People were moving all around me in waves of shock and confusion.

Văduva hunters pushed through the Crowther warband, jostling others as they stumbled close. Startled cries rose above the commotion, calling urgently for Petra. Jiao was bellowing, "MEDIC! MEDIC!"

But it was all white noise. The world had faded away into a snowy haze of smoke and all that remained was just me and Mela staring at one another with round eyes shining with terror.

This was all my fault. If I hadn't moved, Mela wouldn't have been hit.

There was a morbid part of me that recognized that Nelle's distress had saved my life. The crossbow bolt would have ripped right through my chest, and a direct hit with a bolt cursed by Skalki surely would have killed me.

My friend's panting breaths came as fast as a charging freight train. "Gr-Gray...?" The bloody fingers she had wrapped around her throat clamped tighter as a sudden convulsion of pain twisted and buckled her chest. The godsawful sound of her wail of agony shook me out of my shocked stupor.

OH GODS!

Mela...Mela...Mela!

My knees buckled as I went to drop beside her.

And then...

Nelle.

A brutal rush of desperate need slammed through my body, locking my legs rigid and punching the breath from my lungs. Its violence was as powerful as a hurricane beating ocean waves to skyscraper heights. The world around me darkened at the edges as something ancient, savage and wild, writhed and howled, hammering at my heart. At my bones. At my very soul. Threatened me with a vicious snapping of fangs. Roaring at me to go to Nelle, now, now, now!

I barely saw Mela's body shuddering on the stone ground by my feet.

I was vaguely aware of Sirro's power whipping outward to wrap around the Gestelt bolt and tear it from Yezekael's corpse.

All I thought of was Nelle.

All I saw was Nelle.

All I needed was Nelle.

My little bird filled my mind's eye. My imagination spun an image of her staring back at me like she'd done when sodden earth had given out beneath her feet and she'd fallen from the cliff. Pale hair whipping around wide gray eyes, lips pallid and shaking, forming my name.

Panic trembled across my cold skin.

Nelle went silent inside my head, beneath my flesh. So quiet. Almost as if she'd left me.

No, no, no...

I dug deep, diving into the dark recesses of my being, searching frantically for those threads of moonlight stitched with sunshine that bound her to me. Where are they, where are they, where are they?

Yet again, I had a terrible choice to make.

It was either Nelle or Mela.

My friend would certainly die if I didn't intervene.

How could I look myself in the eye if I turned away from Mela?

But Nelle, gods, Nelle...

I became distantly aware I'd been backing away from Mela, intrinsically acting on instinct.

One footstep—

Another—

Time seemed to slow down to tiny increments as I twisted my hips, leaned forward, about to push off with a foot, and throw myself into a run.

You need to let her go—the Uzrek urged softly.

And I knew he wasn't talking about Mela, nor was he referring to what was happening right now. She's going to do that herself!—I shot back.

That's not what I meant—the ancient creature replied—The first time we met, Death-Dealer, your fear was delightfully curious, but now it's been replaced by something tragically new. Something more deeply rooted than losing your best friend. You fear that even if she's freed she won't leave.

I fucking know that— I bit back, smarting—Tell me something I don't know!

You know this—the Uzrek retorted, ire stinging through his tone—Yet you continue to hold onto her. You need to let her go, right now!

I can't!

The girl is forged from fire. You gave her what she needed last night!

Last night I'd helped weld back those shattered pieces of Nelle's spirit so she could stand on her own two feet. So she could be powerful once more. I'd reforged her back into the girl of fire that would tear my world apart, my family too. I'd told her the truth—I wasn't going to save her. She was going to save herself.

If you intercede now on her behalf then you'll ruin everything you've been working on—allowing her to stand on her own two feet. Have faith that whatever is happening she'll not only survive but grow stronger from it.

My shoulders slumped in defeat. I knew the Uzrek was right, but it didn't make it less painful to comply. To let go. Resolve tasted bitter on my tongue like the sting of cold metal. Yet I had to do this. Not for me, but for her. Nelle had to look after herself. She needed to learn how to do it so she could survive out there in the big, wide world on her own.

And she'll do it well—the Uzrek murmured gently.

I could feel the beast flicking through the jumble of my thoughts, riffling through my memories, pausing with thoughtful consideration before urging—Save your friend.

It was the scream of anguish shredding through the cavern that sliced right through my heart and cleaved the last thread of Nelle's hold on me. Petra shoved her way through the crowd screaming, "MELA! MELA!"

I gasped, blinking and spinning back around. Guilt burned the back of my throat. Oh gods, I'd almost left Mela alone on the cavern floor to die.

I fell to my knees, unmindful of the sharp rock stabbing against my kneecaps. The words ran together like a prayer. "I'm sorry, sorry, sorry." Mela's fingers were ice-cold beneath mine. I pulled her hand gently away from her neck. The gestelt bolt hadn't clipped her, it had barely grazed her neck as it had arrowed past. But the merest touch of its scorching speed had burned her skin and its curse was poison.

A wintry sensation chilled the pit of my guts as I took in the burn mark that had turned the immediate flesh to a ghastly grayish tone. Ugly black pustules were sprouting across the column of her neck, bubbling like a festering tar pit. The venomous curse was spreading fast, faster than it had done with Jett. His body had handled the curse lacing the gestelt bolt because of our mother's blood gift. But Mela didn't possess unnatural healing.

Petra dropped to the ground beside me. Her hoarse voice broke when she cried, "Mela?!" Ash-coated hands reached for Mela and paused to hover above her charge's body, shaking uncontrollably as Petra fumbled, not knowing what to do.

The Crowther medic arrived, rummaging in her kit. A look of concern passed between us. She knew it was a gestalt bolt and there was nothing she could do. "I can give her something to ease the pain," she murmured, retrieving a syringe of morphine infused with magic from her kit. I swallowed back the heartache as I eyed the painkiller in the medic's hand. Not to save her, but to ease her suffering as she passed into death.

Mela's fingers suddenly clawed at mine. Stone grated beneath her boots as she scrambled for purchase. In horror I watched helplessly as another seizure shuddered through her body, contracting muscles and spasming limbs. Foam speckled with blood frothed from her mouth, her huffing breath splattering it across my arm. Tendons strained in her neck as it arched, her teeth snapping together, and her eyes rolled back into her head.

The Uzrek whispered inside my mind—She will die, thief.

She can't!—I mentally cried back, doing the only thing I could—hold her hand tightly in my own.

That bolt is cursed by Skalki herself. It will kill her in mere minutes unless you do something—the Uzrek answered, pity threading through his voice—Remember what you came across today.

The name of our goddess, whose tears of grief and hatred had given birth to an organism born from a wandering spirit fallen from the sky—the Gestelt tree—reverberated inside my head, her name replaying again and again.

...Skalki...

...Skalki...

...Skalki...

Something was lurking in the back of my mind. Something I'd come across today. Dark Magic had seeped from the barest dusting of salt at the bottom of a glass vial. My fingertips had wrapped around the vial which coursed with such titanic might, that it had been impossible for me to fathom the full power it once had been part of. The kind of power I'd never felt before, not even in the presence of the Horned Gods. This belonged to a goddess.

Hope filled my chest with the barest sensation of warmth.

It could save her...maybe...

The Uzrek's voice rumbled with urgency—It might work and it might not. But you need to try.

Earlier today, when Nelle and I had descended the staircase leading to the Purveyor of Rarities hidden beneath Ascendria's Day Market, someone was leaving Florin's lair. An otherworldly creature had arrived earlier than us seeking Florin's healing skills. In the darkness of the staircase, I'd watched the creature slink away down the staircase. Down to where I'd instinctively known lay the catacombs.

Is there a way from here to get to the Purveyor of Rarities?—I asked.

There is.

Help me, please. I need to get to him.

There wasn't a moment of hesitation. The Uzrek answered immediately—I'll guide you.

I leaned over Mela, taking her hands and linking them around the back of my neck. "Hold on," I whispered before scooping her up into my arms and rising to my feet.

Mela stared back at me with confusion peeking out from within her pain-glazed eyes. A spider webbing of black veins moved ahead of the pustules. The crisscrossing of veins had spread up her throat and over her jawline, and crept down her neckline, disappearing beneath the collar of her armor. The awful sound of her breath rattling in her chest had dread pooling in mine.

Nelle was always in my thoughts.

But this time my friend took up residence in my heart.

A heart that fractured with every passing second.

Petra rose, tears streaking through her soot-stained face. "What are you doing?"

I held Mela tightly to my chest and tipped up my chin. "I'm going to save her."

I spun around, surging forward. Warm, smoky air swept through my hair and washed up against my skin as I cut a swift path through the crowd of soldiers and hunters until I was free. And then I was gone in a rush of unnatural speed.

My boots thudded along the rocky ground, legs stretching long and pistoning furiously. I ate through the distance...faster, faster, faster...an arrow carving through the darkness of the cavern, barrelling through a tunnel. My mind had already sharpened into a blade of business as I concentrated on the Uzrek's voice.

I traveled beneath Ascendria in this strange tomb of darkness and stone and bones. I stopped for no creature. I didn't care if I disturbed a nest of stone eaters or if krekenns were lurking in the murkiness, completely unmindful of the strange glow of eyes peering at me as I raced onward. My mind was focused on one thing only—the Uzrek spinning directions as fast as I took them. I hurtled across vast caverns; bounded over boulders; bones crunched beneath my boots as I wove through the wending of tunnels, and charged up half-formed staircases. I journeyed further into the catacombs than I'd ever ventured before, slowly ascending the levels, and nearing the surface.

And yet, it wasn't enough.

The world around me shimmered as my eyes misted up and moist salt slipped down my cheeks at the feel of Mela's body shuddering in my arms. The foul stench of rotting flesh grew more pungent and the godawful taste of death clung to my pores. She was dying in my arms.

Your friend is waning. You'll never reach there in time at this speed—you need to move faster!

I'm moving as fast as I can!

Faster, Wyrm Tamer!

I let out a deep growl right from the lower reaches of my gut, loosening a sonorous vibration of desperation and frustration to rattle out of my throat. I dug deep, pulling in every last ounce of energy and speed I had. My mind spiraled inwards, twisting down deeper and deeper into that well that made me—me. I mentally sifted through the shards of myself, through all the biting angles and all the vulnerable edges for the powerful part of me that beckoned like gold dust. And I sank into my very being, disappearing, letting go of the limitations I'd always set in front of myself, and I welcomed in what had always burned through my blood.

It slammed into my heart like I'd collided headfirst into a wall of concrete.

Pure, raw power—supercharged and wild, vicious and lethal, punched into my heart. A fiery kick of colossal might burst through my veins, razoring through my bloodstream like a gusty exhale of blazing wyrmfire. It scorched through every single inch of my body to forge me into something old yet new. Strange yet familiar. I was remade, refashioned into my ancestors who walked the earth before me.

A Wyrm Tamer.

I was a derecho windstorm. Wrathful might. An intense line of destruction barreling down the tunnel. My boots slammed against the floor of the cavern, a raucous thudding like spitting bullets, thud-thud-thud, matching the one thought pounding through my mind—faster, faster, faster. Even the catacombs almost seemed to tremble in fear as I raced through its ancient belly.

The loud noise of splitting rock exploded all around me. Long zig-zagging fissures splintered down roughly hewn walls. Crevasses cracked across the ceiling. Stone and dust rained upon the pitted floor in my wake.

It wasn't fear that pushed me into the Tamer. It was determination to save my friend. And I would save her because there was no fucking way I was going to let her die. She needed to live for Elyse.

I burst from a tunnel into a long chamber stretching before me.

One blink and I'd crossed mid-way.

Another blink and I'd hit the other end entering a new tunnel.

I was disappearing into the darkness and reappearing where my sight had marked a spot ahead of me.

Again.

And again.

And once more.

Time and distance became a fleeting concept. I was crossing vast distances in a nanosecond.

Appearing.

Then reappearing.

It was like swifting, but not. This was something entirely different.

A chuckle arose in my mind. Not from me, from the Uzrek—Finally, son of the Wyrm, you've become what you were born to be. All those wyrm genes coursing through your blood, the very marrow in your bones, have finally been triggered.

I pushed on faster, feeling not thinking, allowing myself to settle into the tamer abilities. My senses were an eerie contraction. The world became a hint of color and texture as it blurred past, yet I also observed it streaking by with startling clarity.

It seemed as if I were traveling in short bursts through dark passageways...no, not passageways, but voids, like the distance had folded in on itself, and I was stepping between here and there in a single footstep. A step, I realized, I barely felt connected to the ground as I pushed off, lengthening my stride.

The Uzrek purred—Such magnificent abilities and qualities. I've not seen them in an age, Tamer.

My heart jolted. What did you just say?

Except when the Uzrek spoke I'd already tuned him out.

A foreboding bell tolled loudly in the back of my head as my thoughts raced through what he'd said and what it meant. I'd always had faith the answer to saving both my mother and Nelle would present itself. I just hadn't looked closely enough. It had been right in front of me all along.

I gripped Mela tighter. My clever best friend.

This time it was her voice ringing through my head with the advice she'd given to me weeks ago when we'd first come down here to hunt Yezekael for Sirro.

Change the game, Gray.

If there are two players, become the third.

I'd always known that there was always going to be a loser in all of this and I was okay with that because I'd finally found the last piece of the puzzle I'd desperately needed to save Nelle.

It was one word.

A single word that solved everything and changed the game completely.

Qualities.