The game ended on the ninth day.

  Kaelen knew it before the suns even rose. He woke not to the sound of wind or the chittering of his squirrel companion, but to a silence that felt heavy, oily, and thick.

  He sat up, his hand automatically going to his staff. The air tasted wrong. It didn't taste like dust and sage anymore. It tasted like copper and spoiled meat.

  The landscape had changed overnight. The jagged, red sandstone of the crags had given way to a terrain of grey, slate-like rock that looked slick even though it was dry. The hearty scrub brush was gone, replaced by patches of black lichen that grew in spiral patterns, looking less like plants and more like bruises on the earth.

  The russet squirrel was sitting on a rock nearby. She wasn't grooming herself. She wasn't watching him with that amusement he had grown used to. She was staring East, her fur puffed out, her tail twitching with a jerky, agitated rhythm.

  "What is it?" Kaelen whispered.

  She didn't look at him. She just let out a low, churring sound—a warning.

  Kaelen gathered his pack. He checked The Whisper. The pulsing of the stone had changed. It wasn't the steady thump-thump of a heartbeat anymore. It was a rapid, fluttery vibration, like a trapped moth beating its wings against glass.

  Fear, Kaelen realized. The stone is afraid.

  They walked.

  The further they went, the wronger the world became. Colors seemed to desaturate. The sky wasn't blue; it was a pale, sickly bruise. And the smell grew stronger with every mile—a cloying, sweet-rot stench that coated the back of Kaelen’s throat.

  The squirrel chittered urgently, hopping onto his shoulder and digging her claws in through the fabric.

  "We should go back," Kaelen muttered. "Find a way around."

  He turned.

  The path behind them was gone.

  It wasn't that he had lost the trail. The trail simply wasn't there. Where the grey slate had been, there was now a wall of dense, oily fog that swirled without wind.

  Kaelen spun around. The fog was on the left. The right. It was closing in, funneling them forward.

  "We're being herded," Kaelen realized, his blood running cold. "Just like in the canyon. But this isn't a test."

  The squirrel let out a sharp hiss. She jumped from his shoulder, landing on a flat rock, baring her teeth at the shadows ahead.

  Something was moving in the gloom.

  It was big. Heavy. Kaelen could feel the ground vibrating with each footfall. Thud... squelch. Thud... squelch.

  "Show yourself!" Kaelen shouted, though his voice sounded thin and weak in the heavy air.

  The fog parted.

  It had been a bear, once.

  The basic geometry was there—the massive shoulders, the shaggy coat, the lumbering gait. But the Void had taken it and remade it in the dark.

  Its fur was gone in patches, revealing skin that looked like wet, grey clay. Where eyes should have been, there were only empty sockets weeping a black, tar-like fluid. But it didn't need eyes. A cluster of violet, bioluminescent pustules grew along its snout and forehead, pulsing with a sickly, rhythmic light.

  It opened its mouth.

  It didn't roar. It didn't growl.

  It screamed.

  It was the sound of a human scream, layered over the grinding of rocks. It was the sound of something in absolute agony that wanted to share its pain.

  Kaelen’s knees buckled. The terror was primal, bypassing his training and striking directly at the lizard-brain instinct that said PREDATOR.

  The Corrupted Bear charged.

  It moved with impossible speed for something so large and broken. It didn't run; it flowed, its body contorting around obstacles like liquid.

  Kaelen raised his staff, a useless twig against a landslide.

  The russet squirrel blurred.

  She didn't run away. She ran at the monster.

  Mid-leap, she exploded.

  There was a flash of emerald light, blinding in the grey gloom. When it cleared, the squirrel was gone.

  In her place was a wolf. But not a natural wolf—this creature was formed of woven vines, bark, and starlight. It was huge, sleek, and terrifyingly fast.

  Lyra crashed into the Corrupted Bear’s flank.

  The impact shook the ground. The bear stumbled, its charge broken. Lyra sank fangs made of obsidian into the creature’s shoulder and tore.

  Black ichor sprayed across the rocks. The bear screamed again—that terrible, multi-layered sound—and swiped a massive paw at its attacker.

  Lyra dodged, shifting form again.

  She became a swarm of hornets, dissolving into a cloud of gold and black specks that buzzed around the bear’s head, stinging the violet eyes.

  The bear thrashed, clawing at the air.

  Kaelen stood frozen, watching the impossible battle. He had known she was Fae. He had suspected she was powerful. But seeing it—seeing the fluidity of her existence—was mesmerizing.

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  She was winning. She had to be. She was faster, smarter, magic against brute force.

  Then, the bear changed.

  The violet light on its head flared brighter. The pustules burst.

  A wave of purple energy—Void Light—erupted from the creature.

  It hit the swarm of hornets.

  They didn't just get blown back. They withered. They turned to ash mid-air.

  Lyra shrieked. The swarm coalesced violently, slamming back into a single form on the ground. She was a sleek, black panther now, but she was hurt. Smoke rose from her flank where the Void Light had touched her. Her movements were sluggish.

  The bear recovered instantly. The wound on its shoulder, where Lyra had bitten it, wasn't bleeding anymore. The grey clay flesh bubbled and knit together.

  It regenerates, Kaelen realized with horror. You can't kill cancer by cutting it.

  The bear lunged.

  Lyra tried to dodge, but she was too slow. The bear’s massive paw caught her mid-leap.

  There was a sickening crunch.

  Lyra was swatted out of the air like a toy. She slammed into a rock wall, crumpling to the ground. She tried to rise, shifting form—panther to hawk to fox—trying to find a shape that wasn't broken.

  She settled on the squirrel. Tiny. Broken. Bleeding amber light onto the grey stone.

  The bear turned its eyeless, pulsing head toward her. It raised a paw, heavy with the weight of the Void, ready to crush the spark of life out of her.

  Kaelen looked at Lyra. He looked at the monster.

  Fear vanished. It was replaced by the cold, white-hot clarity of the bloom.

  No.

  He dropped his staff. He didn't need wood. He needed the world.

  He slammed both hands onto the grey, slick rock of the canyon floor.

  He didn't meditate. He didn't ask. He didn't listen for the hum.

  He reached down, past the rock, past the roots, past the corruption, until he found the veins of the earth.

  WAKE UP.

  He grabbed the Weave with both hands and pulled.

  He poured everything he had into the earth. His terror. His grief. The image of the sanctuary burning. The scream of the bear. He fed it all to the ground.

  The canyon floor groaned.

  CRACK.

  The sound was deafening.

  Directly beneath the bear, the solid rock shattered.

  It wasn't a sinkhole. It was a mouth.

  Great slabs of slate levered upward, driven by hydraulic pressure from deep below. Stalagmites of bedrock erupted from the ground like spears.

  The bear roared, trying to scramble away, but the earth was moving faster than it could flow.

  Stone wrapped around its legs. Stone clamped over its torso.

  Kaelen screamed, his veins burning with the overload of magic. He felt his nose bleeding. He felt his fingernails cracking against the rock.

  CRUSH IT.

  He clenched his fists.

  The earth obeyed.

  The slabs of rock slammed together with the force of a tectonic shift.

  The bear’s scream was cut off instantly. There was a wet, crunching sound—bones turning to powder, flesh turning to paste. The violet light flared once, brilliantly, from the cracks in the stone tomb, and then winked out.

  Finally, the bear's movements stopped. Encased completely in a cocoon of ancient roots and shattered stone, the violet light in its pustules faded to grey. The monster was gone; only the tomb remained.

  Kaelen's hands fell away from the earth. The world spun. His vision blurred. He tried to stand and his legs simply folded, dumping him onto his side.

  Distantly, he heard a small chirping sound. The Fae, back in squirrel form, limping toward him. There was a gash across its shoulder, amber blood matting the russet fur.

  They looked at each other, both too exhausted to speak.

  Then Kaelen's hand moved, almost without conscious thought. He reached out and gently touched the wound.

  The Weave was still there, still singing in his blood from the massive working he'd just done. He didn't have to reach far. Just redirect a little. Ask quietly.

  Heal. Please. It saved me. Let me save it back.

  The energy that flowed was different from the combat magic. Gentler. Warmer. It moved from the earth, through his trembling hand, into the wounded Fae.

  The squirrel made a surprised chirping sound. The gash across its shoulder closed, amber blood drying, new fur already sprouting over the scar.

  They stared at each other.

  "We're... even," Kaelen managed to gasp.

  The squirrel's tiny face split into what could only be a grin. Then it hopped onto his chest—where he still lay sprawled on the ground—and extended one tiny paw.

  Kaelen blinked. "Are you... offering to shake hands?"

  The squirrel nodded.

  Despite the exhaustion, despite everything, Kaelen smiled. He extended one finger. The Fae's paw wrapped around it, the grip surprisingly strong for something so small.

  They shook.

  And something shifted in the world between them. Not a magical binding—the Fae didn't work that way. But an understanding. A recognition. They had saved each other. Fought together. Bled together.

  That meant something.

  The squirrel released his finger and sat back, studying him with those ancient emerald eyes. When it spoke, its voice was like wind chimes and rustling leaves and distant birdsong all woven together.

  "Well," it said, "that was adequately impressive, I suppose."

  Kaelen stared, letting his head fall back against the rock with a thud. "Of course you can talk," he breathed, a dry, humorless laugh escaping him. "Why wouldn't you be able to talk? At this point, I'd be more surprised if you couldn't."

  "Oh good, you're adapting," the Fae said, its whiskers twitching in amusement. "I was worried the impossible shapeshifting combat might have broken your brain." It began grooming its newly healed shoulder. "I'm Lyra, by the way. Seemed like a good time for proper introductions."

  "You... you've been testing me," Kaelen said slowly, his exhausted mind putting pieces together. "The frog. The wolf. The bear. All of it."

  "Obviously." The squirrel began grooming its newly healed shoulder, casual as anything. "Needed to see what you were capable of. How you'd respond to danger. Whether you'd show compassion to something that could kill you, whether you could fight, whether you had courage." It looked up, eyes gleaming. "You did all three reasonably well. And then you protected me, which was very sweet."

  "I almost died!"

  "But you didn't," The squirrel said. "And now we know you can channel the Weave when desperate. Crudely, yes. Chaotically, yes. You nearly burned yourself out doing it. But the raw power is there." It hopped closer. "That's why I'm going to help you."

  "Helping with what?"

  "With not dying, obviously." The squirrel hopped off his chest and began circling him where he lay. "You're carrying a fragment of a dead god, broadcasting your presence to everything with even a shred of magical sensitivity. And you're planning to walk through Iron Thalass territory—the most zealously anti-heresy nation on Asatay—with all the subtlety of a firework." It shook its head. "You'd be dead in three days. Two if you're unlucky."

  Kaelen's stomach sank. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

  "Accept help," the Fae said simply. "From someone who knows what she's doing. From someone who's been watching you and has decided you're not completely hopeless."

  "Why would you help me?" Kaelen asked suspiciously, finally managing to sit up. His entire body felt like he'd been trampled. His arms hung limp at his sides, numb and heavy, the nerves burned out by the surge. He tried to lift his hand to rub his face, but his fingers just twitched uselessly. "The stories say the Fae never help anyone without a price."

  "The stories are right," the Fae agreed. "But sometimes the price is just entertainment. Sometimes it's curiosity." Something flickered across its small face—a shadow of old pain. "And sometimes it's because I'm bored, and you're the most interesting thing to happen in this wasteland in decades."

  There was more to it than that. Kaelen could hear the unsaid words beneath the playful tone. But he was too exhausted to press.

  "I don't... trust you," he managed.

  "Smart boy," Lyra said approvingly. "You shouldn't. I'm Fae. We're tricksters by nature." She settled more comfortably on his chest. "But right now, in this moment, our interests align. You need to survive long enough to reach whatever you're hunting. I'm bound by debt and curiosity to help you do that. It's not trust. It's mutual benefit."

  "And when our interests... don't align?" Kaelen's words were slurring now. The darkness was creeping in at the edges of his vision.

  "Then we'll find out what happens," Lyra said honestly. "But that's a problem for future-us. Present-us needs to get you somewhere safe before you pass out from magical exhaustion."

  "Why should I—" Kaelen tried to protest, but his vision was already dimming.

  "Because I just saved your life," Lyra said practically. "And you just saved mine. And because—" She paused, something unreadable in her ancient eyes. "Because I'm Fae. We pay our debts. You healed me. That means something."

  Her form was already shimmering, growing larger. "Sleep. We'll talk more when you wake. And then I'll teach you why that stunt you pulled was incredibly stupid and nearly killed you."

  Kaelen wanted to argue, but exhaustion won. The last thing he saw was a small, russet shape standing guard, emerald eyes watchful against the corrupted dark.

  Then nothing.

  Question for you guys: What do you think of Lyra's shapeshifting combat style? I wanted Fae magic to feel fluid and chaotic compared to Kaelen's raw earth power. Let me know in the comments!

  Can't wait for tomorrow?