The thing stilled for a moment, my dagger still embedded as it reoriented and tracked my fall. Both of us froze for only a moment.
Just as it lunged I rolled, quick but precise. My hand clamping around one of its legs just as it slammed into the earth. The chitin sliced into my palm, my blood slick even as my grip stayed firm. My second dagger drove upwards slicing into the joint.
It resisted for a fraction of a second before I threw all my force into it, a growl leaving my lips with the effort. Then it snapped.
The leg buckled with a sickening crack. The creature collapsed to one side, thrashing violently, pincers snapping inches from my face. I wrenched the first dagger free from its skull and plunged it down again. Once, twice, a third time, and then finally, it burst.
The whole body ruptured. Thick oily blackness spraying across my face and chest. It hit hot, reeking, and clinging to my skin like tar. I gagged, stumbling back, wiping at my eyes.
What the fuck is going on?
There wasn’t time to reorient. To assess.
My gaze cut across our camp-turned-battlefield. Everything was chaos drowning in movement, magic, the clicking of those awful pincers. My heart pounded too fast, my hands still trembling with the lingering terror of those dreams.
A breath.I’m awake.
Another.I’m alive.
The words looped like mantra in my head, grounding me to the present, to the reality of the battle that still needed to be fought.
Something skittered past me, far too close.
I pivoted, blade slashing low. Steel glazing off chitin, the impact jarring all the way up to my shoulder. The creature spun, pincers gnashing, one leg slicing across my thigh. Not deep, but enough to burn.
A hiss escaped my lips as I took a half-step back as it pressed forward. Not mindless, but relentless. What in Soli’s wrath are these things?
I feigned left. It followed.
My lips curved.
I shifted right at the last second and drove my blade up beneath its body where the armor of its ecoskeleton thinned. This time my dagger sank deep. The creature convulsed, legs thrashing and stabbing erratically before it collapsed at my feet and exploded in another spray of thick, black ooze.
Another lunged from behind, my body turning seconds too late—
Ice speared through it midair, shattering it apart before it could descend upon me.
Roan again. I didn’t look for him, couldn’t.
The fight stretched for far too long. Every time one fell, another seemed to take its place. My arms ached, my lungs burned, every movement slower than the one before. It felt like hours had passed, maybe they had.
And then finally, blissfully…silence.
My body sagged under the weight of my exhaustion. Gaze dragging over what was left of our camp. Our horses lay dead around the clearing, my gaze quickly flitting away from them as my stomach turned. My herbs from the last market scattered from my bag and covered with that disgusting secretion. Clothing laying about, supplies ruined.
Black ooze coated nearly everything. The smell alone had my stomach turning.
My gaze lifted from the ruined possessions, immediately finding Roan. Searching for any sign of injury and relief shot through me when nothing appeared fatal. His swords hung loose at his sides, chest heaving with each sharp rise and fall of his chest. His eyes were already locked on me–scanning for any injury that same way I had been.
The relief was short lived as the memory of his face—burnt and blistered—in my nightmare came rearing back. My stomach dropped.
I turned away too fast. The nausea surged instantly. I barely made it a few steps before I doubled over, vomiting into the snow. My whole body shaking as tears blurred my vision.
A hand settled on my back, but it wasn’t Roan.
Bran.
His touch was light and soothing as he shook ooze from his boot. “What in the Nine Hells were thosethings?”
