Then he pulled the blade out, and Lord Yuji crumpled to the ground.
With one shove, the Wolf threw his former master into the river. I watched, stunned, as the waters carried Yuji away.
The Wolf had just broken his oath. He had taken his last breath as an enchanter and would soon awaken as…a demon.
Why he would doom himself to such a fate, I had no time to understand.
The moon was rising, and shadows spilled across the forest. Already my brothers were beginning to transform. Their limbs grew sinewy and long, and their feathers smoothed into skin.
But this time, they were not the only ones changing.
Whorls of black smoke spun from the Wolf’s amulet, swathing the golden cuff on his wrist. Like a rip of thunder, the cuff shattered. Then the true change began.
The Wolf’s flesh began to splinter. As he cried out, his voice changed from man to beast—a scream to a warbling snarl. His human frame convulsed, shoulders stretching out and nails growing long, piercing through the smoke at odd intervals. Skin ripening with fur, bones and muscles resetting themselves into the form of a beast.
“Something isn’t right,” Takkan murmured. “If he’s turning into a demon, the Holy Mountains should be claiming him. He shouldn’t still be here.”
I agreed silently, but it wasn’t the Wolf’s transformation that transfixed me. It was Seryu’s pearl.
Shadows eclipsed the fragment, smothering its light. And it too was beginning to change; it was merging into the Wolf’s amulet, possessed by its great and terrible power. It had to be the reason the Wolf could resist his summons to the Holy Mountains.
I needed to take it from him.
Around us, Lord Yuji’s terrified soldiers ran for the trees. Takkan took his bow and shot into the billowing storm. His arrow pierced the Wolf’s flesh, only to dissolve into dust.
“It’s no use,” I yelled, hooking him by the arm as he called for Admiral. While the horse galloped our way, I rushed to my brothers, picking up my fallen dagger to hack open their cages.
Hurry, hurry!Kiki cried.We need to get out of here.
My brothers were still changing. Sharp cries of agony racked their throats, their wings melting into arms and their feathers into cloth and skin. As their eyes sharpened with consciousness, Takkan and I pushed weapons into their hands. The darkness around the Wolf was growing, spiraling into the woods, killing everything it touched. Soldiers collapsed, their bodies turning to dust as the smoke spilled over them.
“Run!” I shouted. All six of my brothers, newly human, lurched at the sound of my cry. “Get out of here!”
I pushed Takkan to follow them, but he wouldn’t leave. Not without me.
“How can I help?”
Only Takkan would ask that so calmly when we were a stone’s throw away from a demon. “Follow my brothers! You’ll die if you stay.”
“What about you?”
“I need that pearl. It’s fusing with his amulet—”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence. Takkan spun for the Wolf, charging blindly.
Demons of Tambu!Kiki cursed.The boy’s even more reckless than you are.
I was already racing after him, my alarm surging with every step.
“Takkan!”
He aimed his last arrow at the Wolf—at the white light flashing in his tenuous grasp—then released it.
The arrow disappeared into the smoke. The entire forest seemed to go still, a dark pall settling over the trees as the Wolf completed his transformation. The moment stretched on for an eternity before a shard of light rolled out of the shadows—Seryu’s pearl.
Takkan stooped to pick it up just before the Wolf lunged towardhim.
“Awaken!” I screamed, summoning the trees to shield us both. Branches stretched and wove into walls, blocking the Wolf’s grasping claws.
