The waterfall didn't just fall; it hammered. Every drop felt like a frozen coin slapped against my raw skin, trying to peel the scent of the manticore's rot from my pores. Behind the curtain, the cave didn't "yawn." It smelled like a wet grave and the metallic, copper-and-ozone stink of a mana-leak.
Xavier stumbled behind me, his breath coming in ragged, wet hitches. Boyka hadn't just cracked his ribs; he'd turned the kid's chest into a bag of loose kindling.
"Ray..." Xavier wheezed, clutching his side. "Tell me there's gold. Tell me I didn't crawl through a mile of monster s**t for a view of more rocks."
I didn't look back. My boots crunched through a carpet of brittle, blackened bone—small ribs, mostly. Things that had died screaming. "Griffins hoard gold, Xav. Manticores just hoard what's left after they're done chewing."
I stopped at a nest of scorched peat. The heat still radiated off the stone, a sick, unnatural thrumming that made my molars ache.
"Look at the scorch marks," I said, pointing at the violet soot staining the floor. "Manticores don't breathe purple fire. Evolution takes a thousand years. A rift-warp takes ten minutes."
"Who cares about the color?" Xavier groaned, sliding down the wall. "My lungs are filling with blood, man."
"Your sister's lungs are already full of it," I snapped. I knelt, my fingers tracing a jagged shard of violet crystal embedded in the nest. "Standard cores are acid. They'd melt her mana channels before she could blink. But this... this mutation? It's 'cold' fire. It's been processed. It's the only thing that won't turn her into a charcoal statue when we try to jump-start her heart."
A low, vibrating growl rippled through the floorboards of the cave. Two shapes detached themselves from the dark. They weren't brown. They were the color of a fresh bruise, fur standing up in electrified needles.
The male had a jagged red tear across its face and eyes that looked too human for comfort. It didn't roar; it hissed like a punctured steam pipe.
"Don't move," I whispered. I pulled the mother's core from my pouch. It pulsed in my hand, a dying star of violet light. I didn't "chant." I bit my lip until I tasted salt and forced my mana out—a jagged, stinging needle of intent.
The connection felt like shoving my hand into a live socket. I didn't "become an anchor." I fought. The cub's mind was a whirlwind of hunger and hate. I hammered my will against its skull, forcing the contract through the friction of its resistance.
"Do it, Xav! Now!" I roared over the sudden whine of escaping energy. "Don't 'project' your feelings. Grab it by the throat. Tell it that if it dies, you die. Make it a blood-debt."
Xavier screamed—a thin, pathetic sound—as the mana bridge snapped into place. The violet light turned a muddy, bruised crimson where it touched him. The cub slumped, its obsidian teeth clicking together.
"Rex," I coughed, wiping a trail of blood from my nose. My mana was a mess, flickering like a dying bulb.
"Mira," Xavier panted. He looked like he'd aged five years in five seconds.
The walk back was a blur of mud and the sound of the two predators padding behind us, their claws clicking on stone like ghostly metronomes. Xavier stopped near the treeline, his hands shaking so hard he had to tuck them into his armpits.
"Ray... when we get back. No more games." His voice was thin, stripped of the royal polish. "I want to know how you did that. How you moved like Boyka wasn't even there."
I watched him. The "Prince" was dead. There was just a desperate animal left.
"I want the Water. But I want the Earth, too," he muttered, his eyes fixed on the mud. "They called me a 'hollow' back at the capital. No affinities. Nothing."
"Maybe you just weren't hungry enough," I said. "You want Earth and Water? That's mud, Xav. It's heavy. It's dirty. It's what you bury people in."
"I don't care," he snapped, his eyes flashing with a sudden, dark spark. "The body is a vessel, right? You broke mine. Now help me fill it with something that bites back."
I thought of Marduk for a second. The old fox would have killed Xavier just for asking with his training. Gratitude is a weakness you pay for at the grave. "We'll see if you've got the spine for it," I said, turning toward the shack.
Inside, the oil lamp was flickering, casting long, dancing shadows over his sister's pale face. She looked like a corpse waiting for a coffin. I pulled out the syringe and the glowing violet core, the essence inside swirling like a trapped storm.
"Hold her down, Xavier. This isn't a fairy tale. When this hits her bloodstream, she's going to feel like her veins are being filled with liquid glass."
I leaned over her, the needle glinting. "Welcome to the new world, kid. Hope you hate it as much as we do."