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Too many hands gripped her in too many places, their touch cold and clammy. Her fingers twitched around her dagger, but it caught the movement. One of those many hands shot down, wrapping around her wrist like a vice.

“Not so fast, little rabbit,” it sneered. Then, with a sickening crack, it slammed her arm into the stone. Once. Twice. Her grip faltered, the dagger clattering free. The grimble’s hideous grin widened. “No more tricks. Now we feast. FEAST!”

It threw its head back in victory. Taly took the opening.

Twisting, she drove her knee into the grimble’s side. It shrieked, momentarily loosening its grip—enough for her to rip one arm free.

She swung her broken fist into its face, her knuckles connecting with a satisfying crack.

The grimble howled, rearing back.

And remember, the journal had said, the final key to killing the grimble, scrawled in Tessarin Castaro’s messy scrawl,the dream bends to your will, not the other way around. Always remember the dream. Remember that you control it, not the beast.

A thought summoned her dagger back to her hand. Taly wasted no time sinking the blade deep into its side.

Black blood spurted. The grimble jerked back, its screeches echoing in the chamber.

Taly clawed out from underneath it, scrambling to her feet, breathing hard. Her eyes locked on the grimble as it shook itself, sending off a spray of black ichor.

Its body pulsed with each growling breath as its many hands flexed and twitched, fingers curling into fists. Its milky eyes seethed. A low, guttural snarl escaped its twisted mouth.

It was angry. Good.

“Who’s the rabbit now?” Taly growled, spinning the dagger in her hand.

The grimble straightened, hatred rolling off it in waves. Its arms twitched. Muscles bunched. Massive jaws split open with a wet crack.

It lunged—and made it halfway across the room before it jerked mid-air, yanked sideways by an unseen force.

The next moment, it slammed into the ground. The floor cracked, and a thunderous boom echoed through the cavernous space.

Its scream was blood-curdling as its broken body was lifted once again—and came down with just as little mercy.

The grimble died with a crunch and a whimper. But Taly didn’t relax, didn’t release her dagger.

Because in its place was something else.

For every predator, something bigger always lurked higher in the food chain. It held true both in the waking world and in dreams.

Where the grimble was ugliness incarnate, this new creature stood as its breathtaking counterpart.

A supple-bodied female, wholly naked, with lines of molten gold painted over moon-white skin. They flowed up impossibly long legs and across the flat, angular panes of her belly. They shimmered across her torso, sweeping over her shoulders, neck, and arms in intricate whorls and patterns. Between firm, high breasts plastered with a sodden sheet of golden hair, the phases of the moon were artfully etched.

Taly’s eyes continued upward. Twisted, ivory horns framed a face of otherworldly beauty, with eyes like hammered sunlight that seemed to pierce through to her very soul. Her ears were large and pointed like a fennec’s, tipped with black.

And atop her head rested a crown that gleamed with the warmth of the sun itself. Intricate patterns of delicate leaves and vines wove around the base, each tendril appearing as if kissed by the first light of morning. At the front, elegant spikes rose like the rays of the sun breaking through the horizon.

The creature unfurled, rising with an eerie, deliberate grace. Taly’s eyes widened, following it up and up. The air trembled, bowing beneath the weight of its immense presence.

“Kairó vuun’manii?”

Taly jolted at those words.

The creature stepped forward.

Taly scrambled back, boots scraping on the stone. “Whoa—uh, can you just… stay over there, maybe? I’d... I’d feel a lot more comfortable if you could just... you know,notget any closer.”

But the creature kept coming, every inch of its presence radiating power.