Spear
Math pushed himself to hands and knees and tried to concentrate—tried to shut out the crash sites, the dying men and animals, the groan of roots shifting, trees snapping in slow collapse.
He reached inward, toward that buried core that had always thrummed with a deeper resonance to plants than most Idallik Knights could fathom.
His skin prickled. He didn’t need to look to know: small green shoots were already creeping from his sleeves, climbing toward his collar. The sunlight, which had felt warm before, now seemed charged—sparkling, extraordinary, alive with potential.
The dizziness ebbed. The spots cleared. The bleeding slowed, then stopped.
But he didn’t have time to finish.
A man’s voice—one of the soldiers—called out, “Hey! Are you all right? You there, on the ground!”
Damn. He’d really hoped to do this without anyone noticing.
If that soldier came any closer and realized what was happening …
All the energy he’d been pouring into healing rerouted at once, became the delicate work of pulling away—of trying to disconnect himself.
“Please, if I might implore you to—”
Math nearly shouted at Kai to shut up. Just shut up. Nobody spoke like her anymore. Certainly no soldier spoke like her anymore. And if that soldier came closer, his questions would turn to realizations, and that would turn swiftly to violence.
Even as Math lifted his head, even as Kai kept talking, the soldier’s expression changed. His mouth opened, eyes gone wide with something worse than surprise.
“Look out!” the soldier yelled.
Math rolled sideways, biting back on a scream as he surged forward into a crouched rise.
He more felt than heard the popping sound of vines ripping from his flesh, painful and bloody.
His gaze flicked to the gaudy show sword still lying where he’d dropped it.
Before he could move to reclaim it, a vine whip lashed from the tree line and snapped the blade in half.
Huraiik stepped into view like an actor stepping from behind a curtain.
He looked unchanged from the last time Math had seen him—except that all signs of injury were gone.
He seemed even less human now, if such a thing were possible.
His movements were too fluid, each limb swinging with whiplike grace, twisting and bending in ways no skeleton could permit.
Vines rustled with each step, dragging behind him like something forgotten.
“Nice day, isn’t it?” Huraiik said cheerfully. His voice hadn’t changed: wry, half-bored, as if this were still a sparring match in the training yard, and he was simply showing off.
“I saw you die. Twice.”
“People say that to me a lot. You’re not special, Math.” He tilted his head. “Though I will admit, I missed your charming scowl.”
The bond jolted—sharp and cold, panic slicing through his ribs like a sliver of ice. Kai. He moved before he thought, stepping between Kai and Huraiik like a shield.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me.”
“Should I be? Did you think we derailed the train for sport?” Huraiik’s grin was maddening. “Come now, Math. You’re smarter than that.” He winked. “So—are you ready to talk to the Queens? Come with us. No one else has to die.”
“You know,” Math said, “I might’ve considered it—if I thought your definition of ‘death’ matched mine.”
“Ah well.” Huraiik shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”
Then he lunged.
Math dodged backward, unarmed and rapidly running out of options.
Kai no longer stood beside the crate of swords. He couldn’t blame her—she knew Huraiik would try to kill her if he could—but her absence meant he was well and truly alone. No more replacement swords. No backup.
“Hey!” a voice called. The soldier from earlier. “Catch!”
Something heavy spun through the air toward Math.
Math caught the weapon by the haft on reflex. A battle-axe. Not a toy weapon for show, this time.
As Math caught the weapon, an arrow lanced from the tree line and slammed the soldier so hard it sent him hurtling backward and stapled him to a nearby tree. The man was dead before he had a chance to scream.
Math knew exactly one person who could shoot a bow like that.
That thought flickered through the chaos like a spark in dry tinder—bright, unwelcome, and best buried quickly. He had to focus on Huraiik, or it wouldn’t matter if Captain Yihura was lurking nearby.
Math let the momentum of catching the axe swing him around. The axe edge sank into Huraiik’s shoulder, biting deep into the layered stalks that passed for muscle.
“Ow,” Huraiik remarked, tone flat, gaze drifting to the embedded axe. “Jerk.”
Movement ghosted into Math’s peripheral—a flicker of fabric, a presence realigned in the bond. Kai had circled around behind him. He hadn’t seen her approach, but he felt her now, solid and sharp at his back.
Her arm rose and one of her rings flared with the misty white color of her magic. Then Kai’s eyes widened and she dove to the side, the glow of her ring guttering and dying as she abandoned the spell.
A second arrow tore past her, slicing the air close enough to flutter her hair. She jerked aside, again not having enough time to launch her own counter.
She evaded—barely—and the bond ignited with her panic. Fear, sharp-edged and focused, pressed against him like a second heartbeat.
“I can’t keep this up,” Kai gasped. “She’s too fast.”
Math didn’t have the time or breath to respond.
He tore the axe free just in time to block the next strike—but his footing was wrong, thrown off by the sudden spike of Kai’s fear in his head.
The impact jolted up through the blade, rattling his arms and shoulders.
He stumbled, barely keeping his balance.
Another vine lash followed. Huraiik’s other arm snapped around, the whip catching him across the side. Cloth and skin tore. Blood welled instantly, hot and fast.
“You’re bleeding,” Huraiik observed, head tilted.
“I was bleeding when you got here,” Math growled, pivoting to keep the axe between them. “You’re not special.”
Another vine came for his face. He ducked—late this time. The edge of it grazed him, just shy of slicing his cheek open again.
The bond flared. Not just fear now—Kai’s fear braided with determination, hard-edged and fierce. It coursed through him with a force that wasn’t his, threading through his bones like a second pulse.
It wasn’t the panic that unsteadied him. It was how he couldn’t stop himself from responding.
“She’s making you sloppy,” Huraiik said. “You’d be better off without her.”
Math swept the axe toward Huraiik’s knees. The strike missed, but forced the creature to shift its stance. Bark strained audibly. A fine fracture opened near the ankle, sap beading along it—thick and green, with a sheen like oil gone bad.
“Not going down as easy as last time, am I?” Math said, breath short and rough.
“Easy?” Huraiik caught the axe’s edge with a looping vine. His voice was calm, but his eyes had narrowed. “You’re still predictable.”
Math wrenched the weapon free and spun low.
This time, the blade struck true. It sank deep into Huraiik’s flank, carving through bark with a sound like aged wood cracking in frost. Slivers scattered.
Sap bled slow and heavy, darkening as it flowed.
The smell hit next—compost and alkali, sharp enough to curl his stomach.
“Still going for the legs,” Huraiik mused. “I think I remember that.”
Math froze for half a breath. Not at the words, but at the way Huraiik said them—like someone reciting historical events from one of the libraries’ books who wasn’t sure they were remembering the right dates. I think I remember that.
There wasn’t time to dwell on it. The fight hadn’t paused just because Huraiik was starting to slip.
Math turned just in time to block another downward strike. The force rattled down his spine. Another vine followed, low and sharp, raking across his thigh. He stumbled, teeth gritted, but didn’t fall.
He sucked in a breath. Centered himself. Then he pivoted—not toward Huraiik, but toward the tree line. Math reached out toward one of the trees with all his will and gave it a new target.
Yihura.
It wasn’t much more than a distraction—these weren’t anywhere near the same caliber of tree as the ones back in Sounalla—but the moving branches cut through her sight line. Yihura flinched. The bow dipped for half a heartbeat.
“Kai—now!”
“I see her,” Kai said, voice tight.
The next arrow came without warning. Kai raised her hand. The gold ring ignited, bright and sudden.
The arrow froze mid-flight. It hovered for an impossible moment—then twisted and reversed, a flash of motion in the wrong direction.
It struck Yihura in the ribs and knocked her into the underbrush. The violet shimmer surrounding her cracked and failed.
But in focusing on Yihura, Math had left himself vulnerable.
Huraiik pressed his assault, advancing with fluid violence, limbs twisting into unnatural arcs, thorny ropes cutting the air. One of those vines wrapped around the shaft of the battle-axe and yanked.
Huraiik tossed the axe aside, where it buried itself deep in the trunk of a tree. Ten paces away. A lifetime at this range.
Math found himself without a weapon.
Then pale, ghostly fingers of white flame wrapped around the haft of the weapon. The axe shivered. Kai gestured with the same hand she’d used to send Captain Yihura’s arrow screaming back to its source to send the axe back as well.
Math’s eyes widened as he ducked out of the way of the flying axe, grabbed the haft as it passed, and let momentum swing the weapon into Huraiik’s path in a brutal arc.
The blade sheared cleanly through Huraiik’s outstretched vine-limb, severing it at the elbow. Pale sap spattered across the stones, viscous and slow.
Yihura rose again.
Her body moved without intent. Her limbs jerked through patterns of remembered violence. Her bow hung slack in one hand—until her fingers flexed, found the string, and began to draw. She wasn’t aiming at Math.
“Kai!” Math screamed.
A cloud of shimmering purple spores pulsed around Yihura, thick and luminous, and then drifted forward—not dispersed, but moving with purpose. They curled toward Kai like smoke caught in a draft.
She froze—only for a breath.
The bond twisted, a thread drawn taut with revulsion. Math felt the disgust radiate from her, just as panic must have flowed through him. He remembered Abhigan, Rabu, Yihura herself—all Kai needed to do was inhale so much as a single spore and the Queens would have her.
Kai stepped back, her breath catching. Then her hand rose. White fire surged across her skin. The magic wasn’t gentle this time. It burst outward in a sharp, controlled arc, slicing through the advancing cloud.
Wherever it passed, the spores unraveled. Filaments of violet light twisted, frayed, and vanished. The pull toward her snapped like a severed cord.
Yihura staggered. Her mouth opened, soundless. Her bow slipped from her fingers. Then her legs folded beneath her, and she collapsed beside it.
This time, she didn’t rise.
Math nearly dropped his guard. The flare of Kai’s fear had been sudden, seizing; the echo of it still clung to his ribs. For a heartbeat, his vision tunneled—not from blood loss, but from the sick, shivering awareness of how close he’d come to losing her.
Huraiik didn’t wait. He lunged at Math.
Math dodged out of the way, taking advantage of the opportunity to land a second strike.
Math cut him with a vicious swing to the head that sliced almost all the way through from left temple to right cheek.
While he had no illusions that such an injury would kill Huraiik, at least the fact that his jaw was half-severed kept him from talking.
The sound that followed was not pain. It was fury, a roar torn from something that had forgotten how to be human.
The shout faded—but the noise did not.
New cries broke through the haze, high-pitched and panicked—human.
Yelling echoed through the wreckage, distant but rising fast. Then came the thunder of hooves, not behind them on the shattered tracks, but ahead, pounding from the tree line.
A new force was entering the battle, mounted on horseback and riding fast.
“Math!” Kai shouted. “Arrows!”
Those arrows were already cutting the air above the carriages, hissing down into the wreckage. It was impossible to tell if those arrows were meant to kill the train wreck survivors or the Parnathi tree people attacking them.
Possibly, it was both.
Math reached instinctively for a Sky spell, moving to shape it into a shield against the volley.
That was a mistake.
Huraiik sensed the hesitation. One vine whip feinted high, drawing Math’s focus—while another curled low, fast and unseen, wrapping around his leg and yanking.
His foot caught on the shattered debris. Gravel slid. He dropped hard to one knee, ribs jarred from the landing.
Huraiik loomed above him, one arm raised high, bark limbs twisting together into a crude weapon. The blow would split his skull.
Math didn’t wait.
He circled Sea—not to draw water from the air, but from Huraiik himself. From the sap, from the wounds, from the deep fibrous threads already frayed by the axe. Then, fast as thought, he layered Storm over it, unraveling the inner structure.
Moisture fled the monster’s body in sudden force, siphoned through cracks like breath through reeds.
“Wad?” Huraiik slurred. His limbs seized—not with surprise, but rigidity. Old vines, dry and brittle, could not bend. “Dad wond zhdab me,” he rasped.
“I know,” Math said. He circled Sun.
Fire bloomed in the hollow center of what had once been Huraiik.
This time, the scream came.
It tore through the wreckage—loud, raw, unmistakably human. Flame surged higher, consuming bark and root, igniting the last veins of sap. Huraiik writhed as the vines that made up his body curled inward, twisting against the fire hollowing him from within.
Math dropped to his knees. He’d won. Huraiik was gone. If they could survive the Souna riders attacking them, they might even escape this.
Kai screamed.
Pain lanced through Math’s center, sharp and seizing. For a moment, he was sure one of the plant monsters had reached her. The spike of fear, the jolt of alarm—it had to be hers. Then he understood: it wasn’t her pain.
It was his.
A burning vine whip connected him to the center of Huraiik’s pyre. With his last act, Huraiik had echoed his previous attack on Kaiataris, this time driving a vine straight through Math’s body.
Math looked down. The shaft was still smoking, embedded deep in his abdomen. He coughed in surprise as blood flooded into his mouth.
“But—” he tried.
Darkness claimed him before he could finish protesting that this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
He’d already won.