Adria’s feet didn’t touch the ground. Every glance below sent adrenaline gushing through her. As if the shaking from the cold wasn’t enough. Martin brought Adria up to salvation -- a wide branch right below the peak of the tallest tree in the Bowl of Fur and Teeth. The spirit’s tight grip released her waist.

Adria’s feet touched the wood. Sweet relief. She would never fly again. Never let a ghost, manic from fresh meat, fly her again.

Right before she took a long, satisfying breath, the branch quaked, croaked and tilted. Adria stumbled back, towards the branch’s edge. She tried to find her balance, but it was too late, and once more, her feet weren’t touching the ground, and… Martin reeled her back up.

Once in a while, it’s good to have a ghost to save your life.

Adria dropped and embraced the branch, heart trying to pound a way out of her chest. Her limbs--which had trembled like bushes in the wind--found some semblance of steadiness: she crawled along the branch and then up the tree.

Whilst she climbed, Martin shaped and shifted, turning into a pair of claws and a head. The claws gripped her shoulders whilst the head rested atop the left one.

The green scaled tail of the wyrm hung off the side of the tree, swinging to disrupt the vicious attacks of flies, mosquitos and crows alike, starving for the sweet, sweet blood of this unkillable thing.

Twenty Gods! Can’t climbing a giant tree ever be simple?

Adria’s eyes followed the tail. The idea of joining the ranks of the critters, getting slammed with bloody scales and falling hundreds of meters to her death didn’t, in fact, enthuse her, so she had to get the timing right and jump past in one swift hop.

Endless injuries and a body turning pale from the cold wouldn’t help, but… She believed she could make it. Her body wouldn’t give in yet. It could handle much more than she could imagine, and the escape from the north proved it.

Biting her lip, Adria flipped a coin with her life and jumped.

The wyrm’s tail swung by her heel.

The cold gust threw her hair. And she grabbed onto a branch, pulling herself into the crown of the forest’s giant. She yelled in excitement, her sleeves muffling her voice. But there was no stopping or celebrating yet. La’Var wasn’t saved yet. She hadn’t even gotten to him.

Twigs slicing, stabbing and drenching Adria’s bandages in every shade of red, she squeezed through to the top of the Bowl’s giant.

Atop the thickness of leaves rested a nest of branches, straws and dirt. The mother wyrm heaved heavily, quivering in short bursts. Around the injured, slept five tiny wyrms of blue and green scales. The little future monsters were on the verge of waking up: they yawned and growled.

And surrounded by the wyrms, in the heart of the beasts’ den, sat La’Var, gnawing at the vines that tied him.

The hunter’s eyes widened at the sight of his beat-up rescuers. The words ‘get me out before it’s too late’ gleaned from him. I got you, thinking, Adria nodded and tiptoed towards him. Branches cracked and leaves rustled underfoot. Every time, Adria winced and crossed her fingers, praying that it wouldn’t awaken the nest of creatures encircling her.

One of the child wyrms snapped upright and yawned. Adria froze. And waited. Time played its games and this short moment--which she wished would end and reveal her fate sooner--dragged on for a slice of eternity.

Then the child wyrm lowered its head and returned to sleep, the passage of time starting once more.

Adria passed by the mother wyrm. The beast’s head tapped Adria, then it grumbled and sniffled.

Even if Adria managed to free La’Var and descend the tree, the injured beast would sniff them out, catch up and maul the party, which, anyone would say, had seen better days. The only way out of the Bowl and the only way to keep the inn alive was… To kill the wyrm.

An opportunity had landed when they were fighting on the ground. Now, with the creature asleep, there was another. In fact, it was the last one Adria would get. She had to do it or…

Kill or be killed, Adria remembered, staring into the blade in her grip. The sharp bone seemed to stare back and mock her: it was a relatively weak weapon, but you could scream in terror at the slices and stabs it landed on her mind and soul.

She thought of a solution and pointed the dagger’s handle at Martin, glancing at the ghost. He vehemently shook his head and pushed the weapon back at her.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Curse you, spirit.

The Twenty Gods had weaved a spectacular fate for her. Yet she’d never tap into it unless she broke through the barrier of fear. As the tip of the bone dagger tapped the shut eyes of the mother wyrm, and Adria pushed, fear’s walls shattered around her. Guilt and anger raged inside, but she held onto the weapon. Until blood oozed.

Warm crimson trickled onto her fingers and…

The world disappeared from around her, and the past returned.

The evenings in the filthy alleys of Black Ice Mountain were so cold and humid that they stung. A quick stay in the darkness between stone walls and grime could make you wonder, when did I get beat up? Who beat me up? Every night was a fight against the elements.

With the northern cold biting at her skin, trying to cling to her bones, and no place to stay the night, Adria rested in a dead-end near the entrance to the dungeons of Black Ice Bastion. Her back laid against crumbling stone, and there were walls with boarded-up doorways on both sides. Danger could only come from ahead.

Under a torn blanket, her mother slept with five stray children.

Adria was on the lookout, slowly dozing off.

Footfalls neared from the shadows at the end of the alley.

Adria startled awake but returned to the ground, one eye closed. A man draped in black robes snuck up from the darkness ahead. In front of Adria’s mother and the band of sleeping children, he stopped. There was a rapier in his hand.

Adria didn’t catch his attention.

The intruder looked around, graying hair falling down to cover his face. His gaze fixed on mother’s stolen jewelry and fine clothes. His rapier pointed towards her neck. Smirking, he pushed the blade forward and… Adria’s fists slammed into his face,, sending teeth flying.

He collapsed, and she jumped atop him, screaming, pounding him relentlessly.

Mother and the stray children awoke. At the same time, a voice spoke from the shadows.

“Stop! You’ve been caught breaking Black Ice Bastion law!”

A guard in dark armor appeared and strode for Adria.

It had been a setup.

Mother shouted orders for the homeless children, and they dashed away. A pair of kids ripped away the rotting planks blocking the tunnels in the walls. One opened the door and two dashed in, leading the way, while the rest followed.

With them out of harm’s way, Adria jumped off the pummeled, groaning decoy and pointed her fists at the guard. Her mother hissed.

“Don’t waste your life on this idiocy.”

She snatched Adria by the collar, and they ran into the dark passages and dungeons of the mountain city.

Adria returned to the present -- a hundred teeth of a baby wyrm bit into her calf. Pain paralyzed her legs and took hold of her arms. Screaming, she took the bone dagger out and stabbed the child wyrm. At the same time, Martin clawed the neck of the little hellraiser. It twitched and went limp. Whilst the spirit freed La’Var, Adria unclenched the wyrm’s jaws and got her leg out.

She would’ve preferred death to the pain and the sight of red, mangled flesh.

I’ll be fine. U’lis will patch me up with her sorcery. We just need to make it to the inn.

La’Var cut the valuable meat of the mother wyrm, bagged it, quickly snatched Adria, and started bringing her down the sides of the tree. Martin followed as the rest of the baby wyrms awoke.

Adria went with the motions, following La’Var’s lead.

It’s a setup, a setup… A setup how? the thoughts spun around her head.

The hunting party reached the base of the tree. Behind them, down the sides of the trunk, the four remaining wyrms crawled, roaring vengefully. They gnawed off branches, which, like arrows, rained upon Adria, La’Var and Martin. The three dodged the rain of death as they made their escape toward the field of roses. A heavy branch crashed meters in front of La’Var. One grazed Adria’s left shoulder. Again, she was centimeters away from the end, but now, her body was too exhausted and in too much pain for her to feel anything.

Xaufia smelled a rose. Under the young sunlight of the early morning, his ragged clothes sparkled like the valley.

Once the branches stopped falling, Martin looked away from the sky and stopped when his eyes met the vagabond child. Roaring for La’Var to stop, he snatched Adria. She tried breaking out, but her body was far too frail to fight the spirit -- she could only stare at him with a frown.

Martin didn’t answer the confusion on her face.

The claws of his left hand extended to the length of swords. Trembling, the hand pointed down the neck of the child.

“What are you doing?!” Adria shouted.

“I’m saving your stupid ass,” the spirit shouted back. “Do you even know what that is?”

“Xaufia, a lost child -- we’ve gotta help him ‘cause he won’t survive another night in these woods.”

La’Var’s eyes were wide. He backed off as well and pointed his blade at the child, and looked him up and down. The fact that vengeful wyrms were out for them escaped both the hunter’s and the ghost’s minds. Or the immense danger of coming across this weak and malnourished child made the wyrms seem measly in comparison. But Adria was thoroughly confused. Why? Why did this child drive crippling fear into the hearts of men--well, ghosts and goblins--who had, moments before, killed a dragon?

“Hah’Dria, the word Xaufia has a meaning in the ports of Marl,” La’Var uttered. “And it roughly means ‘thing who turns a midnight slaughter into a bed of roses.’”

“Yes and the traders who came here from Marl brought a poor translation of the word,” Martin added. “Xaufia turned into… The Thing.”

As the wyrm children reached the bottom of the tree and slammed into the ground, crawling viciously towards the hunting party of three, the vagabond child turned around and took off the cloak hiding his face.