She demonformed in a panic and the claws were forced open. She fell all of a stride, lashing at air, tail thrashing, before the claws closed around her neck again. Harsh winds flushed down her face as the wings beat higher and higher. She bucked blindly—she couldn’t get free! She couldn’t even see what held her.

A hot pressure built in her face. She saw the things eyeing her from the cliffside nests. The lizard-things, wyverns, were they? She’d only seen them in reference texts. Their heads were spiked as though crowned with horns, noses like the prow of a ship. And they were looking at her hungrily. She was choking.

There was a sound like dozens of fans unfurling as dark-green wings spread wide. Then they leapt for her.

She thrashed harder, managed to catch a claw on the leg gripping her neck, ripping through scale and the softer stringier stuff beneath. She heard a horrid screech. Then she was falling, flailing, screaming, and the wyverns came for her as she did. She had to bat one off as it dived at her, then another—

She hit the ground on her side.

She’d imagined falling wouldn’t hurt so much after hitting Nascent. She was wrong. She was quite heavy now and she’d fallen from such a great height, and past the bones the ground had no give to it at all. It was still made of stone and she was still made of flesh.

Whenever she powered up she thought, ‘this is the one where I’ll be so powerful everything will stop hurting.’ She was always wrong.

She managed to pick herself up, but shakily. Nothing was broken but it felt like several important somethings had burst inside her. It hurt to move. Wheezing, she turned her head skyward.

An open mouth ripping with teeth came at her. She leapt out the way—wobbled, more like—and slashed as it passed, carving a frostbitten line through one of its wings. A second swipe carved out its throat. One of its pals tried to get her from behind, but she slapped it out of the air; it went crashing into the mountainside, sliding shattered to the ground. There was no give to the mountains either. No debris, no smoke-clouds. The wyvern just hit it and sank, leaving nothing to mark its impact.

The thing that’d held her was coming for her. A wyvern bigger than all the rest; its webbed skin-wings seemed to stretch halfway from peak to peak, lit through with muffled gray light. The wyvern had a crown of bright red horns. This one was Nascent. It opened its mouth and frost poured out like a blizzard.

These things were ice aspect? She perked up. She leapt out of the way, but she didn’t need to. As it swooped back around she had a moment to gather her breath, to think. She saw more shadows staining the sky behind it. After what she’d done to the first two they seemed in no hurry to rush her. They shot another breath at her, then another, and the ones behind sent out their streams of frost too. They wanted to wear her down before they came at her.

Hmph! She darted along the floor and they tracked her. Here the road was too wide but the mountains pressed in ahead, making a strait of sorts. The wyverns fell in behind her, blasting, but the few times they found her hide they did little.

When they came to the narrow point she leapt for the mountainside fast as she could.

She was halfway up in three bounds. Then she kicked off and rammed the Nascent wyvern headfirst. She sank her fangs in—she wasn’t sure where, but her fangs found flesh somewhere and they stuck. They went down together, her snarling, it screeching.

Then she poured in her icy essence. She felt like a snake injecting its venom. The wyvern flapped uselessly against the ground, slashed at the sky with its legs, raked scratches down her sides, but she had it held fast. When she finished it off, she raised her head to the Heavens and howled. She didn’t even plan it. It just felt right.

She glared at the circling wyverns, daring them to come for her. They fled.

That’s right, she thought. You run!

***

Somewhere she must’ve crossed an invisible line. For the first few hours it felt like there was nothing in these mountains but vultures. Then, suddenly, it felt like the whole range was out to kill her.

In the next few hours she had to drive off three more packs of wyverns. Then came the gargoyles—hideous little goblins with wings and slingshots and obsidian knives. She let out her aura, she threw out her domain, but it seemed only splattering a few would deter them, and even then they kept their distance, peppering her with beesting slings. It wasn’t until she human formed, picked up the stones, and started lobbing them back that they left her alone.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

There were trolls here too. They were dormant, clung to the mountain face, their skin nearly indistinguishable from the stone. She wasn’t sure if it was to do with sensing movement or body heat, but something about her woke them up. And they sure were cranky about it. Most of them were Core but a few were Nascent and they hit hard as Hell. And they wouldn’t stop hitting her, even while she drove claws through their necks. As she limped along she sported a pelt of bruises.

Then there were the vultures circling overhead. She swore the same pack had followed her for hours, patiently waiting for the mountain to wear her down.

By the fourteenth… maybe fifteenth? attack she could begrudgingly admit it was kind of working. She could keep herself running as long as things kept attacking her, but stopping herself bleeding was harder. The longer she went the more wounds they carved into her. She dripped a red crusting trail, stark against the white bone sands. She kept throwing out her domain, she kept throwing out her essence, and she was giving out more than she got in.

After a particularly ornery troll socked her in the stomach, she took a little break to heave blood. For a few breaths she sat there hacking. How much longer was there to go? She’d already come this far… surely there was no turning back now… right?

The thought of going back through all that nastiness filled her with dread. So did the thought of going forward. Forward and back all looked the same—to the sides, steep purple-gray-black mountain faces; narrow bone-white branching paths between, all going to their own kind of nowhere.

Was it getting dark again, or was that just her swimming head playing tricks on her?

She human formed and sat down on the side of the road, panting. The wounds peppering her shrank as she did, but they throbbed no less painfully. She could probably push herself to go on—physically—but she had to take a breath. For herself.

All at once it hit her where she was. She knew she was off the edge of the world intellectually, but she’d never really felt what it meant until now, when she was tired and alone and really needed somewhere she could rest and feel safe. Somewhere where there were people she knew loved her and would take care of her. She hadn’t lied to that Junius—she really did just want to go home.

She blinked watery eyes. She missed Mother. She missed Mother so much. And Jin, and Father, and everyone else. She even missed her rocks. It feltlate… it felt past time she should rest…

Her body could go on, but suddenly it felt impossible to do anything to lie down; she just couldn’t face the thought of going another hour, not right now. She was finding it very hard to muster up a reason to. Where was she going, anyways? No one she loved would be there. Why bother? She knew then she was done for the day. She badly needed a drink but she hadn’t brought that either.

She drifted over to try to find some nook in the mountain she could hole up in. Ever since she’d left Jade Dragon City she felt like she was drifting. Everyone hated her and she was running away—that was how it was, and she didn’t know what to do with it. Usually when someone hated her she could take it and bury it deep in her heart, in a place where it hurt her to think about, where it could really get her going. She tried that now but it just didn’t work. Thinking about everyone hating her just made her feel sadder. Maybe everyone was too much—maybe she needed just one person, someone to make a real enemy out of? She thought about Father and how little he must think of her now. That’d always done well to fire her up, make her want to prove him wrong. But she felt sadder thinking of him now. All she’d ever done was disappoint him, and now she’d gone and done it for the very last time.

So she had nothing to live for except, she supposed, herself. When you put it that way it really did seem quite depressing.

Oh. There was a cave. She took a few steps in, then heard a huge scrape in the dark, saw the darkness start to move.

Oh.

It was a manticore. With big bright-yellow shining eyes. It kind of looked like her, except red, and male, and with wings and a stinger-tail. And there was another one behind it, except that one was a manticore-ess; she could tell by its lack of mane. Manticore-ess? That wasn’t a thing, was it? Oh. And they were both Nascent Soul, too. And they stank, and when they opened their mouths hisses, not roars, echoed up and down the cavern.

She stood there numbly as they advanced on her. Why wasn’t she moving? They were Nascent Soul, and they felt pretty darn powerful at that. Manticores were powerful, almost as powerful as legendary species like dragons or phoenixes. She read it in the Bestiaria Mithica. They could really beat her up bad. She should run. But her eyes were drooping even as she swayed. Her body felt strangely heavy and her mind felt very light. She watched dumbly as they came, stingers outstretched.

She kept watching, morbidly fascinated, as they lashed down. It was such a pretty arc, too clean, the kind you could never draw freehand.

It slashed down her chest, through her belly, and left her at the hip. She blinked down at it.

Then the pain hit her.

She howled. And then she got angry, and Demonformed, still bleeding, and lunged.

***

She was on her knees. The manticores lay broken. The world was a gray blur to her, and sounds seemed high-pitched, coming from far away.

She knelt there, breathing hard. She was so ready to slump to the ground. But the cave went on and on, and who knew what hid in there?

Why couldn’t they just leave her alone? She wanted to cry. She almost did, too. Then she heard the voices. A hushed whisper, but the wind blustered through the valleys; it carried sound strangely far, and in her cave she heard everything.

“The blood ends here… she’s in the cave!”

Footsteps.