Blake didn’t know exactly how the hunters planned on finding the Lightstalkers. But clearly, Ulfreld and the others knew what they were doing, and they knew the rough area where the pride was supposed to be.

  Blake kept his distance, but he stayed close enough still that he could make out what they were doing. He kept to the trees, hiding in branches, and used his enhanced senses to determine what was actually happening on the ground.

  Over the next few days, the hunters would wake up early in the morning. Sclera would climb up on a rock, shut her eyes, then extend her spiritual senses in a broad radius around the hunting party.

  After a few minutes, she’d point them in a direction, and they would set off. They repeated the process every few hours, adjusting their course every single time.

  On the first day of tracking, Ethbin told him to pump as much Honour into his elixir as he could, completely cancelling out its presence and making it seem to Sclera’s senses as though Blake had never been there. The hunters wouldn’t pick up on him unless he wanted them to, which was his greatest advantage.

  As they approached, Blake continued experimenting with his own Echo. He kept trying to compress it, to create a hard shell around it, but nothing worked. He could compress a whole limb now, but as soon as he tried to spread that compression any farther, he lost control, and it all sprang out of order.

  He couldn’t remember exactly how long he had until the next Great Trade. Three weeks, maybe four, if he was lucky. There was no way he was catching up to Heron entirely, but the man was at Core Formation stage one. Blake had to do whatever he could to close the gap. To even the odds just a little bit.

  On the fifth day since entering the mists, they encountered a massive footprint. It had three long claws and left a deep indentation in the ground, and there was no way that it came from a spiker. From the chatter he picked up, they knew they were close to the Sceat Bowl.

  They had returned to the barren mists, the mists Blake had entered after leaving the city. There were only a few scattered mangrove trees, nothing more. No ruined houses remained, and there wasn’t much cover, which meant Blake had to stay farther away.

  At noon on the fifth day, River returned, emerging from the mist and nudging his ankle with her muzzle.

  “What is it?” Blake whispered.

  “The hunters are not the only ones.”

  “Hm?” He tilted his head.

  “I have found another group hunting for monsters nearby.”

  Blake raised his eyebrows. “And they didn’t see you?”

  “They did not.”

  That might have been the prince. Or maybe it was a bunch of Green Bears. Whatever it was, Blake needed to find them.

  “Can you show me?” he asked River.

  “I can show Blake.” She turned and bounded off, springing through the swamp. He followed after, using the Cloud Body part of the Serpent’s Cloak to keep himself light and stop the splashes from drawing attention. He skimmed along the surface of the water. It was difficult to get a good push-off, but his enhanced body helped him keep up with River.

  It wasn’t difficult to find the party River had mentioned. She led Blake to a trail of footsteps along a mucky ridge, which he followed until even he felt a faint pressure erupt from up ahead.

  First, he dropped down to his stomach, then widened his senses and focused. Voices whispered up ahead.

  “We’re getting close,” someone said.

  “That still assumes that we are hunting it. It may have picked up on us. Monarchs are known to stalk their own prey,” a different but familiar voice said. Most voices sounded a touch different to Blake after reforging his senses, but he was pretty sure that was the voice of Reccán—the Path Paladin who’d spoken to him in Mergewatch.

  “Blake,” River said, her voice quiet. “We found them.”

  “That we did,” Blake replied, making the softest whisper he could. “The prince has to be here, too. If these Paladins are guarding him…”

  Blake trailed along a little farther until they reached a somewhat dry peak of the ridge. He could only make out glimpses of their silhouettes in the mists up ahead, but from what he could tell, the Path Paladins were wearing the same robes and chainmail he’d seen them in before. The third figure, who had to be Prince Arald, wore a red cloak with a fur trim. Rigid lines of runes ran down the cloak vertically.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Beneath it, he wore a robe of chainmail. Golden ornaments glistened on his cuffs and on the cloak’s hem, and they too had runes, but Blake had no idea what they did. The mail shimmered, and it seemed to be enchanted.

  The prince held out his arm, where a storage ring waited, and he mustered a stool. He plunked it into the mud and sat down, staring off into the mists.

  They were taking a break, then. Keeping his footsteps soft, Blake circled around the clearing, then used his staff to help himself vault into a nearby mangrove tree. He climbed to the very top, supporting himself on finger-thin branches while hiding in the leaves. River stayed at the bottom, hiding in the tangled tent of roots at its bottom.

  Outside the mists, it was late fall. It was snowing. But the mists insulated everything, keeping it warm. No snowflakes even reached the ground, and the trees still had leaves. It wasn’t natural, but it kept him hidden.

  “We must be getting close,” the prince said.

  “Your father would not appreciate you taking breaks,” said Reccán. “You are to defeat the Monarch, and the sooner, the better. We can deliver you back to Kinghaven.”

  Prince Arald let out a haughty scoff. “Do you truly think he will send me back, Master Paladin?”

  Reccán’s apprentice stood off to the side, using his rune-covered club to rest his arms. “I do not know what he’ll do, honoured lord. But it is your duty to slay the Monarch. It is our duty to protect you from external threats.”

  “How strong is the prince?” Blake whispered.

  Core Formation three, said Ethbin.

  Reccán heaved a frustrated sigh. “After three months, I think you would have tracked it down by now. One might suspect you are stalling.”

  “We’re close,” Prince Arald replied nonchalantly, as if accepting the accusation. “I can feel it.”

  “If you could sense it, then why take so long?” Reccán asked. “Your father asked me to report on your willingness to take charge, and I cannot say this reflects well on you.”

  The prince grimaced, then flicked his ponytail of long blonde hair down his back. “Tell him what you want. He favours Knorri anyway.”

  “Your brother is older than you,” Reccán said. “But he had to kill a Monarch just the same.”

  “What would you know of our family matters?” Arald countered, rolling his eyes. He bent down and flicked the mud off the toe of his boot. “Stay out of it, Master Paladin. You take too many risks with my fate.”

  “I have been assigned to every hunting expedition your family has taken in the past forty years. I know your father, and I know you. It seems like just yesterday that I saw you laying in the cradle.”

  Blake watched Arald give an exaggerated toss of his head. If he had to guess, the prince was about twenty years old, maybe a bit older. Not that it really meant much aside from how he looked. He could have been much older. But the way he acted suggested that he probably was around Blake’s age.

  Or maybe he was just a pampered prince.

  “Then perhaps you can help me slay the Monarch, if you are so desperate to leave. But I have no illusions of us leaving soon. Father will assign more and more tasks to me. First, kill Monarch. Then I shall rule a region, then I shall lord over this entire world. Good practice, he’ll say, for ruling the Galactic North. But none of it matters; I shall never be king.”

  “You must be ready,” Reccán said. “Knorri is hot-headed. He has been in five duels with Cohong merchants since the Kinghaven solstice, and one of these days, he will find himself dead in a ditch. You will be the North’s only successor.”

  “Knorri has never lost a duel.”

  “And we’d prefer if it stayed that way. As long as the Cohongs don’t encroach on the Galactic North, all will be peaceful. His duels prevent their encroaching. But we must prepare for certain…eventualities.”

  “I—”

  Before Arald could finish, a loud screech ripped through the woods. It started low, a few octaves below a speaking pitch, but rose to a high yowl, before getting so shrill that Blake’s own ears couldn’t pick up on it.

  He’d never heard that before.

  “The Monarch,” Arald said, jumping to his feet. He held his arm out and mustered a sword from his storage ring, before tossing it to his left hand and summoning a spear in his right hand. He gave them both a flourish. “It is close.”

  “That is a fighting screech,” Reccán warned.

  Arald paused for a few seconds. “Someone is trying to steal my prize?”

  “Word of your hunt was not posted publicly.”

  “It is no matter. We shall make the kill,” Arald stated, then sprinted off into the mists toward the noise. “Do not leave my stool behind.”

  “Yes, honoured lord,” Reccán’s apprentice groaned.

  A fighting screech. The Monarch was in battle. Had it stumbled across Ulfreld’s party and attacked them instead? Or had the Green Bears sent the hunters out to meet it specifically? Had they lured the hunters directly to the Monarch?

  He didn’t know, and he didn’t care.

  Blake didn’t wait to see what the Path Paladins did next. He jumped down from the tree and hid behind the roots, then turned to River and said, “Stay safe, okay? I’m going to be distracted.”

  “I will be safe! Blake must live,” River said.

  “Good deer,” Blake replied. Then, he switched to the ‘Lightning Fists’ half of his Serpent’s Cloak. Launching himself forward, he chased after the prince, keeping to the mists, and making sure he was only a shadow in the fog. Without directly paying attention, the prince wouldn’t see him.

  The Monarch let out another screech, and this time, it was much closer. It made Blake’s ears ring.

  Finally, Blake arrived at a ridge of churned dirt, looking down over a vast sheltered cradle in the earth. The Sceat Bowl.

  And looking down on the Monarch.