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They turned at once, fleeing in the opposite direction. Back toward the castle. But within heartbeats the Wrym was practically upon them. If they continued straight onward, it would overtake them.

Mika and Uthur had already discussed this terrible likelihood.

It was just near enough to the palace. Not as near as they’d like…but it was something. She would try to Sing it down herself, and hopefully enough of their allies would reach it in time to secure the skull. And if that didn’t work, well…I’ll think of that when we come to it.

It did not matter, in this instance, that Uthur was a Stonesinger too. He had to focus on controlling the Blackmaw.

It was—almost—all up to her.

Mika swallowed. Cleared her throat. Hauled in an enormous breath, and Sang. A simple melody, the notes cascading from high to low in an even succession. The song of dormancy, of sending a thing into sleep.

But, though the storm crystal at its heart dimmed, the change was nearly imperceptible. The great beast might have slowed its advance by the tiniest of fractions, but that was it. They swept low and arched high and veered sideways, dodging the Wrym’s attacks as they attempted to draw it nearer the palace. And throughout all of this they sang on and on, Mika as loudly as she could—until her voice was ragged, and Uthur’s sounded much the same. Until nearly half an hour had passed, and the heart-stone glowed suddenly brighter.

The Wrym slowed. Began to bob its head and gulp. The few island-riding orcs who’d managed to keep up with it—all of them enemies and more prepared than the unfortunates who came before them—hastily Sang themselves back the way they’d come while at once shielding their islands with walls of wind. They’ll tire quickly, at this rate, realized Mika, almost smug. Uthur urged their blackmaw mount to greater speeds.

Then the beast’s terrible jaws stretched wide, and it vomited up another cascade of searing crimson mist.

They flew so quickly that all the world was nothing but a disorienting blur. The deadly cloud began to disperse as it billowed outward, but then Mika was suddenly overwhelmed by the searing stench of freshly-incinerated flesh. The blackmaw screamed. Uthur faltered, but Sang on.

Nevertheless, they began to drop. The blackmaw fought to stay aloft, trilling wildly…but its tail was gone.

Mika shrieked, clinging to the dorsal fin. Uthur’s legs clenched around her, around the beast’s flanks…and his arm closed in to either side of her to clasp together over the fin. Just above her own hands.

The obliterating mist was mostly behind them, but several tiny motes of searing pain burned themselves into her ears and hands and face as bits of her flesh simply evaporated away.

Then the thickened, almost liquid fog of the sea closed in around them. The pain eased, and their descent slowed somewhat. For a moment Mika panicked as she gulped for air and the fog-stuff spilled wetly into her lungs. There was an impact, and what seemed like the branches of a tree closed around them, scraping and catching on their clothes and skin. The blackmaw shuddered beneath them.

After ensuring that Mika was secure—she was, though still reeling in shock—Uthur pulled a long dagger from a sheath worked into his boot and leant sideways and forward to plunge it into the beast’s throat. It thrashed violently as again Mika fought to keep her place on its back. Then it went still, and Uthur murmured something in orcin.

Yanking the blade free, he wiped it off on his pants and returned it to its sheath.

“Are you injured, aside from the hand?” he asked when this was done. Mika hauled in another breath of strangely wet air.

“I…” she thought about the little pocks of missing flesh. I’m lucky that’s all I lost. And as he was behind me…he’s probably worse off. “No.”

Uthur was silent, though she could feel him prickle. He didn’t believe her, but he didn’t argue, either. If the lingering scent of her seared flesh enticed him, he managed not to show it. His markings were vividly orange.

The two worked their way down the tree-thing, leaving the blackmaw corpse draped in its upper reaches. As they climbed down its trunk, polyps with violet, wavering tentacles sucked back inside the bark, only to pop back out again once they’d passed.

The ground at the base of the tree-coral was spongey, lavender and uneven with fungal protrusions and even more bizarre growths that were as animal as they were plant.

The songs of mist-dwelling beasts sounded through the milky fog, echoing and weaving over one another in intricate patterns. They’d have been hauntingly beautiful, if it weren’t for the frequent, ear-rending interruptions of the Bloodwrym’s shrieking roar. Occasionally a coil of its body thrust into view in the near distance, but mostly it seemed the thing had fixed itself into place again.

Mika peered up at Uthur, blinking past the bleariness in her eyes.

“There’s no way you have the strength left to sing down another mount,” she observed.

He took a slow, somewhat shaky breath.

“No,” he said. “I don’t. And what strength I do have…I must conserve.”

“I’ve exhausted myself past Song for now as well. What do we do?”

“Trust in the others. Protect ourselves, and make it back to the palace on foot. Regroup. Perhaps by then we’ll be able to finally lure it into a position in which our Stonesingers can take it down, and the others can swarm it. As planned.”

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Mika’s teeth gnashed. So, then. Scurry back to base—a base that’s been infiltrated, no less—and try again to succeed where we’ve already failed.

She wanted to return to the palace too, of course. But at least she’d a different approach in mind. Not that he’d likely think much of her desire to search the palace for the mysterious heat-source at the command of a voice in her head.

Uthur seemed to sense her irritation.

“Do you have a better plan?”

“First of all, shouldn’t we stay in place for now and see if they send any tree-islands down for us? Second of all…there are likely humans lurking in that palace, and even more likely…other Stitched abominations. And we’re both useless right now. Isn’t it unwise to try to get back to the others through all of that on our own?” ”

Uthur grunted.

“Almost as unwise as it would be to sit around out here, where there are wild and hungry beasts, a Bloodwrym, enemy thralls, and potentially also humans and their Stitched abominations. We can’t just stand around here in the open and wait for help to come.”

Mika was not sure what to say to that. And so, they began to walk. As quietly as they could, as swiftly as they could, scenting the air always.

“If you’ve nothing else to say,” said Uthur finally, in a hush. “Why don’t you tell me what Retga couldn’t, earlier?”

Mika slowed.

“I…”

“About why I can’t touch your hands?”

She drew in a slow, shaking breath. Stalling for time. Then, when she couldn’t stall anymore, she braced herself and told him—quietly—everything she’d told Retga…and what had happened between herself and the prince when she had saved her life.

By the time she’d finished, he was walking rather slowly too…even, just once, stumbling over a twisted coral-tree root. He looked dazed.

“So you mean to tell me this core, once it’s…quickened…can create whole new environments and…and armies of constructs and children? How?”

Mika scrunched her nose.

“It’s not something that happens just like that, out of nothing. It takes time—a lot of it—and a resource-rich environment. It starts by putting down roots to draw up nutrients and minerals. Over time, it arranges those base elements into increasingly complex forms, guided by the ancestral memories and essences stored inside of it. Complex forms such as genesis pods and the children that grow in them. But in its early stages, the seed is vulnerable. Weak.”

She paused as an unseen creature whooped in the distance. They both slowed. When they neither heard nor saw the thing again, she continued…but lowered her voice still further.

“It needs to be protected as it builds itself up. Having an established infastructure from a previous or dying core helps, but in that case, a lot of the local resources are generally used up already, and new ones must be brought in from elsewhere in order to expand.”

“And this…core seed…it does all of this from inside of you?”

DeepMother, spare me this embarrassment.

“Um, no…once it’s quickened, it emerges from this body. But my essence is still contained within it even then. After separation, the core and I are still one. I will have a large degree of control over it always.” She paused, gulped in another unnerving breath.

“There are other…difficulties,” Mika went on. “Most constructs created by a core cannot function far beyond its Boundary. And, even though this body would continue to act as a vessel for me when I need it, I too would be unable to venture beyond the new core’s territory.”

“You speak as though this is something you’re considering,” he said. “Something you think may even be possible.”

“Isn’t it, technically?” Mika wondered. “There are plenty of orcin princes, perhaps I could get enough to agree. And are we not already in the perfect location for it…the vast ancestral and abandoned lands of my people? Your kind clearly hasn’t mastered this place. Why not let me do it?”

“I thought you wanted to reclaim your home-caverns? And, your children…they would be more orcin than Ulvari. Would you truly be happy with that?”

Mika fell silent. Something had called out from nearby again, closer than anything else had…and she chose to leave aside talking for the time.

Besides, she had no idea what to say.

What about her home caverns? If the seed could be quickened, she may eventually be able to grow an army’s worth of new constructs, yes—but how would she get them from here to there? As for the children…

She didn’t know what she thought of that. Does it matter, if they aren’t fully Ulvari…so long as they carry pieces of myself, my people, forward? So long as they can do their part, and live their lives?

So long as the core can be quickened, and I can still become a Queen?

No, somehow…she didn’t think it mattered all that much. Perhaps that was heretical, and yet it was still how she felt. But then…she was just a little out of her mind with panic and heat-haze and the rush of wild energy that comes with extreme terror.

Then Uthur slowed to a stop, and she peered up to him at first, thinking he was about to admonish her or…or something. But instead he was staring ahead of them, his jaw clenched.

Root-choked tumbles of stone rose up through the mists ahead of them, the base of the palace island. There was an arched opening there, glowing faintly from within. To either side of this opening was the crumbled and twisted remains of a gate.

Mika and Uthur met one another’s gaze, briefly, and she wondered if he scented the same ominous air from this place that she did. But peering about as they approached, they could see no other way to either climb to a higher point up the island or otherwise enter the palace. All around them to either side, especially wicked-looking coral trees grew close, their thorns dripping with vividly green ooze that reminded Mika of Blightbeast fluid.

They continued onward, through the archway and into the crystal-lit tunnel beyond. They went slowly. Scenting, listening. The path sloped ever upward. After a time, a new scent wafted its way down to them through the heavy aromas of salt and florid mushrooms and tree-coral blossoms. It was…almost rotten, but not quite. A little peppery, too. And fleshy.

The mists were too thick to see what lay ahead. Mika trilled, realizing a moment too late that this might give their location away to something…not good. Oh well, she thought, reckless in the altered states of exhaustion and Activation. If there’s anything in this tunnel with us, it’d probably have scented or heard us anyway. At least this might give us a chance to—

She stopped short. Uthur followed suit an instant later. Both were silent, though she could tell he wanted to ask her what it was.

Just up ahead, the ceiling of the corridor flew upward, forming a sort of shaft. And bracing its legs against the stone near its height was something truly, uniquely wretched. Like a massive spider made of the rearranged skeleton and jellied organs of a human, its abdomen hanging huge and pendulous below it like some kind of horrible chandelier.

But it wasn’t just the monster that lurked in wait ahead that made her blood freeze and her stomach clench. Beside her, Uthur, too, seemed to have turned to stone.

There were…bodies…stuck up all along the walls. Human bodies, orc bodies, even an elf-blooded. Motionless. One of them was just a few paces ahead.

She forced herself closer to it, to look at it with her eyes. It was an orc. He was wrapped from toe-to-neck in strands of something sticky and black. He didn’t appear dead, exactly. But not alive, either. And his chest…it glowed faintly—a sort of red-violet color—even through the inky goop. She leant a little closer and pulled out an earplug, confirming that there was no heartbeat to be heard. But, subtly, his chest still rose and fell.

There was an echoing, squelching sort of noise from just up ahead. Mika’s ears tipped toward it at once, and her gaze followed.

One of the nearby bodies convulsed. And then its ribs cracked open from the inside, and viscous, violet fluid spewed forth.

Cradled in the broken cage of the orc’s ribs, something living writhed.