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“WAKE UP, EVERYONE!” I shout, putting as much compulsion as I can behind my voice. “FIGHT AGAINST THE WRAITH!”
The effect of the command is immediate. My friends gasp awake.
“Wha is this, Deka?” Britta cries, horrified as she glances around herself.
“Don’t ask questions—stab!” Belcalis snaps, already doing as she advised.
Britta nods, ripping apart the vale wraith’s tentacles with her bare hands. She doesn’t even bother with her atikas. Beside her, Keita begins singeing tentacles with his fire. More shrieks echo into the darkness—terrified ones. It seems vale wraiths are frightened of fire.
The realization widens the smirk slicing across my face.
That is, until newer, fainter shrieks reply from the distance.
This wraith, it seems, is not alone. There are others.
“HURRY!” I shout to my friends, slicing off an incoming tentacle. I understand the method now—stab, then twist, to gain a hold despite the slickness.
Li stops hacking and sawing long enough to turn to me with horrified eyes. “There can’t be more of those things out there.”
Another shriek answers his question.
“We need to leave!” Belcalis shouts. “Can you open a door from here?”
“To where?” I ask, overwhelmed.
This vale connects to Irfut, but there’s no point going back there. Okot destroyed every trace of Mother that remained. And the Warthu Bera is out of the question; I doubt that any part of our former training ground even remains standing after the battle that took place there three months ago.
There’s nowhere I can think of that’s safe.
“White Hands!” Belcalis replies. “Take us to White Hands!”
“But I don’t know where she is—” I stop as I remember the place I last saw her in. That grove.
Despite what it feels like, we’ve been gone only a few hours since we saw her. She’s probably still near that grove somewhere, and if we can make our way to her, we can regroup, perhaps even get to Mother’s body before Okot does, even though I have no idea how.
But that’s not my concern right now. Survival is.
I build the image of the grove in my mind, remembering the towering ganib trees, their canopies like domes, leathery vines dripping down from their purple branches. As I sink deeper and deeper into the combat state, I breathe in the Greater Divinity, letting the power rise inside me until I feel it, the answering tug deep in my body. The tug Myter taught me to watch for when I must travel to a place I’ve never been.
Once I have it, I pinch the air in front of me. Immediately, I see it—the tiny, shimmering line in the darkness. The line that is the sunlight coming in from the other side. It must still be day where the grove is. I pull, forcing the door wider, and sunlight floods in. The wraith screeches, its tentacles scuttling backward as the light burns through them, obliterating their protective layer of slime. So fire isn’t the only thing they fear.
“Open the door wider, Deka!” Belcalis calls out, slicing through the tentacle that is still trying to hold on to her. “Massacre the beast!”
“With pleasure!” I call back, steadfastly prying the door wider until—
“Deka? Deka, is that you?”
There’s so much sunlight flooding into the vale now, it blinds me. I can’t see what’s beyond the door. Even then, I recognize that voice, that accompanying blast of wind that is the divine gift of the twins Adwapa and Asha. “Adwapa?” I shout, relief flooding over me. “Is that you?”
“Help us!” Britta calls out. “There’s wraiths in here!”
She doesn’t have to ask twice. A familiar dark figure darts through the door, wind seeming to lift her footsteps: Adwapa in all her bald glory, looking even stronger than the last time I saw her. By her side is Asha, the luminous ferns interwoven in her black braids glowing like a bright green beacon in the darkness. She sends a spear hurtling straight into one of the vale wraith’s eyes, the wind pushing it along with deadly accuracy.
The screech the creature releases is deafening. All its tentacles shoot up at once, writhing horrifically as it tries to pull the projectile out of its eye. Unfortunately, the wind has driven it so deep, it’s likely a fatal blow. My friends stumble to the sand, released at the same time from the tentacles the wraith has once more managed to wrap around them.
“Everyone, through the door!” I shout.
I don’t have to speak twice. A mad stampede to the door ensues, Britta leading the way, Keita at the back.
