Page 83 of Queen of Whispers and Mist

“Fuck this,” he growled, reaching for his Fire as five more vines made their way for him.

“Ronan, no!” she shouted as a ball of molten flame grew in his palm. “This whole place will go up like a tinderbox. We still don’t know where the others are. They might be trapped up in the trees, unable to escape.”

“Trapped? You think these Mother-cursed weeds had the wherewithal to huntandstore their next meal?”

“I don’t think we know near enough to make any assumptions. But what I do know of predators is that they wouldn’t waste fresh meat. Especially if they haven’t eaten in a while.”

“Dammit.”

Not knowing what else to do, Ronan began shouting Sebastian’s name, sometimes alternating with one of the others as he continued to hack and slash his way through the never-ending waves of creeping vines. But there was no answer.

“We’re never going to get anywhere at this rate,” he grunted as a fresh row of vines replaced the few they’d just severed.

“Have a better idea?” Reyna asked, her eyes fever bright as she risked a glance his way. She looked as fierce as he’d ever seen her. Had they been fighting humans, the dirt and sap smeared across her face would have been blood, and he loved that she treated this threat as seriously as any other foe.

“We need to determine if our friends are in the trees. Think you can manage to sneak up and do a bit of scouting if I draw their attention?” It was essentially the same plan as the night before, but reversed. This time, he’d be the distraction.

“What are you proposing?” she asked, suspicion heavy in her voice.

“You won’t let me use my Fire, but they don’t need to know that. Sometimes the fear of being burned is enough.”

Tearing a branch off the nearest tree, he set the other end ablaze and swept out with his torch. As expected, the wall of vines parted and drew away from him in a symphony of god-awful shrieks.

Using his Air, he continued to feed the flame and blow the smoke in the opposite direction. It wouldn’t do them any good if he sent her off to scout only to immediately obscure the treetops with a dense cloud of gray.

“Reyna, go! Before they catch on.”

* * *

Reyna

Not wasting a second,she took off at a sprint, spying a branch thick enough to support her weight that was far enough from the continuous fall of vines for her to climb around them.

That was the hope, anyway. She had no idea what was waiting for her in the boughs.

As she shimmied her way up, she worked her way from tree to tree, climbing higher as she went, until she was roughly above the place where Ronan continued to fight with the monstrous flora.

It was impossible to know what she was looking for. She hadn’t exactly come across an enemy such as this one. But she’d dealt with her fair share of monsters, and there were universal truths she’d learned that should apply to this scenario. If the vines were a collective or some sort of hive mind, there’d be a shared place for them to protect their food supply. It would need to be easily defensible but also easy to reach. More importantly, they wouldn’t stray too far from it, lest another predator happen upon what was theirs.

A hiss of pain was torn from her as her palm slid over an unexpectedly sharp bit of bark. She froze, afraid the soft cry might alert the creatures below to her presence, but after several thunderous heartbeats, she determined it was safe to continue.

Reyna was just about to move into the next tree when she caught it. A thick coil of vines—these ones unmoving—protectively wrapped around a bud similar in shape to the ones taking bites out of them below. But that’s where the similarities ended. This bud was darker, the seams clearly visible and as thick as two of her fingers. It was also significantly larger, big enough to contain a fully grown human.

Gotcha.

A quick scan revealed several others sprinkled throughout a cluster of nearby branches, all positioned in the vee of two conjoining boughs, though no more than one pod per tree.

Let’s hope we’re not too late.

Knowing she’d need to work fast, that there was no distraction that would prevent the hunters from coming back to protect their hoard if they realized it was under attack, she gave Ronan the only warning she could.

“I think I found them!”

She had no way of knowing if he heard her, and she couldn’t wait around to find out. Dagger in hand, she raked it through the seam, her stomach giving a happy flip when the two pieces of foliage parted easily. She repeated the action on the next seam until a wedge-shaped piece fell away, revealing the contents within.

Jagger.

The boson was curled in on himself, his protector cradled protectively in his hands, their foreheads touching. A flurry of dark-colored dust floated out, and Shadow instinctively covered her mouth as it drifted down. As soon as the dust cleared and fresh air reached the boson, he took a shuddering breath.

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