Growling, I dash toward the wooden door and drag it open. “Vicious!” I yell, wrapping a piece of cloth around my middle, stepping onto the platform that juts out from her little crystal cottage nesting in the sky—almost at the tip of one of the iridescent spires that make up the island.
Looking right, I scan the wiggly path that carves all the way to the crumbled-stone shore glistening in the morning light, then out across the stretch of silky water bathed in a spill of pink.
I hope she didn’t go down there without me. Perhaps she’s done it before, but now that she’sours ...
The thought of her putting even a toe in those waters has my chest filling with a deluge of bone-crushing fear.
If the creature who haunts this island were to snatch her up, I’d hunt her down. Rip the seas to shreds to get her back.
‘Find, find, find,’ Zykanth chants, and I step forward, looking over the edge, feet tingling as I peer down to the jagged ravine far below …
Perhaps she went to bathe in the red pool and hunt for crabs?
Our little mate does love crabs.
Keeping as close to the wall as I can, I skirt left around the path that hugs the spire, and stop—though Zykanth keeps slamming against my ribs like a whip. The trail carves along the saw-tooth ravine, then up and over a smaller, stubby mound of crystal, at the top of which I spotherstanding with a cloaked figure.
Both their heads are bent as Vicious rifles through a basket, dressed in nothing but that oversized shirt dancing around her long, golden legs.
‘Run little feet! Eat strange man. One crunch, gone.’
A sharp frill rips through my skin, all the way down the line of my spine as my jaw pops, widening to accommodate Zykanth’s ferocious maw.
‘Get down,’ I snarl, muscles bulging as I battle his might.
Ignoring me, he hisses through my bared teeth, scales pushing up over my neck and jaw and legs.
Vicious and the man look my way, and a small child scurries up from beyond the rise, peeking out from behind the folds of the stranger’s brown cloak.
Zykanth stills his swift ascent, fangs and frills sinking within as my heart lurches to a stop. ‘Little sparkly one …’
The child has a bouncy crop of iridescent curls, tapered ears tipped in a delicate line of thorns, eyes buffered crystals that catch on the pink sky bearing down on us …
Aeshlian.
Iswim through the inky layers of a suffocating bog, clawing at something …nothing.Saliva pools beneath my tongue, and I groan, swallowing the urge to vomit as a deep thud attacks my temples. Rubbing my eyes, I draw my lungs full of the thick musk that drops a boulder of recognition on my chest.
The air in this room ... it’s allhim.
“Oh, no …”
I drag my hands down my face and look around, wincing as the cloying weight of my poor decisions makes my stomach flip.
Definitely not my room.
My gaze slides around the space, over the rough stone walls to the flimsy curtain covering a low window. The room feels small, much of it taken up by the large bed I’m lying in. There’s a desk to my right littered with stacks of paper, chunks of blue rocks, sharpened sticks of charcoal. A sketched map covers the wall behind the desk, bits of parchment piecing it together.
I lean forward, moaning at the pounding in my head as I peer at the map, trying to make it out. Quickly realizing it’s a map of the city, islands mottling the sea of otherwise empty space beyond Parith, all connected by the intertwining vines of what appears to be the tunnel system Rhordyn was telling me about.
The same tunnel system I’m currently trying to hack a hole into beneath the palace.
Big areas are missing, marked by blank sheets of paper or large, black crosses in areas that perhaps mean the tunnels have been barred off.
I look at the spare sheets of parchment, the sharpened sticks of coal …
I need to jot this down for myself.
Leaping up, I’m struck with a brain-bruising thud that resonates from the tip of my spine. Teeth clenching, I waver, eyes watering as I groan through chalky lips, slamming my hand against the headboard for support.
