by Claire Luana
“Together,” he gasped with ragged breath. They would make their stand, and Colum could continue on with Emi. It wasn’t yet dawn, so he couldn’t burn. But he still had his sword. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.
As Hiro prepared to turn and face the nightmare creatures, he burst from the edge of the forest out of the mist.
Before him lay a grassy bank and a pristine lake, dark and serene. Across the lake was a temple—no, a city nestled on a green island. The towers of the city rose high in the air, squat square structures stacked with circular towers, tapering to delicate spires reaching towards the sky. The sky lightened in the east, painted in shades from yellow to velvety navy. If he had any breath left, the scene would have stolen it from him.
Colum had made it to the edge of the lake, where a small, reed boat rested.
Hiro started to head towards them but whirled back towards the forest as snarls sounded close behind. Four of the black-skinned tengu crouched before him in a semi-circle. These tengu were canine in form with hunched, hulking backs and four clawed feet churning up the earth beneath them. Their yellow eyes watched him with hunter’s savvy, and their horn-like hackles were raised, ready for the attack.
“Hurry,” Colum called.
Hiro started to back up as the first tengu sprang for him. But Ryu, like a golden blur, crashed into the tengu with a roar, toppling it to the ground mid-leap.
“Run,” Ryu cried, and the other tengu leaped onto him.
Hiro lunged forward at the tengu on Ryu’s back, who was struggling to sink its teeth into Ryu’s neck. He slashed with his sword, opening up a slit in the creature’s side. It screamed and fell to the ground, clawed feet scrambling for purchase.
“Hiro!” Colum cried urgently.
“Go,” Ryu snarled at him while shaking another tengu off himself. “Save her!”
Hiro ran for the boat, cursing himself for leaving Ryu behind. He grabbed the sides of the boat and pushed, launching himself into it while pushing off the shore. The boat rocked dangerously but stayed upright as he settled into it, whirling around to watch Ryu’s desperate fight.
Ryu was running towards the lake now, dragging a tengu that clung to him with talons buried in Ryu’s powerful hindquarters. The others harried him, close on his heels.
Hiro’s anger flared red hot as he watched the unholy creatures struggle to take down his best friend.
Colum continued rowing as the first ray of sunlight crested the far hillside and temple. Hiro smiled grimly and burned, sending three bolts of white hot lightning into the tengu flanking Ryu.
They snarled and writhed on the ground, stunned by the blasts. Ryu used the confusion to dislodge the last beast and leap towards the lake, splashing into the water. He began swimming towards them, his blood leaving a crimson wake.
The tengu that had almost taken down Ryu scrambled to its feet and galloped towards the lake’s edge. Hiro pulled in more sunlight, ready to strike again.
But as soon as the tengu touched the water, it screamed in pain and steam rose from the surface of the lake. The tengu backed out quickly, whining and snuffling at its feet. The four animals paced along the lakeside, loudly protesting the loss of their prey.
For some reason, the tengu couldn’t go in the lake.
Hiro breathed a heavy sigh of relief. They were safe.
Safe. Hiro looked about the remnants of their group. Emi near death. Ryu bloody and laboring to swim alongside their boat. Kai and Daarco, missing somewhere in that mad forest—if not dead already.
No, they weren’t even close to safe.
Kai tried not to panic. Think. She could get out of this.
She tried to take a step back towards what she thought was solid ground, but the sticky mud refused to release its captive. She half fell forward, burying her hands in the mud as well. She was able to extricate these and wiped the gooey substance on her pants with distaste.
“Got yourself in quite a pickle, didn’t you?” Quitsu said. He sat on a low branch of one of the nearby trees. The silver of his fur blended into the mist, transforming him into a disembodied set of black pinprick eyes.
“Yes.” She sighed, relieved at the sight of him.
“I almost think you’re lucky you got stuck in that mud,” Quitsu said. “Or you would have followed your father’s ghost over a cliff.”
Kai cringed, trying to suppress the hot embarrassment seeping through her body. She didn’t know what had come over her. She had acted like a crazed fool, rushing off without any thought to her friends. Were they still headed to the seishen elder? What was Emi’s condition?
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said miserably. “When I saw him… Never mind. Just help me get out of here.”
“Do you have any rope?” Quitsu asked.
Kai let out an exasperated sigh. Her pack was long gone. Clearly she didn’t. “Do you have any rope?” she shot back.
Quitsu’s ears flicked in annoyance. “If you’re going to be like that, I’ll just leave you to sink to a muddy demise. Serves you right.”
She blew out a breath, fluttering her silver hair out of her face. Sometimes her seishen was infuriating. “I am sorry, Quitsu,” she said with exaggerated penitence. “Any other ideas beside a rope?”
“We need some sort of tree limb,” he said. “Or something you can grab to pull yourself out. Can you burn that white stuff?”
Kai opened herself up to the pure power, wrestling with its force and pulling a small bit into her qi. She eyed the tree Quitsu was perched on. If she knocked the tree over right next to her, she could use its solid trunk to climb out of the mud. If she didn’t squish herself completely.
“I can burn it,” she said. “Stand back. I’m going to try something.”
Kai began burning the light across the trunk, making a precise cut that she prayed would topple the tree close, but not too close, to her. The power wanted to envelop the tree, to burn it, to heat its sap until it exploded in a cosmic fire.
“Careful…” Quitsu said.
She shushed him, concentrating, sweat breaking out on her brow from the strain of it. The tree groaned and creaked, leaning over the mud pit she stood in. She was almost there.
It was enough. A crack of splintering bark sounded as the tree split through. The tree toppled and hit the ground with a slap against the surface of the mud. The mud recoiled against the force, splattering her from head to already-mud-covered toe.
Quitsu started laughing, his signature chuffing sound growing until he was rolling on the forest floor with peals of laughter.
Kai wiped what mud she could from her eyes with all the dignity she could muster. She glared at him but couldn’t hold her annoyance for long. She was coated from head to toe in chocolate mud. She must have looked ridiculous. A smile cracked at the corner of her face, and soon she was joining him, laughing at the absurdity of her plight. If she didn’t laugh, she thought she might cry.
When her laughter subsided, Kai gripped the top of the tree trunk, grabbing hold of a branch sticking out of the other side. She hauled herself up onto the trunk, which sank only slightly into the muck.
She stood and balanced, carefully placing one foot in front of the other until she was standing once again on solid ground.
She immediately picked Quitsu up and hugged him tightly, smearing the mud from her face and neck onto his soft fur.
“Ack!” he cried, trying to squirm out of her grasp.
“Thank you for rescuing me, brave seishen,” she said, finally releasing him and setting him down.
He shook until his fur stuck out in muddy spikes. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
She kicked some dirt at him and looked around, trying to get her bearings. Beside the mud pit that she knew to avoid, the mist around them was entirely uniform. She had no idea which direction to go.
“Do you know which way leads to the elder’s island?” she asked.
Quitsu sat down, licking his matted fur. “Hmm?” he said. “
I can’t hear you through the mud in my ears.”
“You know that was a joke,” she said. “But be serious. I’m worried about Emi. Not to mention if one of those tengu things finds us. I only have one knife left.” She fingered the jade-pommeled knife strapped to her arm, comforted by its presence. Her new power was strong but unpredictable. She would rather not rely on it in a fight, at least until she knew how to use it.
Quitsu stood, his fur still askew. “We’re close enough that I can sense the way. Follow me.”
They moved quickly and silently through the misty woods. Kai scanned the trees nervously, keeping her senses attuned to the forest. It was still and silent but for the rustling of their feet and her mud-caked clothing.
The adrenaline of her escape from the muck died away, and she was left with only her very human sensations. Hunger, pain, fear.
“‘Go on a journey,’ they said. ‘See the seishen elder,’ they said,” Quitsu muttered under his breath as he walked beside her. Kai smiled. She had been thinking the same thing. He knew her so well, sometimes she forgot what it felt like to see her very soul personified outside her body. It was comforting, yet unsettling.
After what felt like hours, the mist began to lift.
“Are we here?” Kai asked with a hope that she tried to swallow. She couldn’t take a disappointment. If they hadn’t yet arrived, she thought she might sit down and never get up.
“We’re here,” Quitsu said.
They had reached the edge of the forest. A grassy hill stretched down to a pristine azure lake. A gentle breeze blew across the water, its crisp scent tousling her dirty hair in its caress. The island behind it, dotted with temple towers and steeples, was perhaps the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
“You grew up here?” she asked. “I imagined you running around in a forest. This is much more…grand.”
“Tsuki and Taiyo blessed us with this place when they created the land. The seishen elder said it is the birthplace of the world.”
“I believe it,” Kai said. “Now we just have to see if Tsuki and Taiyo abandoned it for good.”
“Get down,” Quitsu hissed, dropping to his belly in the lush grass.
Trusting him instinctually, Kai followed suit, trying to camouflage herself amongst the green blades. “What is it?” she whispered.
“Tengu,” he said. “Pacing the edge of the water.”
Kai raised her head slightly. The demons’ cracked hides looked even more unnatural under the bright light of day. They harried the water’s edge, clearly upset, letting out whines and groans of frustration.
“I don’t think they can go in the water,” Quitsu said. “Watch how they stay back from the edge.”
“But they dearly want something in the water,” Kai said, hope welling in her. “Do you think the others made it across the lake?”
“I hope so,” Quitsu said. “But it’s the only way for us to go either way.”
“How do we get to the island?” Kai asked. “I don’t see any boat on the shore.”
“I think we’ll have to swim,” Quitsu grumbled. “I’ll give the elder hell for this.”
Kai stifled a smile. Quitsu hated water and found swimming to be beneath his dignity. But she didn’t blame him entirely. She eyed the distance from the shore to the lake. It would strain her swimming abilities on a good day. And this was not a good day. Her muscles were shaky from exhaustion and hunger.
She looked back to the edge of the forest, where mist curled and floated, and then towards the tengu circling to her right. She sighed. Nowhere to go but forward.
“Make a run for it?” she asked.
“Only honorable thing,” Quitsu said.
“Screw honor,” Kai said. “Let’s just stay alive.”
And so they stood and ran.
CHAPTER 20
Their little boat ran aground on the sugary sand of the island’s shore. Colum jumped out and pulled the boat out of the water while Hiro hoisted Emi into his leaden arms.
Ryu dragged himself onto the bank and collapsed, his labored breath disturbing puffs of soft sand. The venom from the tengu’s talons was mixing with Ryu’s blood, coating his golden hindquarters with pink-tinged foam.
Hiro looked down at Emi, whose face matched the color of her silver hair. Her breath was shallow and halting. She looked worse than death. Soon, Ryu would share the same fate.
They needed to find the seishen elder.
“Lead the way,” Hiro said, hoisting Emi a bit higher and adjusting his grip.
Colum hesitated, rubbing the stubble on his jaw. “I wasn’t supposed to come back,” he said. “Maybe I’ll wait here while you go ahead.”
“Show me the way or I will boil your blood where you stand,” Hiro said, his voice like iron. He didn’t have time for this nonsense. “However angry the seishen elder was with you before, it will seem a small thing compared to his wrath after you let one of his seishen die on his shores.”
Colum glared at Hiro, his knuckles white on his staff. Finally, his shoulders sagged slightly and he started up from the water’s edge.
“Ryu, can you walk?” Hiro asked, seeing the fatigue and pain in his friend’s eyes.
“I will make it,” Ryu rumbled.
A narrow set of stairs snaked up from the lake towards the temple buildings, the stones worn in the middle from the tread of a thousand footsteps. The sight was incongruous, as Hiro somehow felt like he and Colum were the only two men who had ever set foot on this island. The stairway eventually led them through a stone archway and into a wide courtyard. Hiro couldn’t help but gasp at the scene around him. Winding vines and plants covered the walls and towers surrounding them, their tendrils finding purchase in the nooks of ancient-looking carvings and lettering. Hiro wished he had a moment to take it all in, but Emi’s heavy weight in his arms reminded him that they were already on borrowed time.
Colum looked at his open mouth and smirked. “You can see why I was drawn to this place as a young adventurer.”
Hiro stopped suddenly, breathing in the scents of fresh grass and jasmine. Before them, at the top of another staircase, was a seishen. A silver stag, small and delicate, surveying them with sharp eyes.
“You are expected,” he said. “Follow me.”
Hiro had never seen a seishen without its burner before. This one’s burner must still be too young for her abilities to have developed. So her seishen waited—here—until it was time.
They followed the seishen, who kept up a quick pace, despite his small legs. They reached an imposing double door of dark wood carved with inlays of silver and gold. The doors opened inward, and Hiro’s breath caught in his throat.
The crown jewel of the scene was clearly the tree. It rose into the air proud and strong, higher than even the tops of the temple spires surrounding it. Its white trunk was so large that Hiro guessed it would take ten men to reach around it with arms outstretched. Its silver and gold leaves fluttered in the breeze, catching the rays of the rich morning sun in a dazzling light show.
Before the tree was a still pond of sapphire blue fed by a glistening stream from the tree’s base. On the stone steps and fragrant grass around the courtyard sat seishen, their silver and gold fur glistening in the morning sun. Plumed birds, big cats, nimble squirrels, and hunched wolves all rested together on the bed of green.
But none of these extraordinary sights prepared Hiro for the seishen elder. It descended from the tree on eagle’s wings broader than a man is tall. Its fur and feathers were white, a white so pure that it hurt his eyes to look at it. It was a creature unlike any he had ever seen. It had a lion’s body—but with the head and wings of an eagle. Its front legs bore eagle’s talons, but its back had claws like Ryu’s. Hiro hardly came up to the elder’s chest.
It landed on the ground before them, the backbeats from its wings stirring dust into his eyes.
“I thought I told you never to return here, thief,” the elder said to Colum in a deep baritone, taking a menacing ste
p towards him.
Colum, who had the wherewithal to look apologetic, bowed low, his salt-and-pepper curls falling over his weathered forehead.
“He was our guide,” Hiro said, stepping forward. “I made him cross the lake. Our friend is dying. We had no time.”
The seishen elder looked at Hiro, sizing him up with sharp eyes the color of blood. Hiro wanted to look away from the strange creature but held its gaze, feeling his worth being measured.
“What makes you think I care about the plight of one dying moonburner?”
“You tend the seishen—you and they are tied to the burners. And this dying moonburner is one of the bravest warriors I know. She is fighting to save this world from an unspeakable evil.” Hiro’s voice grew hard. He knew he should be falling on his face to worship this ancient creature, but he was exhausted, sore, and worried sick about Kai and Emi. He didn’t have time for philosophizing. “If you deny us help, if you let this burner die, you’re handing a victory to the tengu.”
The elder’s eyes hardened, and a crest of feathers rose above its head and down its back. “Are you so young and hot-blooded that you seek to goad me with talk of those abominations? I was here when this world was formed from nothing! And I will be here when those creatures are cast back into their demon hell!”
Colum bowed low and shook his head at Hiro with a look of blind panic in his eyes.
“My apologies,” Hiro said, stilling his racing temper. “We have been through many ordeals on our way to find you. We seek a way to send the false Tsuki and Taiyo back to this demon hell you speak of and return the proper balance to this world. But we can’t do this if our friend dies, or if my seishen dies. Please help us.” He bowed as low as he could while bearing Emi’s dead weight in his arms, matching Colum’s posture.
The elder’s hackles settled back and it clacked its beak in what almost sounded like laughter.