What We Have Left
—Ashán
I’m climbing over frost-slicked deadfall until I blink, and I’m somewhere else entirely. My chest is heaving, my lungs burning as if I’ve just run miles. I have no idea how I got here. The moon has moved significantly, and the blood on my skelva is fresh enough to drip.
“Sage,” I pant, leaning my forehead against the freezing bark of a pine. “What happened? How long was I out this time?”
A while, he murmurs. You kept moving. But you wouldn’t answer me. No matter how loud I screamed.
I wipe the blood against my shadow, trying desperately to orient myself in a forest that feels as fractured as my mind. Nothing stays where I leave it—not the trails, not the stars… not even me.
“Did we get any closer to Eden?”
No, he sighs. Every time we get close, he bends the path. He’s burning our clock on purpose, Ashán. Every step he steals is another step the curse takes.
My hand flies to the glowing mark on my chest. “How long do we have?”
The duskbells opened while you were gone… and they’re beginning to fold again.
My pulse stutters.
We’ve lost hours, Ash.
When my eyes snap open, the moon is gone, replaced by the weak, watery gray of an early morning sun that offers no warmth.
An entire night has been stolen from my life.
I’m on my knees, my knuckles buried deep in a patch of earth where the snow has been frantically clawed away. My shoulders throb with exhaustion.
Ashán. Oh thank gods! Sage’s voice fills my head. There you are. Do you remember who I am?
“Of course I do. Why are you asking me that?”
Tell me, he begs, his words trembling in my mind. Tell me who I am.
“You’re me, Sage. I am you. We are two halves of the same soul.”
Relief floods through our bond. And where are we?
I glance around, pulling my hands from the snow. “We’re still in this cursed forest. Where’s the beast?”
Resting, I’m sure. Sage says. He hasn’t been near us for hours. He took a lot of damage.
I let out a smoky breath. Guilt and relief wrestle inside me.
“Why is he doing this? I don’t want to hurt him; I just want to get to our Saevúra.”
I’ve studied him when the curse takes you, Sage murmurs. He is giant compared to us, Ash. He could crush us with a single strike if he truly wanted to. But he hasn’t. Not once has he raised a paw to harm you, even when you’ve clawed at his throat. He only keeps us from her.
“So you think… he’s part of the curse?” I say, searching the trees for his sable brown fur. “You think he was sent as a deterrent?”
If he was, Sage notes, he’s the most reluctant weapon I’ve ever seen.
“He’s not a weapon, Sage. He’s a tool—and we need to figure out how to use him to our advantage.”
Sage is silent for a moment. How?
“He’s resting, presumably. Which means he’s stationary. And we know he only acts when we try to pass him. If he’s a deterrent, we make him deter… nothing.”
I drop low to the ground, dragging myself through the icy brush, careful not to snap a single branch until I reach the sturdiest boughs I can find.
They block out the sun completely. I close my eyes and reach into the void inside me.
My shadows answer, bleeding upward from the ground.
I will them higher, forcing them to climb and weave together above my head until they lock into place like thick iron bars.
A cage. Sage breathes. Ash… you’re a genius!
“Don’t call me that until I figure out how we trick him into this exact spot,” I whisper. He only tracks us when we try to reach her. My eyes scan the dense treeline. “So we give him exactly what he’s waiting for.”
I draw in a deep breath, forcing the exhaustion out of my limbs and focus on the faint scent of Eden on the wind. I push off the ground and sprint.
You’re baiting him, Sage realizes. He’ll move to intercept us.
Exactly, I murmur. We just have to make sure he intercepts us right here.
I make as much noise as possible, snapping frozen twigs and crashing through the underbrush. I throw myself forward with everything I have left, simulating the exact panic of a beast making a final break for its mate.
He’s coming, Sage warns. And he’s moving fast!
A deafening sound echoes through the trees up ahead, shaking the snow from the upper branches. He’s coming to bend the path again, right on schedule.
It’s working. Two more strides and he’ll burst right through the thicket, directly beneath the trap.
Now, Ash! Sage cries.
I reach for the shadows, ready to drop the cage, but the forest shifts around us once again. The air pressure drops, and the scent of Eden’s trail vanishes. The clearing with my hidden cage is ripped away like a reflection in rippling water.
“NOO!” I roar. “Gods damn it.”
He’s too smart, Sage pants. Or the curse is helping him.
I look back in the direction where my cage hung, but there’s nothing but an unfamiliar wall of briars. The clearing is gone. My trap is gone.
“We have to find our way back,” I growl, a cold sweat breaking out across my neck. “I can’t make another one right now—he’s watching us. We need that spot.”
But nothing stays where we leave it, Ash. Sage says. And we can’t out-navigate a forest that’s actively trying to blind us.
For the next several hours, it becomes a brutal game of cat and mouse.
We track down our residual shadow magic through the shifting maze while the morning sun climbs higher, burning through the precious hours we have left.
Every time we catch a trace of the cage’s dark energy, he appears, subtly warping the path, throwing us off the scent again.
By the time the sun clears the treetops, I have stopped trying to reach her.
It is the hardest thing I have ever made my body do—to feel that thread singing in my sternum, reeling me north, and to deliberately turn my back on it. Everything in me howls every second not spent running to her is a second wasted, but Sage figured it out between one of our many failed attempts.
It’s not him that moves the forest, he’d said. It’s us. Every time you lock onto her, the maze answers. The curse is reading our intent. That’s what it’s tracking—not our feet. Our desire.
Our desire–the one thing I cannot switch off—and the one thing I must pretend not to feel if this is going to work.
We find our way back to the clearing. And high in the canopy, hidden perfectly in the deep frost-tipped needles, the black bars of my shadow trap are waiting exactly where I left them.
See our problem? Sage says. How do we mask our intent from the curse, but show it enough that the beast comes after us?
I pause, looking down at my hands. “If I turn it on completely, the forest will just rip this clearing away before he even gets here.”
Right, Sage agrees. The curse needs time to map our location to bend the path. If you broadcast a full run, we lose the cage.
“So we don’t broadcast a run,” I murmur, stepping directly into the center of the clearing, right beneath the hidden trap. “We give him just a flicker.”
Like a false positive, Sage catches on, a spark of excitement zinging through our bond.
A momentary lapse in your concentration.
If you let just a drop of our desire slip through—just enough to signal that you’re thinking about breaking north—he’ll materialize to check on us.
But the curse won’t have enough time to warp the path because we’ll already have him.
“Exactly. A split second is all it takes for him to step into the trap.” I take a deep breath, planting my feet firmly on the frozen ground. “Get ready, Sage. I’m giving the bond a crack to slip through.”
I close my eyes and reach for the shadows smothering the thread inside my chest. Carefully, I lift a single wisp, freeing just enough of our bond to let it breathe.
For the briefest heartbeat, the bond inhales.
Eden.
Her scent. Her warmth. The impossible certainty that she’s out there waiting for us.
“Come find me,” I whisper. “So I can find her.”
I force the wisp back into place before the curse can answer.
The forest stays silent. A massive silhouette pieces itself together behind the winter mist. Each step he takes sends tremors across the ground.
He takes one final step. Right beneath the waiting canopy.
Now! Sage screams in my mind.
I snap my fingers, and the overhead canopy unleashes. The hidden cage slams down like a portcullis, bars of shadow spearing into the ground one after another until the giant stands imprisoned inside a solid prism of dark energy.
Inside the cage, the beast lowers his head, letting out a long huff. Tension bleeds out of his shoulders, and his frame eases for the first time since we saw him.
Ash… Sage whispers. He’s not even trying to get out. He looks… relieved.
I step closer, my gaze locking on the giant’s green eyes through the bars of the cage. There is no fury in his stare. Only an exhaustion that mirrors my own.
“You wanted us to stop you. Didn’t you?”
He lowers his muzzle until his brow nearly touches the shadowed floor of the cage. It’s the only answer he’s able to give. My throat tightens.
“I don’t know who made you do this,” I say quietly. “But not once… not once did you try to hurt us.” I wrap my skelva around one of the shadow bars, the closest thing to a hand on the shoulder I can offer to a creature I’ve spent countless hours injuring.
“Rest now,” I swallow. “You’ve earned it.” My gaze drifts toward the endless trees waiting beyond the clearing. “And when I find my mate…” I look back at him. “ I’ll come back for you.”
The beast closes his eyes a single time, slowly. Like a nod.
With the giant contained, the path-bending magic vanishes completely. The air grows crisp and clear, and for the first time all morning, the scent of my ash’kaela floods my chest.
We have a straight shot, Ash! Sage’s voice is filled with hope. Move!
I push my body into a dead sprint, tearing through the newly opened paths. The trees almost seem to lean out of our way. Andrik’s forest isn’t fighting us anymore. It’s letting us through.
Ashán, stop! Sage screams.
I skid to a halt at the edge of a massive drop-off.
“Sage…” I whisper, looking down. “This wasn’t here before.”
No, it wasn’t, Sage murmurs as he scans the horizon.
A leviathan-sized rift has been cut clean through the mountainside, as though some impossible blade split the earth in two.
It spans nearly half a mile across, and below lies a bed of frozen stalagmites waiting to swallow anything that falls.
Hovering over the drop are shifting chunks of stone, floating midair.
Thick vines, pulsing with glowing runes, swing lazily.
Nothing about this is natural.
It looks like a gauntlet, Sage whispers. They were never going to stop with the beast… they had another plan all along. Once he failed, the trial began.
I look across the gap to the far side of the mountain, where the faint scent of my mate is still calling to me. The sun is already dipping.
We can’t go around, Sage says quietly. I’ve looked. It runs the length of the ridge in both directions, farther than we can see.
“Wings.” The word barely leaves my mouth, and the grief that follows is immeasurable. “The only thing standing between her and me… is the one thing I freely gave away.”
Don’t mourn them now, Sage murmurs. That’s why this is here. Not because we need wings, but because it wants us to believe we do. We don’t have them anymore, Ash. But we do have each other—that’s what crosses this—not what we lost. What we have left.
“Is this a test?” I bellow into the forest, flexing my skelva. “You want to see how far I’ll go for her?” I take a step back from the edge. “Let me show you my answer.”
I sprint three heavy paces forward and throw my body off the edge of the cliff.
For one weightless second, there is nothing beneath me but a half-mile drop into a bed of frozen spikes.
Wind roars in my ears, but my eyes stay locked on the nearest slab of stone.
It twists in the air as I descend, the slick, angled face turning toward me.
Right side! Put your weight into the tilt! Sage commands.
I crash onto the stone, and it lurches beneath me, tilting hard as the runes flare to life. My skelva shriek across the icy surface, momentum threatening to pitch me forward. I slam my weight down, forcing the unstable slab to level out for one precious second.
Don’t stop! Sage barks. The stone is dropping—jump!
The rock is already sinking into the abyss, the runes sputtering out. I coil my thighs, using the last bit of the stone’s resistance, and launch myself toward the next floating island.
I land hard, and the stone turns beneath me.
Ash, it’s rotating! Sage shouts.
The entire slab is rolling like a log in a river, turning its frozen underside up to crush me against the next platform. My feet lose traction on the smooth surface, and I slide toward the lip.
The vines! Sage screeches.
Two heavy vines sweep past the rotating stone. I grab on with both hands, hauling my upper body off the rock. My body swings over the chasm in a wicked arc, the vine creaking beneath my weight. The runes along the vine flare crimson under my palms, stinging with a numbing burn.
“I’m. Not. Letting. Go.” I growl through gritted teeth.
A crack echoes through the canyon. The vine shudders in my grip and begins to drop.
Ash, we’re sinking, Sage rasps as we plunge closer to the frozen rocks. It’s trying to lower us onto the spikes!
The runes flare brighter, numbing magic clawing its way up my arms, freezing my muscles so I’ll release my grip.
“Sage,” I choke out, my feet dangling only a few yards above the razor-sharp tips.
The ledges, he breathes. Look at the canyon wall behind us! We can’t swing forward anymore—but if we drop right now, the force of the fall will carry us backward.
“They’re ready to crumble,” I grit out.
It’s our only option.
His voice sharpens. On my count! Three… two…
“One!”
I release my fingers. Air screams past my skull as the ledges rush up to meet us.
I twist mid-fall, slamming my shoulder into the nearest ledge instead of my feet.
Stone explodes under the impact, fractures racing through the rock.
We rebound hard, and my body is thrown backward off the crumbling ledge.
I catch the next ledge with one arm, rock tearing down my shoulder as I hook on.
Sage yells something I can’t make out. The canyon opens its mouth beneath me. I hang there as the ledge continues to collapse.
Sage goes quiet all of a sudden.
No, not quiet—missing.