Page 27

Ilooked at the "ladder"—which was really just a vertical labyrinth of slippery, moss-covered ropes dangling over a drop so deep the village below was already shrinking into a green blur—and then back at him.

"Up? You want me to go up there? I have the upper body strength of a wet noodle. This isn't training; it’s an elaborate assisted suicide. Do you have any idea how gravity works for humans? We don't bounce!"

He didn't even blink. He simply reached out and grabbed a vine, his powerful back muscles rippling under his copper skin as he moved with the effortless, sickening grace of a predator.

"You talk too much, star-woman. In the canopy, breath is for climbing, not for complaining. If your lungs are empty of air, they cannot sustain your weight. Use your limbs, not your tongue."

"I'm not complaining! I'm performing a realistic risk assessment!" I shouted after him, but I grabbed the first vine anyway. The Haka-hide was supple, but the leather of my boots felt clumsy and foreign against the organic, shifting curves of the tree. Every time the wind blew, the entire world seemed to sway, and my stomach did a slow, nauseating somersault.

"How the fuck is this basic survival?" I gasped, hauling myself up the first fifteen feet, my heart already hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "Basic survival is finding a berry that doesn't melt your oesophagus or learning how to start a fire. This is extreme gymnastics without a net, a harness, or a sanity clause!"

"If the Skylas catch you on the forest floor, you are a meal," his voice drifted down from above, calm and irritatingly steady. He wasn't even breathing hard. "The Skylas hunt by heat, and the Stalkers hunt by sound. If they do not get you, the Vakras surely will. If you are in the high boughs, you are a hunter. Move your feet, Ly-ra. Stop looking at the air and look at the wood."

"I am looking at the wood! I'm intimately acquainted with the wood! I'm currently hugging the wood for dear life!" I yelled, my fingers cramping as I squeezed a thick, purple vine. "And who the hell are the Vakras? You keep mentioning them like they’re the boogeyman! Are they more of your people? Or is there another nightmare species on this planet I should be adding to my 'reasons to stay in bed' list?"

"The Vakras are the Severed," Kaelen’s voice dropped, turning cold. "They do not hunt for survival; they hunt for the sake of the kill. You do not want to meet them, Ly-ra. Now, climb."

We climbed for what felt like hours. My muscles screamed, a dull, throbbing ache settling into my forearms and calves. My breath came in ragged, burning hitches. Every time I slowed down, Kaelen would appear on a branch just above me, crouching like a gargoyle, looking down with an expression of bored patience that made me want to throw a shoe at him.

"The younglings move faster than this," he noted, his tail flicking dismissively. "Even the ones who still wobble on their feet move with more purpose."

"The younglings have tail-stabilisers and four-wheel drive!" I snapped back, wiping a smear of mud and sweat from my forehead. I was shaking now, my coordination fraying. "I have two legs, a mounting sense of regret, and a centre of gravity that is currently trying to file for divorce! This is physically impossible for a human! My species evolved to walk on flat ground, Kaelen! Ground! That stable stuff at the bottom!"

"Then evolve faster," he said simply, before disappearing into the foliage again.

Finally, the canopy began to thin. The oppressive green shadows and heavy humidity gave way to a blinding, brilliant violet light. I hauled myself onto the final, massive platform—a branch so wide it could have served as a runway—and collapsed onto my hands and knees, my chest heaving, my vision swimming with black spots.

"Look," Kaelen said. His voice had lost its sharp, instructional edge, replaced by something hushed, almost reverent.

I forced myself to stand, my legs shaking like reeds in a gale. I looked out, and the breath I had been fighting for vanished for an entirely different reason.

We were above the cloud line. The Great Tree’s crown stretched out like a continent of shimmering, amethyst leaves, but it was the horizon that broke my scientific mind. To the north, past the emerald expanse, I caught a glimpse of the far rim—a sliver of blinding, pale white that looked like a wasteland of frozen wood stretching into the mist. To the south, the lush jungle bled into a crystalline desert where the sands glowed with a soft, pulsing blue. To the west, I could see a range of mountains made of what looked like floating obsidian, tethered to the ground by massive, glowing stalks of bioluminescent fungi.

"The biomes..." I whispered, my brain scrambling to categorise the impossibility. "The atmospheric stratification shouldn't allow for that kind of transition. The humidity gradients alone... the moisture should be locked in the basin. How can a desert exist adjacent to a rainforest without a rain shadow? And those mountains—they're defying gravity. Are they magnetic? Is the mineral composition of the obsidian reacting to a planetary core charge? It's... It's mathematically offensive."

Kaelen leaned against the main trunk, watching the way my eyes darted across the landscape. "You seek to put the world in a box, star-woman. You want to count the leaves instead of hearing the song. The Alu’un does not follow the laws of your tiny, cold stars. She breathes as she chooses."

"It’s not a box, it’s physics! It’s botany! It’s the fundamental structure of⁠—"

I was interrupted by a sudden, piercing shriek that sounded like metal tearing. A creature—half-bird, half-lizard, with wings like translucent stained glass and a wingspan that could have eclipsed a small car—burst from the leaves inches from my face. Its eyes were a terrifying, multifaceted red, and its talons clicked against the wood like a closing trap.

"Holy—!"

I flinched violently, my foot catching on a slick patch of bioluminescent moss at the very edge of the branch. My balance, already precarious from the climb and the sheer sensory overload, disintegrated in an instant.

Time slowed to a crawl. I felt my stomach drop into my throat as I tipped backwards into the open air. I reached out, my fingers clawing at the empty, violet sky, my eyes locking onto Kaelen’s.

He didn't move. Not at first.

He stood there, perfectly still against the backdrop of the glowing desert and the floating mountains. I expected panic, or at least the roar he’d used to save me before. Instead, I saw him let out a slow, deep sigh, as if my clumsiness were a tedious personal tax he was tired of paying.

A small, infuriating smirk touched the corner of his mouth—the first real, genuine smile I’d seen on his face, and of course, it was because I was finally plummeting to my certain death.

"Zha-lo, star-woman," I thought I heard him murmur, his eyes tracking my descent with a strange, dark amusement.

Then the wind roared in my ears, the canopy rushed up to meet me like a solid wall, and I was falling.

"YOU SON OF A⁠—!"