If I don’t move, I’m dead.
I have to time it just right. Leap as it attacks and hope the noise of the fireball it spews covers the sound of me landing in another tree. Glancing at Melkin’s position, I judge the distance between my tree and his. He catches my eye and jerks his chin toward the branch below him.
I brace myself and watch for my moment.
I don’t have to wait long. In seconds, the beast’s agitation reaches a boiling point and it rears up, takes aim, and roars a giant ball of fire straight at my tree.
I run along the branch and leap for Melkin’s tree as the trunk behind me explodes into flame. I land hard, slip, and nearly fall, but Melkin’s unnaturally long arm snakes down and catches me.
I dangle against the tree, my feet struggling to find purchase on the branch below me, while the Cursed One roars its fury and swings its head from side to side, obliterating everything in its path.
Panic blazes through me, sharp and absolute. I’m not going to die. Not like this. I have too many promises to keep.
My feet find the branch, and I steady myself by holding on to the trunk below Melkin. He keeps his hand on my pack, and we freeze as the Cursed One slithers around the trees, sniffing and listening.
I don’t know what called it here. Maybe it was close enough to hear me yelling. Maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, though I’ve never been a big believer in coincidence. Whatever caught the Cursed One’s attention, we’re in its sights now.
Any gratitude I feel at being high enough to avoid letting it sniff out our location disappears when it bellows, a throaty roar of fury, and strafes the trees in front of it with fire. The trunk below us bursts into flame, and heat licks at my toes.
Smoke billows up, choking me, and the flames crawl steadily toward us. My lungs scream for air, my muscles shake with the need to run, and my skin feels dry and parched, but switching trees now would be my death sentence. I hold my breath to keep from coughing, and focus on remaining still.
It works. The Cursed One swings its head back and forth for another interminable minute, then curls back around, black scales glistening in the flickering light of the flames it created, and slithers its way into the gaping hole it made in the ground.
We remain still until the last trace of it disappears. Then we explode into motion. Scrambling up the trunk, we run along the length of the thickest branch we can find and tree-leap only to do the whole thing all over again.
Fire spreads quickly in the packed density of the Wasteland, but I know there’s a river less than one hundred fifty yards to the west. Melkin knows it too, and we head for it in unspoken agreement.
Behind us, a wall of fire chews through the forest, spitting sparks and embers toward the sky and gushing a cloud of black smoke in our wake. We leap, climb, run, leap, and at some point, Melkin’s hand reaches out and takes my heavy pack off my shoulders so I can keep up.
In the distance, I see the deep blue-black surface of the river glittering beneath the afternoon sun. My lungs burn, and my hands are raw from snatching at rough bark for balance, but I increase my pace as the wall of heat behind me whispers along my skin.
Melkin reaches the river first, but doesn’t jump. Instead, he waits, reaching a skinny hand back for me as I make my final leap and skid along the branch toward him. He catches me, grabs my hand, and together we dive out of the trees and into the crisp, cold water.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
LOGAN
I no longer know what time it is. I’ve been lying on the damp, gritty floor of this cell for hours. Maybe a day. Maybe more. Without a way to track the sun, I can’t be sure.
Pain is my constant companion—stabbing me with every breath and making a mockery of my attempts at sleep. At least one rib is broken, my arms and legs ache fiercely with bone-deep bruises, and my eyes are nearly swollen shut.
But worse than all of that is the burn on my neck. Every throb of agony from my seared flesh is a reminder of the Commander’s power over me. I want to use the pain to focus on a plan to remove that power from him permanently, but my thoughts are fuzzy and vague, and the pain seems so much more important.
A chill seeps into me from the stone floor I lay on, and even with my cloak, I’m shivering. I should force myself to stand up and walk. Loosen the muscles. Promote faster healing.
I inhale slowly, trying to keep from pressing my lungs against my rib cage with too much force, and place my palms flat on the floor in front of me.
My body shakes as I slowly push myself to my hands and knees, inch by torturous inch. Gray dots swirl in front of my limited vision, and my empty stomach rebels against the waves of dizziness swamping me.
I may have gained my cloak, but I’m in no shape to gain my freedom.
It’s a devastating thought, but I can’t hang on to it for long. Heat is eating away at my brain, blurring the edges of reality until I can’t tell if the contents of my head are memories, dreams, or wisps of things not worth the effort it takes to force them into something that makes sense.
I can’t stand without help. Crawling toward the wall is a slow, agonizing process, and I stop frequently to rest, laying my face against the filthy stone floor and shivering both from external cold and the internal heat that blazes through my head but refuses to warm my body.
How does one cure a fever? I can’t remember. My body shakes as I force myself to keep crawling. Keep moving. Keep pushing my muscles to work through the bruises because he’ll come back. And I refuse to let him kill me.
I reach the wall sometime later and discover my nose is bleeding. I don’t know how long that’s been going on, and I decide I don’t care.
I have to time it just right. Leap as it attacks and hope the noise of the fireball it spews covers the sound of me landing in another tree. Glancing at Melkin’s position, I judge the distance between my tree and his. He catches my eye and jerks his chin toward the branch below him.
I brace myself and watch for my moment.
I don’t have to wait long. In seconds, the beast’s agitation reaches a boiling point and it rears up, takes aim, and roars a giant ball of fire straight at my tree.
I run along the branch and leap for Melkin’s tree as the trunk behind me explodes into flame. I land hard, slip, and nearly fall, but Melkin’s unnaturally long arm snakes down and catches me.
I dangle against the tree, my feet struggling to find purchase on the branch below me, while the Cursed One roars its fury and swings its head from side to side, obliterating everything in its path.
Panic blazes through me, sharp and absolute. I’m not going to die. Not like this. I have too many promises to keep.
My feet find the branch, and I steady myself by holding on to the trunk below Melkin. He keeps his hand on my pack, and we freeze as the Cursed One slithers around the trees, sniffing and listening.
I don’t know what called it here. Maybe it was close enough to hear me yelling. Maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, though I’ve never been a big believer in coincidence. Whatever caught the Cursed One’s attention, we’re in its sights now.
Any gratitude I feel at being high enough to avoid letting it sniff out our location disappears when it bellows, a throaty roar of fury, and strafes the trees in front of it with fire. The trunk below us bursts into flame, and heat licks at my toes.
Smoke billows up, choking me, and the flames crawl steadily toward us. My lungs scream for air, my muscles shake with the need to run, and my skin feels dry and parched, but switching trees now would be my death sentence. I hold my breath to keep from coughing, and focus on remaining still.
It works. The Cursed One swings its head back and forth for another interminable minute, then curls back around, black scales glistening in the flickering light of the flames it created, and slithers its way into the gaping hole it made in the ground.
We remain still until the last trace of it disappears. Then we explode into motion. Scrambling up the trunk, we run along the length of the thickest branch we can find and tree-leap only to do the whole thing all over again.
Fire spreads quickly in the packed density of the Wasteland, but I know there’s a river less than one hundred fifty yards to the west. Melkin knows it too, and we head for it in unspoken agreement.
Behind us, a wall of fire chews through the forest, spitting sparks and embers toward the sky and gushing a cloud of black smoke in our wake. We leap, climb, run, leap, and at some point, Melkin’s hand reaches out and takes my heavy pack off my shoulders so I can keep up.
In the distance, I see the deep blue-black surface of the river glittering beneath the afternoon sun. My lungs burn, and my hands are raw from snatching at rough bark for balance, but I increase my pace as the wall of heat behind me whispers along my skin.
Melkin reaches the river first, but doesn’t jump. Instead, he waits, reaching a skinny hand back for me as I make my final leap and skid along the branch toward him. He catches me, grabs my hand, and together we dive out of the trees and into the crisp, cold water.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
LOGAN
I no longer know what time it is. I’ve been lying on the damp, gritty floor of this cell for hours. Maybe a day. Maybe more. Without a way to track the sun, I can’t be sure.
Pain is my constant companion—stabbing me with every breath and making a mockery of my attempts at sleep. At least one rib is broken, my arms and legs ache fiercely with bone-deep bruises, and my eyes are nearly swollen shut.
But worse than all of that is the burn on my neck. Every throb of agony from my seared flesh is a reminder of the Commander’s power over me. I want to use the pain to focus on a plan to remove that power from him permanently, but my thoughts are fuzzy and vague, and the pain seems so much more important.
A chill seeps into me from the stone floor I lay on, and even with my cloak, I’m shivering. I should force myself to stand up and walk. Loosen the muscles. Promote faster healing.
I inhale slowly, trying to keep from pressing my lungs against my rib cage with too much force, and place my palms flat on the floor in front of me.
My body shakes as I slowly push myself to my hands and knees, inch by torturous inch. Gray dots swirl in front of my limited vision, and my empty stomach rebels against the waves of dizziness swamping me.
I may have gained my cloak, but I’m in no shape to gain my freedom.
It’s a devastating thought, but I can’t hang on to it for long. Heat is eating away at my brain, blurring the edges of reality until I can’t tell if the contents of my head are memories, dreams, or wisps of things not worth the effort it takes to force them into something that makes sense.
I can’t stand without help. Crawling toward the wall is a slow, agonizing process, and I stop frequently to rest, laying my face against the filthy stone floor and shivering both from external cold and the internal heat that blazes through my head but refuses to warm my body.
How does one cure a fever? I can’t remember. My body shakes as I force myself to keep crawling. Keep moving. Keep pushing my muscles to work through the bruises because he’ll come back. And I refuse to let him kill me.
I reach the wall sometime later and discover my nose is bleeding. I don’t know how long that’s been going on, and I decide I don’t care.
