Page 117 of The Song of Sunrise
Or was it three lefts? Shit! I’ll never remember this. I pause and lean up against the wall, chest heaving.
Breathe. Think.
Then it dawns on me. After a few minutes, I’ve successfully composed a song, a memorizing trick Marrow taught me years ago during a Harvest Festival corn maze. A lower note for left, middle for straight, and higher for right.
I hum the song. It’s beautiful really, making simple sense out of this complex situation.
Someone—something—interrupts my song. Growling.
I freeze, listening.
Yep. Definitely growling.
Slowly, I lower my hand into my satchel and grip one of my stars. Claws scratch into the stone behind me, and I throw the star over my shoulder, not daring to look.
“Akemi, duck!” a deep voice yells. I know that timbre anywhere.
I obey, rolling to the ground. A dark form jumps above me in a blur of fangs and fur.
An arrow flies over my head, cutting the air so fast it sings.
Leaf runs toward me, nocking another arrow and releasing. A thick, heavy thud sounds from ahead, and a large shadow pools on the ground.
“Do I want to know what that was?” I ask as Leaf offers me a hand to get up.
“No, probably not.”
I walk closer anyway.
A giant wolf lies on the ground. But wolves aren’t translucent and made of swirling gray shadows, nor do they have an extra tail or two rows of pointed teeth. A milky white substance pools around it. Blood.
“Ghosthound,” Leaf confirms my suspicions. The renderings in my library books were close, but nothing compares to seeing this creature up close. “They usually don’t travel alone. We should get going.”
Leaf and I continue through the maze together. Neither of us will admit the silent alliance we formed because we know at one point or another, only one can win.
I cast that thought aside for now.
We trade spotting ahead and checking around corners. Only twice since the ghosthound did we run into other creatures. A firemonkey and a tarthill. Though the firemonkey left a pretty large burn on my leg, the tarthill conveniently decided to earthwalk through the wall, effectively ignoring us.
I make a mental note to thank Atlys.
We turn another dark corner and nearly collide head on with Kauri and Artemis, the two other champions from the Forest Tribe with Leaf. We stand there staring for a few moments, knowing full well that this is an individual game.
Leaf steps in front of me, standing eye to eye with Kauri. After a moment of hesitation, they nod. Wordlessly, we part, each running down a separate aisle.
Leaf takes my hand, and we run.
After a few minutes, I sing quietly, memorizing the notes of our moves: right, left, left. Leaf doesn’t question when I tug him along.
My boot slips on something.
I scream as I fall on top of a body. Blood pools around dark coils of hair.
“Selene!”I scramble to kneel next to her.
Her breaths are shallow as she lies there. “No!” I press my hand over her shoulder wound where an arrow juts out.
Her eyes widen as she recognizes me. She begins to stutter. “T-t-tra,”
