Even as Thessa’s eyes closed, the wind kept moving long, hollow breaths that threaded through cracks in the slate and made the stone sing in low, mournful tones.
At some point in the night, a sound split the wind.
A sharp crack.
Stone striking stone.
Thessa’s eyes snapped open.
Another crack closer than before.
Maerwyn was already upright, one hand pressed flat against the ground.
“Do not move,” she whispered.
A third impact exploded against one of the standing slabs they had arranged, sending shards of slate skittering across the boundary. The sound rang like a struck bell.
From the darkness beyond their crude circle, something shifted.
It did not rush them.
It circled.
A shape peeled itself from the rock. Scales hide the color of slate. A body as tall as a man when reared upright. Its limbs were thick and corded with muscle, claws scraping lightly as it repositioned. Its tail dragged behind it, long and powerful, lined with jagged spines that caught what little moonlight there was.
The Rock-Skipper’s eyes reflected pale silver.
Another stone flew.
Maerwyn moved.
She seized Thessa by the collar and yanked her down just as the projectile tore through the space where her head had been. The rock shattered against the slab behind them.
“Stay inside the slabs,” Maerwyn ordered.
The creature lunged its powerful hind legs propelling it in a violent arc across the stone. It landed with terrifying precision atop a ridge of slate, claws digging in.
Then it whipped its tail.
The spines struck the ground with a crack, launching shards outward like shrapnel.
Thessa threw her arms over her face as fragments sliced through the air. One cut across her arm drawing a thin line of blood.
Maerwyn did not flinch.
She stepped beyond the boundary.
“Miss Maerwyn!”
“Do not break the circle,” the witch snapped.
The Rock-Skipper’s head tilted. It measured her.
Then it charged.
It leapt, rebounded off a jut of stone, twisted midair, and came down with jaws snapping.
Maerwyn pivoted at the last second. The creature’s teeth clamped shut inches from her shoulder. She drove a narrow blade upward, slicing along the softer scales beneath its jaw.
The Rock-Skipper hissed a guttural, rattling sound that vibrated through the stone.
It retaliated instantly.
Its tail whipped low.
The spined length caught Maerwyn across the side, tearing fabric and flesh. She staggered but did not fall.
Thessa’s breath came ragged with the sudden certainty settling in her chest that if Maerwyn fell, her own life would be forfeit.
The creature bounded backward, then hurled another stone with a violent snap of its tail. Maerwyn raised her hand sharply and threw a knife she had hidden. The rock and knife struck midair and fell to the ground.
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The Rock-Skipper lunged again.
This time Maerwyn did not evade. She stepped toward it.
At the last second, she dropped low, dragging her blade across the creature’s front limb. The tendon severed cleanly. The Rock-Skipper shrieked, momentum faltering as it crashed hard against the stone.
Before it could recover, Maerwyn thrust her palm against its scaled chest.
The air seemed to compress.
For a single breath, the plateau held still.
Then the force released.
The creature was thrown backward as if struck by an unseen hammer, its body slamming into a jagged outcropping. Stone fractured beneath it. The Rock-Skipper tried to rise, tail thrashing weakly but Maerwyn was already there.
Her blade came down once.
Thessa realized she had been holding her breath.
Maerwyn stood over the fallen creature, chest rising slowly. Blood dripped from her arm onto the ground below.
“Remember this,” she said without turning. “You are never safe.”
Thessa nodded, though her hands were shaking.
They did not sleep again that night.
When they awoke in the morning.
The carcass lay twisted where it had fallen, its scales dull in the gray light. Up close, it seemed larger than it had during the fight, its spined tail longer, more brutal, each jagged barb capable of splitting bone.
Maerwyn worked without hesitation.
She removed the spines first, twisting them free with careful pressure so they did not crack.
She cut a strip of scaled hide from beneath the creature’s ribcage. The underside was softer there, less armored, more vulnerable.
Thessa was made to hold a small vial while Maerwyn drained a measure of its dark, sluggish blood. It clung thickly to the glass.
“We spilled its life. We do not waste what it leaves behind.” Maerwyn said
By midday they were moving again.
Maerwyn’s wound from the tail strike had stiffened overnight. The gash along her side reopened once when she stretched too far, but she did not slow.
The next six days of travel were uneventful with little happening.
The plateau stretched on in endless shelves of fractured stone. No more Rock-Skippers revealed themselves. The wind softened to a steady, unbroken current.
The sky remained the same dull iron each day, neither brightening nor fully dimming.
Ahead, the fractured stone gave way to darker terrain. The sharp slate faded into bands of weathered rock and scattered gravel. In the distance Thessa seen the lower hills and sparse growth.
The descent was steeper than it had first appeared.
What had seemed like a gradual slope from above revealed itself as a series of broken ledges and slanting rock faces, each demanding careful footing.
The air changed first.
It thickened.
After days of thin, cutting wind, the weight of it felt strange in Thessa’s lungs. Warmer. Damp.
They climbed down a narrow chute between two leaning rock walls. Pebbles skittered ahead of them, bouncing into shadow.
At the base of the chute, the land softened.
Small clusters of shrubs clung stubbornly to the ground. Hardy plants with waxy leaves and low, twisted branches.
The slope leveled into a wide stretch of uneven ground, scattered with boulders and shallow depressions where rainwater had once gathered. The sky above began to shift from iron to bruised lavender as evening crept in.
A forest waited below.
It spread out in a dark sea of treetops, stretching far beyond what Thessa could see. Taller than the forest they had crossed before.
From this distance, it looked almost peaceful
“The coven waits ahead.” Maerwyn stated plainly
“What will happen when we arrive?”
“I will take you as an apprentice.”
Thessa walked in silence after that.
They entered the forest before dusk could fully claim the sky.
The forest floor dipped and rose unpredictably. Roots coiled across the ground like grasping fingers. Thorned vines crept between shrubs, forcing them to step carefully or risk torn skin. Once, Thessa felt something brush her ankle and nearly stumbled—only to see a pale vine retract slowly into the undergrowth.
“Do not step where you cannot see,” Maerwyn murmured
They walked until full dark.
No fire this time.
Instead, Maerwyn removed one of the Rock-Skipper’s spines from her satchel and drove it into the soil at the center of their resting place. She pressed her bloodied palm briefly against its jagged edge.
The night creatures kept their distance.
The following days blurred together beneath the canopy.
The deeper they traveled, the quieter the forest became. Birds thinned. Insects grew sparse. Pale fungi climbed their trunks in spiraled patterns. Strange symbols, faint and nearly swallowed by bark, appeared carved into several of them.
They crossed a shallow stream that ran black instead of clear. The water reflected the sky.
Beyond it, the trees began to thin; they stood wider apart, forming a rough perimeter.
At the center of that natural boundary stood tall pillars of dark granite rose from the earth in a rough circle, each etched with layered runes that pulsed faintly as they approached. Vines wound around them but did not cover the markings. The ground within the circle was cleared of brush and root.
Thessa slowed.
Figures stood between the pillars.
