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"Jackson..." I say, reaching for his arm. Our eyes are held firm on the creature tearing through the valley.

"Y-yeah, time to go," he says, turning for the hill.

"Onar!" I shout. "Azin!"

I don't want to interrupt their concentration, but this is not looking good. Jackson pauses at the base of the hill and looks back at me. In that moment of panic, what I see written plainly on his face is a furious unwillingness to leave without me.

"Go!" I shout. "I'm behind you."

"Come on, Airos, goddammit!" Jackson bellows.

Then, Azin trips over Onar's leg and falls flat onto the ground. The Shimat reacts, surging out with an even greater ferocity. Onar grabs Azin and hauls him back to his feet. The two position themselves to start again, but how can they possibly stop this monster now?

They can't. There's no chance.

"RUN!" Jackson and I yell.

As the four of us scramble out of the valley, I reach to summon the small amount of phoenix power I've recovered. All I need to do is give them enough time to get away. But as we haul ourselves across the top of the hill, the Shimat reaches the half-moon boundary and explodes against it like a wave hitting an invisible wall. Its form breaks, and it sloshes backward as nothing but a lifeless inky water pooled on the surface of the desert.

It remains incapacitated for only a moment. The cursed elemental gathers itself and immediately surges against the boundary again. It edges the wall with its body until much of the valley is covered with the black liquid.

"It's not stopping," Jackson says. "Why the hell isn't it stopping?"

We watch as it manages to break through and slowly push across the line in the sand, encroaching into the territory that was supposed to be safe.

"It has grown," Onar says. He's white with shock.

As I watch the foul shape bubbling its way up the valley wall towards us, my thoughts immediately return to the phoenix hunter insects.

We've made a terrible mistake.

"Can you stop it?" I ask Onar. "Can you try again?"

Onar speaks to Azin in a flurry of hushed, urgent tones, and their faces grow increasingly grave as they gesture toward the advancing black mass. Azin shakes his head vehemently, but Onar grips his arm, his expression pleading. After a moment of tense debate, they both turn back to us.

"Our dance... not enough," Onar says, his voice strained. "Shimat too angry now. Break free."

Jackson rubs his knuckles into his forehead. "So it's gonna keep going? There's gotta be something we can do."

"We have to return to the camp," I urge. "We have to warn them."

"No!" Onar says. "We cannot!"

Onar translates for Azin. Both of them look reluctant to leave.

"This isn't your fault," I tell them. "It's because of us. We shouldn't have come here."

"No," says Onar. "Shalkek can cleanse Shimat."

"I don't know if we can," I say.

All I can see in my mind is the encampment destroyed by the Shimat. Everything torn apart and left scattered across the desert, along with the bones of those swallowed by the darkness.An unfamiliar panic is rising through my body. I feel it eroding me from the inside out, overtaking my senses. I can't have another village on my hands. Not again.

Jackson's fingertips squeezing into my forearm drag me back from the brink.

"We have to trysomething," he says to me, his eyes blazing with fire.

"We can't do anything without power," I say. "And we're far too weak right now. By the time we recover, the Shimat will have overrun the village."