Lisa moved with unnerving certainty. Each step carried her deeper into the unknown with the fluid grace of someone walking in a dream. She didn't speak, weaving through the last wisps of mist like a bloodhound on a scent. Her hand drifted to her temple in a gesture Zuberi had first noticed by the standing stones in the valley below.
"Lisa…" Hanz's voice held an edge, echoing the tension from earlier. "Maybe we should—"
"I'm fine," she said, cutting him off, the words clipped but not harsh.
Zuberi followed closely, spear gripped loosely but ready in his aching hand. His limbs were leaden, every muscle protesting from that release of light and heat, something he was trying and failing to reconcile. But he had the growing sense, faint as it was, that he too could hear the call. The markings on his arms pulsed faintly in a rhythmical crescendo.
The cry kept building, like pressure beneath his skin, becoming clearer with each step.
Hanz trailed behind, unusually quiet. Zuberi had expected muttered complaints or dark jokes, but instead there was watchful silence, broken only by the occasional sharp intake of breath. Every so often, Hanz's right hand brushed against the bulk hidden beneath his coat, where he'd thrust the object, the weapon Zuberi suspected, after Lisa's alarm at seeing it.
But there was something else in his demeanor now. It showed in the way he positioned himself to keep both Lisa and their rear flank in view, how his shadows, more pronounced, more substantial, since their confrontation with the Wraithlings, appeared to reach toward his sister even as he maintained his distance.
When a strange noise echoed, Hanz's hand would reach for the opening in his pocket, then he would purse his lips, thin them into a tight line, and force his hand back. It took a while before Zuberi recognized the motion as something other than mere fidgeting. It was the muscle memory of a warrior reaching for a weapon, even when unnecessary, when the weapon was not there, or when it had been dulled by battle. It was drilled into the bones by experience, repetition, desperation, survival. He'd done the same in different jungles or plains, with different tools and weapons. It was like checking for a heartbeat on a sleeping infant.
The mist around them finally faded to nothing as the terrain evened into flatlands. The cold dampness of the Wraithlands gave way to drier air, the deathly silence of the valley below rising to something different but similar to the omnipresent hum of the jungle. The skeletal trees fell behind, replaced by low scrub and wiry bushes clinging to beige rock. The soil underfoot became loose gravel and sharp-edged stones, forcing careful steps.
Then Lisa stopped, head tilted, brow furrowed.
"Zuberi?" she asked, not turning back.
Zuberi stepped up beside her. "I hear it now," he said.
She nodded. "I thought you might," she said, no smugness in her voice, only relief and a tinge of apprehension.
From further back, Hanz grumbled, "Still just wind to me."
Zuberi didn't answer. His focus had shifted forward. A bluff of rock jutted ahead, and the sounds, stronger, sharper, higher, came from behind it. There was the sound of a cry, childlike and fearful, but there were also growls and chirping or trills. Whatever the scene behind the rocks, it raised every hackle on Zuberi's neck.
They rounded the bend.
And saw them.
The canyon opened abruptly, a narrow corridor hemmed by sheer cliffs, their walls banded in alternating rust, mauves, and various grays. Fifty paces down the rocky floor, backed against a concave shelf in the rock wall, stood two figures.
One was a child, thin, dirty, and trembling. He must have been no older than ten years, twelve at most. His clothing was similar to Hanz and Lisa. Zuberi had long accepted that he was the odd man out in terms of fashion sense. A fuzzy mop of hair on his head made Zuberi think of dandelion seeds. The child's skin was darker than Lisa's or Hanz's, and much lighter than Zuberi's. The young child held his arms forward, palm facing out, as if intimating anyone who dared approaching to stay back.
The other, person or creature, standing next to the boy, wasn't human. Not even close. Yet there was something familiar in its protective stance.
Upon closer inspection, it looked nothing like a lizard as Zuberi had initially labeled it. It was more of a living prism poised to spring. It crouched low on slender haunches, limbs folded like coiled springs, every muscle tensed for sudden motion. A spiraling tail flicked behind it in precise, agitated loops, each scale catching light in jewel-toned flashes of blue, purple, and green. Feather-like crests fanned down its spine, each plume dusted with iridescent specks that glinted as it shifted. Its enormous eyes, one gleaming sapphire, the other molten amber, brimmed with uncanny awareness, and its skin rippled in waves of color, blending and separating in a hypnotic dance that seemed almost alive.
The bond between the boy and creature was evident in a thousand small ways. It was in how the boy's leg rested naturally on the creature's flank, how their breathing seemed synchronized, how they moved in coordination. This didn't look like a chance encounter or recent alliance. If Zuberi had to guess, like he, Hanz, and Lisa had found each other, these two had also come together shortly after waking.
Around them, tightening like a noose with predatory precision, were the last members of this party. The silverbacks.
Zuberi's heart dropped. These were the same hyper-aggressive creatures that had hounded him and kept him inside the crystal formation. Five of them, sleek and deadly. Thick shoulders, brutal claws, silver spines on their backs. Like the other times Zuberi had faced these foes, he noticed the eyes burning not with mindless hunger, but calculation. One silverback darted left, in a feint, while another shifted behind a boulder.
Zuberi spotted the largest silverback instantly. A long scar ran along its flank. The flesh was still pink, scabbed at the edges. This was Zuberi's doing. For a moment, he wondered if the thing remembered him. He certainly remembered it.
Lisa gasped, hand flying to her mouth. "God," she said. "We have to do something. They're going to—"
"They haven't attacked yet," Zuberi said, willing his voice to remain calm. "They're testing. Probing for weakness."
"I hate how you sound like you admire them," Hanz said, stepping beside him. His hand twitched again toward his jacket.
It was important to know one's weakness. Perhaps more important that one's strengths. Father had hammered this lesson into Zuberi and he agreed with its wisdom. He was running on his last breath. He didn't know if the blast that had banished the wraithlings would work here, but even if he could reproduce it, he knew he wouldn't survive doing so.
He turned to Hanz and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Use it," he said, catching the man's eyes and refusing to let go. "Whatever it is—use it. Do not hesitate. Trust your instincts."
Hanz blinked, stunned. "What?" he asked.
"No more half-measures," Zuberi said. "No more hiding from what we are. I have seen you reaching for it for days now. That is not nothing."
Hanz hesitated, then gave the faintest nod.
Zuberi turned to Lisa. "And you," he said. "No fighting. I do not know how or why, but your brother is right. You warned us as if you knew what was coming." He paused and softened his voice. "Do not fight it. Just feel. Warn us. Be our edge."
Lisa looked rattled, but nodded. "I'll try," she said.
"No," Zuberi said, about to insist, but Hanz cut him off with a sharp sigh that was pure exasperation tinged with nervous energy.
He took the angular piece of metal out of his jacket, the shadows around him deepening, responding to him.
"Ugh!" Hanz said, darkness writhing around the metal of his weapon like living ink. "If you're about to say 'Do or do not, there is no try,' I might just shoot myself before those things have a chance to get to me." A heartbeat's pause, then softer, Hanz said, "Let's move!"
The moment crystallized, everything slowing down to a standstill. Only for a second, but Zuberi knew, at once, that this moment would last him a lifetime. Lisa's silver-flecked green gaze looked like the surface of a jade lake scintillating when light caught it at the right angle, eyes darting left and right so fast Zuberi doubted he would have time to register what he was seeing. Hanz's shadows coiled with newfound purpose, cushioning his footfalls and lending him the one thing Zuberi had despaired to ever witness in the young man. Stealth. The boy and the creature breathed in tandem, as if parts of a whole, which, come to think of it, was not far from the truth. Zuberi felt it all click into place, the separate threads of their beings weaving into something greater. His grip adjusted on the spear, muscle memory refined by decades merging with these new abilities he was determined to stop ignoring.