The Wraithlands swallowed Zuberi's light and the strange markings across his skin throbbed with fading energy. Each pulse left his limbs hollower. His knees buckled. The gray ground rushed up and blurred, then snapped back into focus as Lisa caught his arm.
"Zuberi!" Her voice cut through the haze. Silver flecks in her eyes danced to the last traces of his glow. She hesitated before touching him, but only for a second.
Hanz moved to his other side without speaking. They half-carried him from the mist-covered valley, their steps coordinated.
They did not stop until the twisted trees gradually transitioned into more normal ones. These had no leaves either, but their branches grew into shapes that made sense. Though the terrain retained a monochromatic feel, some beige added a dash of life. As Zuberi slumped against a wind-carved stone, he noticed they were, once again, going up a hill. The elevation was so subtle it was barely perceptible, but looking back the way they had come, Zuberi had the impression he was looking at a bowl with swirling milk inside. Lisa knelt beside him, her usual reserve stripped to focused efficiency as she inspected his wounds.
Nearby, Hanz put his hands on his knees and breathed hard. He had borne the majority of Zuberi's weight as they fled. After a few puffs, he stood upright and kicked a rock that turned out to be a bone. It started rolling down the hill, disintegrating as it went, until it vanished into a cloud of gray dust.
"Sweet Mother," Hanz said, pointing his thumb at the pooled mist below. "What was that?"
Zuberi's thoughts spun, unwound, and refused to come together into something coherent. Speech felt insurmountable. Having no answers to give, he chose to remain silent and focus on stabilizing the spinning world.
Lisa peeled back his torn shirt, her fingers probing, pushing to the threshold of pain, but never past it. She contoured the pale, claw-like marks, where the wraithlings' attacks had landed.
Her fingers paused. "The lines—they're brighter now."
Zuberi stiffened. He had no idea they were visible to others. For some reason, he had assumed that they were in his head.
"What lines?" Hanz stepped closer, an edge of suspicion sinking into his voice.
Lisa traced her index fingers below both Zuberi's shoulder blades, converging in the center of his back, at the other end of his sternum. "These markings. Like veins of light."
A dark part of Zuberi wanted to let the silence stretch, another wanted to explain, to say what the lines were, remove any obstacles to the nascent trust. But, of course, he could not. He knew no more than Lisa did. With a sudden will to change the subject, Zuberi straightened and fixed both siblings with a deadpan stare. "It proves I am the Chosen of the Sun."
Lisa, who had opened her mouth to say something, blinked. She closed her mouth, opened it once more, then closed it again, all the while her brow knitting into a question mark. Hanz barked a laugh that ended in a cough.
Unable to stop himself, blaming the outburst on the extreme fatigue that was still seeping into him, Zuberi started laughing too, hoarse and sudden, until vertigo made the world spin. When it passed, he wiped his face. "Forgive me. It's been too long since I had a reason to laugh."
Hanz rolled his eyes. "Hilarious. Don't leave your mist-ghoul slayer day job, tribal king."
Though Lisa hadn't joined in on the hilarity, an amused smirk danced on her lips as she kept looking Zuberi over. At Hanz's jab, Zuberi felt her fingers freeze against his skin. He wondered if the tremors he picked up and associated with anger and shame were something he could have noticed before.
"Hanz. Can you stop?" Lisa said, jaw tight, voice a growl ushered as a dry whisper. "Of all people…"
Zuberi waited for her to say more, but she didn't. He then replayed Hanz's reaction to the rebuke, the wide eyes, the thin lips, the rush of pink to his cheeks, then the averted eyes. All in the span of a breath. The atmosphere grew heavy as if something was building. Zuberi knew Hanz well enough by now to guess that whatever he would say would not make things easier to deal with. So, despite agreeing with the very sound advice Hanz had just given him, Zuberi decided to beat Hanz to speech.
He cleared his throat. "Why did the hunter refuse to share his kill with the hyena?"
Silence.
"Well, because," Zuberi waited for the appropriate number of seconds, then said, "He said, 'This isn't a laughing matter.'"
Zuberi never expected to have his audience rolling on the floor the way Bakari always had whenever Zuberi told the joke. He also did not expect it to land that flatly. Lisa offered a thin smile while Hanz's mouth and eye twitched, as if he was about to have a bout of migraine.
Zuberi let the lack of appreciation for his comedic genius pass. These were not hunters, after all. Yes, that must be it. But, the funny story had done its job. It had united the siblings, even if only for a moment, against its existence.
He let the quiet settle before gesturing to his back. "The markings," he said, and waited until Lisa's fingers resumed their exploration of his back. "I noticed them when I woke in this place." He inhaled sharply when Lisa pressed against his side. "They were faint at first. Sometimes, they vanish. Other times—"
"Other times, you vomit solar flares," Hanz cut in.
They all flinched at the memory.
Hanz turned to Lisa and took a deep breath before he spoke. "Those warnings you gave us," he stopped and eyed his sister, as if giving her the option to silence him, "Looked like you knew what was coming."
Lisa rolled Zuberi's shirt back down. She glanced at Zuberi and nodded, giving him a reassuring smile. "It's like… static clearing for a second." She gave a tired smile. "It's hard to describe, but I'll explain once I figure it out."
Zuberi wanted to ask about Hanz, about the shadows that seemed to obey him, but he noticed Lisa's face stiffen.
Her eyes unfocused and her whole body went rigid. "Did you hear that?"
There was only wind.
"Hear what?" Hanz's hand drifted toward the opening of his jacket.
"Nothing," Lisa said in the most obvious lie Zuberi had ever witnessed. Her head tilted like someone tracking distant thunder. "Probably exhausted is all."
After a few seconds, however, as Zuberi was readjusting his robes, the same thing repeated. Like a gazelle sensing a crouched lion, Lisa's head snapped to one side.
"There," she said, her voice sharpener. "You must hear it now."
The mist thinned marginally around them. Both men stood. Zuberi gripped his spear. Hanz drew a black shape from inside his coat—some metal with angular cuts and a cylindrical opening on one end, darkness coiling out of the opening like smoke.
Lisa glared at the object, her upper lip pulled back in disgust. "Seriously?"
Before Zuberi could think to diffuse this new conflict between the siblings, the markings tingled. It was not painful. It was the same feeling he got when, as children, Amara would have the task of shearing the sheep, then sneaked upon him after two sheep in a row and without touching the ground as she was supposed to. It was like that, but fainter and spread across his entire body. The more he stared at the object in Hanz's hands, the more intense the tingling got. He felt the object's name just a second away. Then Hanz clenched his jaw and hid it again. And just like that, the tingling stopped and the name vanished from Zuberi's mind.
Hanz snorted. "Guess I'm not the only psychotic one in the family."
Lisa threw him a glare but didn't respond. "It's a child. Crying for help."
Zuberi rested a hand on her shoulder. "We hear nothing. But you do." He met her eyes. "We have no destination. West or south would make little difference." A different kind of buzzing ran over Lisa's body and the panic in her eyes subsided when she locked them with his. He made sure he had her attention. "If you hear something and want to investigate, we will follow."
To the side, Hanz groaned. "Because chasing phantom children always ends well."
Instead of responding, Lisa was moving. Zuberi, unsure if she had even heard her brother's comment or his speech, exchanged a glance with Hanz. Hanz shrugged. As Zuberi had promised, they followed.