Weaver, I couldn’t orient myself. I had never seen a creature with such a slippery presence. The slyvik seemed to leap from thread to thread, the movement in between impossible to track, almost like—like it was Threadwalking—
Another screech reverberated through the fog, this one an even higher-pitched wail. A spark of pain in the threads.
I prayed it was the slyvik’s.
I felt it jerking wildly. Felt it venturing closer and then —
“Sylina,” Erekkus said, “no more waiting.”
I pushed him back, my jaw clenched, arm trembling against the wall.
There.
It wasn’t the slyvik’s presence I latched onto. It was Atrius’s. I grabbed my sword, held onto that thread, and flung myself into the darkness, while Erekkus’s shout of my name echoed behind me.
I timed myself well. My blade struck flesh. The slyvik screamed. Something whiplike and cold snapped against my face, making my ears ring with the impact, but I fought through the shock to grab onto the beast—not that I knew what I was grabbing onto, just whatever my arms could reach. I dug my blade deep into its flesh, giving me something to hold as I tried to make sense of what I’d grabbed—
A tail? Was this its tail?
I was whipped ferociously before I could brace myself. SNAP, as the reptilian flesh smacked against the stone. Sheer luck that I wasn’t sandwiched there.
I got my bearings just in time to reorient myself—just in time to sense Atrius, still dangling from the creature’s jaws —
“Vivi,” he gasped, like he didn’t mean to speak aloud.
“Move!” I ground out.
A shift in his resolve, as he realized what I’d just done: bought him a critical moment of distraction.
He seized it.
I couldn’t tell where his blade struck, only that it struck deep, judging by the vicious spasm through the threads. The slyvik screeched, a sound that turned my skin inside out. A burst of air threw my hair back from my face as it dropped Atrius from its jaws, spread its wings—
—and leapt.
Time slowed. When my stomach dropped out beneath me with the sudden jerk of weightlessness, I was utterly terrified. And as Atrius fell to the ground, one hand outstretched to reach for me, that terror was shared between us.
I wondered if he was thinking of the promise he made me. I was.
But there was no time to be afraid. I wanted to live long enough to see the Pythora King’s death.
Or at least the death of this fucking lizard.
Rigid determination fell over Atrius’s presence. His hand opened. I recognized what he was getting ready to do.
I’d move when he did.
The world shook as the slyvik careened against a wall, turned so fast my neck felt like it was about to snap, then leapt again, leaving me clinging to it in another stomach-churning freefall.
I prayed to the gods that this thing was a male, as I jammed my dagger as hard as I could beneath its tail.
And at the same time, a fine mist of salty, acrid blood filtered into the air, as Atrius’s magic seized control.
A spasm rocked the slyvik’s body. I couldn’t let go yet, not with it this far into the air. I clung to its tail as it whipped from stone to stone, clawing deep gauges into the granite as it writhed in pain. Still, it slid down with each leap.
Another stomach-dropping jolt.
From the ground, Atrius’s focus was entirely on us. I could feel his magic attempting to manipulate the creature’s blood, albeit with limited success—slyviks, it seemed, were as resistant to blood magic as they were to most other weapons.
My shoulder was killing me. My left arm was struggling more and more to cling to the slyvik’s tail, now slippery with blood. I’d slipped a little—the hilt of my blade was now just out of reach, lodged into the beast’s flesh.
In the rare seconds of stillness, I reached for it. My blood-slicked fingertips barely managed to brush the hilt.
Weaver fucking damn it.
I managed to push myself a couple of inches further up its tail when —
My stomach lurched as we fell— three terrifying seconds of utter weightlessness.
My breath jerked from my lungs.
I’m going to die, I thought, matter-of-factly, and then used the momentum from that fall to throw myself forward.
It was a miracle I didn’t topple to my death. A greater one still that my hand actually wrapped around the hilt of my weapon.
Below me, I felt Atrius’s presence, strong as a heartbeat—shaking with the effort of the magic he was using to pull the beast down. Erekkus was at his side now, bow drawn—ready to make the shot. Not close enough yet. Not quite.