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“He thinks it’s the right thing to do.” Lily placed her hands on his shoulders. “Do you think you can sleep on it? For me?”

Luka jumped in her arms so quickly he knocked her to the ground. He settled in her lap, and she wrapped tight arms around him.

“You’re afraid to kill the trees, but you’re doing it anyway. What’s that called again?”

She smiled. “Courage.”

His voice was muffled against her shoulder. “I’ll try.”

Lily woke from a dead sleep.

She rolled onto her side and lifted herself up onto her elbow, inspecting the inside of the tent curiously, albeit a bit drowsy. She leaned over her cot to make sure Luka hadn’t moved from his, then grazed the cluttered and chaotic floor, following the undulating, elongated shadows from the tops of the trees that broke past the thin cloth. The air was brisk and steady and smelled of rain from earlier that evening.

Perfect conditions for a restful sleep.

Lily dropped back down to her pillow, burying her arm between it and the cot. It had been four days since their arrival. Four days of constant practice with the Wraith in order to prepare for Markoth’s liberation. To keep her promise to Kyer to keep Luka safe. Four days of stress and this was the first night she managed to fall asleep without panicking about ash raining from the sky, or her limbs staying locked in a state of toxicity.

What time is it? Lily picked herself back up and reached for a pocket watch in the pile of her things. Her eye caught another glimpse of the shadows, and she froze.

A silhouette stood outside of the tent, staring inside. Heavy, labored breaths expanded a large chest. A primal breathing rattled her to the bone. Lily waited, petrified. It didn’t move until she gathered the courage to slowly push herself up. Padded paws stepped back in the mud, and she recognized the figure.

A huge maw opened, revealing rows of sharp teeth. A guttural growl escaped the back of the beast’s throat as it rasped, leaving fog from its hot breath drifting toward the sky and the hairs on the back of Lily’s neck on end. The shadow snapped its long jaws shut with a clap of teeth against teeth and tipped its head to the side as if listening for something. After a never-ending moment, it silently dipped its head and shot away to join the rest of the dark.

Lily didn’t move until its racing through the damp earth left her ears. Without thinking, she shot out of bed as quietly as she could manage. She was careful to make sure the rest of the camp was still before she untied the straps keeping the tent closed and crept through the darkness, following the little light from the moons into the dense foliage.

It wasn’t her imagination! She heard it, saw it. But it was impossible. How did it—

Lily stopped in her tracks. She knelt down, pushing aside several layers of overgrowth to find a necro aura about the size of a small dinner plate nestled into the forest floor. Not an odd thing to come across, but there was another not far ahead, and another.

They looked almost like tracks.

Lily waited, head cocked to the side like the animal, listening but hearing nothing other than her own breathing and the natural sounds of the forest.

I’m this far. She caressed the aura below her and called it to her hand before standing. She kept on until Luka’s boulder slowly manifested into view in front of her, along with more than a normal amount of dark purple auras, in the opinion of a very inexperienced Wraith.

She followed the tracks until they dissipated—one after the other lightening in color—and then they were gone completely. Lily flipped her head behind her, forward, then back again. She dropped her tense arms and exhaled fully at the realization of how completely mad this was. She leaned against the boulder, nearly yelling into the night, but catching herself with a frustrated growl with her head in her hands.

If there was ever a time she wanted to talk to Amalia. Surely an experienced Imordial would know what was going on.

The wind picked up, the sound filling her ears. As it died down, throaty inhales trickled into the night. Lily collected herself and swallowed back her angered heaves. She crept around the boulder, the cold damp of the ground squishing between her toes. Gluing herself to the stone, she squinted around the edge. Hidden in the thick of the forest, she finally got her first glimpse of the beast in full.

Wolf be damned, and it sure as shit wasn’t any sort of feline, but all Lily could really see in the dark was its size. The largest animals she’d seen were man-sized cavernclaws at the bottom of Rimore’s cave system, and she’d heard tales of the colossal bears in the far reaches of the Reatian tundras that were as large as a carriage.

This animal had to be somewhere between the two.

It tilted its long head down and nuzzled the ground at the site of a bright and fresh necro aura. With a hiss, it opened its jaws wide. A long tongue tasted the air, then it inhaled. The smoke from the aura curled into the beast’s mouth like a whirlwind, leaving the ground void of color.

The creature shut its mouth again, lifting its neck and shuddering all the way down to its long tail. It stamped in place with not one, but two sets of forelimbs. With each shiver, color rippled through its frame in luminous glows of light and dark purples before settling on one the same shade as the Wraith. It was thin, sleek like a cat, and its long muzzle resembled that of a wolf, but that’s where the likeness ended. Each wave of color left behind a glimmer of the skeletal structure barely hidden under its sinewy body.

The vibrant, other worldly visage faded back to a gray, grimy fur so thin Lily couldn’t tell if it was that or skin. The creature licked its lips and turned toward her.

Lily stumbled back around the boulder, slipping in the grass. She caught herself and snapped her head back up to complete, darkened silence. Digging her toes in the mud, she backed away. She forced a few blinks to readjust to the total darkness. Quietly and carefully, she spun around, coming face to face with the creature, only an arm’s length away.

Lily’s heart shot to her throat.

It had no eyes. No black irises like all animals had. Just four empty sockets pulled wide. It bared its gleaming teeth and picked its head up, towering far above her. A growl rose in its throat, and Lily gasped, scrambling backwards, straight into the boulder, never taking her eyes off of the creature.

Her wrist was caught, and she tugged on it before whirring around to another body not quite as terrifying.