“You tried to kill me!” I struggle, but he’s so much stronger. I’m not thinking clearly enough to listen. I’m saturated with panic, terrified by his much larger body wrestling against mine, even as he’s trying to calm me.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you!” he shouts. “I didn’t know how to explain! There wasn’t another way!”
“Another way forwhat?”
“TO PROVE YOU’RE AN ELF!”
Silence.
I’ve stopped struggling. My body is frozen. Realizing Cygnus is still holding my wrists, I yank back, lurching away. We’re both breathing hard.
None of this makes sense. How does falling through a tree prove anything? Questions assail me one after the other.
“How…” I struggle to make my voice function. “How long have you known?”
“I had my suspicions from the beginning,” Cygnus explains quickly. “The signs were there. You cover your ears every day, you grew up outwall. When you asked about the wellsprung flowers, I was almost positive. I’ve only known one other person who knew how to distill grizzlefoot or meadowblood, and that was Ragglestaff.Alsoan Elf.”
“Ragglestaff?” I choke. This is all too confusing.
But Cygnus is no longer looking at me. “If you could do me a favor and pull yourself together, I’m also going to need you to prove your Talent in about ten seconds.”
My heart skips. He also knows about my Talent?
“Why?”
“Because I’d rather not die today.”
His delivery is ashen, but there’s a charged current beneath it. Cygnus is scared.
I follow his gaze, straining to make out what is approaching from the shadows. Faint clicking rises from the void—what I thought was water dripping on the rocks. But as I track Cygnus’s eyeline, my stomach plummets with dread….
It’s not dripping. It’s tiny appendages, tapping against stone.
Emerging from the darkness are dozens of giant, bone-white scorpions. Panic flames my skin as I recall what Cygnus told me about the skakabri that stung Daisy…that it was a juvenile version of a much larger underworld daemon. He spoke like he’s had experience with them. I didn’t even question where he’d gotten the antivenom or why he had it.
I guess now I know. It’s because he’s fought them before…down here.
A curse slides between Cygnus’s teeth, and he draws a sword. My hand drops to my belt, and I’m almost overcome with panic until Cygnus hands me my dagger.
The skakabri approach quickly, some crawling up the walls, others skittering toward us across the stony ground.
“Should we go to the lake?” I ask.
“No,” Cygnus shoots back instantly. “They can swim.”
My head whips toward him. “How do you know?”
“They just can, okay?”
We slide almost automatically into a back-to-back stance. “Great. Absolutelyfantastic,” I snap irritably. “Any other ideas?”
“Don’t die?” Cygnus offers.
The nearest skakabri lunges, pincers snapping. I dodge, scrambling as its stinger whips around lightning fast to find me. A second is almost on top of us. I try to dodge them again, but they’re too quick. The first monster’s pincers snap around my leg, and I let out a shriek of agony. There is venom in their saliva—I canfeelit. Another cry behind me punctuates my scream. Cygnus is hit, too.
The self-restraint I’ve been clinging to shatters. My Talent has become a beastly thing, rioting for my survival. It blasts free from the white-hot coil in my spine, expanding and burning away all trepidation as it rises. Euphoria takes over. I will survive this. Death won’t win today.
I point my palms toward the daemons and unleash my power.
