Page 58 of Red Demon

“Please,” I begged, sobbing. “Please, I’m Galen’s son. I’m doing all I can. Please let that be enough.”

Nothing. I put my head to the glowing ground, rocking.

“You want blood?” I sliced my finger, dropping it on Istaran, sprinkling the ground. “Some fucking magic words?”

It was not enough. I was not enough.

“Taam, if you’re in there—” I choked out. “Please be in there.”

Nothing.

A scream tore from my throat. I slammed Istaran into the soft earth, the blade embedding itself in the ground with a thud before toppling.

A flash of icy light, a pause.

I held my breath. Then I grabbed Istaran again and plunged it into the ground.

Tendrils of lacy, bioluminescent mycelium erupted from the base of the sword, quickly weaving themselves toward me, pulsing as the wind picked up in the trees.

“Galen? Taam?” I whispered.

The wind breathed warm on my neck. The ground beneath me roared with light.

“Galen.” The lights pulsed faster with their blue etchings, stretching like a westward wave across the clearing.

I reached out for Istaran with a trembling hand, hesitating before I pulled it from the ground. A warm breeze washed over me when I touched the blade, like the first time my taam told me he was proud. Tears streamed down my face, hot and unchecked, as I grasped the sword and stood, feeling strong.

The lights waved at my feet, laying out a path to the edge of the clearing. I followed it, and a new path spread its glowing tendrils in front of my feet. When it pulsed faster on a deer path, I started running. The cool night air whipped through my hair as I sprinted deeper into the woods. My breath picked up, my chest finding a steady rhythm as I ran through the blurred world of black and white and cyan pulsing bright under the leaves. Five minutes, ten: the path twisted and turned a little south. At a half hour in, I began to flag, but the lights flashed brighter, urgent. I licked my dry lips and kept going on through the dark night as fast as I could make my body move.

Upstream from the dam, I fell beside the river and drank, allowing my chest to ease. Then the lights pushed me again. I jogged as the ground grew rocky under my feet, and gorges rose on either side. I no longer recognized the landscape.

Dawn crawled behind my back, painting the sky with streaks of pink and orange as I finally reached the crest of a hill. Below, the lights of Oria twirled and circled by the bank of a gurgling river. The finish line: empty.

I slid down the clay-soiled gorge, Istaran warm and bright in my hands. No one, but the lights pulsed at the base of a log. Sword ready, I hopped over. Just a bag under some leaves, leather. A cold, abandoned campfire lay doused nearby. Beside it lay a bedroll, unfurled.

Still catching my breath, I inched closer, every muscle taut with tension. The air hung heavy with woodsmoke, dampened by the mist from a bubbling stream.

I reached out of a tentative hand for the bag, the worn leather cool and damp beneath my fingers. My heartbeat raced and rebelled as I lifted the flap and loosed the drawstring. Inside, nestled amongst crumpled clothing and some dried herbs, lay a worn leather journal, its cover embossed with swirling Asri script, a name carved at the bottom: Faruhar.

I was about to open it when I heard a rustle at the top of the gorge, sending a flock of crows scattering into the sky. My gaze snapped upward, landing on a tall figure silhouetted against the dawn.

The Red Demon.

Chapter 27

Face Off

There she was, at the tree line—her dark figure against the rising sun.

Only when she started running for her camp, for me, could I make out the expression on her face—smiling.

In all the many ways I imagined this faceoff through the years, this was never how it started. Her mouth curved in joy as she jumped down the slanted gorge, air under her feet and dawn in her hair. I’m not sure if she was oblivious to me or uncaring, but I watched her grab a red-leafed branch and twist down to the next, graceful and light while I stood there, scabbard in hand. The demon who murdered my taam before my eyes had the carefree demeanor of a kid scampering around a summer festival.

I hated her all the more for that.

She rolled and ground to a stop. The dawn lit the maze of little scars over her face, young and unchanged by time since the day we met. She said nothing, staring me down with her yellow-green predator eyes. The Red Demon exhaled unnaturally slow, unwinded.

Time compressed around me. My mind stilled and sharpened to a point. All my life—all my somedays and tomorrows—were right now, in this moment where she was two paces away, her neck exposed for my kill.