Prologue
“I know how men in exile feed on dreams…and know such food is vain.”
—Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Ayda stepped onto the balcony to behold the rising sun.
When outside of her private chambers, she bore the weight of her titles. Gran Ayda di Inhoa, Mother of Mercy, the Bride of Heaven. Holder of the Office of the Altacura. Head of the Holy Catedrál of the Ilberian Union.
But here, alone on her sheltered balcony, she was only Ayda. A woman who had grown up a mason’s daughter until a passing priestess beheld her potential. A woman who appeared young for her nearly nine decades of life, but ached with the fading chill of winter in her bones. A mortal woman who sinned in the pursuit of immortality.
How far away immortality seemed that morning.
She allowed her eyes to rove over the town below. Bayo Sol appeared as radiant as ever, its limestone pavers swept and marble fountains sparkling. Ships moved in and out of the docks, ushering in offerings of gold and silver from temples across the Union and bearing away trinkets and statues to raise more funds in Omn’s name. They brought pilgrims, too, come for the first altar erected to their deity, where it lay high upon Monte Ardiente, the peak soaring above the Hallowed Isle. Paupers came as well, seeking the charity of the Catedrál. She had maintained a benevolent reputation since first accepting her office, and she always would. The generous hand was more readily forgiven after it delivered just judgment.
This town, this campus, this island—they were the beating heart of the Catedrál. Refugio, where San Inhoa long ago ascended the mountain and tamed the volcanic Ardiente. Tamed it, and built her altar to a god none had yet known.
It was a seat of power to befit a queen, yet in that moment, she took little pride in her Golden Harbor. Ayda placed her hands on the smooth marble balcony and closed her eyes. Tilting back her head, she let the light rising over the ocean wash over her face. The sun's warmth seemed a benediction as it played across Ayda’s bared skin.
Omn blesses this day.
She willed it to be true. The Unknowable One had Its moments of caprice, but she had glimpsed Its plan. Ever since, she had dedicated herself to that mission. Every spring of her life since donning an acolyte’s robes, she had given to the Holy Catedrál. The rest, she would gladly yield.
She had spilled blood in Omn’s name. Enough to dye the seas red from the Hallowed Isle to the Tricolonies.
And beyond, Saints willing.
Her morning scripture lay open beside her hands, barely a passage read. Less and less, she found comfort in those ancient pages. The wisdom of her forebears lay upon it, yet did she not usher in a new aeon? Did she not Ascend the stairs of the heavens to join their revered ranks?
No, it was not to the Saints she should look for guidance, but another. A more visceral authority.
Her attendants had suffered the edge of her agitation that morning. She had sent them from her chambers claiming a need for solitude and meditations, yet had not seated herself upon the cushions before Omn’s altar, nor taken up the prayer beads of her matron Saint, San Inhoa. Pacing upon the balcony provided more comfort, and the sight of her paladins lining the white walls of the campus below the Basilica Sóveran was a firmer cornerstone for strength. She kept her habitual veil pulled up, even that thin barrier seeming to restrict her need for air.
Her Shrouded Eye prickled with his arrival.
“Ayda.” A voice as timeworn as Monte Ardiente itself spoke behind her. “Do not say you were waiting for us?”
Us. Her mind caught on that unexpected wording. World King Baltesar might claim the royal address, but she had not thought to hear it from these ancient lips.
But she had not become the highest priestess in the Holy Catedrál by letting every errant thought show. Wishing she had thought to lower her veil, Ayda kept her expression placid as she bowed deeply to her visitor. “Undying One.”
A glimpse of him made her grateful for the moment to regain her composure. The Saints’ Servant had always been capable of shifting his form, but the changes she witnessed now were greater than any before. His skin, once cracked and blackened as if by vengeful flames, had smoothed and gained the sheen of umber wood. His slim physique beneath his luxurious robes and sanguine sash had swelled like a soldier recruit after months of training. Most startling was his essence. To her Shrouded Eye, he shone as bright as Omn Itself, a thousand souls contributing to its radiance. It was a struggle to keep her inner vision open to it.
“Undying…yes. More so than ever before.” The immortal twisted his lips, which were suppler than when she had last seen him.
Mockery. She quelled the ripple in her soul. Decades of his visits had taught her to bridle her pride. Even the Altacura could be humbled before one such as him.
He does Omn’s will, she told herself, her habitual mantra. He ushers in the Epoch of Belief. No sea of sin is too dark or deep for the world’s deliverance.
The Saints’ Servant came close to her to peer beyond her balcony. For how cavalier he was with his presence, it was a wonder so few had seen him. Those foolish enough to mention it once had never spoken again.
Again, doubts assailed her as she remembered ordering those deaths.
He does Omn’s will.
Silence pooled within her chambers. Ayda moistened her lips before breaking it.
“Undying One, how may I serve you this day?”
He turned his gaze upon her. Those eyes of his had also changed. Before, they had appeared like twin abysses, and staring into them felt like glimpsing into Legion’s black hells. Now the gray eyes apparent in his sockets were as hard and unyielding as his skin, if veiled like an elder going blind. With piercing intent, they chiseled into her, body and soul.
“Unless we have erred in our judgment, we shall soon have…let us call them visitors. Perhaps they will come this season. Perhaps the next.”
“Visitors?”
“Oh, yes, Ayda. Of a most cordial variety.” He smiled, each sharp tooth as gray as a tempestuous sea. “They will be few in number, but you are not to underestimate them. Take every precaution in your welcome.”
“It shall be done, Undying One.”
Trepidation shivered through her. Did this mean more of his kind were coming? How many more hid in the depths of Unera, only now revealing themselves after untold centuries?
They feel the changes we bring. The last thrashes of Legion before the devil’s fall.
Whatever their form, she would meet their enemies and overcome them. She, Gran Ayda, who would become a Sacred Saint before her time on this mortal sphere was through. When she unified with Omn in eternal bliss—decades in the future, Saints willing—she would be welcomed with all the adoration suited to a Bride of Heaven. All her sins would be burned away by the Blinding One’s light.
The Saints’ Servant slapped his hands together. The ensuing crack overcame even Ayda’s self-possession. He cast her his too-wide smile as she startled.
“Now then,” he spoke as the echo faded, “we are ready for our refreshment.”
Refreshment. A soft word for such a sinful thing. But who was she to defy a messenger of the divine?
She bowed her head and looked to the adjoining chamber. “Instrument, join us.”
A hand swept aside the curtain that separated it, revealing a gray-robed, shaven-headed man. His expression didn’t shift as his eyes fell on the visitor, nor did he hesitate to approach and stop before them.
Little disturbed the placid minds of odiosas. Yet another aspect for which Ayda found them as odious as their name.
The Saints’ Servant stalked around the man as a cat might fuss over its meal. Lifting a long, taloned finger, he traced the odiosa’s jaw and neck until he completed his revolution. A thin red line followed his touch as the sharp nail parted skin.
The Instrument did not flinch, only stood there, eyes staring forward. Attentive and absent at once.
The immortal’s smile evaporated. The life in his eyes brightened as he stood before the odiosa once more, hand falling away.
“So empty,” he murmured. “So pliant. Though useful in his own way. But there is satisfaction to a challenge, do you not think, Ayda?”
She ignored his question. Experience had taught her to ignore his macabre imagination. “If he does not please you, Undying One, another may be found.”
“Oh, we can find plenty of prey on our own.” A smile flashed across his face again, feral as any beast’s, before he faced the enrobed man once more. “For the moment, he shall do.”
Then the immortal lunged at his prey.
Only his spirit moved—the Saints’ Servant did not assault by the flesh—but the violence was not lessened for it. Ayda watched as the divine messenger ravaged the odiosa. The man crumpled as his body went dark and lifeless. A corpse not yet grown cold.
Ayda kept her expression placid and her body still. Could he hear her racing heart? Her repressed breaths? No matter how many times she witnessed this sacrifice, she never grew accustomed to it.
The immortal tilted back his head and closed his eyes. His arms spread out, much as Ayda had done when welcoming the sun’s touch. For a moment, he was perfectly still as only his kind could achieve.
Then he sighed out a breath. Remnants of the odiosa’s spirit wafted on his exhalation.
Opening his eyes, the Saints’ Servant let his arms fall back to his side and faced her. His body, writhing with yet one more spirit, seemed engorged with it.
“Once these visitors are dispatched,” the Servant said, “we have another task for you.”
“I do your will, Undying One.”
Those gray lips smiled. “Burn the colonies down. All of them. Only from ashes can faith grow anew.”
Ayda could not hide her surprise. “Burn them? Is there no other way?”
“Not until the harvest is finished.” The Servant gestured to her, a casual flick of his hand. Even that felt a threat knowing the strength and speed latent in the limb. “You are our storm; we are the scythe. Only together can we cull humanity into a manageable congregation.”
She bowed again, hoping to hide the fear trembling through her being. “If it is within my power, it shall be so, Undying One.”
Though the Saints damn me for it.
“Do not fail us, Ayda.” His tone was light, almost pleasant, but his eyes darkened the words with portent. “We shall return upon their arrival. All shall be as we command.”
Before she could respond, the immortal ripped the world asunder and vanished.
Ayda, still on the verge of speaking, swallowed her subservient words and stared at the empty space. With a shake of her head, she returned to the balcony and let her hands rest on the stone. Still cold from the wintry night, but Omn’s return slowly warmed it.
She basked in the light, hoping to banish the chill quivering through her. To sear away the sins clawing ever deeper into her soul.
1: Embrace
The jungle huddled around Leiyn as she tailed her quarry.
He walked ahead, unhurried and unbothered, demonstrating little care for what might linger in the dense forest. Not once had he turned to examine his surroundings since she followed him. Single-minded in his purpose, he left himself open to ambush—and pursuit.
Still, Leiyn took every precaution to remain unnoticed. She breathed through her mouth. Measured every step. Avoided dead branches and fallen fronds. Winter was mild in the Ofean wilds, but its influence had discarded shriveled leaves from the canopy, making a hundred hazards necessary to avoid. Like a jaguar stalking prey, she slunk around trees, shrubs, and ferns, careful not to let her clothes snag.
To be discovered might spell Batu’s death.
Guilt threaded through her at tailing her friend, but she saw little choice about it. That he had snuck off under the cover of darkness was telling of his intent. A mission that Leiyn knew could only lead to danger.
So she pursued him, unseen and unheard. She even veiled her lifeforce, though Batu did not possess lifesense as she understood it. But in the months spent at their refuge, he seemed to have attained some glimmer of it. Even when she approached with her softest footfalls, she rarely surprised him. He would turn with that solemn stare of his, eyes a reflection of the emptiness in her own heart.
Hollow, both of us. Like two rotted stumps.
She banished the thought. Thinking of their shared loss would not help him. Distraction could imperil them both. Though Batu would never intentionally bring harm upon her or their party, intentions could be corrupted.
Particularly when the plainsrider hunted for danger.
Leiyn followed Batu across an overgrown stream, its water trickling through a carpet of mossy stones, then up the opposite bank. They traveled next to the rivulet uphill. With her shoes muddy, it was difficult to keep her footsteps silent, but Leiyn managed as best she could. The growing gloom in the shrouded jungle made it trickier still. The creatures amid the dense branches provided inadvertent assistance, birds and insects filling the forest with their muffled, repetitive songs.
She yearned to open her lifesense. To be part of it all. The absence inside her yawned widest when her walls separated her from the web of surrounding life.
Yet she resisted. Alert him to her presence and he would turn back. Then he would return another time without her.
She could not lose him.
They continued to climb uphill, heading east toward the Ofean side of the Radiante Slopes. Leiyn had guessed their destination from the start, but her conviction grew with every step. So, too, did her foreboding.
Don’t do this, she willed to Batu. Don’t throw your life away.
He would not have heeded them even if she had spoken them to him. Be it a taint in his blood or the sorrow in his marrow, her friend was lost to any insight she had to offer.
The cave eluded her at first. Covered with moss and overhanging vines, it blended into the verdant hillside. But as Batu neared the mouth, Leiyn detected the beckoning darkness beyond the vegetation.
Darkness was not all that lay within.
Her heart crowded into her throat, choking her. The urge to cough became nearly irrepressible. Fear pulsed through her as Batu strode on with that same resigned determination, shoulders bowed and eyes lifted.
Should she cry out, stop this before it went further? What if she saved his life now only to doom him tomorrow?
Rarely had she suffered from indecision. It chafed all the more for its unfamiliarity.
Leiyn ghosted behind a fallen trunk. Between the fresh saplings growing from their fallen kin, she watched Batu, hardly daring to blink. Moving so slowly her muscles ached, she shrugged her longbow into hand, drew a broadhead arrow, and nocked it. Better if she did not have to use it, but it was a comfort to be prepared.
The pressure against her veiled lifesense presaged its coming.
Batu stopped a handful of paces from the entrance. He did not reach for his battle axe, tucked into a loop at his hip, but only continued to wait, unshifting as a rocky outcropping in a storm-riven sea.
The mouth of the cave was three strides tall and twice as many wide. The beast that emerged nearly filled it.
Leiyn tensed her bowstring as the creature fully came into view. A bear, by all appearances, yet so large she might have mistaken it for a titan. Was it five times Batu’s weight? Six? On all fours, the beast rose no higher than Batu’s chest, but standing upright, it looked to double that. Even the snow ape they had encountered on their way to Qasaar had not loomed so large.
A swipe of its paw could break bones. A bite could tear through limbs, enchanted armor be damned. This was no creature to be trifled with.
More perplexing than its size was its fur. Pale as snow, it seemed ordinary until a stray moonbeam fell on its coat. It struck like a spark on dry brush. Light spread across the bear. In moments, all of it glowed with a pale luminescence.
Even with her lifesense closed, there could be no doubt to its nature. This was a spirit beast like her silver fox, Chispa, and Ketti’s emerald hummingbird. One not entirely of Unera.
Back away! she urged Batu silently. Spread your arms and make yourself seem large!
Even as she thought it, she doubted the usual tactics for warding off bears would work. This creature wielded an innate magic, straddling the lines between worlds. It would be too much to hope it could be intimidated by a paltry show of force.
Batu did not attempt any such tact. Flouting his plainsrider training, he lifted his chin to stare the pearlescent bear in the eyes. Set in the large, pale face, those fuchsia eyes appeared like pits into fiery hells. She imagined all manner of foul feeling lay behind them. Malice. Ravenous hunger. Affront at this blatant invasion.
But Batu had not yet finished his foolishness. Leiyn watched, helpless, as her friend raised his hands to the white bear’s face. The hulking beast watched him, neither growling nor retreating. Its claws did not paw at the ground. Its ears remained upright rather than folded back.
But she could not trust her eyes. Leiyn raised her bow. Her mahia’s walls trembled, the need to lower them battling with prudence.
Batu paused and glanced over his shoulder. Leiyn almost called out a warning, for the bear chose that moment to move. Yet it did not strike as she feared, but drew back, its hackles rising.
Before the words could press past her teeth, the former plainsrider faced forward again. To her relief, he let his hands fall to his sides and stepped back. She began to hope this whole foolhardy endeavor was at an end when Batu folded onto the ground right in the middle of the clearing. Crossing his legs, he sat facing the spirit beast.
The white bear’s hackles dropped. For several long minutes, it regarded the intruder with an unreadable stare. Then it, too, sat back on its haunches.
The bear set to cleaning itself.
Leiyn let her bow fall and loosened her drawhand. As the creature licked its fur with methodical leisure—his fur, she saw as he openly displayed his sex—she realized neither Batu nor the bear intended to move soon. She funneled a sliver of esse throughout her body, easing the stiffness already setting in. But as a ranger of the Wilds Lodge, she had trained in just such vigils.
How long they remained in their standoff, Leiyn could not say. Night fully set in. The moon that had shone on the beast hid behind clouds, and the illumination of his fur faded. The bear progressed from cleaning his chest to twist around and attempt to reach his back.
The great animal started licking his paw to clean his face when Batu rose again.
The bear regarded his visitor with fresh interest. Leiyn swallowed, the sound loud in her ears.
Batu once more approached. Again, his hands lifted as he closed the final feet between them.
Leiyn caged her tongue once more behind her teeth. She watched her friend take that last damning step, then reach his hands out to touch the reclining bear.
His fingers brushed the white fur lining the bear’s muzzle. His palms pressed against the flesh. The beast did not strike him, but held Batu’s stare, unblinking.
Feshtado fool! she railed silently. What in Legion’s hells are you doing?
But she had known from the beginning what this was. An exploration. A delving into the buried parts of himself.
An acceptance of his heritage.
Batu had been told he carried a taint in his blood. Much like Leiyn had with her magic, he had regarded this sliver of Iritu within him with horror and revulsion.
But it was still a part of him. And as she had discovered with her mahia, denying a part of yourself only led to ruin.
A fresh sensation brushed against her mahia’s walls. Leiyn’s trust came to an abrupt end.
Carefully, she lowered her walls and extended her lifesense past them. It was a struggle to comprehend what she felt. Batu’s lifeforce leaked from his body in a way she had never felt from him, flowing into the bear. And the bear’s esse flowed into him.
Tainted.
Beastfolk, most called people like Batu. Ata had named them wildsouls. The name did not matter to Leiyn.
She only knew she could not lose him.
“Batu!”
Leiyn stood from her hiding place as she shouted. She kept her bow lowered, but the nocked arrow told of her readiness to harm.
The bear jerked back, startled. She aimed, fearing its aggression. It did not strike at Batu, but bared its teeth at her. Slowly, she lowered the bow again.
Batu retreated a dozen paces. When he was out of immediate danger, he turned to her. She flinched at his expression.
“Come on,” he snarled. “We need to speak.” With a final glance at the spirit beast, Batu stalked back down the path away from the den.
Fear of a different flavor filled Leiyn as she followed her friend down the slope.
2: Haven
“You shouldn’t have followed me.”
They were the first words Batu had spoken since leaving behind the bear’s den. Silence hung between them, thick as moss gathered on the boulders along the verdant stream.
Shame should have driven her to an apology. But Leiyn had rarely behaved as she should.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t?” she countered.
Her friend paused and looked back over his shoulder. The beard thickening across his jaw lent him a wilder look of late, exacerbated by his unrelenting scowl. She could not help but flinch. Rare was the occasion when Batu became angry with her. Its coming cut all the deeper for it.
“Whatever I deemed right.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “You cannot choose for me.”
Too late, Leiyn adjusted her tact. “Batu, please try to understand. I know this is something you have to explore—Saints, I know better than anyone. But doing that, when we don’t know the consequences… It’s dangerous.”
The plainsrider laughed, a harsh, biting thing. “You’re one to speak against being rash.”
“I’m the authority on it,” she retorted. “Who better?”
“Just what did you think I was doing?”
Leiyn moved around Batu, tired of speaking to his back. “Bonding with it.”
He failed to meet her gaze. It was all the confirmation she needed.
She wanted to seize hold of him, break the solitude that swaddled him, but did not yet dare. Instead, she adjusted her longbow where it hung from her shoulder.
“We don’t know what would happen if you did that. I can’t…” Leiyn swallowed and looked aside, not daring to voice that hidden fear. “Isla wouldn’t want that,” she said. “She wouldn’t want you harmed.”
“Isla’s not here.” His words were soft, but they seethed with feeling. Like sharks swimming beneath the surface of a black sea. “She doesn’t get a say in what I do. Not anymore.”
“Batu…”
“The rest of you can fight.” Batu stared into the dark jungle ahead, his lifefire sputtering. A campfire trying to remain lit amid a downpour. “Fight him. If I’d been stronger, I could have…”
“Don’t.” She spoke harsher than she meant to, unable to rein herself in. Casting aside caution, she grabbed his shoulder and shook him, as if that might banish the thoughts in his head. Her esse touched his, another layer of conviction. “Don’t go down that path. We didn’t kill her. Don’t take blame that isn’t yours.”
She spoke as much to herself as him. How often had she condemned herself for what happened that day? Counterfactuals haunted her sleepless nights. Nightmares came when she finally slept, haunting her with her failures.
Each time, she saw Isla’s lifeless eyes staring back. Her friend’s blood staining her hands.
Batu looked askance at her. “I don’t,” he said, softer now. “But it doesn’t change the facts. You have your mahia and Clouded Fang. Ketti has magic. So does Ekosa. Teya has enough to get by. And Ata is Ata. You all can fight lyshans and odiosas and titans. While I…” He shook his head. “I can’t. Not as I am. But my tainted blood—my heritage,” he corrected himself, adopting the word Ata used to refer to it. “If I embrace it, I can fight with you. I can take down that bastard.”
Leiyn let her hand fall away. She wanted to deny his reasoning, but he was right, in part. Lacking mahia made Batu less dangerous to their enemies.
And what if we lose you? she wanted to ask.
But she feared what his answer might be. So she addressed instead the pain they shared. What drove them each day toward the edge of despair.
“I miss her, too.”
He jerked his head. Agreement and acknowledgment was in that gesture, yet a trace of denial as well. As if he refused to let Isla go.
Have I?
She bumped him with an elbow. “Let’s head back. Don’t want the others to worry more than they already are.”
Leiyn passed him to take the lead. After several strides, Batu followed.
* * *
The jungle thinned as they neared their sanctuary.
Even set in a clearing, Leiyn might have missed their refuge in the gloom had she not known it was there. Haven, they called this place. In a way, it resembled the hollowed maple of the dryvans’ Glade, a house formed of a living tree. Every balcony, ceiling, and floor was the wood of that grand kapok. Its leaves, yellowed but clinging to the branches, shaded them in a draping canopy. Ridged roots congregated to form a ramp up to its upper levels.
At another time in her life, she would have marveled at it as a wonder. Now, she only saw it as a peculiar ruin. In the scant light, she could have almost believed it haunted. No campfire warmed its mossy lengths, nor did life glow from within beyond a few animal inhabitants. Yet she felt those lingering out of sight, an untouchable itch.
Leiyn continued striding forward as she reached her mahia deep into the ground.
Clouded Fang.
The ash dragon roused to consider her with his searing gaze. For a time after Isla’s death and Leiyn’s exiling, grief had dampened her power so that she wondered if it would ever return. But in the months after, the formation of grottos came easier than ever. No longer did she fear becoming lost in the web of life spread across the world. If anything, part of her longed for it.
The same held true of her titan. Each time she summoned him, more of the ash dragon swept through her. Threatening to consume her, should she let him.
She always clawed back to herself. Just.
Even with the titan fathomless leagues below, their bond was strong enough that Clouded Fang did not need to rise to lend her his strength. A shock of power rolled up into her, then burst through the air.
Their refuge transformed.
No longer was Haven cold and dark, but illuminated by firelight. The windows, empty before, echoed with the sound of conversation. Ketti’s laugh carried across the clearing, spiking irritation through Leiyn. All amusement did that of late.
She stifled it, as she had these past three months. A necessary measure lest she drive her friends away.
Those few who remain.
Batu’s step barely stuttered as they entered the grotto. He could not achieve the transition on his own, but he had undergone it enough times to be inured to its effects. Little rattled him these days.
It was she whose heart still squeezed. Whose fear threatened to whip her temper into a fury if she loosened her grip on it, even for a moment.
Grief makes monsters of us, Tadeo had told the rangers once after losing one of their own to a titan’s awakening. You must guard against it as any foe.
Ever before, she had warded it away. Even when she lost Tadeo and the rest of the Wilds Lodge, she had kept going.
Now, she wondered if she could.
Breathe, just breathe.
Leiyn steadied her breathing as she climbed the sinuous ramp up to their home, Batu trailing behind. By the time she reached the main chamber, her mind had faded back to numbness. As much relief as she ever felt.
Beyond the archway awaited their comrades. Ketti and Ekosa nestled together on a curved bench beside the bonfire burning within the central pit.
The months had worn subtle changes into the Eteman. She had grown relaxed in her posture and laughed often with her beloved. Occasionally, when Ekosa whispered in her ear, Leiyn caught a blush warming her face.
Leiyn had to squash the resentment that flared up. Unfair though it was, witnessing a blossoming love grated amid her grief.
Ekosa provided no relief, for he matched Ketti’s warmth and energy. Yet during their stay at Haven, the eesu had shown himself to be as steady and thoughtful as Leiyn had first estimated him to be. Toward Ketti especially, he was gentle and caring, and toward the others he showed sensitivity to all of their troubles. Many was the night he spent with Batu, distracting the plainsrider from his loss.
The months had wrought physical changes upon Ekosa as well. His hair grew out thick as a shrub, and the braid down the back of his neck widened. A beard spread across his face, though he did not let it grow as wild as Batu’s. Only Ekosa’s thin frame remained untouched, the jungle during the winter months providing too poor of fare.
At their entrance, the pair looked up. Ketti’s smile slipped away, expression smoothing with expectation. Biqqa continued to flutter above their heads, the emerald hummingbird’s long beak dipping into honeysuckle flowers that had crept through a seam in the ceiling.
Leiyn did not look at Ketti yet, but raised her chin to stare at where Teya stood. Out of sight, she leaned on a balcony, staring into the gloom—or, with her limited lifesense, peering into the shimmering haze of the jungle’s esse.
Below the Gast scout and under the cover of the treehouse sheltered their four mounts, fetched for them by Ata in the days following their arrival at Haven. Teya’s draconion, Bane, lay completely still, his lifefire reduced to what would have been a worrying level in another beast. Almost, the huge reptile seemed to hibernate. His stillness did not prevent the three horses—Feral, Saikan, and Isla’s old mount, Mottle—from skirting to the far side of the shelter, their lifefires radiating vigilance. For Mottle and Saikan, Leiyn could muster pity. That proved more difficult for her own ornery horse.
With Chispa and Ata departed for the moment, she had the full count. Everyone was safe.
For now.
Leiyn faced Ketti. “You should have warned me.”
The Eteman stood and met her gaze. The precious stones dotting her skin sparked in the firelight. “We are each free to do as we would,” she answered quietly. “Is that not so?”
Heat swirled through her like fire building in Clouded Fang’s belly. “It’s not safe to wander at night.”
“Don’t blame her.” Batu angled himself between between Leiyn and the Eteman. “It was my choice.”
She met his eyes for a moment before looking back at Ketti. Neither of their expressions shifted.
Ekosa stood beside his beloved. “Please, everyone. It is late and we are all weary. Perhaps this is best discussed in the morning.”
Leiyn knew he spoke wisely. But she could not contain her fraying fears.
“So what?” she snapped. “I’m just supposed to let you get killed by lyshans? Sharo knows where we are—he has to. Every time we step outside this grotto, we’re taking a risk. We have to make sure it’s worth it.”
At her raised voice, Biqqa fled through a window to hover outside. The chamber filled with quiet, broken only by the crackling of the fire. Leiyn felt Teya approaching before she filled the doorway on the opposite side of the room.
“Redlock.”
Warning rang in the scout’s voice. Leiyn cast one more look at their companions, hoping her words had gotten through to them. Their expressions told otherwise.
“I must do this, Leiyn.” Once, it had been Batu’s habit to speak so softly he was difficult to hear. Now, his baritone filled the room. “It will be worth it.”
She did not look at Ketti and Ekosa, knowing what she would find. Their agreement filled the room like an odorless vapor.
Leiyn gave the best compromise she could. “We’ll discuss it when Ata returns.”
“As you wish,” Ketti replied, her tone implying much left unsaid.
Weariness washed over Leiyn. Saints, I’m tired of this. Each day, the beast caged inside her lashed out at her friends. The fear she would drive them away only made it more unruly.
Did they not see she only tried to protect them? That she could not keep them safe if they kept putting themselves at risk?
“I need rest,” she muttered. “Night.” Apologies tumbled through her head, but she could not find the energy to voice them.
Her companions murmured farewells in return.
Leiyn moved around the fire pit to where Teya waited. The scout inclined her head toward the archway, then led her through.
They traveled across the balcony to where the mass of thick vines collected. It served as good as a ladder, allowing them to reach the loft above. Grown used to the climb, Leiyn managed it easily even with her bow slung over a shoulder. She scrambled up after Teya and, pulling aside the curtain of ivy, hauled herself inside their room.
The loft was shaped like a bulb just beginning to blossom. The narrow opening at the top of the curved walls of smooth wood was covered with a thick growth of vines that served just as well as a thatched roof. For all the wonder of Haven’s construction, its furnishings were modest. Lacking wardrobes and chests, they had strewn their belongings across the floor, months eroding habits of preparedness. What sparse furniture there was had been grown from the wood and was strangely proportioned. Designed for bodies not quite human.
The primary piece was the canopy bed in the middle. Ivy hung in curtains around the sides, providing a modicum of privacy and, more importantly, shelter from bugs. Though only made of moss and wood with their bedrolls spread over the top, the hum of heritage, Iritu magic imbued in it long ago, made it as yielding and comfortable as any bed Leiyn had slept in.
Teya stood at the foot of the bed, staring at her. An invitation in that look.
“Not too tired?” she asked softly as she parted the hanging ivy.
Leiyn shrugged off her bow and leaned it against the sloping wall next to the rest of her gear, then deposited her weapons belt and quiver next to it. Standing, she held Teya’s gaze as she approached with purpose. Her hands found Teya’s hips and swayed her closer before murmuring in her ear.
“Suppose I have a minute or two.”
Teya smiled. Light barely infiltrated the room, just enough for Leiyn to see the smile only touched her mouth. She focused on her beloved’s lips and leaned into them.
Teya came alive against her skin. Their lifefires leaned toward one another, extending out from their bodies to merge.
Lips pressed together. Tongues darting. Esses flirting, twisting and twining.
Teya encircled Leiyn in her arms and moved them onto the bed. Their limbs entangled as much as their lifeforce. Flames raced along her skin, soothing, invigorating. Burning away all other thoughts.
Leiyn yielded to the moment. Escape lay in Teya’s embrace. She drank it down, thirsty for even the faintest taste.
Fleeting though its comfort proved to be.
3: Cold Claws
Night, Leiyn’s father once told her, is when fear comes out. Cage it, lion cub. Deny it. Don’t think of your fears—think of me. Of your home. Remember what brings you joy.
Perhaps that was why she hardly slept. Fear had swallowed what little joy she had.
She forced herself to lie next to Teya long after she knew sleep would not come. Leiyn had hoped their intimacy would morph into rest. Instead, grief clawed back in, raking across her soul.
She had already tried inhabiting her senses to clear her mind of it. Inhaling the earthy perfume of their surroundings and Teya’s scent lingering on her skin. Listening to the songs of crickets and potoos, the wind rustling through the leaves.
But when her focus drifted, in the pause between thoughts—there, fear pounced and seized her.
Her other practice of listing the tasks needing to be done the next day was similarly ineffective. Inevitably, thinking of the future led to her worries for it. That they had delayed too long here in the Ofean wilderness. That she was incapable of action. Paralyzed by doubt.
Each day, she pressed back against that drowning tide. She had not lain idle, but striven to harness the power that could keep her and her friends alive. She had mastered the forming of grottos in a season when it had taken Ketti years to learn. Clouded Fang was a part of her, no more than a thought away.
She prepared to battle her fear. But still, she feared meeting it.
You’re not enough, a voice that resembled Sharo’s whispered during the sleepless nights. You’ll never be enough. How could you be? You weren’t enough to save her.
As with every night, there came a point where she could no longer endure it. Leiyn rose silently, ducked beneath the curtain of ivy, and drew on her clothes. She scarcely knew why she bothered taking them off.
When she had slipped on her shoes, she climbed down to the balcony below and leaned on the railing. Only Young Chiuni, the smaller moon, was out that night. Its scant light draped over the clearing but failed to penetrate the foliage beyond.
Leiyn closed her eyes and spread her lifesense, immersing herself in the jungle. Claiming what comfort she could in the web of life. When that did not ease the ache in her chest, she reached for the pouch at her hip and drew out the fox figurine. Its features had begun to smooth from her constant touch, but it was the faint spark within that mattered more. The last remnant of a man who had been as good as a father to her.
Tadeo, she called to him through her mahia. Beseeching him to respond. But too little of him remained.
Since first sensing him as she drowned in Anchor’s Refuge, she had reached for more. To communicate with his spirit. Know him as she had in life. Yet all she could sense was that vague spark of lifefire. Only that the lodgemaster had held it while he died assured her it was him.
Even with so little of him left, to feel him with her, to know it was Tadeo…it was enough. Enough for her to press on.
We’re ready. I am ready.
She had purged herself of shortcomings. She could summon and draw upon her ash dragon. She could sense Unera in its entirety, and from that awareness, form and step through grottos. Her aim with an arrow and her skill with her twin falchions had never been keener.
She was ready to hunt.
Only one flaw remained to undermine her. The fear that found her when she let down her guard.
If you let her die, that insidious voice whispered, how can you save any of them?
She had learned to ignore her doubts. Now, purpose was what she needed most. A target to sight.
Still, it was denied to her.
Though Ata spent most of her time away from Haven, departing for days and weeks at a time, she had little to show for it. Only hints and rumors of where Sharo might have been. The sly lyshan remained as elusive as before.
They suspected the same could not be said of themselves. Practicing with mahia outside of their grotto—Leiyn in harnessing Clouded Fang, Ketti and Ekosa leashing other titans—was too conspicuous to hope otherwise. Ata could sense mahia across much of the Veiled Lands. She claimed her fellow Iritu had similar capacities.
Sharo was not coming after them. There would be no luring him to his fate. They had to seek him out.
Leiyn clenched her hands into fists and pressed into the smooth, wood railing. Time. The more time they gave Sharo, the deeper he burrowed into human society. He and his lyshans might devise ways of beating them. New, dreadful techniques that would end their stuttering rebellion.
Then who would stop him from enslaving all humanity?
They could not give him more time, yet still, Leiyn doubted her motivations. Ever had she been rash. Impatient. The arrow hastily aimed rarely found its mark. They had to know where to go before conducting an attack.
But if I don’t find a target, she thought, lifting her chin, I might just shoot for the moons.
“I thought I wore you out.”
Leiyn turned as Teya descended from their loft. She had felt her stirring above, but had not dredged up the will to face her. Now, she painted on a smile.
“Sorry to wake you, my sky.”
The scout waved a hand, feigning nonchalance. “I would be a poor situal if I could not go one night without rest.”
Quiet fell. Neither acknowledged that, after Teya’s decision to follow Leiyn into exile, she was a situal no longer.
Leiyn traced constellations with her eyes. Teya had given up everything to be here. They all had. Each was an exile, self-imposed or by decree. Their goal was nearly all they shared in common.
It cannot be for nothing.
“The exile has no home.” The words left her lips before she could reconsider them. “Ekosa said that before, I think.”
“It sounds like the very definition of the word.” Still, Teya kept her words light.
Leiyn raised an eyebrow. “You know it’s more than that.”
The former situal inclined her head and looked out over the jungle. Leiyn faced forward as well. Limned with moonlight, lush green leaves transformed into scythes of silver. Beautiful but deadly. Cold.
Once, they would have huddled together against the night’s chill. Now, each warmed themselves with lifefire alone.
A bitter laugh worked free of Leiyn. “You know, with everything that’s happened, I’d almost think we—you, me, maybe all of our group—were cursed by Omn. But that’d be a shit god to do all this.”
A breath passed before Teya murmured, “Then what do you believe?”
Leiyn’s smile retracted. She had seen the teachings of the Holy Catedrál unravel, one after the other, since she had embraced her mahia. Seen Gast and Eteman worldviews affirmed by the formation of grottos and the bonding and commanding of titans. The Altacura, leader to all Omnists, was a puppet made to dance to Sharo’s whims. Even the Saints were held suspect, for had not most of them served as the Altacura in their time? Perhaps none were as virtuous as the scriptures made them seem.
She shook her head free of its webs. “Does it matter? Doesn’t change what we have to do.”
“It matters.” Teya glanced at Leiyn, an emphasis to her words.
Silence fell again, a smothering curtain. Leiyn endured it as long as she could. Uttering what she knew she must almost came as a relief.
“Think we’ll find him?”
The former scout did not have to ask whom she meant. “We might,” she said, each word as stiff as a marching Suncoat. “If we do not remain in hiding.”
Leiyn hid her flinch. She should not have been surprised by the bite of Teya’s bitterness. She had not only lost her people, but her authority as a Spear. Her purpose.
Yet, coming from Teya, that sting hurt too much to prepare for.
“You’re right,” Leiyn said at length.
Teya turned fully to her. “Am I?”
“Yes. We’ve waited long enough.” Leiyn pushed away from the railing. “Once Ata returns, we’re going. And if we still don’t have a destination, then we’ll figure out where to start searching.”
Teya stood straight and faced her. “May she return tomorrow, spirits willing.”
Leiyn suspected no spirit gave a damn—those traveling with them being the exception. She only nodded toward their loft.
“Come on. Let’s see if we cannot catch a few hours still.”
She climbed after Teya back into their loft, praying Omn would hurry Its ascent and bring an end to the interminable hours to come.
4: Beyond Sight
Ata did not return the next day, nor the day after that. Leiyn tried filling the time as best she could. She kept up her martial training with Batu and Teya, practiced her mahia against Ketti and Ekosa. She reached out to Clouded Fang and formed grottos a dozen times over before she was satisfied their bond remained strong and accessible. She hunted for their meals and pretended to make merry around the nightly fire. She indulged in sketching, focusing on replicating the perfect lines of the flora and fauna around Haven. Driving out all other intrusive thoughts.
But her chest never loosened.
Her only relief was that Batu did not return to the bear's cave. He only bided his time, no doubt, but any delay was welcome. As she lay awake at night, she pictured all the ways bonding with the pale beast could go wrong.
But the more she sat with it, the less she could justify her resistance. Only the plainsrider neglecting to mention it kept her from having to confront it again.
The third day finally saw Ata’s appearance.
The dryvan came in the middle of the afternoon while Leiyn and Ekosa were out fetching water. Even amid a city, the dryvan would have been difficult to miss, and neither she nor the eesu could fail to notice her blazing into being in the quiet glade. Loading up Feral with the filled waterskins, they hurried back to Haven.
The others were still gathering around when Leiyn and Ekosa arrived. Depositing their loads in a corner of the central chamber, they joined the others. Ata looked no worse for wear from her journey. Scars marred her face and body, marks from their recent encounters with lyshans—most notably the eye taken by Khamo, the armored devil who had nearly done them all in. Leiyn had never extracted a straight answer from the Iritu on whether she kept the scars intentionally or if she truly could not heal them. If any crossed Ata’s chest, they were hidden by Chispa’s silver fur. Each time she ventured out, the spirit fox went with her, allowing her to reenter Haven without Ketti or Leiyn’s intercession.
“Much the same as before,” Ata was saying. “Suncoats burrowing in along the coast, stranded and desperate. Your consul trying to secure his borders. Conflict between the colonies.” She waved one elongated hand, her eyes—one white and blind, the other chartreuse green—traveling to Leiyn. “Rebellion things, as you’d expect.”
She tightened her jaw at that. Once, she had dedicated her life to Baltesia. Protecting its borders, its people. That was a ranger’s duty, and she’d embraced it wholeheartedly.
No more.
Their “secessionary conflict,” as Lord Consul Mauricio had once termed it, meant little to her now. That war was the lesser one next to the greater struggle against Sharo and his allies. A distraction from broader stakes. The continued existence of humanity trumped any other concerns.
And Baltesia was no longer her home. Its leader had betrayed her.
As you betrayed him.
Leiyn pulled her thoughts back from the brink. Follow that thread down and the despair she’d fought against for the past season would swallow her down again. She needed to rise above it, now more than ever.
“What of Sharo?” Leiyn interjected. “Any leads on the bastard?”
Ata cocked her head, a tilt too far to be natural. “No. Not yet.”
Her chest ached with fire; frustration coated her tongue like ash. She swallowed it back down. Better she burn than hurt those undeserving.
“And a way across?” Teya asked from the opposite side of the circle. By the way her eyes caught on Leiyn, her frustration hadn’t gone unnoticed.
The dryvan started to answer when she shuddered and pressed a hand to her chest. Leiyn tensed with instinctual fear as her esse grew fever-bright, but relaxed as a creature took shape from her. To her eyes, it was a baffling sight. Silver fur peeled from Ata’s skin to ravel into a snout, then a head, then the fox’s lithe body.
The transformation might have been grotesque but for her mahia. Through Leiyn’s lifesense, it was a dazzling transition. One lifefire separated into two, the characteristics of each diverging, the individual flames dimming.
In moments, Chispa hopped lightly to the ground, then pranced over to nestle against Leiyn’s leg.
Even at her lowest, the fox could bring out a smile. Leiyn kneeled and ran a hand along him from head to tail. As ever in grottos, his coat resembled meadowgrass, yet remained soft to the touch. She reveled in the nudge of his esse against hers, as warm as a friend’s embrace.
“Hello there, little one,” she murmured as she looked down into his apricot eyes. “Glad you’re safe.”
He watched her a moment longer before giving her a final nudge, then racing down the ramp.
Rising, she looked up to see the others smiling. She wondered how long it had been since she had truly smiled. Not since Chispa last left, most likely. But as she remembered the topic at hand, it slipped away.
“You were saying?” Leiyn prompted Ata.
“Ah, yes—a path to your so-called Ancestral Lands.” The dryvan tapped a claw to her chin, which made an odd thudding sound against her wooden flesh. “For you mortals, a ship from Altan Gaz remains your most promising avenue. Braving the northern wastes would not be comfortable, I think.” She flashed them a mouthful of teeth, sharp even without Chispa’s influence.
“That is no more than we knew before,” Ketti pointed out.
“No. But as I explored the desolation of that city, Breakbay, a thought occurred to me. You might take a marine Vast One instead.”
Leiyn frowned at the thought. Ride atop a titan? Breakbay was dangerous enough without that dubious goal. Overrun by titans during the Titan War against the Gasts, the Ilberian port had been abandoned to the colossal creatures ever since.
Teya seemed to share her thoughts. Crossing her arms, she shook her head. “I know Ketti accomplished this before, but she nearly drowned on that whale. Those without semah would fare poorly, I think.”
No one looked at Batu, but Leiyn knew as well as any of them who the former situal referenced.
“Not as I am,” Batu said stoically. “But as a wildsoul, I might endure it.”
She should have seen it coming. Too late, she saw the inevitability of the topic’s resurgence.
“No.” Leiyn stepped forward. “We’re not doing this again.”
“Leiyn,” Teya interceded, warning in her voice.
She kept her eyes on Batu. Once, he would have crumpled under her withering look. Now, the plainsrider met it with an unflinching stare.
“Oh-ho,” Ata breathed, her mismatched eyes sliding from one person to the next. “So we have finally come at this.” The dryvan turned to Batu and sniffed, then grinned. “You have been to the moonbear! Let me guess—our little fox here followed you to its den?”
Moonbear. A fitting name for the beast. Leiyn grimaced, but she did not look away. “Someone had to.”
Batu’s glower made his thoughts clear on the matter.
“Everyone,” Ekosa said, his hands raised, “please, let us discuss this calmly. We are allies, no? It would be better not to leap at each others’ throats.”
“I agree,” Teya said lightly. “Besides, we have more important matters to discuss. Such as how Batu came to choose a bear for his spirit beast when it is also his lifemark. A bit obvious, no?”
Their companions chuckled half-heartedly. Batu’s expression lightened to a margin less thunderous.
“I don’t know that I chose him,” the plainsrider murmured, “so much as he chose me.”
Leiyn did not smile with the others. Sucking down a breath, she let it out in a ragged stream. Fear and anger continued to spawn ice and fire throughout her body.
Cage it, lion cub.
“It’s dangerous,” she said with forced calm. “None of us know what will come of it. Bonding with a titan can be fatal. The same might prove true of…wildsouls and spirit beasts.”
Using that term, “wildsoul,” felt as if it legitimized something best forgotten. But Batu deserved better than her deriding his heritage. She had to make concessions. Only then could she convince him not to return to the moonbear’s den.
But what could she concede without losing him?
“Undoubtedly. But, my friend, you forget to whom you speak.” Ata tossed her head, and the blossoms tipping her vineyard hair released a shimmer of pollen. “I’m rather an authority on our shared Inheritance and transformations. The joining will not be bloodless. The little wildling may be required to prove himself to the beast. But he shall come to no true harm under my guidance. So long as you still wish to try it?”
This last question Ata posed to Batu. Leiyn turned back to Batu to find his gaze still trained on her.
“I do,” he answered. No hesitation.
Cage it.
Only then did Leiyn realize the true source of her fear. Of course, she wanted no harm to come to Batu, but it was more than that. Change—she feared him changing. Becoming a person she no longer recognized.
She feared him seeking revenge.
Hypocrisy, in another’s eyes, yet she had more authority than most on the matter. Who better to understand its perilous pursuit, its scant fulfillment? Even as she longed to make Sharo pay for all he had done, vengeance was no longer her master. Hope for a better life, a better world—that was why she still fought.
Rage cut both ways. It had forged her into a weapon her enemies feared. But you could only bleed for so long before it hollowed you.
Before her companions’ gazes, however, Leiyn could find no way to express what she’d learned. They were lessons only experience could teach him. The best she could do was pull Batu back lest he tip over the edge of the abyss.
“We cannot delay anymore,” she spoke into the silence that had fallen. “We have to press on and find Sharo. If Batu needs to do this, I won’t stand in his way. But we must do it tonight.”
Batu stared at her, his brow furrowed. Almost, she thought she detected a flicker of fear in his eyes. The others seemed similarly off-kilter, though they recovered quickly.
“Tonight.” Ata nodded with rare solemnity. “Tonight, Batu Kinblood shall become a true wildsoul.”
5: Wildsoul
The moons witnessed their return to the albino bear’s den.
Batu stepped forward, Ata tailing his step. Leiyn remained at the periphery of the clearing with the others. She had brought her longbow, but kept it slung over her shoulder. Threatening overtures would only hamper their efforts.
The former plainsrider stopped several steps from the cave entrance. He wore one of the few sets of ordinary clothes they possessed at Ata’s advice. Being deprived of his Eteman garments made him all the more vulnerable.
Her misgivings grew with every moment. Only the dryvan behind him kept Leiyn from pressing forward. She had seen how swiftly Ata could move when need required.
He’s safe. Trust them.
As they waited, she wondered what Isla would have thought of this. Would she have approved of Batu embracing his tainted blood or shared Leiyn’s fears? She felt within her for the sparks of her mother and Zuma, warm coals among her lifefire. If only she had been able to claim a piece of Isla before she slipped away, perhaps she would have known.
But she had not. Isla could not guide her or Batu any longer. They decided their own fates.
The bear was not long in coming. His bright presence had roused at their arrival, yet he emerged from the cave at a slow saunter. Unconcerned by the beings intruding on his territory. Unthreatened, she could only hope.
His amaranth eyes flickered over their party, his gaze lingering on Ata, then coming to a rest on Batu. With measured steps, the moonbear approached the plainsrider, every stride a reminder of his considerable bulk. The spirit beast’s lifefire was unlike any Leiyn had witnessed before. Colorless and translucent, it made the bear seem more phantom than animal.
Batu advanced on the bear as well. Slowly, he raised a hand. Leiyn clenched her hands into fists and pitted her will against her instincts. The others tensed beside her. Ketti and Ekosa twitched with nerves. Teya’s posture remained relaxed, but her esse stirred with readiness, cerulean flames flicking outside her body as she extended her lifesense.
Only Ata defied the atmosphere. Examining a talon, she picked at it with all the fastidiousness of a chickadee cleaning its nest.
Bear and man neared each other. Batu’s hand hovered next to the albino’s snout.
He pressed it down.
The moonbear flinched. Its lips parted to reveal yellowed teeth. A rumbling growl worked up from its belly to fill the glade.
It took all of Leiyn’s will to remain where she was.
Ata ceased to preen, but made no move forward. After several moments, the beast quieted and sealed its lips shut. Leiyn felt its spirit quest forward, translucent flames curling up and around Batu’s arm.
He stiffened as if the bear’s touch burned, but he did not retreat. Still as summer mountains, the plainsrider allowed the creature to explore him, within and without. The bear’s nose twitched as he sniffed him, his unnatural eyes boring into Batu.
Leiyn barely saw the paw rise before it battered Batu to the ground.
She lunged forward, snarling, hands reaching for her weapons. But someone had thrown their arms around her to hold her back.
“Stop!” Teya hissed in Leiyn’s ear. “Remember what Ata said? This is a test!”
“It’s killing him!” Drawing on the amber beads at her hip for a spurt of a strength, Leiyn threw off the scout and slipped her longbow into hand.
But she paused at Ata’s gaze from across the clearing. The dryvan had not moved from her position, but she no longer stood in repose.
“Observe, Awakener,” the dryvan commanded her.
Leiyn looked back to the scene, stomach twisting. Man and beast circled one another, Batu having regained his feet. Her friend was bleeding from a trio of tears in his shoulder, but he scarcely seemed to notice. His axe he had left with Ekosa, so he faced his adversary empty-handed.
He’s going to die.
“Leiyn,” Ata cautioned again. “Do not interfere.”
Batu flickered his eyes toward her, emphasizing the Iritu’s words.
Only at that look did Leiyn subside. Lowering her bow, she watched, foreboding churning her stomach. A volcano simmering, waiting to erupt.
The spirit beast rumbled again, then lumbered forward before rising onto its hind legs. Batu dodged its swiping paws, then threw himself against it. Even catching it blindsided, his shove had no effect; it outweighed him by far too much.
The moonbear roared again as it collapsed upon him, driving him to the ground.
No! Every part of Leiyn yearned to leap forward. She only realized she raised her bow again when Teya’s hand arrested it. Once more, Leiyn relented, striving against her every instinct. Fighting down the fear.
Cage it.
The monstrous creature had Batu pinned. One great paw pressed down on the plainsrider’s chest, crushing him. Yet Batu struggled on. His hands on its leg, he pushed against it. His face, littered with scrapes and cuts, was a mask of resolve as he kicked and bucked.
Futile, all of it.
She was losing him. Watching him die. Letting him. Her bow tried coming up on its own.
Teya pushed it back down.
The moonbear lowered its broad face to loom over Batu, its snout inches away. Its lips parted so it slavered over him. Another moment, and it would sink its teeth into his face, kill him and devour him in front of them.
But it did not. Instead, their boundaries bled away.
In contrast to the moments before, this sharing was as gentle as the first exchange she had observed. Batu’s sage lifefire and the moonbear’s pale flames twisted together, melding into a ghostly green. More and more of himself, he yielded to the spirit beast.
They were becoming one.
Instead of her fears waxing, relief washed through her. The moonbear would not kill him. Batu had passed its test. Not to overcome it, but to display just as fierce a spirit.
At last, fear gave way to curiosity.
She wondered how this merging felt. Was it as natural as her bonding with Clouded Fang, powerful and true? Or more like Chispa’s soft comfort? When she embraced her mahia, she had exposed herself to all it could offer. But this went beyond anything she would experience.
Teya pressed tighter on her arm. A warning.
Leiyn blinked, reasserting her vision. Lost in lifesense, she only then realized what the former scout already had.
Batu was changing shape.
The bonding did not stop at their spirits. Like Chispa with Ata, the two joined in body as well. Where the bear’s paw pressed on Batu’s chest, its fur and flesh flowed over him, like sap melting down a tree trunk on a blistering summer day.
She recoiled even as it captured her fascination.
Batu’s skin bulged, then pale fur burst from it. His muscles rippled and swelled, tearing through his ragged clothes. Her friend threw back his head, face twisted with agony. The transition was not devoid of pain.
Yet this was what he wanted. To follow this through. She had no choice but to accept it.
More and more of the moonbear went into him. Following the paw and leg, it sank in at the shoulder; then the rest followed, deflating the massive form like a doll deprived of its filling. Batu grew as he absorbed it, writhing and moaning all the while. He lengthened and broadened until he rivaled the bear’s size.
How long they watched, she could not say. But it seemed a long time later that it was finally done. For a moment, the clearing lay quiet. Leiyn stared at what had become of her friend. He lay, mutated and exhausted, on the moist ground. The pale fur covering him had gone dark in places; from blood or dirt, she could not tell.
Then he roused and flipped onto his hands and feet that had transformed into elongated paws. Rising on his hind legs, he loomed over them, twice as tall as Leiyn. Batu’s brown eyes were tinged pink as they peered over their group, small amid his expanded face. Some of the human she knew remained in his features, the shape and suggestion of them.
But it was a beast that looked down upon them.
Batu threw back his head and bellowed. Leiyn retreated a step with the others, then held her ground. She had to believe Batu was still in there. That he would never hurt them.
Her friend fell to all fours and observed them again. Then, moving at a swift lumbering lope, he fled into the jungle.
They listened until his crashing faded from hearing before any spoke. Ketti muttered something under her breath in the same manner as devout Omnists warded off evil spirits. Teya was more explicit with her curses.
“Gresht! I do not know what I expected, but it was not that.”
Leiyn shook her head in silent agreement. Part of her followed Batu’s flight through the dense forest, her lifesense easily tracking his progress.
Ata smiled imperiously as she sauntered back to them. “He’ll be at it until the moons set. A bit like the ‘teething’ you mortals go through. Has to sort out the snags and twists.” She rolled her head around at an exaggerated angle as if to work out kinks in her neck. “No need to wait here. He will find us when he is ready.”
“He’ll be safe?” Formidable as he now appeared, Leiyn doubted Batu could take on a lyshan alone. Especially not when he was still unpracticed in this new form.
“Safe as any of us.” The feathers fluttered on the dryvan’s shoulders with her shrug.
Teya pressed a hand to Leiyn’s back, guiding her down the path by which they had arrived. “You cannot protect him from this,” she murmured. “Come. Let us wait where it is warmer.”
With a last look after Batu, her friend growing more distant by the minute, Leiyn sighed and turned away.
6: The Untrod Path
True to Ata’s prediction, Batu did not return until long after moonlight faded from the sky. Gray twilight foretold dawn’s coming when Leiyn caught sight of him. The others had long ago entered the grotto, but she had kept her vigil from without. Other spirit beasts could allow admission into the grotto, but she did not know if the moonbear had that capacity.
How little she knew of any of this.
The moonbear did not return with him, however. After their ramblings, Batu looked as ragged as his esse implied. Emerging into the clearing surrounding Haven, she saw he was nearly naked, mere scraps of clothes clinging to his frame. Scrapes and cuts crisscrossed his body, and bruises were evident on his chest.
But she was happier to see him injured than covered in pale fur.
She descended the ramp of roots to meet him. His hair, normally bound atop his head, fell in a sweat-soaked curtain about his face as he met her gaze.
“You alright?” She scanned his shabby appearance.
He smiled. His shoulders were bowed, but only from weariness. No shred of shame of who he was remained.
He’s come a long way.
She was about to lead him up the ramp when he spoke. “I feel…complete. More than I have since losing her.”
Her. Between them, there could only ever be one “her.”
“While with Sarryl,” he continued, “I—”
“Sarryl? The moonbear?”
He nodded, eyes vague, his gaze seeming to reach beyond the treehouse. “‘Moonlight’ in my tongue. He revealed it to me, I think. Or perhaps I invented it.” Batu shook his head with a small smile. “While together, it's difficult to know which thoughts are his and which are solely mine.”
Almost, she envied him that. “Strange,” she murmured. “That’s not how it is with Clouded Fang.”
Even after months spent strengthening their bond and plumbing his depths, the titan remained opaque. Distant. Their joining was more of vitality and power than of twinned souls. She still did not know why he yielded to her or bore any interest for a mortal. In some ways, he felt more a force of nature than an animal. A storm tentatively tethered.
Batu did not seem to hear her. “I didn’t feel incomplete before. But somehow, with Sarryl, I’m whole.”
“And without him, you’re naked.” She gave a meaningful look down. “Come on. The others will be wondering about you.”
This time, he understood, and a wry chuckle broke free of him as he took in his state of undress. “Maybe you’re right.”
She started to reach for her ash dragon, then paused. “The bear—where is he now?”
“Back at his den. It will be some time still before he wishes to leave it.” His eyes, returned to their usual warm brown, grew sharp as he looked into hers, seeming to read her unspoken question. “But when I call for him, wherever the moon shines, he will come.”
She envied that confidence with which he spoke of Sarryl. She had faith in her bond to Clouded Fang, but it had taken a season of practice to achieve.
Though I need not become the dragon.
“Good,” she said aloud, then jerked her head back toward the living house. “Ready?”
As they set up the ramp, Leiyn reached down for her titan. One burning eye opened to stare at her. Esse raced up their bond, then burst from her in a shimmering cloud.
The hidden grotto materialized from beyond reality’s veil.
* * *
Early the next morning, the others rose and gathered around their rekindled campfire. Even Ata was present, the dryvan perhaps sufficiently interested in Batu’s experiences to battle her boredom and remain in place. Chispa curled around Leiyn’s legs, warming them. She stroked his fur from head to tail. A faint trail of lifefire curled from the silver fox into her, bolstering her after her sleepless vigil.
Once Batu was awake, they pestered him for an account of his strange experience. Despite having little rest, the former plainsrider was bright-eyed as he told of his moonlit wanderings. While merged with Sarryl, they had hunted a red deer, gorged themselves, then slaked their thirst and bathed in a small waterfall. Simple acts all, yet to hear Batu speak of them, each sounded like a spiritual awakening.
He was not just a plainsrider now. He was truly a wildsoul.
When their questions ran dry, Ekosa spoke into the silence. “We decided to leave before. But where will we go?”
They looked at one other. Leiyn was never one to stay directionless, yet she found herself at a loss. Where could they go when Sharo could be anywhere?
Only one place remained. The one to which Ata sought a path.
“Ilberia,” she said, drawing the gazes of the others. “Find the World King in the capital, Vasara. The Altacura might be there as well if we’re fortunate. Maybe Sharo, too. But even if he’s not there, we’ll still take away his puppets.”
Ata laughed and strode off toward the balcony. What she found amusing, she did not see fit to share. Chispa nestled closer under Leiyn’s legs, lifefire pressing into her.
Teya spoke hesitantly. “If we intend to venture to unknown shores, we should be prepared. Let us go to Qasaar first.”
“Qasaar?” Ketti cast her a quizzical look. “Are you not… That is, would we be welcomed there?”
The implication was plain: Teya was as much an exile as any of them. Leiyn harbored similar doubts. How willingly would the Many Tribes aid them when they traveled with a Spear who had abandoned her duty? And if they remained allies with Baltesia, as she hoped, could they aid Leiyn without breaking faith?
But as the former situal stared across the campfire, Leiyn tried for optimism. “We helped the chieftains once. And they know better than anyone the importance of our mission.”
Teya nodded, looking more doubtful than assured. Ketti and Ekosa exchanged a look. Batu leaned his elbows onto his knees, looking more like the man he had been the past few months than the spirited wildsoul from the night before.
“We may acquire more Iritu artifacts there as well,” Teya continued. “Khamo was not the last of the lyshans serving Sharo. Though you have your titan, the rest of us may be served by carrying more weapons.”
Leiyn flinched. Words sprang to her tongue like venom to a snake’s bite. Isla wore Iritu clothes, used Iritu arrows. Where did that get her?
She swallowed them so they sat hard and unspoken in her gut, then spoke tempered words. “Best hope they’re feeling generous, then.”
“We need not only rely upon their generosity.” Ketti wrung her hands. Her small frame seemed vulnerable, almost like a child’s, even as her esse burned high and bright. “Let us return to Solace. Etemans may not be warriors, but there are none more skilled in mahia throughout Unera. And we have long known our enemy.”
“Very long, indeed,” Ata called over her feathered shoulder. Taunting.
The Eteman did not rise to the goad. “If we do not find weapons there, we may recover knowledge. A hint to where Sharo lies.”
A hint. That was all they could hope for now. Leiyn swallowed a sigh and nodded. “We’ll visit there as well. Briefly,” she added as Batu raised his head, eyes smoldering with need. “Only as long as we must.”
He bared his teeth, a hint of feral ferocity crossing his features. Then it was gone. He lowered his gaze once more, animal instinct fleeing before lingering human grief.
Teya stood and stretched. Even then, the sight of it distracted Leiyn, though the urgency of their mission banished the baser thoughts.
“We take the morning to prepare,” the scout said when she subsided. “Come the afternoon, we depart.”
“Do as you must,” Ata said, still facing the forest. “I shall be waiting.”
* * *
Omn’s eye hung high above their refuge by the time they gathered around their mounts. Leiyn stroked Feral’s snout and was surprised when she did not snap at her hand.
“You know, don’t you, old girl?” she muttered in her ear. “Know we cannot take you with us.”
The mare eyed her, a warning that Leiyn tested her limits. Subsiding, Leiyn watched Batu, the last to come down the ramp. His shoulders were bowed with weariness, the night’s trials weighing harder on him as the day passed, but he did not plead to delay. If anything, in his bloodshot eyes lay more determination than the rest.
Including you? a part of her taunted. Where has your flame gone, Firebrand?
As Batu took Saikan’s reins, Leiyn turned for one last look at their refuge. Haven had become comfortable and familiar over the winter. Its living roof had given them shelter from the constant rain, and the grotto kept them safe from the many threats without. It had hidden them from the world when she could not bear to be part of it.
But an exile had no home—none but the one they had lost. Without Isla, without the Wilds Lodge, Leiyn doubted she would ever feel at home again.
Spotting Chispa approaching from the jungle, where he had departed while they packed, she crouched and held out her hand. The silver fox nestled his head into it, then twisted up to look at her with guileless affection. Biqqa had emerged with the silver fox, and the green hummingbird flew circles around Ketti’s head. The Eteman smiled at the spirit beast, her mahia reaching out to her in greeting.
“Thanks for staying near,” Leiyn murmured. “For always being there.”
Chispa purred like a cat as he rubbed against her leg, then yipped. Startled, Leiyn laughed and rubbed down to his bushy tail, making him prance a step back.
“Lay low,” she said, sobering. “And keep safe out there. Might be a while before I see you again.”
She brushed his lifeforce with her mahia in farewell. Though their communication sounded nothing like what Batu had shared with Sarryl, she thought they shared some understanding as Chispa reciprocated her touch.
Without warning, the silver fox turned and fled into the jungle. Biqqa was close on his trail, a flash of emerald before she dove into the shadows. Both vanished to her lifesense as they found a new grotto to shelter within.
Leiyn rose and turned to Ata. “Ready when you are.”
The dryvan nodded, her gaze trailing after where the spirit beasts had vanished. “We’ll take it in shorter strides,” she said vaguely. “Wouldn’t want to lose any of you along the way.”
“Or break any legs,” Batu noted, running a hand along Saikan’s flank. His horse snorted and bumped his head into his master.
Ata ignored him and looked out over the forest north—to Qasaar, their destination. She wondered if the Iritu could sense it even from where they stood. For all the months they had spent together, she was only vaguely aware of the shapeshifter’s limits. And, by extension, those of her twisted kin.
“Stay close.” It was Ata’s only warning before she dragged them into the unknown.
Thanks for reading these sample chapters of The Wilds Exile! I hope you enjoyed them.
If you have, consider backing the Kickstarter campaign for the illustrated edition. Here’s the link back to it so you can learn more about it.
Whatever your decision, I’m grateful you took the time to check out the story and wish you well!
~ J.D.L. Rosell