“Kill it.”

Clank.

The guard threw a dagger onto the floor in front of a kneeling child. It clattered noisily, accompanied by a wave of amusement from the crowd. The boy was dressed in royal finery of purple and gold. By all accounts his status should have had him standing far beyond reach of the palace guards surrounding him – should have kept him safe, by punishment of death, from any such transgressions against royal blood. But it seemed like, in his case, the status afforded by his birth had the deterrence of paper. He was unlike the other royalty. He was unwanted. And thus he found himself kneeling in the hallway in front of his room, encircled by a group of sneering knights that seemed more of a mind to hurt than to protect.

“Kill it,” the guard said, taking a step forward, “or I will.”

He reached out his hand towards the dagger.

“No!” Milo cried out. He hunched protectively over the cloth bundle in his lap. “No, I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

The guard snorted and kicked the dagger over to the boy. “Well then, Milo. Show us guards your royal training learned thus far.”

Milo picked up the dagger with sad eyes. He felt sick to his stomach. Heart racing. Cold sweat. Pit of dread building inside the very core of his being. Was he really going to kill the first friend he had ever made?

The bundle of cloth started wiggling and the face of a squishy three-dotted blob popped out from the top. It looked up at Milo and blinked curiously. The boy’s heart squeezed. He couldn’t do it. There was no way. He looked around the encirclement for a way out. Anything – even the smallest little bit of help from anyone would have been enough. He looked at the face of every knight but all he found in them was cruelty and jeers. He lifted his head to face the head instigator-and-guard. “Malek…heart to heart I ask of you, is there naught else that I can do to please the thirst of blood – to sate the killing, death, and hate?”

“What else is there to have but hate for monsters lurking in our gates. Unless a Giftless beast like you is saddened, loving, filled with rue to harm another of your kind. Disgusting. Twisted. Monster’s mind,” Malek spat out the last words. He kicked at the monster nestled within Milo’s arms but the boy turned himself sideways to shield it.

Thud.

He hit the floor, shoulder and back groaning in pain from the impact – one from the kick, and one from the landing.

Malek walked over to the fallen child and leaned down. “I knew a cursèd child as you would lack the heart to follow through.” He tore the bundle out of Milo’s arms and held out his other hand. “Now give me the dagger.”

“Pip. Pip.”

Blobby cried out from within the cloth, squeaking in pain as the knight’s hand crushed down on it. The sound caused countless times more hurt in Milo than the physical abuse he had just faced. He winced and stood up. Head down, he mumbled, “If I do this, can I freely head back to my room and be?”

“What was that? Speak up, boy.” Malek looked around to the rest of the royal guards and saw them laughing along in sadistic enjoyment.

Milo shuffled over. He slowly raised his head and opened his mouth to try again. "If I do this–"

Abruptly he slashed the dagger up in as high of an arc as he could reach. The royal guard shouted and covered his face with one hand, dropping the bundle by reflex. Milo grabbed it and rolled past the guard’s leg right as a mailed fist came flailing down. Slam. The boy bounded off the floor and sprinted straight into his room as fast as he could. Immediately he threw Blobby onto the bed and threw the wooden crossbar down across the doorframe. Shouting and heavy bangs came from outside. Dust and wood chips flew into the air with every impact that fell on reinforced wood.

“I have to go now.” Slam “Don’t come back here–” Slam “–again. Tell everyone–” Slam “–else too, okay?” Milo put his friend down by the crack in the baseboards and nudged it forwards. “Bye. I’ll miss you.”

SLAM.

Milo got on all fours and squeezed into the chimney at the back of the fireplace right as the door burst open. He could see the square of light marking the opening up above. His way out. His freedom. The rope of tied cloth that he had fixed to the top of the chimney hung down its far wall. He jumped for it and grabbed the lowest knot. He started climbing and—Thud.

The boy hit his head against the chimney wall. His mind was shocked to blankness and he smelled a burst of copper. Then he felt the cause of his mishap – a mailed fist gripping his ankle.

A flash of darkness blotted the chimney opening for an instant then vanished against the wall.

Malek tightened his grip on Milo's ankle and pulled. The contest of brawn was one that the boy was bound to lose. His hold on the rope against the trained knight's pull on him was a one-sided affair. Milo was dragged out of the chimney inch by inch, hands rubbed raw from the rope he desperately clung to. Malek let out a savage snarl as he felt the tug of life and death advancing in his favour. “You won’t escape. You’re out of luck, you monster-loving, savage f—AHHH!”

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Malek screamed in agony as the hand holding the boy captive was sheared apart at the wrist by row upon row of jagged teeth. He pulled his arm back, but it was too late. Only a thin flap of mangled muscle and tendon held his hand in place. That too was soon to be gone. The culprit was pulled out of the chimney along with him, six claws latched deeply into the knight’s sleeve of mail. Its teeth sawed away at the exposed wrist beneath. With a screech, the purple lizard reared its head and tore Malek’s hand off. Prize in its jaws, the lizard flew into the air. Blood flew across the room, both from the severed hand above and from the arterial spray below. More and more screams filled the boy’s bedchamber as monsters came streaming down the chimney.

Milo gritted his teeth and resumed climbing up the makeshift rope. A final few shadows passed over the skylight above and scurried down the walls. He was worried for his friends. Concerned for their safety. But if he stopped now then everything would have been for nothing. “Thank you, Ms. Flizard…everyone. Be safe!”

He kept climbing.

The evening light of spring stood as beautiful contrast to the carnage within the palace but Milo didn’t spend any time admiring it. He didn’t have long. He ran to the roof’s edge and threw down the knotted collection of rope tied to the ledge. It wasn’t quite long enough, but it would have to do. There would be no second chance. Heart pounding, he scaled down the length of rope as far as he could go. After a deep breath, he dropped down the remaining ten feet and braced for impact. He landed with bent knees and slapped the ground with both hands as he rolled onto his back.

Crash. The window to his room shattered and Ms. Flizard came bursting out. She was flying lopsided with a gash down the membrane of one wing, but she was alive. Milo breathed out a sigh of relief. He heard pitters and patters from the rooftop tiles as the other monsters fled the palace and escaped back into their secret world. The relief he felt helped to mask the lingering pain from the fall. He stood up and ran. His gait was faltering at first, but his blood soon started pumping and his injuries were soon free of hurt. He ran and he ran and he ran.

The sight of a fleeing soot-stained boy in royal colours drew attention from everybody. Passersby, nobles, and guards all shouted after him, but the boy stopped for nothing. And without proper context, none were willing to use their Gifts to stop him. For once in his life, the deterrence from royal status actually worked. He weaved through alleys and dashed between homes on his way out of the city. Buildings grew sparse. Roads turned to dirt. Freedom was just up ahead.

Milo burst past the final cluster of homes and saw the endless vista of road, farmland, and forest. He headed for the one place that he knew would be safe. Where he would be accepted.

The blossoming woodlands blurred into a single smear of green in the boy’s memory. He was completely lost; every place looked the same as any other. But Milo didn’t care where he was. He was free. He let out a laugh and kept running. The light streaming into the forest started turning blue. The trees blurred at the edges and melted into standing puddles of wax. His legs stopped moving the way he wanted and he started stumbling in slow motion. The air turned thick as honey and the ground became a marshy quagmire. Watery ripples of sunlight illuminated the night sky and everything it touched lost its original colour. Milo’s sight was filled with nothing but shades of blue. He tried to breathe but there was no air. His lungs cried out their need but refused to work. His face felt cold. His back was bruised. His head hurt. He was thrown off the boat. He was blasted with Gift. He sank into the water. He remembered. He was awake.

Milo opened his eyes.

It stung a little bit, as it always did for the first seconds whenever he tried to look underwater, but he quickly got used to it. All the practice with Gu had paid off. Milo looked around and assessed the surroundings. He was underwater. The boy almost laughed from the wise observation. He tried again. Underwater. Many of the fish that he had seen before were idly swimming around. Some of them nibbled on the swaying green plants that overlooked the seafloor. There were some new fish he hadn’t seen before and they were very pretty. A single long wavy fin ran down its spine all the way from its head down to its tail. That wasn’t important. He blew against his closed nose and popped both ears. He was still sinking. Milo kicked and started to lightly tread in place with his arms and legs.

Everything in the ocean was perfectly clear – much more so than the river water he was used to seeing. It was almost like looking through blue stained glass, except his face was cold and he also couldn’t breathe. Anyways. Milo had no problems seeing everything from surface to floor. Light pierced through the water above like daggers, leaving behind countless rays of pointed streaks. The waves continued to roll, and Milo could see the inversions of their rippling shapes from beneath. He thought about how high he sat above the waves when he was riding on top of Naia’s head. If he were to guess, he was probably about that same Naia’s-length beneath the waves now. The seafloor was even further away – at least two Naias away from where he floated. This left the boy awkwardly suspended somewhere in the middle of a giant ocean sandwich without any options. Milo wasn’t sure what to do.

Going to the surface seemed like a bad idea. Viyas was probably still there, and he didn’t want to get blasted again. He wasn’t even sure how he survived the last one, and he didn’t want to check if exploding Gifts could strike the same place twice.

Going to the bottom was also a bad idea. There was nothing there except sand and some very pretty rocks and fish. It would be nice to see, actually. He did really want to go…but it wouldn’t help him all that much.

And lastly, doing nothing was also a bad idea. He was already out of air and floating here in between both worlds was doing nothing for him. The only real option was to go up, but Milo was afraid of what might happen if he did. He decided to stay where he was for as long as possible, praying that maybe Viyas would get bored and stop looking. Then, once he couldn’t hold his breath any more, he would swim up to the front of the boat and call Gu for help.

Milo looked up to where the boat’s silhouette sat. He could just barely make out a tiny scoop dipping in and pulling out small floaty bits from the water.

‘It doesn’t look like he lost interest,’ Milo thought. He decided to wait just a little bit longer before taking his chances with surfacing on the opposite side of the scooping. The scenery was very pretty here in any case. ‘Lots of fish, lots of bubbles, lots of rocks, lots of floating plant things…lots of water.’ The boy was running out of breath and out of things to distract himself with. ‘Lots of squishies, lots of whatever those colourful not-rocks are, lots of light, lots of – why did all the fish stop?’

All the wildlife as far as Milo could see suddenly stopped their random wandering. They kept themselves stable with tiny flaps of their fins but the bustling aquatic dance was suddenly put on intermission. The light in front of Milo got brighter and brighter as something emerged from the depths of the sea.

The creature was relatively small, all oceany things considered. Its body was about the size of Nahla’s – the person, not the serpent – but its features were blurry and indistinct. More of a haze than anything physical. Its tail was thrice as long as its body, matching Birdmom’s in both length and grace. It was like aquatic counterpart to the Queen of the Forest. The long, flowing fins glided through the water with such symmetry that the creature almost looked to be moving in place. Only seeing its size increase with each undulation made Milo realize it was getting closer. The waters in front of him continued to brighten. The aquamarine scales covering the creature’s tail dyed the surroundings with its aura, colour gently leaching out in all directions as if coated in cyan dye. It stopped in front of Milo, fins rippling in perfect synchrony as it matched his height. All the sea creatures slowly swiveled around to follow it with their eyes – to see what the Dragon King’s Envoy would do.