On they went.

  No one knew how far the skriitch’s territory extended, but Nyx imagined there had to be a limit. The horde had not spread and infested the lower chasm over the centuries. It was as if something was bottling them up here. Maybe it was the thicker mists; maybe it was some scent in the air, like what wafted from their fouled clothes.

  Frell stopped ahead, his shoulders slumping.

  They gathered to him and saw the reason for his halt. The river cut across their path. The steps upward continued on the far side.

  “We’ll have to swim,” Frell whispered dourly.

  They all knew the danger was not the river’s current. This stretch of the chasm was relatively flat, so the stream looked sluggish and manageable. But the forest on the other side buzzed with more of the skriitch. The cliffs ahead were pocked with hundreds of their warrens, along with larger caves. If they swam across, the gore would be washed from their clothes and bodies, leaving them exposed and defenseless.

  “We have to risk it,” Frell said.

  No one argued.

  One after the other, they slipped into the cold stream. They tried not to splash and draw attention. Nyx stayed alongside Jace. Kanthe trailed, clutching his bow in one hand and kicking low with his legs. Their eyes remained on the sky, on the air above them. Skriitch buzzed past their heads. A few even crashed atop the water, roiling and fluttering, only to be swept past them.

  Finally, they reached the far bank. Frell discovered steps under the water that led out of the river. He crouched there. “We must move quickly. Pray we’re close to the end of their domain. If stung, keep running for as long as you can. Be ready to help each other if someone falters.”

  Nyx swallowed and nodded.

  Frell turned back to the steps—but Kanthe grabbed his arm.

  “Stay,” the prince warned.

  Frell frowned. “I know it’s danger—”

  “No.” Kanthe turned to the other side of the river. “Listen.”

  With her heart pounding and the terror in the air, she had gone deaf to the echoing howl of the hunting thylassaurs. The pack wailed and screamed, likely scenting how close their prey was.

  Kanthe faced them, his eyes huge. “Wait,” was all he said.

  The triumphant cries of the hunters grew louder, more excited, echoing everywhere. But Nyx and the others weren’t the only ones listening. Skriitch streaked past overhead, all racing toward the howling pack, ready to paralyze the trespassers, each vying to be the first to lay its clutch of eggs into these new warm nests. The skies above the river briefly thickened with their forms as the horde swept down the chasm.

  Nyx lowered warily in the water as she watched them pass. Finally, the river cleared of their buzzing wings, until only a few leaden skriitch traced the mists. These last wobbled, a few falling into the current, clearly too old or enfeebled to offer much threat.

  “Now,” Kanthe said.

  They climbed out of the stream, their clothes heavy and shedding water with each step.

  Kanthe glanced across the river. “I’ve never been happier to be hunted.”

  “We still must hurry,” Frell warned. “And heed what I said before.”

  They took off, not bothering to remain silent any longer. The baying cries of the thylassaurs covered the occasional snapped branch or tumble of loose rock. As they fled upward, those victorious howls transformed into pained, terrified wails and yelps. Nyx pictured the slinky beasts coated in clinging skriitch, being stung and bit, impaled and seeded. Pity for them flickered through her, especially remembering the tortured state of the tiny deer.

  No creature deserved such a cruel end.

  Half focused behind her, she ran square into Frell, who had skidded to a stop ahead. She bounced off of him, only to be pushed even farther back.

  She spotted the reason for his sudden retreat.

  Ahead, the woods broke open to expose a section of chasm wall and the mouth of a large cave. The forest looked as if it had been tunneled through to that spot, the branches coated in mats of silvery webbing.

  From the cave, the source stalked into view on long jointed legs. It was the size of an ox, only with armored plates across its back. It dragged a long bulbous abdomen behind it. Segmented antennae swung through the air toward them. Each stalk ended in eyes that looked like faceted black diamonds.

  As the creature raised its front carapace higher, a triangular head gnashed the air with sharp mandibles. It crawled to the stair and blocked their way.

  Frell moaned as he backed them all away. “It’s a skriitch queen.”

  31

  KANTHE LET THE others retreat behind him. He knew there was only one path open to them, one way to go.

  Straight through that fecking monster.

  He dropped to a knee, bow held out, and fitted an arrow to the string. He fought down the horror of the sight before him. Half spider, half wasp, it looked like some creature cobbled together and dredged from the depths of an Iflelen crypt, or maybe a daemon conjured by their dread god, Ðreyk. It hissed at their group, while some noxious gas escaped from puckering pores along its oily flanks. He didn’t know if that pall was poisonous, but it smelled of the rotted bowels of a sun-bloated corpse.

  It trundled toward their group, stabbing rock with its skeletal legs, the backs of which were lined with rows of sharp chitinous hooks.

  Kanthe held his ground. He pulled the string to his cheek, the arrow’s fletching tickling his ear. He cast his gaze toward its dark triangular head, half-hidden by the edge of its crowning segment, and loosed the string. The bow sprang, and the arrow flew. As if anticipating the shot, the queen tipped the edge of its crown, and the bolt’s steel point glanced off the armor shell.

  But Kanthe was no inexperienced hunter. He remembered a lesson from the Cloudreach scout who had served as his first teacher: Often it’s not your first shot that kills, but the one already in the air after it. He had been taught to never count on the first arrow, to never stop to savor his marksmanship. Once an arrow was loose, it was best forgotten.

  As the bolt tinged off the carapace, he already had another arrow nocked and pulled. He let it loose, so when the queen lifted its crown, the next bolt was there and struck it square in the center of its head. Still, he didn’t stop to relish that strike—especially as the creature screamed and charged.

  He kept his post as another arrow flew and another.

  All striking true.

  Still, it came at him.

  He leaned his cheek, fixed the point, and thrummed the string.

  The next bolt swept through its jaws and struck into its dark gullet. Mandibles snapped the haft in two, but a second arrow followed the first.

  Have another taste.

  The queen’s charge faltered, its legs wobbling like a mummer’s stilts on cobbles.

  He continued to unleash his fury, peppering its head, a few aimed at its exposed chest, searching for its blasted heart, if it had one.

  Finally, the beast crashed to the steps, skidding toward him.

  Only then did he push off his knee and retreat. Still, he reached over his shoulder for another arrow, but he felt no feathers. He had emptied his quiver. He yanked out a dagger instead, ready in case it showed any sign of life.

  Thankfully, the mountainous bulk remained unmoving. Even in death, noxious gas steamed from its bulbous abdomen, forming a cloud around it.

  Kanthe fled from it.

  Frell joined him, drawing the others. Kanthe expected praise and cheers, but all he got was a worried look from his mentor. The other two stared back across the river. From the mists, the low drone of the skriitch had risen to a furious whine. Focused on the kill, he had failed to notice the change in the horde’s timbre.

  “They’re coming,” Jace said.

  Whether drawn by the scent of their queen or its earlier hissing screams, the skriitch plainly intended to avenge their fallen ruler.

  “Run,” Frell said. “And keep running.”

  The group sped away from the river, giving the steaming hulk a wide berth, and continued up the ancient steps. Kanthe led—so he was the first to see their mistaken assumption.

  Ahead, another four or five webbed tunnels branched off the foggy stairs. Large dark shadows clambered into view.

  Kanthe glared back at Frell, scolding his friend for not knowing the truth, an ignorance that would kill them all.

  The skriitch didn’t just have one queen.

  They had many.

  * * *

  NYX GAPED AT the dark shapes piling onto the stairs ahead of them. Behind her, the furious droning of the horde rose toward a dreadful crescendo, shivering the mists with their approach. She felt that buzzing on her skin, in her bones. She shook her head as the noise became a hornet’s nest in her skull.

  Only then did she realize it wasn’t the skriitch who plagued her so, but something more familiar. Her ears sharpened on a keening that sliced through the feverish whirring of the skriitch.

  She looked up as a winged shape dove through the branches and sped past overhead, then shot skyward, as if trying to draw her up and away—and succeeded.

  She still felt the rock under her boots, but she also flew skyward. Images lapped over one another. She still saw the forest around her, but she also watched the chasm open up under her as she skated high above. Even the mists failed to challenge her new sight. Her acuity stretched the breadth of the chasm, carried by the keening, which sharpened every nook, branch, leaf, and cranny. She saw the skriitch sweeping over the river. With focus, she could pick out individuals among the many.

  She remembered a similar moment like this, during her frantic flight away from Byrd and his cohorts at the Cloistery. She recalled how for a brief time the ringing of the school’s bells had somehow revealed a gauzy map of her surroundings. She had used that sight to flee more surefootedly across the revealed tier.

  Now she suspected the truth.

  Maybe it wasn’t the bells.

  Had Bashaliia already been there? Had he been the one who summoned the larger bat who killed Byrd?

  But she had no time to dwell on this.

  Through her real eyes below, she saw the dark queens stalking toward her and the others. Panic pounded her heart, pulling her out of the mists, down to her body. But she never made it. The keening grew sharper in the air, erasing the view of the steps, drawing her back up. She fought it.

  I must help them.

  She was ignored. Instead, her gaze was forced toward the swamps. She felt power in the air, like before a thunderstorm. Its strength gathered and coalesced around the fiery mountain of The Fist, shadowing the swamps around it. Then it surged toward the chasm, flooding up its length, sweeping faster and faster toward her.

  Through her other eyes, she saw Frell pulling them all back down the steps. She heard him say something about a cave, a place to flee the approaching horde.

  She knew that would not work.

  Viewed from on high, she watched the black wave thundering toward her. Out of the depths of that darkness, a pair of eyes shone back at her. She quailed from that gaze, sensing its immensity, its unfathomable nature, its abiding agelessness.

  She wanted to flee from it.

  But something whistled and pinged in her ear, the tiniest spark of that vastness, something tangible and comprehensible. Bashaliia. She fell back to the taste of warm milk, of another sharing her warmth. Here was something she could grasp, maybe even love.

  She clutched to it as the storm fell upon her. She was cast about like a twig in a flood. The current spun her out of the sky and back into her own body. Even then, power continued to pour into her, flowing through Bashaliia in the sky and down to her.

  She gasped as her body burned with those energies. It filled every bone, every vein, every organ. She sensed those ancient eyes staring at her from afar, coldly judging what she would do. And still the power flooded into her, until it could no longer be contained.

  She had to let it out.

  On the steps, she grabbed her skull with both hands and screamed, casting out that force. It burst forth in all directions, stripping the world of its secrets. Nothing could be kept from her sight now. In a blink, she saw every vein of leaf, every weevil that burrowed in bark, every tendril of fungus in soil. The others around her became bones, beating hearts, rushing blood.

  But what erupted from her was not only amplified sight. Her scream resonated with all the force of Bashaliia’s brethren, forged into something far greater.

  She remembered her nightmare atop the mountain, when that same force had broken stone. She had no such control now.

  As the wild wave surged out of her, she was lifted to her toes, maybe even off the stone. Its force blasted away the mists and buffeted the encroaching horde back down the chasm. Her companions tumbled to either side, blown into the shrub and trees.

  The nearest queen crumpled on the stair, like a spider burned by a hot ember. The other dark shapes fled as leaves were ripped and branches broken, battering after them. Her new eyes watched the creatures’ rows of tiny hearts squeezing in terror as they abandoned the stairs, seeking the refuge of shadow and rock.

  Then it was over.

  The strange force emptied out of her, and her heels settled back to the stone. But she had no strength. Her legs could not hold her. Her sharp vision collapsed to shadows, to patches of brightness and darkness, as if she had returned to her beclouded self. Weak, she toppled toward the hard stone, but arms caught her.

  “I got you,” Jace said out of the murk.

  Then another arm scooped her and lifted her higher. “We can’t wait,” Kanthe warned.

  Frell confirmed this. “The queens could return once their initial fright subsides.”

  Nyx felt herself carried between the two. Jace on one side, Kanthe on the other. She did not fight them or pretend strength she didn’t possess. She was hauled up the steps, her toes bumping along behind her. She passed out for a stretch, only to be stirred awake again, confused and panicked.

  But Jace reassured her.

  It also helped that her vision slowly returned. First, the depth of green forest, then details of leaf and branch. Her strength took longer to restore. Her head lolled between the two young men.

  Finally, Frell drew them to a stop. “I think we made it. We should be able to rest for a moment.”

  Jace helped her over to a fallen log. She struggled with her legs but managed the last few steps on her own. She gratefully collapsed to the makeshift seat. She gazed dully around her at giant trees that vanished into the low clouds. She spotted no sign of cliffs or rocky walls. She realized that Frell must have run them far into the woods beyond the chasm before risking a halt.

  Thank the Mother …

  Kanthe stared around, too. “We made it to Cloudreach. All my life, I’ve wanted to get my arse up here.” He shrugged. “’Course, maybe not like this.”

  “We can’t rest long,” Frell warned. “We still have two or three days of trekking to reach Havensfayre. And these woods can be just as dangerous.”

  Jace stared back the way they’d come. “What about the others? Surely the king’s legion isn’t going to be able to breach that chasm.” He glanced at Nyx, his face pale and nervous. “At least not like we did.”

  Kanthe answered, “That may be true. But I know the head of the Vyrllian Guard. Anskar has surely dispatched a skrycrow to Highmount. Knowing the path we took means he knows where we’re headed, and it wouldn’t take much to guess we might strike for Havensfayre.”

  A sullen silence followed.

  She caught the others eyeing her.

  Frell began to ask her something, even stepping forward, but Kanthe drew him back with a stern look.

  “Later,” the prince urged.

  Frell nodded.

  She knew they all wanted to inquire about what had happened back there, but they also recognized her exhaustion. Not that waiting would matter. She wasn’t sure she had any answers to give them.

  She craned her neck and searched the cloudy treetops.

  Jace noted her attention. “We’ve not seen any sign of your brother. Not since when…” His voice trailed off.

  “Bashaliia,” she whispered.

  As if summoned by his name, a winged shape circled out of the mists overhead and descended toward her. He dropped silently, with no keening or piping.

  He must be as exhausted as I am.

  Then her brother tipped sideways, fluttered weakly, and toppled toward the ground.

  Nyx lunged to her feet and stumbled forward. Kanthe crossed from the other direction. Together, they caught Bashaliia in their arms, careful of his wings, and cradled him to the ground.

  She knelt down, her heart at her throat. Bashaliia lay on his back, his chest barely moving, his neck stretched and twisted to the side.

  Frell and Jace hurried to them.

  “What happened to him?” Jace asked.

  Kanthe turned Bashaliia’s head. “The poor bastard never had the protection of that stinking bile like we did. Still, he stayed with us. And suffered for it.”

  The prince exposed the row of black spines impaled in her brother’s neck. Frell thumbed a bloody patch of fur, revealing a jagged stinger.

  Kanthe looked up at Nyx. “I’m sorry.”

  TEN

  TACKING INTO THE WIND

  Do not fear beyng wronge. But do fear beyng righteous.

  —An admonition found in A Boy’s Gentle Book of Wysdoms

  32

  DRESSED AGAIN IN a Klashean byor-ga to hide his face and form, Rhaif strode down the central passageway of the wyndship. He carried an empty woven basket and headed toward the ship’s cold kitchen to collect their cabin’s midday repast. As with all their meals, it was usually hard cheese, harder bread, and a small bottle of wine to wash it all down.

  But Rhaif’s trip to the kitchen now was less about filling his belly than about gathering information.

  He and his two companions—the chaaen-bound Pratik and the bronze woman Shiya—had been aboard the wyndship for two days, a craft dubbed The Soaring Pony. Then this morning, word had been tacked to their door, announcing a change to the ship’s route. Originally, the Pony had been slated to travel directly to Trader’s Ferry, a sprawling city at the center of the vast grassy plains of Aglerolarpok. It was a wild, lawless place and offered Rhaif plenty of directions and methods in which to vanish, to maybe even start a new life.