Maybe sleeping in a monster-infested forest wasn’t the best idea Motus ever had. Maybe it would have been smarter to put out the fire before he went to sleep. Motus was quick to admit that the saying about hindsight was very true, and once he got out of here, he would find Wade and tell him the story. Hearing that musical laughter would lift his spirits, even if it was at his expense. For now, he was trying to negotiate one of the pouches on his belt, which he had been given for storage during his hunt, with a pack of dark silver-lined furry monkeys.

  “Can’t we talk about this?” Motus pleaded, tugging on the pouch once again.

  The response to his attempt at diplomacy was the gang of six primates hollering and jeering at him before pulling one final time as a cohesive force. Their tug outstripped Motus’s own, and he found himself stumbling forward as they scampered into the trees with one of his two belt-pouches.

  “Well, that sucks,” Motus muttered. “I had snacks in that one.”

  It was with no small amount of shame and embarrassment that Motus continued his trek through the forest. With the dawn of his second day came a deeper sense of ease as he wandered through the constantly shifting forest; it felt like home, and that did not unnerve him as much as it did the day and night prior. While he had not been able to shake the feeling he was being watched, it had waned over the day since he awoke. As if whatever was watching him lost interest briefly, only to return some odd hours later. It was something to think about, and Motus would have continued doing just that if the sound of rushing water had not reached his ears. With the sound came a sudden realization of just how thirsty he was.

  The boy rushed towards the sound with all the speed at his disposal, without calling upon his gift; he bounded over fallen logs and nearly tripped over exposed roots, his single-minded focus on reaching the sound of water. Eventually, the trees thinned and parted to reveal a large river that rushed forward with reckless abandon. The water was the clearest he’d ever seen and carried with it a blue ethereal glow. Operating on thirst and the mindset that the rabbit hadn’t killed him yet, Motus approached the water’s edge and slid to his knees. The riverbank was made of small, smooth stones and something that reminded him of sand. He cupped both hands together and dipped them into the water, finding it surprisingly cool to the touch. When he brought it to his lips, it slid down his throat with a soothing coolness that relaxed the boy.

  Motus did not even know he was tense. It was several deep gulps later that Motus realized something was wrong; he felt as though he was being watched again. He turned and moved to wipe his mouth; he wanted to be prepared in case he was not just being paranoid. Realistically, the odds that something had been stalking him for hours now were unlikely, but the feeling was too similar to that…thing that had nearly killed him in the forest to be ignored. Motus was lowering his hand from his mouth when it happened—and this time he wasn’t using his gift.

  Swish

  A streak of black and electric blue passed him twice, and where it did, pain blossomed in its wake. The wind that blew him back towards the river onto the stones did nothing to dull the pain coming from his arm, and the scream of agony it ripped from the boy’s lungs. Tears streamed down his face with no signs of slowing; the pain was so great. With tear-filled eyes, Motus glanced at his arm, trying to see the source of his pain and make sense of what had happened. What Motus saw nearly made him empty his stomach into the river. His arm was gone, torn free at the elbow.

  A rambunctious yawn filled the air as brown eyes blinked blearily; the culprit of the onerous noise was none other than Wade, who was lying against a wall of vines that was wholly out of place in the arena, upside down. His back pressed to the floor, while his legs rested against the wall. He cast a gaze across the arena towards two figures engaged in combat.

  One, a pale, tall young man with platinum blonde hair, intent on lobbing small glittering bronze orbs from his belt by the handful. The other was a shorter, younger girl with dark skin and hair. She waved her hand, and a silvery mist enshrouded her form, her eyes pits of a black so dark Wade didn’t think had a name. When it cleared, in her place were four perfect copies of the same girl, each brandishing twin knives that sported wicked curves and a nearly physical malice, as if the blades themselves were dripping with a bitter spite.

  As the girls rushed forward, the thrown bronze orbs rolled to a stop and beeped twice before erupting with an explosion of raw force that lacked heat but threw all of the girls back nonetheless. In the face of that eruption of force, four girls became one—the others having gone up in smoke. She rolled across the arena floor with a bounce before she turned it into a tuck of her limbs, which saw her spring back to her feet. With a shake of her hair to clear it from her eyes, she glowered at the blonde man.

  “Rude.”

  She received a charming wink for her troubles, and that only served to irritate the girl further. A flick of her wrist saw twin daggers turn into a half dozen spread of knives that she wasted no time sending towards her opponent in several quick throws. It was around then that Wade stopped paying attention; fights between Jackie and Tori usually went that way. He did or said something that rankled her; she responded exactly the way he wanted, and it devolved from there. Their leader could get under her skin like no one else. Instead of focusing on a situation he had seen play out a hundred times, Wade instead turned to look at Zemora, who was looking at one of her arrows.

  They were pretty things, long dark shafts formed of something that was not quite wood, fletching made of snowy-white feathers, and a gleaming silver tip that Wade knew from experience split wood and flesh with the same ruthless efficiency. “Hey Mora, what’re the odds Mo Mo makes it back from his hunt? I’m thinkin’ he’ll knock it out of the park.”

  Zemora regarded Wade briefly with a slightly raised eyebrow as if asking him: ‘Are you really asking me this right now?’

  She responded all the same, though the edge to her voice made Wade wonder if she wasn’t quite as invested in their newest rescue as he was…then again, Zemora was just like that sometimes. She’d have just ignored him if she really didn’t care—big softie that she was.

  “He’s a coward who jumps at his own shadow, Wade. Whatever realm he got sent into is going to eat him alive.”

  “Harsh!” Wade muttered, scandalized. “You don’t know that, Mora. I’m tellin’ you, little man’s gonna surprise us. Hell, I’ll bet you first watch on our next mission that he comes back with a killer beast.”

  Zemora rolled her jade-colored eyes at Wade’s antics, but nodded all the same. She set her freshly sharpened arrow back into its quiver before looking at him properly.

  “Fine, Wade, deal.”

  Pain, sharp, pain lanced through him just as it had been for what felt like hours. It rushed through his system like knives in his veins. It was all he could feel, lashes of agony to his nerves, the pain a live wire just beneath his skin. Eventually, though Motus had no way of knowing how long it truly had been, the pain began to ebb. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Motus became aware of other sensations: The cold river stones beneath his back, the damp, pervasive stickiness that clung to him—sweat or blood, Motus did not know, and the dryness of his throat—raw and scratchy—his voice hoarse as he croaked out.

  “W-What?”

  Blinking slowly to clear his bleary eyes, Motus groaned as he reached out for where his hand should be and nearly jumped out of his skin. With a start, Motus realized he felt something where he expected empty air. The skin was raw, an angry red that was slowly fading back to sun-kissed bronze; distantly, Motus noticed that his markings had returned with the limb, the black tattoo-like lines unbroken. The entire limb tingled, pins and needles dancing across its surface. It was uncomfortable, almost unbearably so, but Motus could not focus on that; he had bigger concerns. There, resting in his torn and previously empty sleeve, was his arm, worse for wear, but whole. Suddenly, even the ravenous hunger that had begun clawing at him faded to the background as The Commander’s voice sounded in his mind; his words carrying even more weight now than they did all nights ago.

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  “You’ll find Falem are damn hard to put down and even harder to keep down, Motus.”

  The pain had faded now, in its place a throbbing numbness that spread through the limb. The hunger was his biggest concern.

  “W-What even was that? I blinked, and it took my arm.” Motus whispered, confounded, horrified.

  It was hard to understand. One moment, he was frustrated after losing his pack to a group of monkeys that moved in surprisingly effective unison; then he was gulping down water by the handful. Then it struck him. Whatever it was, Motus was certain it was the same thing that stole the ‘unicorn’ from him; its eyes felt the same. Most of Motus was terrified at the thought of another encounter with the creature. The creature that had stalked and outclassed him so badly that it had taken a limb in the blink of an eye, yet a small part of him, a quiet, stubborn part, whispered. It whispered thoughts of how proud Commander Enka would be if he brought back something like that. No one had ever been proud of Motus before, and all too soon, he found himself chasing whispers.

  He rose to his feet, wobbling on unsteady legs that shook and trembled, as weary autumn leaves with the strain of keeping him upright. A single thought cut through the fog of doubt still lingering in his mind: ‘What would Sieg do?’ It was a surprisingly motivating thought because the answer was one Motus was quick to provide himself.

  “He’d—analyze what happened,” Motus murmured, voicing his thoughts. “This isn’t the first time I’ve met this…thing. What made this time so different?”

  He stood there, completely forgetting the brisk chill of the riverbanks as he eagerly tried to make sense of what had happened. Answers emerged from the most unexpected source: the displeased gurgling of his hungry stomach. The growl snapped him to attention, sparking a realization brought on by pangs of hunger. It cut through the fading numbness in his left arm.

  “My gift,” Motus breathed in realization.

  The first time they had crossed paths, Motus had been using his gift. It had been hard to see even then, but he had been aware of it.

  Maybe if I were moving faster?

  Motus attempted to devise a plan. His thoughts were swirling as they often did, but this time the process was sluggish, his mind moving as if stuck in honey. Hunger was clouding his thoughts and smothering his attempts to look towards the future. He couldn’t think like this, and even Motus could be honest with himself and acknowledge that any plan he made now would be fundamentally flawed. Before he could do much of anything in the way of thinking, he needed food.

  “The hole just keeps getting deeper,” Motus lamented.

  He moved closer to the water’s edge and looked down into the clear river’s depths, hope swelling in his chest. This hope was justified as he saw what he hoped for—fish swimming through the river. The apprehension Motus felt about the ‘hole’ he was digging returned sharply to his mind as he tried to sense his gift; he attempted to coax that heat residing below his heart to surface. It responded slowly, stubbornly refusing to move as he wanted. It had been a short time since Sieg had almost beaten the old mare’s temperament out of his gift, but as its stubbornness came back with hunger, Motus found himself recalling that torture almost fondly; his gift had listened to him then.

  Gritting his teeth as the pain of hunger brought about frustration, Motus exhaled sharply through clenched teeth. Motus worked to clear his mind, to distance himself from the hunger, the pain, and the faint tingling that still echoed from his newly reacquired arm. He thought that if he were relaxed—as relaxed as one could possibly be in a forest of monsters with superpowers that wanted to eat him—then maybe it would come to him. It was several minutes and more than a few deep breaths later that Motus began to feel that familiar sensation: A heat that bordered on painful bloomed to life just below his heart. That heat spread through his body with every beat of his heart, and with it came a feeling of strength. Golden eyes glowed an electric blue, and the world slowed around him. Strange as it was, it had grown comforting—familiar.

  Motus shook the sense of contentment that had settled over him like a blanket from his mind. He knew, rationally, that he did not have long and needed to act quickly; he was working on borrowed time as it was. Motus’s left hand was at his right hip in a blink, drawing his dagger, and in several quick steps that passed between breaths, he was up to his knees in the water. The wisp-like trail that followed his movements had not even begun to fade before Motus began stabbing his blade into the water with reckless abandon. With every blurred strike, Motus could see the edges of his vision flicker, the blue tint going in and out of focus; his gift was flickering much like his vision as it ran out of fuel. As his gift waned and the world caught up to Motus, several towering splashes of water erupted around him, the results of his sudden entrance to and repeated stabbing of the river.

  Wet, cold, and hungry, Motus smiled anyway, a bright and full smile. At the end of his knife were three fish; they weren’t small, but they were far from filling on their own. Luckily, they came in threes.

  “Dinner!” Motus almost choked, shoulders sagging with relief.

  He dragged himself back to the riverbank, hunger slowing him even without his gift; he was sluggish now. Yet, as he fought his way back to dry land, his mind worked—slow as the thoughts were to come. It was almost mindless as his body went through the motions of collecting dry wood; he was going through the process of making a fire, but he wasn’t thinking about it, no, the young falem’s mind was elsewhere. He had made a realization while struggling to get fish before his tank emptied, so to speak.

  “Okay, so, I’m absolutely terrible at using my gift.”

  Motus was forced to accept the statement as truth, and his hesitation to use his gift, out of fear of hunger, was doing anything but helping him. He needed to throw the fear of his gift away; there was simply no other option if he wanted to make that… thing, whatever it was, his weapon beast. And Motus wanted it; beyond his desire for approval, there was… something else. It had taken his arm before he could so much as twitch in defense, and that stung. Beyond the pain of losing his arm—that was awful—it made him feel as though Sieg had wasted his time training him. He wanted to kill it, not just because it had hurt him, but because he didn’t want to—couldn’t—stomach the idea that he had wasted Sieg’s time in learning from him. Motus never wanted to feel worthless again, so as the sound of crackling fire mixed with the smell of cooking fish in the air, the ‘nameless’ hunter began to plan.

  The next two days were disturbingly quiet, a somber kind of silence that stirred deep-rooted anxiety within Motus. He had only felt the prickling sensation of being watched twice in as many days, and both moments were brief. Despite his discomfort, Motus kept busy; he tried his hardest to let go of the fear he held for his gift and its enormous caloric cost. He ran far and fast, loving the sensation of belonging that flooded him as he sprinted through the forest, chased by shimmering blue light and rushing wind. His lungs burned, and his legs ached from the long run, but his mind had never been clearer.

  Everything about it felt right in a way it never had before. With every flashing tree trunk his fingers brushed and pulsing leaf he swept past, Motus felt more connected to this place. Each step urged him to keep going—to run forever; the rush was intoxicating, yet it also made him think as he ran. His mind drifted, thoughts a million miles away, so deep in his musings that Motus never noticed the way the vibrating trees almost seemed to bend out of his path so they did not impede his run.

  I can’t outrun this thing directly. I could barely see it last time, so what can I do? Motus despaired.

  It was a thought that brought with it more questions than anything else, but even as he streaked across the forest and felt hunger creeping up on him like a stubborn itch, Motus felt no closer to an answer. He slowed to a panting halt some few steps from the treeline of another clearing with his hands on his knees. The wind that chased him as he ran finally caught up now that he had stopped, blowing through the forest and setting his hair to dancing around him wildly. Gasping for air that almost burned going down, Motus looked around. He had no idea where he was—though he supposed that wasn’t saying much in an entirely foreign world. Motus sat atop a fallen log, hunger gnawing at him uncomfortably, but it did little to distract him from his musings.

  It was watching me before it took the unicorn, but it didn’t attack me then, just stole it from me and ran off. What was different last time?

  The question swirled around Motus as he toyed with different possibilities, but none felt quite right.

  Was it because I was using my gift? Or did I just paint a target on my back by nearly killing the unicorn? Maybe it was hunting it first, and I’m the thief? But why did it take my arm and not just kill me like it did the unicorn?

  All were possibilities, but none quite fit. It had been brief, but even now, two days and several dozen miles later, Motus still occasionally felt as though he was being watched. But perhaps that was it, maybe it really was that simple.

  “It’s playing with me,” Motus whispered in a strange mix of exasperated realization and chilling horror.

  A voice that was undoubtedly his own but tinged in Wade’s mischief and Sieg’s stoic pragmatism whispered to him.

  Use that, play its game so that it doesn’t realize it’s playing yours.

  “I’ll make it chase me…” The words came so suddenly to his lips that Motus could hardly believe they were his own. But once he said it, once the ball got rolling, the ideas wouldn’t stop; he had the embers of a plan now, and they were blooming.