’t hit.
Amma swore and kept running. She tore down a branch and dove off toward another, foot landing with a snap, and then there was nothing as she fell.
Throwing her free arm out, she clutched onto the closest vine, the thick tendril pulling free and ensnaring her back. Amma’s body swung, jerked through the air as the vine went taut, and then slammed into the liathau’s trunk. Pain burst up her spine, stars in her eyes, and her shoulder twinged as she hung from one arm. The crossbow was still strapped to her and in hand, but she had no way to load another arrow as she dangled like a piece of fruit, ready to be plucked and devoured.
Glinting scales caught the filtered light as the serpent’s head rose up from below. Slowly it twisted its head as if to show her the arrow that still pierced its throat. Amma groaned and dropped the weapon, useless now, and it dangled from her back.
The snake hissed, jaws lengthening as eyes bore into her. Amma reached backward, swinging herself in a last effort to scramble away, clawing at the bark and wishing she could stop the fangs that drew nearer from piercing her.
Rough wood pressed hard against her palm, and she wrapped her fingers tightly around a new weight. Yanking her arm back, she discovered she was holding a staff. Beautiful, twisted, and as dark as the liathau’s bark, it was dotted in tiny, pink leaves, and in its deepest fissures the slightest glint of something silver and liquid.
She would have liked to marvel at the arcane staff for hours, to celebrate herself for finally conjuring it, to throw her arms in the air and shriek with joy, but…fangs.
Amma thrust her arm forward just as the serpent snapped its jaws. Fangs cut through the air like arrowheads at her sides, the wet heat from its mouth spraying her as the staff caught. Amma hung there, legs pulled upward, and the snake recoiled, mouth stuck open. The staff bowed but refused to break. Wrenching its head back and forth with a furious confusion, the snake’s body slipped, its weight pulling it downward in its tumultuous writhing.
Amma saw her chance, swinging her other hand upward. The tree reached out, bidden by her arcana, to lift her to the next branch, and she broke free of the vines to run. The greenery all shifted to pink as she sprinted upward, through the crossing, thinner branches until there was a bright speck of light ahead. Amma was breathing heavily, her muscles sore, but heartbeat propelling her toward the light.
Breaking through the final layer, Amma’s head crested the leaves, and she fell still. Lungs filling with air so cold her throat began to seize, the sight was enough to take the rest of her breath away.
Trees stretched on for miles, the greenery bending in the wind like a gentle sea. The sky was brilliantly blue, clouds rolling in it fluffy and white, and far off were mountains, misty in the distance. Despite her fear seconds earlier, Amma was filled with the deep serenity of the earth spread out before her, the distance to be covered, and what she had already passed through, so much seen, so much still to see, and thendeath.
The serpent burst forth from the canopy, maw gaping. Amma shrieked and ducked back beneath the safety of the leaves, and the snake crashed down behind her, sanctuary obliterated. Her bare feet steadily gripped the branch as she sprinted toward the liathau’s center and whirled around, crossbow in hand. Treading backward, she loaded the bow with her last arrow and aimed, shoulders slamming into the trunk. There was the snake, undulating toward her, jaws dropped open, and then it froze.
Amma waited, breath held as the snake twitched, its thick rope of a body sliding sideways, weight shifting in a strange way. Then its head fell forward, not striking, but collapsing, slamming down onto the branch and nearly knocking Amma off with the vibration.
She pushed back into the liathau trunk, nowhere to go, but the serpent was already doing the going for her. Its body lost its tight coil around the branch as if it had no control over itself, and once the middle of its weight had slid off, the rest could only follow until the entirety of the huge serpent fell right out of the tree.
Amma dropped to her knees to watch the snake fall as if dead, slamming into every unavoidable limb as it went until its limp body was swallowed up by the trees. Arrow still loaded, she glanced at her weapon, then out at the canopy before her. A tiny, magenta speck stuck out from the dappled green, sailing off with those veiny wings. She gasped, looking back to where the snake had fallen, paralyzed. No, paralysis this far up was definitely no good.
The snake’s body had made quite a bit of noise as it fell, so Amma was unworried about Em still on the ground, but once the sound of snapping limbs was gone, she turned back to the trunk and blew out a breath, looking at it expectantly.
Yes, all right, they’re just over here, she heard the tree say, the voice coming right up through her feet. Amma found the small cluster of seeds, three of them, and she wiggled with joy at the sight. Ripping off the bottom of her tunic, she used her silver dagger to carefully collect the seeds and tie them up, placing them in her pouch, and then she finally sat.
Teary-eyed, she placed both hands on the liathau, but spoke aloud. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
