Awareness returned like surfacing from deep water.

  Jake could still see. Jonas's eyes were still functional. The severed head was still alive.

  Regeneration keeping tissues viable. As long as Jake was connected the Troll genetics would refuse to let the body die even in pieces. Blood flow stopped but cellular respiration continuing. Neurons still firing.

  Jake could SEE.

  The clearing. The trees. The swamp.

  Jonas's headless body had crumpled to its knees and then fallen forward. Blood pooling beneath it. The corpse that Jake had worn for weeks finally becoming what it should have been all along.

  Dead.

  Jake had to move. Had to warn them. Had to GET OUT.

  The Pantathians were already gone. Marched past without pausing. Without acknowledgment. Just execution and forward motion.

  Toward Hawth.

  Toward his friends.

  The shift began. Consciousness compressing. Tendrils disconnecting. His tiny body changing. The familiar wrongness of becoming macroscopic.

  Jake emerged from Jonas's ear.

  The world was HUGE. Grass blades like trees. Dirt clods like boulders. The severed head behind him a mountain of dead flesh.

  But Jake was free. Mobile. Able to move.

  He turned toward Hawth. Toward where the Pantathians had disappeared into the swamp.

  How long had passed? Minutes? Ten minutes? Fifteen?

  They had a head start but Jake was small and fast and desperate.

  He could catch them. Warn Hawth. Give people time to run.

  Jake extended a tendril from his rear segments. Generated silk. Shot it toward a nearby tree.

  The line struck true. Anchored. Contracted.

  Jake whipped through the air in a perfect arc. Three centimeters of iridescent horror teleporting across distance in a blink.

  He landed on the tree trunk and immediately shot again. Another tree. Another silk line. Another leap.

  Progress. Real progress. This was working.

  Third shot. Fourth shot. Jake was moving fast. Faster than crawling. Faster than the Pantathians could march.

  He could make it. He could warn them.

  Fifth shot.

  The silk wouldn't come.

  Jake tried again. Pushing. Forcing. Nothing.

  He was out. The silk glands needed time to regenerate. Time he didn't have.

  No. NO. This couldn't be happening.

  Jake tried anyway. Pushing against biology that wouldn't respond. The glands were EMPTY. Depleted. He'd used everything during the frantic escape from the clearing.

  Fine. He'd crawl.

  Jake turned his segments toward Hawth and began moving. Contracting and expanding. The familiar rhythm of microscopic locomotion.

  But his spatial awareness was screaming warnings.

  He was three centimeters long. The tower was half a mile away. Hawth was a day and a half beyond that for human-sized creatures taking human-sized strides.

  For something Jake's size, it was IMPOSSIBLE distance.

  Days. It would take DAYS to crawl that far. Maybe weeks.

  The Pantathians would reach Hawth in a fraction of that.

  Jake kept crawling anyway. Because what else could he do? Give up? Let them die without trying?

  Fuck that.

  He pushed harder. Moved faster. Every segment working at maximum capacity.

  The ground passed beneath him with agonizing slowness. Grass. Dirt. Roots. Obstacles that required navigation and time.

  Jake's mind was racing. Calculating. Processing.

  Forge and Kandis were getting there now. They'd left the tower yesterday morning. Day and a half journey. They were arriving at Hawth right as the Pantathians marched.

  They'd meet with the Conclave. Make preparations. Organize the evacuation.

  But there wasn't TIME for preparations. They needed to get on the boats immediately. Head away. RUN.

  And they didn't know. Couldn't know. Had no warning that twelve Pantathian warriors were already marching toward them.

  Jake crawled faster. Segments burning with effort.

  Then he remembered. Air affinity. The Glimmerglider's genetic gift. The concept he could barely touch but definitely possessed.

  Could he use it? Push himself forward with air currents?

  Jake connected with the concept. Felt it respond. Shaped his intention.

  PUSH.

  Air compressed behind him and released. A small burst propelling him forward several inches.

  It WORKED.

  But gods it hurt. Mental stamina draining with every application. The effort of channeling a concept he barely understood was crushing.

  Jake did it anyway.

  Crawl. Air burst. Crawl. Air burst. Crawl. Air burst.

  Progress measured in feet instead of inches. Still impossibly slow. Still nowhere near fast enough.

  But better than nothing.

  Hours passed. The sun moved across the sky and began its descent toward the horizon. Jake never stopped. Never rested. Just crawled and pushed and burned through mental reserves he didn't know he had.

  His consciousness was fragmenting from exhaustion. The effort of maintaining focus while manipulating Air while moving at maximum speed was destroying him.

  But he kept going.

  The tower finally came into view as the sun touched the horizon. That ramshackle collection of Jonas's poor construction sitting in the swamp like a monument to mediocrity.

  Jake had never been so happy to see anything in either of his lives.

  He pushed harder. Air bursts coming faster. Desperation giving him strength he shouldn't have.

  The tower entrance was closed. Of course it was closed. He had shut the door when he left.

  Jake's heat-sensing pits opened wide. Searching for warmth escaping the building. Any gap. Any opening. Any way inside.

  But the damn thing was the same temperature inside as outside. The tower had no insulation. No temperature regulation. Heat flowed freely through every crack and gap.

  Which meant Jake couldn't FIND the cracks and gaps by thermal reading.

  He could see the pig through the walls. Life signature pulsing in the kitchen. Sleeping. Content. Unaware.

  Jake needed to reach the pig.

  He crawled around the tower perimeter. Searching. Desperate. His echoing spatial awareness mapping every inch with a constant ‘Click.Click.Click’

  There. A hole near the foundation. Rat-sized. Leading to a side closet where rodents had burrowed into Jonas's food stores.

  Jake aimed for it and crawled.

  The passage was Dark. And filled with rat droppings and food debris. Jake pushed through without hesitation.

  The closet. The kitchen beyond. The pig sleeping in its pen.

  Jake emerged from the rat hole as the sun broke the horizon. A full day had passed since the decapitation. Twenty-four hours of crawling and air-bursting and burning himself out.

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  And he was only at the tower.

  Still miles from Hawth.

  The pig looked up as Jake approached. Its small eyes watching with resignation. This creature had been through Jake's intrusions so many times that it had accepted the pattern.

  It lay down without protest.

  Jake felt a stab of guilt. This pig had been his practice subject. His experimental host. And now he was about to do something unforgivable.

  "I'm sorry," Jake said. Though the pig couldn't understand. "I'm so sorry. But I need you."

  He entered the pig's ear.

  The familiar landscape of swine consciousness opened before him. Simple. Peaceful. Resigned to Jake's presence.

  Jake couldn't be gentle this time. Couldn't carefully extract or politely borrow. He needed CONTROL. Complete control. Total domination.

  His tendrils exploded outward in every direction. Not careful. Not precise. Just invasive.

  He connected directly to the motor cortex and seized every voluntary muscle. Connected to the brain stem and took the autonomic functions. Connected to the sensory processing and forced the pig's perception to align with his intentions.

  Within moments, the pig's consciousness was shoved aside. Compressed. Made passenger in its own body.

  Jake was in control.

  The pig stood. Jake's will moving its legs. Jake's intention directing its actions.

  The pen. Forge's construction. Well-built. Sturdy. Strong wood properly joined and reinforced.

  Jake charged it.

  The impact jarred through the pig's body. Pain signals firing. The boards held.

  Jake backed up and charged again.

  The pig's head struck the barrier. Blood burst from its snout. The impact splitting skin.

  The boards held.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Blood was flowing freely now. The pig's skull cracking under repeated impacts. Forge had built this pen too well. Too strong. Too perfect.

  Jake reached to the concept of Life and supercharged the pigs adrenalin. He kept ramming. Over and over. The pig's body breaking itself against wood that wouldn't yield.

  He heard something crack. Not the pig's skull. The boards.

  Jake charged again with everything the pig had. Blood streaming down its face. Vision going red.

  The boards SPLINTERED.

  Jake crashed through the barrier and stumbled into the kitchen. The pig's legs barely supporting its weight. The head trauma severe. Bleeding everywhere.

  But moving. Still moving.

  Jake turned toward the stairs and ran. The pig's hooves clattering on stone. Up. Up toward the bedroom where Kandis had left the Glimmerglider's cage.

  The bedroom door was CLOSED.

  Jake wanted to scream. Every obstacle. Every delay. Every second wasted while people died.

  But there. At the bottom of the door. A gap. The bottom wasn't flush with the floor at all. Jonas's poor construction finally working in Jake's favor.

  Jake disconnected from the pig.

  Its body went immediately limp. Collapsing in the hallway. Blood still running from the head wounds Jake had inflicted. Breathing shallow. Traumatized beyond measure.

  Jake crawled from its ear and toward the gap under the door.

  He could taste the swamp through the air. The windows were open. Jonas couldn't afford glass so the windows were just open-air slits. The room smelled of rot and moisture and living things.

  Jake could see the Glimmerglider through his heat-sensing pits. Sleeping lazily in its cage. The warm signature pulsing gently. Content. Safe. Unaware.

  The cage bars were plenty big enough for Jake to get in.

  But they were way too small for the Glimmerglider to get out.

  Jake would have to unlock the cage somehow. Open it. Free the creature so he could use it.

  He crawled up the table leg where the cage sat. The effort was exhausting. His segments screaming from overuse. His consciousness fragmenting from mental fatigue.

  The lock was simple. A stick through a hole. Nothing fancy. Kandis's quick construction to keep the creature from escaping accidentally.

  Jake positioned himself and pushed against the stick with his body weight. All three centimeters of him applying pressure.

  The stick shifted. Barely. So close.

  Jake pushed harder. Segments contracting. Every ounce of force his microscopic body could generate.

  The stick slipped free.

  The cage door swung open slightly.

  Jake wanted to collapse. Wanted to rest. Wanted to sleep!

  But there was no time.

  He crawled toward the sleeping Glimmerglider. Moving silently. Carefully. No need to spook the creature and have it fly out the window before he could enter.

  Stay positive. They're only halfway there by now. It's a day and a half walk but their strides are bigger and they're in their natural habitat.

  Stay positive.

  Jake regenerated the smallest amount of silk. Barely a thread. Shot it against the Glimmerglider's shoulder.

  The line contracted.

  Jake appeared at the creature's ear just as it beat its foot against the side of its head. Reacting to the sudden presence. One small claw scraped against Jake's side.

  The scales held. Jake realized he'd never actually examined his own defenses. Never thought about his armored hide. But the claw barely scratched him.

  Tough little bastard, aren't you?

  Jake dove for the ear canal as the Glimmerglider thrashed. Into the opening. Into safety.

  "Sorry little guy," Jake said to the panicking consciousness. "I need to be somewhere and we don't have time to cooperate."

  Jake's tendrils exploded outward and seized complete control.

  The Glimmerglider's consciousness was shoved aside. Compressed. Made passenger like the pig had been.

  Jake spread the membrane wings. Felt the air currents through the open window. Remembered the bat. Remembered flight. Had all those memories perfect and clear.

  He launched from the cage and caught the wind.

  The air currents grabbed the wings and PULLED. Jake soared through the window and into the morning sky.

  The sun was already up. Hours had passed since dawn. How much time had he lost? How far behind was he?

  The wind whipped against the Glimmerglider's face. Jake had to squint the bulbous eyes against the air pressure. The world rushed past below in a blur of green moss and black water.

  This form was much faster than the bat. Lighter. More maneuverable. Built for speed.

  Jake flew like his life depended on it.

  Like THEIR lives depended on it.

  The swamp passed beneath him. Trees and water and twisted landscape. Jake's spatial awareness mapped everything. Calculated distance. Measured speed.

  Still too slow. Still too far. Still too late.

  Then he smelled it.

  Smoke.

  Acrid. Sharp. The smell of burning buildings and burning flesh.

  No. No no no no.

  Jake pushed harder. The Glimmerglider's wings beating frantically. Muscles screaming from effort.

  Hawth appeared on the horizon.

  And Jake's heart broke.

  Bodies were everywhere.

  The docks. The streets. The common areas. dozens of bodies scattered like discarded toys.

  The boats were sunk. Deliberately destroyed. Broken hulls floating in the harbor with more bodies drifting among them.

  Buildings burned. Smoke rising in thick columns toward the sky.

  The Pantathians had come and gone.

  Jake extended his Life sense outward. Desperate. Searching.

  Please. Please let there be survivors. People hiding in cellars. In floor boards. In secret spaces. Anyone. ANYONE.

  Nothing.

  No life signatures. No heartbeats. No warmth of living human bodies.

  Two hundred people.

  All dead.

  Every single one.

  Jake landed in the town square. The Glimmerglider's claws gripping cobblestones wet with blood.

  And he looked.

  He LOOKED at what had happened. What he'd failed to prevent. What he'd been too slow to stop.

  Bodies everywhere. Men. Women. Children. The elderly. Everyone.

  Slaughtered with brutal efficiency. No torture. No cruelty beyond the killing itself. Just systematic extermination.

  The Pantathians had marched through Hawth like a scythe through wheat. Cut down everyone. Destroyed the boats. Burned the buildings. Left nothing alive.

  Jake's perfect memory began cataloguing faces.

  Jake knew them all through Fallen's memories. Every single person. Their families. Their homes. Their stories.

  The baker who'd always given Fallen extra bread. Dead.

  The fishermen who'd taught Fallen to tie knots. Dead.

  The mothers who'd watched their children play with the village simpleton. Dead. Their children dead beside them.

  Fallen's friends. Fallen's neighbors. Fallen's community.

  All gone.

  Jake kept cataloguing. Kept naming them one by one in his head. Because his perfect memory wouldn't let him do anything else. Because Hope's curse meant he'd carry these faces forever.

  Everyone who'd died because Jake had been too slow. Too weak. Too late.

  There. At the edge of the square near the common house.

  Forge.

  His massive body crumpled against a wall. Multiple wounds. He'd fought. Had tried to protect people. Died trying to give others time to run.

  There was no time to run.

  And beside him.

  Kandis.

  Her body small next to Forge's. Her hand reaching toward him even in death. They'd died together. Fighting together. Trying together.

  After the representative. That's what they'd promised each other.

  They never got their after.

  Jake felt something strange in the Glimmerglider's eyes. Wetness. Warmth.

  Tears.

  The creature was crying through Jake's control. Its consciousness pressed aside but its biology responding to Jake's emotional state. To the grief radiating through every neural pathway.

  A small, faintly glowing creature with large curious eyes and the ability to shed tears sat in the ruins of Hawth and mourned.

  Jake named them all. One by one. Every face. Every person. Every friend and neighbor and family member that his stolen memories recognized.

  Two hundred names. Two hundred faces. Two hundred people who'd trusted Jake to save them.

  And he'd failed.

  Not through lack of trying. Not through cowardice or betrayal. Just through being too small. Too slow. Too weak.

  The Pantathians had walked through Hawth like it was nothing. Like humans were nothing. Like two hundred lives were nothing.

  And Jake could do nothing but bear witness.

  The sun climbed higher. The smoke continued rising. The bodies remained where they'd fallen.

  Jake sat in the Glimmerglider's body and cried tears that weren't his. For friends who weren't really his. For a family he'd stolen from someone else's memories.

  But the grief was real.

  The loss was real.

  The failure was real.

  This world was too heavy for any human to bear.

  Jake was not human.

  But the weight was crushing him anyway.

  Hours passed. Maybe. Time had lost meaning.

  Jake finally moved. Finally forced the Glimmerglider to stand. To spread its wings. To fly.

  Not away. Not to safety. Not to escape.

  Just away from the bodies. From the blood. From the evidence of his failure.

  He flew without direction. Without purpose. Just movement for the sake of movement.

  The Glimmerglider's tears had dried but Jake's grief hadn't. Would never dry. Would live in perfect memory forever alongside every other horror Hope had forced him to carry.

  Fallen had been right. The smartest mind Jake had ever encountered had looked at this situation with perfect clarity and known the truth.

  They couldn't win. Couldn't survive. Couldn't do anything but die.

  And Jake had dismissed that knowledge. Had thought fear made Fallen weak. Had believed determination could overcome impossible odds.

  He'd been wrong.

  The Pantathians were too strong. Too powerful. Too absolute in their dominance.

  Two hundred people were nothing to them. Hawth was nothing. Human resistance was nothing.

  Jake flew over the swamp. Over the twisted trees and murky water. Over the ecosystem that continued functioning despite the massacre miles away.

  Life went on. The eels hunted. The rats scavenged. The spiders built webs.

  None of them cared that Hawth had died. That Jake's friends were gone. That hope had failed.

  The world was indifferent.

  Jake landed on a tree branch and let the Glimmerglider rest. Its body was exhausted from Jake's control. From the frantic flight. From crying tears it didn't understand.

  He should release it. Let the creature go free. Return to its simple life of gliding and hunting and existing without the weight of knowledge.

  But Jake needed the body a little longer. Needed the mobility. Needed something other than crawling.

  He'd release it soon. After he figured out what came next.

  If anything came next.

  Fallen's father's mission. The resistance. The Plains Kingdom. The plan that spanned five kingdoms and decades of careful coordination.

  Did any of that matter now? Did any of that even exist anymore?

  Or had Jake consumed memories of a dead dream? A failed rebellion that ended with the Culling twenty-three years ago?

  He didn't know.

  Didn't know anything except that everyone he cared about was dead. That he'd failed them. That perfect memory meant he'd carry that failure forever.

  The sun continued its arc across the sky. Midday approached.

  Jake sat in the Glimmerglider's body on a tree branch in the middle of the swamp and tried to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do now.

  The answer didn't come.

  Maybe there was no answer.

  Maybe this was just the end. The conclusion of Jake's brief attempt at being something other than a parasite.

  He'd tried to save people. To help. To be better.

  And everyone died anyway.

  Hope's curse proved absolute.

  Jake brought death with every stolen step he took.

  Always had.

  Always would.

  The weight of that knowledge settled over him like a physical thing. Heavy. Crushing. Inescapable.

  This world was too heavy for any human to bear.

  Jake was not human.

  So he would carry the weight.

  - - -

  End of Chapter 50

  End of Volume 1: EarWyrm