Diya squinted as the airship disappeared into the sky, her hands forming a rough visor that shielded her eyes. The sunlight was blinding as it leered between ruined structures tangled with vines. It completely obfuscated the corroded hull, as if the great ball of fire in the sky took some cruel joy in denying her one last look at Tamsin and Shikra. Since she couldn’t see them clearly, their departure was left to her imagination.

  She imagined that Tamsin was waving at her, perhaps even blowing a kiss or two. Meanwhile, Shikra would be watching with concern, unsure what to make of this entire strange scenario—or more likely, she would be drooling as she scanned the massive expanse of forest for prey. Diya couldn’t help but muse on how this whole thing would have been so much simpler if Shikra could have joined her on her trial.

  Rules and tradition had their uses, but in that moment, she would have fed the founding members of the coven who scrawled the fine print of these trials to the hydra without blinking.

  The vial she held at arm’s length glowed an unnatural, fluorescent hue of green that did little to calm her nerves. It felt unnaturally chill in her trembling hand. Feeling an itch she couldn’t scratch, Diya jumped from side to side, making her best effort not to think about the hundreds of initiates who had likely met terrible ends in this dark forest.

  Hundreds? Thousands? Screw it, it doesn’t matter. I’ve come this far. She thought.

  And so, she popped the cork from the ritual brew, let out a small sigh, and downed the glowing liquid in one gulp.

  The glass vial fell from her hand, smashing against a stone and shattering. Her fingernails dug into her palms so tightly she thought they might draw blood. Her jaw tightened, awaiting what came next. Some arcane metamorphosis? Some strange reconstruction of herself at a molecular level? The final step in becoming a legend?

  With eyes shut tight, she felt a growing dread within her. A horrible fear that when she opened her eyes, she would no longer be herself. So instead, she remained perfectly still, refusing to open her eyes and refusing to face the inevitable.

  But the thing about the inevitable is that by definition, it is unavoidable, regardless of how much kicking and screaming one does.

  That’s when she realized she had been mistaken. It wasn’t dread she felt. It was something new. Something unfamiliar and strange. The image of a plant growing in reverse came to her. Tangled knots of roots—her life force—eighteen seasons old, all retracting back into the seed.

  Then came a stabbing pain. It was white-hot and utterly unlike anything she had felt before.

  Perception had but the briefest moment to linger before it was eroded. It consumed her. Had she ever screamed louder? A sensation like liquid metal had been injected straight into her veins. Her muscles shuddered and pounded. Unable to fight it—and how could anyone?—she collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain. Spasmodically, she shook, limbs shooting out in ghastly fits. The sound of her joints popping and bones cracking rang out in the forest like the snapping of branches, the crack of thunder.

  If she could truly rationalize the pain, it might have melted her mind or perhaps sundered her soul. But the human body is more resilient than it has any right to be. Therefore, rather than become irreparably broken, her tortured body did the only thing it could. It shut down. And so, there she lay, beneath the towering and ancient redwoods, mind drifting on a splintered log down a river of radiance.

  ***

  When she awoke, darkness had enveloped the forest. It was not the soft, intoxicating sort of dark, but rather the suffocating, obfuscating sort as she had experienced in the labyrinth of tunnels.

  Diya sat up like a corpse pulling itself up from a coffin, stiff and disordered. Her body ached. Not the kind of uninvited soreness that comes after a strenuous activity, but the kind that comes from having every fiber of your genetic tissue ripped apart and remade. She wondered for a moment why Tamsin hadn’t told her how unpleasant that part of this ordeal was going to be. Her jaw clenched as she fumed. A few moments later, understanding washed over her, and she took a deep breath—which of course, caused her bruised muscles to explode with pain.

  Well, I suppose if I knew how much that was going to suck, I most likely wouldn’t have come here. She knew what needed to be done. Would I have ever forgiven myself if my home and everyone there died all because of my cowardice?

  Knowing what needed to be done, she felt around the forest floor for a branch, then lit a match and created a makeshift torch. Torchlight illuminated her surroundings. Awe swelled within her, and she marveled at the size of the ancient redwood trees all around her. Still, her vision was blurred, and the world around her seemed to spin. Trembling fingers massaged her temples, and she did her best to shake the cobwebs out.

  How long have I been passed out here?

  Her eyes drifted down to the shards of glass stained green that rested by her feet. A long exhale died on her lips.

  I only have seven days to get this done, otherwise that’s the end of the road for me. I suppose it’s obvious that I’ve been unconscious for less than seven days, or I wouldn’t have woken at all.

  Panicked pupils darted around but offered little to nothing in the way of signs to solve the mystery. At least she felt her equilibrium returning, so that was something. The world slowly stopped spinning around her, and she climbed to her feet on legs like a newborn gazelle.

  A sense of urgency had been vital if she hoped to accomplish this third, most trying trial. But now that she didn’t know if she had six days to accomplish her task, or perhaps only a single day, urgency had advanced into immediacy. After all, she wasn’t gambling solely with her own life, but every soul in Ghanesha.

  And so, Diya brushed the dirt and leaves from herself, and torch in hand, pressed forth into the forest. As she strode beneath the ancient trees, her fingers traced the spherical explosives that jangled softly in her knapsack. There was a certain comfort she found in being prepared. So while she wished she were safely back in her workshop, at least if she had to be in a dark, unfamiliar forest in which countless predators lurked, having a bag full of bombs helped.

  She wandered through the trackless woods, hopeful she wasn’t going in circles, but having no way of truly knowing. Even in the daylight, it would be easy enough to lose one’s path in such a place. In the night, pathfinding was hopeless. Still, she pushed onward. The sand of the hourglass was draining, and she had no idea how much sand was left.

  The sounds of rushing water guided her to a clearing. There she crossed a fallen tree that bridged a winding river, her jaw dropped, and she found herself marveling at the way the massive redwoods seemed to disappear up into the black void of night. Did they ascend all the way up into the clouds? There was no way to know in the dead of night.

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  When the sun began to rise, and the welcome twilight glint of sunlight waved through the branches, her spirits rose with it. It was only then that she truly noticed the abundance of wildlife in the grove. In the night, she had felt the ocean of eyes on her and had heard the din of the countless ecosystems, but it paled in comparison to what she could see when the place was lit by more than just torchlight.

  Woodpeckers perched in the branches overhead, coyotes howled, and salamanders skittered up tree trunks as big around as towers. The place that felt more like a nightmare hours before now had new life.

  That’s when something caught her eye. Diya muttered a word of appreciation to the sun for sharing its guiding light before veering off to her right. As she crested a small rise, she saw it; an entire clearing had been trampled flat as if a storm had passed through.

  Leaves hung in stiff, curled shapes, like they’d tried to escape but failed. Their green had faded into sickly yellows and bruised browns, spotted with holes that ate inward from the edges. Some branches were bare where bark had peeled away in smooth, glassy strips.

  The ground told the story, too. Ferns lay flattened and colorless, their fronds turned brittle as paper. Patches of moss had shrunk into gray crusts, cracking underfoot with soft, dusty snaps. Even the air felt unnatural, carrying a sour, metallic tang that stung the back of her throat.

  Nothing was growing.

  Nothing there was healing.

  A peculiar sound echoed, and Diya fell into a crouch. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she listened carefully.

  The hydra’s breathing rolled through the forest like a broken engine, deep, and grinding. One throat hissed. Another clicked its teeth together in quick, nervous snaps. A third let out a low, rattling growl that vibrated in her chest more than in her ears.

  When it moved, there was a constant chorus: scales scraping bark, bodies sliding over roots, claws tearing into soil. Beneath it all was a sound like boiling water, soft at first, then louder, as if something inside the creature had been building pressure.

  Suddenly, she felt as if she had spiders crawling beneath her skin. Diya found herself drawing her flintlock pistol with one hand and digging through her knapsack for just the right explosive. As she often did in the moments before a battle, she found herself psyching herself up for violence.

  The giant three-headed monster trundled into view right as Diya felt as ready as she was ever going to be to pick a fight with an acid-spewing behemoth. It rose from the undergrowth like a living hill of muscle and scale, its hide dark and slick, patterned with ridges that caught the light like wet stone. From its shoulders arched three long necks, each ending in a different kind of nightmare.

  Its first head was broad and heavy-jawed, its teeth thick and blunt like chisels made for crushing bone. The second was narrow and sharp, with needle-fine fangs and eyes that never stopped moving. The third was the largest, crowned with curling horns and a mouth that glowed faintly, as if something hot and dangerous waited behind its tongue. Based on the rundown Tamsin gave her, she knew exactly what waited for her in that mouth—acid that would melt her flesh as easily as a cube of sugar beneath hot tea.

  She cocked her arm back, ready to hurl the first explosive, but froze.

  Huddled around the legs of the hydra was a small three-headed creature. It cooed and peered around sheepishly with six big doe eyes. It was a baby hydra.

  No. No. No.

  Immediately, Diya’s freshly manufactured bloodlust vanished. Seeing the monster with its child somehow changed everything for her. It was difficult to see the hydra as a bloodthirsty killing machine that she needed to slay while watching it care for its baby. Suddenly, the behemoth she had viewed as vile seemed sort of…beautiful.

  Her mind raced as she considered her options.

  As quickly as she could, she dropped the explosive back into her bag and fished out a different one. She held it inches from her nose to make sure it was the one she wanted, and she sent it flying across the glade.

  It smashed to pieces at the feet of the hill-sized hydra, the contents alchemically reacted, and smoke flooded the air around it and its baby.

  Diya held her breath and watched with fingers crossed.

  The enraged sounds falling from the blanket of smoke did little to fill her with hope. When the cloud had dissipated just enough to allow visibility, she sighed. Her lotus poppy bomb had worked on the now snoring baby hydra, meanwhile the full-sized one was not the slightest bit drowsy. In fact, if anything, it now seemed more awake than ever.

  The three heads roared in an unsettling multi-pitch rumble that made Diya’s guts go watery. She didn’t have much time to work out a backup plan, because the hydra was charging towards her with a ferocity that she figured could strike fear in even the bravest of warriors, and it was fast. Much faster than anything so massive had any right to be.

  Her heart pounded in her chest like a drum. Determined, she drew her spear. Her eyes traced the spearhead, and she gulped.

  I don’t want it to be this way. It doesn’t need to die. Its child doesn’t need a dead parent.

  She blinked, and she was back in that town square looking up at her father’s dangling feet. The rage of churning claws nearly upon her snapped her back to the moment.

  There has to be another way.

  Three gnashing maws crashed down where Diya had been a moment before. At exactly the right moment, she jumped to her left, rolling when she hit the ground and avoiding the killing blow.

  Diya gasped. She had been so wrapped up in her time running out—the potentially dire consequences of that glowing green vial—that she had forgotten all about the benefits. Now that she was fighting for her life, it was impossible to ignore.

  And she felt fast.

  Not like racing a mate to the tavern fast either, but slicing through the sky with Shikra fast. As she looked at the hydra, time seemed to slow down around her.

  Something Tamsin said when briefing her about the hydra came back to her. You don’t just need to watch out for the acid, the razor-sharp teeth, or claws. Hydra’s boast a remarkable regenerative quality, which is why drinking their blood neutralizes the special brew.

  Diya felt a rush of relief. She would have to hurt the monster, but she didn’t need to kill it!

  She rushed forward, spear out at her side. With her newfound power, it was almost like the hydra was moving in slow motion. Diya dashed in, rolling underneath a giant slashing claw, and whipped the spear around, slicing the creature behind the knee.

  Three heads let out an echoing shriek that pierced her ears.

  Time accelerated. Before she knew it, her magnificent spear had bitten into two more of the creature’s legs. Each strike slowed the hydra further, and the gap in their agility widened into a chasm.

  One more leg and the beast might be weakened enough.

  The horned head crashed down at her, and she swung her spear at just the right time in a wide sweeping arc so that when the flat of it made contact with the hydra’s skull, it catapulted Diya into the air. She somersaulted up over the top of the monster, narrowly avoiding a second set of needle-like teeth.

  Sailing through the air above the monster, a grin creased her lips. Each piece of her plan was falling perfectly into place. But counting your eggs before they hatch had a tendency of biting you in the ass, and that’s when she saw the third set of teeth flash in, beyond eager to rip her to pieces.

  To make matters worse, she could see the bubbling blue acid glowing in its throat. The sound it made was awful. Something between boiling water in a kettle and the chemical reaction of incompatible reagents. Diya needed to think quickly if she was going to get herself out of this bind.

  Seizing her opportunity, she planted the crescent counterbalance end of her spear into the hydra’s tongue and used the force to suddenly change direction.

  The blast of caustic cerulean acid spewed from the behemoth’s gaping maw. Her change of course had gotten most of her silhouette out of harm’s way, but she felt a splat of the bubbling acid hit her boot and immediately smelled the acrid tang of burnt leather.

  She landed nimbly on the far side of the creature and kicked off her boot just before the acid could eat away at her skin the way it had eaten away at her boot. Grunting, she lashed out with her spear as if it were an extension of herself. It struck true, and the behemoth crashed to the ground hard. The whimpering sound it made hurt her heart.

  No time, though. Now was her best chance.

  With the hydra weakened, she pulled her last lotus poppy bomb from her bag and pitched it into one of the screaming mouths of the hydra.

  There was a slight boom from within the monster. It made a suspicious gurgling noise, belched a cloud of smoke, then all three heads slumped to the earth. The sound of the hydra snoring was like music to her ears—not in the way that harps or flutes were, but it was without a doubt the most pleasant she would ever find a caustic three-headed monstrosity slumbering.

  With a wide grin, she pulled an empty vial from a pouch on her belt, held it to one of the rapidly healing wounds on the hydra’s leg, and filled it with blood.

  Holding the crimson vial up, she shrugged, then drank the metallic-tasting liquid in one gulp. There was still one thing she really wanted to do. Crouching low, she pet the baby hydra softly once on each of its heads. The baby cooed gently, and her recently reforged soul smiled.