He wished Anaya, or anyone at all really, were around to hear how completely cool that line had been.
The Cryptic, unfortunately, did not seem to appreciate Rolan’s wit.
It attacked, bursting forward all at once.
Rolan spun, knives humming as they raked over the Cryptic’s scaled back. It was as hard as armor, sparks flashing where his blades scraped off the monster.
It lashed out with a tentacle, and he rolled clear just in time to avoid having his eye plucked out by its barb.
“Rude!” Rolan said, jumping up and twirling his knives. “Bet you’re one of Finkface’s secrets, huh? Or Hoff’s.”
The creature charged again, tentacles flailing, and Rolan spun away, failing to land even a single hit this time. It was like theCryptic was toying with him, exposing his weaknesses and laughing when Rolan landed in a heap.
Gritting his teeth, Rolan initiated the next attack, hoping to throw the Cryptic off balance. It didn’t work. The monster moved like liquid, flowing out of reach and retaliating with a tentacle strike. The barb opened a cut on Rolan’s cheek.
He gasped from the red-hot pain of it but had no time to recover. The Cryptic lashed out again.
This time he caught the tentacle on his knife’s blade, slicing through. This did little to slow the beast, and it opened another cut on his thigh.
This was going badly. At this rate he’d bleed out by a hundred cuts before he managed to bring the Cryptic down.
Maybe he was out of his depth.
“Agh!”he cried as he rolled down the riverbank to avoid another tentacle attack. He had to bury one of his knives in the mud to stop himself from tumbling into the fast-flowing water.
To make things worse, it began to rain.
Rolan lay panting in the mud for a moment, catching his breath. The Cryptic waited above, waggling its tentacles in what he could swear was ataunt.
He looked back at the river, at the dark, inky waters. Delicate white flowers sprouted at the water’s edge, petals he recognized.
This was where Anaya came to collect brightleaf, an essential ingredient in several of Evaine’s tinctures.
Rolan ground his teeth together.“No.”
Dragging himself up the bank, Rolan spat out mud and glared at the Cryptic.
“You’ve already killed two people,” he snarled. “I won’t let you hurt anyone else!”
He threw himself at the monster, holding nothing back this time. Hehadto get past those tentacles if he was going to have any hope of piercing its core.
Twice, thrice it lashed him, each cut drawing blood and another burst of red pain. The venom was stronger than usual, because it was a more mature Cryptic. Still young by Luc’s standards, but more than Rolan had had to handle before. He was getting dizzy, the venom working fast.
He had seconds to end this, or the Cryptic might end him.
Pressing closer, taking two more strikes to his abdomen, Rolan gave a roar and pounced on the Cryptic, pinning it to the ground with his own body. He felt another barb bury itself in his back, and another—
And then his knife found a weak spot in its scales, sliding down into the monster’s center.
With a shudder, the Cryptic’s form went slack. As it turned to smoke, Rolan landed hard on the ground, the wind knocked from his lungs.
Choking for air, sobbing from his bleeding wounds, Rolan wrapped his fingers around his grisly trophy—the glowing blue barb the Cryptic had left behind.
He tried to rise, slipped, and tumbled down the steep bank. The water lapped at his boots, trying to pull him deeper. The mud was too slick, and he could not hold on for long. His strength leaked out of him, his vision blurred. The venom pumped through his veins like death.
He had no choice. If he didn’t do something, he’d slip into the river and drown.
Rolan stabbed the relic with his dagger’s point and reached for the Hollow Path at the same time. Luc had been right—every time he searched for it, it came faster. This time it took only two heartbeats to open the channel inside him. Blue light erupted from the barb and slithered up his knife, melting into the steel. As he’d done the night Luc had supervised his first Cryptic kill, Rolan pulled the magic into himself, watching the blue vines trace over his hand and up his sleeve.
