by Lynne Matson
My eyes flew to our left. Three lions and three hyenas slunk in our direction, moving silently, eyes intent on us. Each movement deliberate, the lions padded slightly in front, a lioness in the lead; the hyenas skulked well behind. We were outnumbered, six to five, with only one torch between us.
“Calvin, take the torch.” James’s voice was quiet. As he spoke, I readied my sling, sweeping the ground for rocks. I had only a handful in my bag, which would go quickly.
“I have my spear,” James continued. “Look big, make noise. Throw rocks, aim for the cats’ faces. And whatever you do, do not run.”
James widened his stance and waved his arms, shouting. Barely moving, he inched to his left, toward the coast and slightly backward.
We all followed suit, waving our arms over our heads, yelling like crazy people. The lions slowed, possibly confused. Hafthor had surprisingly good aim, hitting two of the lions smack on the nose with rocks.
It’s working, I thought. Hope blossomed in my chest.
Without stopping, we yelled, crept left, threw rocks, and made a human racket. Only twenty yards to the cliff’s edge, less than ten to the trees. Now I knew where James was leading us: a path down the cliff, putting us near the hot springs and the cavern housing the Pool of Sight. Thick trees were at our backs, fifteen feet away at most.
Without warning, the ground shook. It rolled and shifted, moving like it was alive. Carmen tripped beside me, hitting the rocks with bound hands and rolling.
The lions snarled and sprinted and time slowed and spun. The ground stilled.
One cat leaped at James, mouth open, teeth bared. James froze, his face calm; he watched the lioness fly toward him, waiting. At the last possible second he rammed a spear down her open mouth. Another cat leaped at Hafthor. He grabbed the cat with two hands and head-butted the beast; they rolled on the ground as one. The third one went after Calvin, hissing and snarling at the lit torch. I slung a rock at the cat and missed.
“Help Hafthor!” I cried to Calvin, readying my sling to go again, terrified for Hafthor wrestling a lion with his bare hands. “He needs you!”
“Get behind me!” Calvin yelled.
James wrenched his spear from the dead lioness’s mouth. A look of self-loathing crossed his face, then he turned toward Hafthor, bloody spear in hand.
I stepped away from Calvin and aimed for the lion still prowling out of range of the torch.
I slung. Something brushed my shoulder and I missed again. Two hands flashed in front of my face, and wire choked my neck.
“Any last words?” Carmen rasped in my ear.
Are you kidding me? I thought. And then I elbowed her hard in the ribs and pulled out the best Krav Maga move I had. She screamed and relaxed her grip, giving me the opening I needed to slip away. She clutched her side, her face contorted in pain and, strangely enough, confusion.
She stumbled away as I spun toward Hafthor.
He still grappled with the lion on the ground, arms fully extended, hands gripping the lion’s mane, a battle of strength and will. Blood slicked across Hafthor’s arms and torso like red paint. Hafthor lay on his back, the lion’s jaws inches from his exposed throat.
I clutched my rock sling, indecisive. I didn’t trust myself not to hit Hafthor. My aim seemed off. Beside me, James jockeyed to get a shot at the animal too; he circled, spear in hand, moving as stealthily as a cat himself. Shouting and hollering and the opposite of stealthy, Calvin waved the lit torch wildly at the other cat.
Carmen took off running, toward the rain forest.
Distracted, the lion darted away from Calvin, toward Carmen. This time I didn’t hesitate; I had a clear shot. I steadied my shoulder, slung a rock, and struck the cat on the skull. James closed his eyes as he slid his spear into its heart, finishing what I started. Wrenching his spear out with an angry cry, he sprinted after Carmen.
I wheeled back toward Hafthor in time to see his grip on the lion’s mane falter. The lion bit him on the shoulder and clamped down tight.
Hafthor roared almost as loud as the animal.
“Calvin!” I screamed. “Hurry!”
Sprinting over, Calvin pressed the lit torch against the cat’s flank. Immediately, the lion recoiled; it released its grip on Hafthor and swung its head around toward the torch. Hafthor hopped to his feet, his compass tattoo destroyed, his shoulder covered in blood and missing flesh. The lion growled, deep in his throat, his fur smoking.
For one crisp second, that visual was so clear.
Hafthor swaying on his feet, dark-red blood running down his arm in rivulets; the lion facing Hafthor, his golden coat smoking, his teeth bared and bloody.
The ground rumbled, a different rhythm from before, a growing vibration that escalated with each passing second.
The smoking lion leaped at Hafthor; Calvin lunged forward with the torch, swiping close enough to actually light the lion’s already-singed fur on fire. The hyenas scattered. I glanced behind me and time accelerated: a massive elephant was charging straight at us.
“Run!” I yelled.
Calvin froze. Hafthor yanked Calvin’s arm, jerking him to safety; the momentum sent Hafthor stumbling toward me. Blinded by fire and fear, the burning lion charged the elephant. Immediately, the elephant jerked and changed course—straight into Hafthor, passing close enough to me that its heat brushed my skin.
The startled elephant trampled Hafthor and kept going.
The flaming lion disappeared into the trees; the other two lay dead.
I dropped to Hafthor’s side. He lay on his back, bloody and beaten, his chest visibly crushed on one side. “Hafthor?” I took his hand. My voice shook. “It’s Skye.”
His eyelids fluttered. “Skye,” he whispered. A relaxed smile pulled at his lips. “I am … not lost.” He choked as blood bubbled on his lips. He reached up toward his shoulder, as if to touch the skin where his tattoo used to be, a move I’d seen him do countless times, like a personal reassurance; only this time his hand faltered before it ever made contact, his fingers briefly brushing Nil air before falling back to Nil ground. The light left his eyes. The pressure in my hand eased.
“Hafthor?” Tears ran down my cheeks. The ground trembled ever so slightly, and a thin wave of unbridled energy washed over me like an invisible gate, a tangible surge of pleasure and power I couldn’t miss, or deny.
Hafthor lay still. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t expand my lungs under the leaden pressure of grief and death and loss. The weight of pain was suffocating. I would break.
Soon … whispered the wind.
I didn’t move.
“Skye, we’ve got to go,” Calvin said quietly. He gently pulled me to my feet. I looked up, taking in the shock in his rich brown eyes, the blood splattered across his cheek and chest, the fading torch still burning in his hand. Now he carried two satchels: his, and Hafthor’s.
“Skye.” Worry crept into his tone. “We gotta get away from those dogs.”
All three hyenas were attacking the first lion James had killed; they tore at the cat’s lifeless body without pause. “Hyenas,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Those are hyenas.” I looked down at Hafthor. At his empty eyes. For an endless moment, I saw Dex. Then Hafthor and the faces of hundreds of others. All dead. All lost, forever.
I bent down and closed Hafthor’s eyes.
“Peace,” I whispered. Tears clouded my vision.
Hafthor, gone. Dex, gone.
Rives, missing.
Rives.
He was nowhere in sight. Neither was anyone else, other than Calvin, who stood watching me, waiting nervously. Fear welled, an invisible riptide sucking me out to a place I didn’t want to be. For a long moment, there was no air.
You can do this, Skye. Think first, panic later.
Think.
I breathed, and I lifted my chin. I stood. I did not look down. “We need to get to the coast,” I told Calvin, my tone uncannily calm. “Figure out who else whistled and see if they need he
lp. And then we need to lay that fuse.”
We left Hafthor behind. I couldn’t match Calvin’s long stride, but I held my own until we reached the cliff edge. And then I crumbled to the ground in exhaustion.
“I have to rest,” I said. “Just for a minute.” A foot away from Calvin, I sat with my head in my hands; it was too heavy to lift without help.
Below us sat the hot springs. The cave entrance we needed was a black hole down to our left. I couldn’t see it from where I sat but I could picture it.
“I don’t see anyone.” Calvin frowned. “They should be here.” He took out his whistle and blew two quick blasts. The reply came back right away, faint but clear: two quick blasts. Calvin blew again, a short five-note sequence I didn’t recognize. The same sequence returned.
Calvin nodded, his shoulders relaxing. “Davey’s all right. Same for Molly.”
Calvin’s torch went out, leaving wispy smoke. More smoke wafted in the sea breeze.
Look, whispered the sea.
One second, then two.
LOOK.
Glancing back, I gasped.
The trees by the meadow spat flames; they licked at the air, greedy and hot. Smoke billowed from the thickets in massive puffs.
“Calvin,” I whispered. “Nil is on fire.”
CHAPTER
73
RIVES
AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, ALMOST TWILIGHT
I fought the urge to look back.
To turn back.
Rivessss … whispered the wind.
Mine … Look …
I didn’t rise to the bait, didn’t respond. I just ran.
Get. Out.
Those two words were mine. My plea, my thoughts. My head.
Mine.
I cut around Mount Nil’s base and approached the southern cliff edge just as the SOS signal blasted again. I signaled back: heard and acknowledged.
Someone repeated my signal from below. A shout mixed with the crash of waves, thunder booming on water, and my gut twisted. No one should be down there, on this side of Mount Nil. Here, lava dripped close enough to scald; the water burned like acid.
I peered over the edge and cursed.
Lava dripped just to the north, a river of oozing black sludge bursting with steaming red cracks as it flowed south, like hell had broken open and spilled out. Lana, Zane, and Thad sat huddled on a rock surrounded by hissing water. Zane had a bloody gash on his temple, big enough for me to see from here.
“Rives!” Thad waved. His arm was bloody too. “Down here!”
Look around, pay attention.
I needed to get them out of harm’s way, and get them up. I almost yelled Sit tight, but it wasn’t like they had another option.
I headed south until I found a cliff angle that looked slightly less likely to result in instant death. Slipping and sliding, I managed to get down in one piece.
Pressing my back to the cliff, I worked my way back along the water’s edge until I reached the trio. They sat on a rock, trapped by the tide, but they were close enough that they could hop across the water. Maybe a two-meter clearance, at most.
“You’re going to have to jump!” I said. “No way around it.”
“Can’t.” Thad grimaced. “Zane busted his ankle. Plus, I think he’s got a concussion.”
“I’m fine!” Zane raised his hand and tapped his bloody forehead. “A mere flesh wound.”
“Right.” Lana rolled her eyes as she pointed to his ankle. “Because we’re supposed to see bone poking out of your skin.” Despite her normal edge, Lana sounded worried.
“I can swing him across,” Thad said. “But I need you to catch him.”
Getting Zane across was brutal. Keeping his ankle out of the water, trying to keep him upright. But after repeated efforts and a few near-epic fails, Thad, Lana, and I succeeded in getting him across the water. Zane didn’t even pass out, which was impressive, because his ankle looked like it’d been smashed between two boulders, which essentially, Thad told me, it had.
Half dragging, half pushing, the three of us even managed to get Zane back up the cliff. We eased him to the ground, then we collapsed, catching our breath. Nothing and no one was around. Just us, panting, and Nil, listening.
My mouth was dry. From thirst, from dread.
“What happened?” I asked Thad quietly. Lana and Zane lay just to our left. “Why were you guys so far south?”
“Zane thought he heard someone. It started at South Beach on our first day out, and we ended up following the voice all the way back to the City. No one was there. Then we turned around, now a full day behind. This morning, Zane started hearing a voice again. A different one, but still. I couldn’t convince him it wasn’t real.”
“Sounds familiar. Calvin heard voices too. But we never found anyone.”
Thad hesitated. “We didn’t either. At first I wasn’t sure, because I thought I heard it too. But then—” He glanced at Zane. “He wouldn’t listen. He was frantic. We could barely keep up with him. We were at the base of this cliff when that tremor hit, and we were trapped. I don’t remember that much lava being here before, but man, there’s a river of it now. The rocks shifted so fast, some slid down. Zane slipped, he went flying. When he fell, he messed up his ankle and knocked himself out.” Thad shook his head. “On the upside, he’s not hearing the voice anymore.” He shrugged. “Maybe he knocked Nil out of his head, eh?”
“Maybe.” Concussions as a Nil antidote? More like a Nil side effect, I thought.
I knelt beside Zane. “You hanging in there, Z?”
“You know it, Chief.” He smiled, then winced. “Sorry I screwed this up. But I really thought I heard him.” Pain rippled across his face like a shadow. “And I couldn’t have left him hanging if it was him.”
“Who?”
“Sy.” Zane gave a pained laugh. “But it wasn’t him. And I almost walked straight into lava thinking I was seeing Sy. That he was calling for me, for help. Seriously, I nearly barbecued myself. The quake actually saved me. Talk about screwed up.” He sighed, his eyes wide open. “Now Garrett doesn’t seem so crazy.”
“Where is Garrett?” I glanced around. I’d forgotten all about the rookie.
“He died,” Lana whispered. “It was awful.”
“What?” I stared at her.
“Rives.” Thad looked incredibly uncomfortable. “It’s not good. He walked off the cliff. He was talking to someone, and he literally just stepped off the edge, into thin air.”
“Nil made him do it,” Lana said with finality. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. I think he saw something, but whatever he saw wasn’t real.”
Like Talla in the gate, leading us here.
Nil’s head games had turned deadlier than ever.
Lana rubbed her arms; I realized she was shivering. The breeze blew cool against our damp skin. Daylight was fading fast.
This world tasted stale, the air bitter on my tongue.
Skye.
I jumped to my feet, feeling the pressure of dwindling time, like I was trapped at the bottom of an hourglass and all the grains of sand were pouring down on me, weighty and suffocating.
“We need to go.” I quickly slid an arm under Zane’s shoulder as I spoke. “Zane, Thad and I will support you, but we have to hurry. We only have a little bit of daylight left. We should light a torch just to be safe. It’ll be dark fast.”
“I don’t think we’ll need a torch,” Lana said. She pointed east. “The island’s already burning.”
CHAPTER
74
NIL
TWILIGHT
The island watched the various humans scurry around, their laughable plan underway.
Run, the island thought. Light your fires. Make your stand.
The island would revel in watching the humans burn.
Burning brought the cruelest pain of all. The island recoiled at the memory, then roared at remembered pain, seething with hate and bloodlust and a thirst for vengeance that would never
be slaked.
But tonight would be a start.
Tonight, the humans would burn as one, their group death incredibly useful, providing the long-awaited surge of electria powerful enough to shatter the seam forever. The island would no longer be tethered to this shell. It would be free.
And then it would unleash chaos on a new level, in a new world, in their world.
Yes, the island thought, trembling with anticipation as the humans crafted their own pyre. Fuel your fires. We will burn together. But you will be the ones to die.
CHAPTER
75
SKYE
AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, FADING TWILIGHT
The island rocked beneath my feet. I felt shaky and weirdly disoriented. Beside me, Calvin stared at the fire.
Fear washed over me like an icy breeze. It woke me up, like a slap to my cheek.
How long had we been standing there?
The sun was a blood-red ball grazing the water, and we still had to put all the torches in place and set the fuse. It couldn’t have been long, I told myself.
But we’d had no time to lose. How could this happen?
Starting to shake, I grabbed Calvin’s arm and shook him too. “Calvin! We need to go!”
He blinked, understanding hitting with the setting sun. Together we scrambled down the cliff, our feet touching the sandy rock at the base just as Molly popped into sight around the corner.
“Skye!” Molly’s cry burst with relief.
“Where’s Davey?” I asked.
“With Dominic. They’re coming, with Paulo and Kenji.”
“Anyone else?”
Molly shook her head.
“We heard the danger blasts and the SOS. Who’s in trouble?” Fear swelled in my heart; I fought it even as I stared at Molly, dreading her words.
“You.” Molly’s eyes were sad. “And Hafthor. He’s gone, isn’t he?”
I nodded.
Molly squeezed her eyes shut, breathing shallowly. “I tried to warn you, but—” She broke off, shaking her head. “I tried.” Tears leaked from her eyes. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t hug her, or comfort her, or tell her it was okay, because right now, this entire place was definitely not okay, and the pain pumping through my heart would give her a nasty vision of the future—or at least an extraordinarily painful one.