“Or the waterfall.” Kazuma sighed, running a hand down his face. “You take the cave, I’ll take the waterfall?”
Aimee nodded once. “Done.”
Above them, fire burst across the sky—gold and crimson catching in the dark, briefly forming the wingspan of a giant bird before scattering into sparks. All three looked up.
And when Mira finally lowered her chin, her eyes shimmered in the light. “Thank you,” she said, swallowing hard. Then her spine straightened as she drew herself back together. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” Aimee turned toward the ladder and grabbed hold of the first rung, lifting herself off the ground. “We’ll have him back before you serve the sweet cakes.”
The ropes creaked as she climbed, feet finding rhythm easily. Behind her, the ladder jerked slightly as Kazuma started after her.
Don’t think this is over, Aimee,he purred across the link.You’re getting punished. Thoroughly. For practically mounting me in public and then assigning us another child retrieval mission.
She smirked but didn’t slow down. He was definitely watching her ass.
Branches scraped at her arms as she pushed through another thick wall of brush. A low grumble escaped her throat in both annoyance and worry.
“Shinka!” she called, voice carrying through the dense trees. “You here, squirt? It’s almost time for sweet cakes.”
No answer.
But then—
A low, guttural sound echoed from deeper in the trees. It wasn’t a growl, or quite a roar, but it made her blood freeze in her veins.
“What the hell was that?” She picked up speed, boots crunching dead leaves, branches slapping at her face as the forest thickened.
Then—
“Aimee-Sensei!!” the boy yelled, high and panicked.
She ran. No hesitation. The world blurred around her.
The clearing broke open like a wound in the trees, and she took it all in at once—Shinka, crumpled on the ground and crying, his small body turned in on itself. And directly over him, a massive black bear rose onto its hind legs, shoulders hulking, jaws bared.
Behind the boy, a smaller pair of cubs mewled from a nearby cave.
“Oh, fuck.”
Shinka had stumbled between a mother and her cubs. The kid was dead.
She swallowed hard.Would the Pattern allow it? The final war hadn’t even started yet.
Didn’t matter.
She blinked, focused her Will—
—and space warped.
One heartbeat, she stood twenty feet away. Next, she was crouched over Shinka, her arms shielding his body.
She blinked again, and they were both back at the edge of the trees where she'd started. The boy trembled against her chest, fists tangled in her shirt, hiccupping between sobs.
Holy shit,she thought, arms hugging around him.He’d have been dead if I’d arrived five seconds later.
“You’re okay, squirt.” She rubbed his back as the bear turned, snarling.
It was still pissed, and still too close.
