The Alektom’s restaurant was on the opposite side of the district. Most of the elexii were gathered nearby, fighting the wardens, but many rampaged throughout the district, as if to ensure the ruins were flat enough.

  With another chime, he vaulted into the air, soaring over the buildings. As he flew, he realized the plaza wasn’t the only battlefield. Skirmishes erupted across the district, smaller than the central clash but just as desperate. Wardens, constables, private guards, and even civilian channelers fought frantically side by side, trying to carve paths to safety. Some succeeded, rejoining the crowd behind the wardens, while others were overwhelmed by the elexii who descended upon them like wolves tearing into sheep. Their screams pierced the air, rising to a crescendo of desperation before falling silent.

  He passed above them, scanning their faces for Rierana. Those who noticed him stared in disbelief as if he were a flying piglet, some shouting at him to get down before he was killed.

  As he summoned his bell, a blast of wind slammed into his back, sending him spinning. He flailed, barely managing to cushion his landing on a half-destroyed cobbled roof. A pudgy aeroxos with the skull of a dodo and fat windy wings full of rattling bones dove at him. Ducking into cover behind a dormer, Skye cast his curse and collapsed in agony.

  His skull felt like a sack of rolling marbles, growing heavier with each chime. Blood dripped constantly from his nose. He’d been using it extensively, and it wouldn’t be long before he lost consciousness.

  And that wasn’t his only worry. His hands trembled terribly, drained of color and pale as a corpse. Yet, oddly, his vision remained sharp. He guessed his bell’s Psycho fantasia was overriding the Aero from his iris, something he hadn’t known to be possible.

  “No time for magical theory now!” Redeyes snapped. “And no time for rest too. Rierana could be in danger.”

  Hoping to minimize the use of his curse, he flew low, darting from cover to cover through the chaos until he reached the Alektom’s restaurant. The once magnificent garden was now smoke and ash, the grand kitchen behind it a smoldering ruin. The stench of charred meat twisted his stomach, but he forced himself forward, leaping over blackened debris—trees, bodies, he didn’t know. He needed to check the faces of the dead, but the thought of finding Rierana among them made him break into a sweat, his chest tightening as though he was drowning in cold water.

  Please be alive, please, he thought as he approached the fiery kitchen. Flames licked hungrily at the remains, sending black smoke spiraling into the sky. The door had collapsed, scorched parts of the roof now blocking the entrance. When he attempted to push them open, his hands burned, and he flinched back, yelping in pain.

  “Rierana!” he screamed, taking off his vest to wrap it around his hand like a mitten. He leaned into the fallen pole, pushing it with all his might, his mind drawing images of her trapped inside. “Rierana!”

  She was the one who’d named him, his first friend. She’d looked after him for months, and taught him everything he knew about the city and this world. He knew it sounded childish, but part of why he’d wanted to become an explorer was to impress her. He hoped to one day take her on one of his journeys. The thought of losing her now terrified him. He felt a clawing at his chest, and a burning in his blood, as if his heart would rather burst than beat in a world with no Rierana.

  She had to survive.

  He rang his bell while holding the half-leaning pole, then released it and rang again. As the pole disappeared, the whole wall crumbled, and he flew into the inferno. The heat was unbearable, and soon he started coughing. Casting an aery shield, he searched throughout, but all he found was broken pottery and singed food.

  Something cracked overhead. As he charged through the broken window, the entire building came crumbling down in a giant crash of wood and flame. For a moment, he slumped on the ground, catching his breath, listening to the crackle of fire, the distant roars, the frantic screams.

  It sounded like the end of the world.

  “The master taught you how to handle this,” Redeyes said. “You have to accept that she’s gone.”

  Skye gave the pyroxos a murderous glare, then ran around the burning building, searching for any trails.

  “Perhaps it is a good thing she died so young before doing evil to herself or others.”

  “Shut up!” Skye shouted, wishing he could punch the pyroxos. Frantically, he searched through the crisscrossing footprints in the mud for the freshest set. He found splash and hand marks—someone must have fallen here. The footmarks leading away from them were widely spaced, trailed by giant, round hoofprints.

  Heart pounding, he followed them.

  At the edge of the garden, the marks vanished into the scorched remains. He stopped, looking around, unsure how to proceed. For a moment, he considered raising his hands in supplication, like he’d seen the master do, but that didn’t sound like a solution.

  “That’s right,” Redeyes said. “Ku’s god won’t help you. My kin are stronger than him.”

  Desperate, he took off running, searching in every direction until a cascade of shouts rose over the commotion. The noise led him to an isolated section of the garden, untouched by the devastation.

  Maples stood scattered over a meadow, their trunks reshaped into large huts by greenfingers. One unrecognizable, black-leafed tree rose strangely close to a maple’s entrance. Skye didn’t spare it much thought, because as he neared, he spotted survivors inside its neighbor through its window, with a familiar face among them.

  Rierana.

  Breathless and panting, he smiled wide, laughing until he was on the verge of tears. Rierana was alive, and he’d found her. He called her name, voice breaking with relief, but she didn’t respond. At first, he thought it was the distance or the cacophony, then he noticed something was wrong.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Why were Rierana and her friends hiding and screaming, even though there were no elexii around?

  The bizarre tree outside their shelter moved.

  The creature was a mixture of trees grafted together in the shape of a man: cedar, spruce, pine, mangrove, and oak. Wooden liana vines coiled round its limbs and along its span. A cascade of leaves covered its back like a cloak. Its wood was rotted, spotted with black lichen and dark green moss, thick like fur on a bear. Macabre flowers grew from thorny stems that overlapped and crisscrossed, misshapen and lacking in both color and flair. What Skye had mistaken for twigs and branches were the antlers of a great stag whose skull decorated its head. Other bones of wolves, squirrels, and birds wreathed its shoulders and thighs. A vile desecration of the dead.

  It reached an arm into the hut, writhing roots snapping at those inside, eliciting hysterical calls for aid. It roared like mad, its failure having wounded its pride, demanding an immediate end to this charade. Standing high, it confronted the hollowed tree, punching its trunk with a might that’d put a stonebear to shame. After one strike, two strikes, then three, the hole was wide enough, and the girls were its to claim.

  “STOOOOP!” Skye screamed as he fired a furious flurry at the floraxos’s back. The force launched him backward, pain prickling through his arms, yet his attack barely rustled the creature’s leaves.

  The arboreal abomination snapped to Skye, an angry hiss emanating from its stag skull as if he were rude for intruding on its hunt. Slowly, it withdrew its arm from the maple’s throat, focusing its full attention on him.

  It didn’t have eyes, yet its stare turned Skye’s blood to ice.

  It limped at first, its mismatching legs slowing its advance. Then the shorter limb stretched, its movements growing faster, its stomps shaking the ground, leaving deep hoof-shaped impressions in its wake.

  Wood groaned and creaked as it picked up speed, the liana vines slithering like snakes choking their victim. Skye backed away as it charged, slowly to sell the idea he was easy prey. Behind, the girls fled the hut, running away. Only when they were far enough did he dive behind a hedge and ring his bell with a pained grimace.

  The monster skidded to a stop, throwing a wave of dirt over the hedge and onto Skye. His breath caught in his throat. Had he been a moment slower, it would’ve crushed him.

  Peeking over the shrubbery, he saw the creature thrashing in fury. It slammed its feet into the ground, shrieking and waving its arms like an oversized toddler throwing a tantrum. Skye could only guess how the curse had altered its memories to justify abandoning its trapped targets.

  Far behind, the girls returned for some reason, heading to the opposite exit of the garden, Rierana at their rear. Skye cursed their luck, lamenting that none of them was a channeler who could whisk them to safety.

  When the floraxos turned and resumed its pursuit, his heart dropped.

  “Over here, you ugly sack of fertilizer!” he shouted, chasing after it and hurling powerful gusts against its back.

  This time, it didn’t pause. Didn’t even glance back. Its strides ate the distance to the escaping girls faster than Skye could fly, as if it had a personal vendetta against them. High, it raised its massive arm, poised to strike.

  Skye burned through his reserves, flying faster than ever, his heart feeling about to burst. The world seemed to slow as the floraxos’s arm descended, and Rierana turned, staring up at her killer.

  For a fleeting moment, Skye saw her as he had when he first awoke: her green eyes gleaming, her brown hair shining under the light, even the look of horror on her face was replaced by a smile.

  “Carve that image into your mind,” Redeyes said. “This is the last you’ll see her.”

  Skye had seen death. In the cave, with the caravan, and here at Solarite. The stench of blood, the broken bodies that wouldn’t reply no matter how loud you called, always left him queasy. Every step of his journey so far had been driven by the determination not to see his friends end up like that.

  He didn’t know what he’d tell her father once he returned to Troqua. “You were there!” Dr. Stenser would rage. “Why didn’t you save her? Why are you alive while my daughter is dead?”

  “So that you may suffer,” Redeyes whispered in his ear.

  “Rierana!!” Skye screamed.

  The floraxos slipped, its massive form tumbling in a cacophony of snapping branches and scattering leaves. Instead of stopping, it slid across the slick ground and onto a nearby road, missing the fleeing girls by a wide margin. Madly, it thrashed and clawed for purchase, but it only tangled its vines as it accelerated into a towering wall. With an earsplitting crash, it smashed into the structure, which collapsed onto it, burying the monster beneath a heap of rubble.

  Despite his fear and exhaustion, the sight was so absurdly comical that he let out a startled snort. He landed unsteadily and sprinted after Rierana, thinking of their next move.

  Halfway there, his foot slipped.

  The road beneath him was coated in a slimy, soap-like substance, smelling of lavender and jasmine, turning the rough surface smooth as a slide. Like the floraxos, he slid uncontrollably, the world tilting as he careened toward the shifting rubble.

  A timbered arm broke free from the debris, then the stag skull rose, roaring with vengeance.

  Skye’s heart pounded as the beast stood, its ruined form shedding broken branches and rocks. He tried to launch himself into the air, but as he lifted off the ground, a vine lashed out and caught his leg.

  Pain shot through him as sharp thorns pierced his ankle. He channeled harder, winds swirling violently around him, but the vine held fast. More tendrils shot toward him, too insistent and hard as stone. His iris cried under the stress as he blasted them away, but more kept coming. Staying airborne became a struggle. His muscles ached, lungs burning with every breath.

  Then the floraxos pulled him closer as it stood, another vine snaking around his wrist, immobilizing him. That’s when he realized that he was about to die.

  Redeyes cackled. “I’ve always wondered how you’d go. Torn limb from limb is such a lovely method! Or perhaps it’d crush you to a pulp! Either way, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  “No, no, not yet!” Skye shouted, tears streaming down his face. He thrashed desperately, twisting and flailing, sending violent gusts in every direction. “I have to save them! I have to break my curse! I have to know who I was!”

  His mind flashed with images of the corpses he’d seen on his way here, then those underground, and now himself. Soon his body would lie under the sun, rotting, a feast for maggots.

  “Don’t let it catch you!” someone shouted from behind.

  To Skye’s utmost horror, Rierana was running toward him, determination etched across her face. Foolishly, she slid across the slick road like she was surfing a wave.

  “Get away!” Skye screamed at her. “Run!”

  “Come to me! I’ll get you loose!” she shouted back, undeterred.

  Before he could argue, the floraxos tore a massive rock from the rubble and hurled it at her. Luckily, it missed, but the impact sent her sprawling to the side of the road. Taking its chance, the creature grabbed another stone just as Rierana pushed herself up.

  “No!” Skye shouted, hurling a desperate gust of wind at the flying projectile. The rock veered off course, crashing harmlessly to the side. But the effort distracted him just long enough for another vine to seize his leg.

  He crashed down into the mud, panic surging through him. He looked up at Rierana who was now running towards him. Once he died, she would be next.

  “You save Troqua? Hah! Laughable!” Redeyes snickered, circling him. “You can’t even save yourself! You’ll never become a master channeler, never see the world, and never break your curse. You are powerless.”

  No, that’s not true. He had his ability.