I draw my sword and focus on the one closest, holding my ground until the moment I feel its pungent breath blow against my face—raising my arms and slamming the long weapon deep into the glass beneath my feet.
The sharp tip screeches through the layers.
I leap back, watching recognition flash across the animal’s feral face.
It falters, paws slipping out from under it as it skates across the smooth surface, bared chest colliding with the lethal blade.
Curdled yelps squeal out of the beast as its body swallows the weapon, fur and flesh and bone giving way to its honed edge. Blood gushes from the fatal blow, every breath a labored howl until the creature falls limp, tongue lolling from its gaping maw.
There’s a sharp popping sound, then another, andanother.
I step back from my blade, watching a fracture weave through the glass—up the trunk of the tree the boy is hiding in.
The branch he’s clinging to cracks, and he screams, his meager grip jostled.
He plummets, and I leap, snatching him with a swoop of my arm before he can strike the ground. I tuck him close to my chest and jump over the slain beast, slam my dagger into its sheath, and put my back to the two Vruk still thundering toward us, lifting the boy high and shoving him into another tree. “Climb!”
Sobbing, he clambers up, weaving his frail body between the brittle foliage once vibrant with life.
I stalk toward my spear—
Something plucks at that tender string in my chest—the slightest twinge that makes my step falter, eyes whipping south. A wildness scratches at my skin.
I search the trees as though I’m searching forherface. Her eyes.
The ground continues to thunder beneath my feet, but I barely notice as that feeling flatlines like a snapped stem, leaving a hollow, senseless void I fill with murderousrage.
Roaring, I sweep my spear off the ground, spin, and crank my arm, looking at the howling creature galloping toward me. I swing my body forward and hurl the honed weapon into the air, impaling the Vruk straight through its wide-open maw.
Its legs crumble beneath its might, and it tips, colliding with the brittle trunk of a glass tree that shatters from the force, spilling across the ground with a violence that’s deafening.
Gripping the hilt of my sword, I rip it free from the corpse wrapped around its length, pulling my dagger from its sheath with my other hand and flinging it through the air. Itwhumpsdeep into the eyeball of the third beast as I charge forward, boots crunching on the scattered shards. I wrap both hands around the hilt of my sword and cut it straight through the Vruk’s meaty neck with such feral force, I cleave it from the body.
It thuds to the ground in a shower of pulsing blood.
Silence.
I stop, heaving breath into my parched lungs, shoulders loosening, tipping my head and looking up through crystal clear leaves to the blue sky above.
Breathe.
I thread my hand over my chest, right atop that warm pouch ofher,and beg for something other thansilence.
The silence is the worst.
Forcing my muscles back into action, I scan the bloody scene, gore dripping off my face, hands, and sword.
The Irilak nesting in the shade are practically vibrating, making sharp clicking sounds, growing bold and edging closer to the light, perhaps waiting for a cloud to blot out the sun so they can feast.
I look up at the little boy, his cheeks sapped of color.
“You okay? Anything hurt?”
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t speak. Just looks at me like I’m worse than the monsters I just slaughtered.
“Row! Faster! Faster!”
The belted command has my head whipping around, looking through glass trees splattered with blood.
