“Ready?” Alice asked.

I nodded and she stepped into the portal. As I approached, Grim gripped my shoulder.

My cloak pushed his hand away, and I composed myself. “Yes?”

“Do not disappoint me, Cain. The hunt calls, whether the parasites in the pack understand. Fight, survive, or be crushed underneath.”

His words drew the attention of the four. Even Elizabeth pushed her hood out of the way to observe.

“I was told you were fair, if insane.”

“I am, but a monster does not care for such human terms. Best you do away with such notions.”

“Is that all?”

He released my shoulder and stepped back. By now, the stares from the others had morphed into an intense glare. Except Elizabeth. She looked at Grim with a surprising amount of anger in her eyes.

Should talk to her after this. She might know more about the Prime than Astra.

I exhaled and pushed into portal; as it whisked me away, a whisper reached my ears.

“Do not trust the Keeper.”

Before I could turn around to see who spoke, the world disappeared in a whirlwind of colors before it collided together.

—-

I rolled to my feet and brushed off the leaves that stuck to my clothes. My cloak flapped once and fanned the soot away.

“You were delayed?” Alice asked.

Alice slowly circled the area, her axe dragging behind her. I was tempted to tell her about the whisper, but revealing that information could be bad for whoever was trying to help.

“Yeah. Grim had had something to say.” I stood up and took in the surroundings. “Reminds me of the village.”

It was a forest–the remnants of one. Where trees once stood, black charred bark and dirty ash clung to the area. The sky was grey and as dull as the land, but a lone mountain towered in the distance.

“What did he say?”

“Not to disappoint and remember that monsters fight dirty.”

“We assume he’s watching us?”

“Probably. He conjured the whole portal and talked about how this will be a show.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She put away her axe and brushed the ash off her hood. “Do we trust that? There’s been a lot of lies lately.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But we’ve nothing to lose by thinking he’s watching us.”

We proceeded through the forest and headed toward the big, obvious monument in the distance.

After going through different plans, we decided that keeping Freki hidden would be to our advantage. If a monster showed up and wasn’t expecting him, it would be a nasty surprise.

The mountain was a lot farther than it looked; nearly half an hour spent walking between the ash and we were still several miles out. Throughout the walk, I threaded mana into my eyes and searched for anything different, or suspicious, but it was all the same.

And endless forest filled with dead trees backdropped by a dead sky.

There were no scratches or vegetation, no sign of bug life; and no monsters.

“Do you think the others are still under his control? Or are they watching as well?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

If its a show he wants, then they have to be watching us, too. Not that that’s comforting.

As we crossed a dried riverbed, I caught a glimpse of something glowing toward my right. I raised my hand and we stopped, Alice pulling out her axe.

I made out the flash of something metal embedded into one of the trees. Slowly, we approached and I held my axe ready.

“There’s a handle,” Alice said.

We stopped and I crouched. The ‘handle’ was made of intricately carved metal. Despite the dirt that clung to the tree, it left the metal bare. It depicted a wolf’s head at the end, with the maw biting down on a piece of dull white crystal.

“There’s no rust.”

I gripped the metal and yanked it out. It slid free in an explosion of ash, but my cloak kept the worst of it away. The blade gleamed in the dull sunlight, with a curved blade nearly as long as my hand.

As I moved it away from the light, the glow remained, a dull haze that intensified the closer it was to the crystal.

Alice motioned for the knife and I handed it over.

“I think this is a mana core. Enchanted.”

“So it's one of ours. Is that why it's not rusted?”

“Maybe. Could have been placed here recently, but look,” she said, pointing at the tree. The ash that had fallen exposed the wood underneath, including the brown-stained, three-pronged gash marring its bark. “The ash covered it. The enchantment preserving the metal wouldn’t affect the wood underneath."

I ran my finger along the grooves; they sank to my second knuckle. “Small creature judging its height. Gnarly claws.”

Alice held the dagger out, but I shook my head. “Keep it. I already got an enchanted axe.”

She slotted it into her belt and moved on. After an hour of carefully searching, we picked up our pace and pushed through to the mountain’s base.

Despite my worry, there was a small pathway up that lead into an open cave mouth that stretched beyond the tallest trees.

“Ek kalla á lýsandi stjörnu.”

The light revealed a long tunnel made of smooth stone. Our steps echoed across the walls, but there was a strange reverb as it bounced toward the end. The further in we pushed into the mountain, the quieter our steps. By the time we approached a massive brown curtian draped across the tunnel, our footsteps had stopped making noise.

This should be plausible; giant door, big mountain entrance.

“Hey, doesn’t this remind you of Rock-splitter? You think there’s a Keeper inside?” I said.

Alice frowned and I did my best to keep my expression neutral. Slowly, she nodded and held out her axe.

“If there is, then it’s my turn to drink their blood.”

I doubt we’ll want whatever is in there.

She knocked the curtain flap aside with her axe, but a wall of darkness lay underneath.

“It’s never simple, is it.”

“No. But we knew that when we agreed to follow Devon.”

I sighed and stretched. My back popped in a satisfying crackle before I did the same to my neck.

Alice extended her axe forward and was the first to push through the void in reality.