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I needed space to learn and grow, so having someone who could do their own thing would be nice. God, I wished he would stay around. I was getting increasingly scared to die alone, and I wondered if I could entice people to stay with me during the harvest.

How freakish.

Aiden walked over to me. "Can you ride? Not to be pushy, but we’re already out of time, so if we have a shot, we gotta seize it. Kael said you can sleep on Sina’s back."

I turned to Sina who narrowed her eyes at me strangely, but in a way that lacked hostility, and I nodded. "Yeah. But… pack up the alchemy stuff. Kay?"

I had brought a large back from the Big Bag ’o Tools that Aiden tied onto Kael, and Aiden had a backpack he wore in the event that he crash-landed. Between the two, we could get a lot of the equipment.

"I’ll get it," Aiden said. "Come on, let’s get you tied on so you can rest."

I packed the soul elixirs and laid down on Sina, letting Aiden tie me on. I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but I was so… so… tired. I passed out before Aiden finished packing, and then I was out like a light.

2.

I woke up when the forest was sweltering and buzzing with strange bugs in the distance. Large birds were calling in wobbled tones, and my skin was scratchy and sticky with sweat. It was all bearable if I hadn’t slammed my head against Sina’s shoulder to wake up.

I bumped and slammed my head on Sina’s fur, making my whole body lurch.

We were moving—

—fast.

The landscape was blurring as I moved, and I turned just in time to see a beast that looked like a mixture of a monkey and a cheetah looking at me with murderous eyes.

It lunged, and I screamed.

Sina jumped to the side, narrowly dodging before jumping onto a large boulder and carrying on. The other beast followed, catching up in an instant. Right before it lunged, an orange and white blur jumped onto its head, and a spray of blood blew away in the wind.

Kline.

A haunting howl of many beasts wobbled in the distance, like Apache soldiers riding roughshod down sandy paths in what was once Mexico, hooping and hollering and fighting soldiers in the summer heat.

Kline caught up again, warping into a shadow ahead of us and keeping pace. Another beast flew ahead. Kline disappeared, and he appeared on its back, biting into its spine. The beast cried out and it was loud, but it quickly became distant as we rushed ahead.

So much was happening.

Two more beasts caught up to us on both sides, and I could sense deep frustration in Sina’s heart. She would usually cover herself in fire, but she couldn’t use it with me tied to her. It was like her hands were tied behind her back.

One suddenly lunged, and she breathed fire into its face, but its body still crashed into us, sending us flying into the ground. The other lunged from the side, biting into her shoulder. Without thinking, I activated Moxle Dilation, unsheathed my machete, and hacked its arm. Blood ruptured from the wound in a geyser, and it cried, releasing its jaws.

The first pounced, still burning, before Sina could get up. It was a mean bite, and my left arm got caught up in it. It sunk its teeth into my forearm and ripped a chunk out of it with its flat human teeth.

It was traumatic to see muscle and bone like it had just eaten a drumstick. So I screamed, slowing time, hacking through the flaming beast’s eyes. It screeched and swiped its paw. I dodged narrowly and counter-struck. It dodged.

Sina was up again and tried to move, but the other was attacking again. It was a hopeless situation, and I couldn’t move. Under max dilation, I cut through my rope to get free, allowing me to strike and Sina to activate her flames.

I was too slow. I had barely hacked through my shoulder rope when one attacked full-on. I curved my blade to it, prepared to skewer it in the nose—but the momentum would crush me. I’d probably break my neck. It was over.

Suddenly, another lurvine flew into the fray, snapping it in its jaws and flying away.

I turned and saw Aiden—

—just in time to see the crash.

He didn’t have a seat belt, so the high-speed impact flung him forward at intense speed, making him crash head-first into the ground before rolling twice and crashing his head into a tree.

It was gruesome.

"Aiden!" I screamed, trying to hack through the separately tied ropes around my waist and legs. I didn’t make it in time. Sina had gotten up and continued running, rushing past Aiden low, giving me a chance to grab him. I cranked dilation to the max, but I couldn’t reach him—

—and Sina didn’t stop.

There was a full pack, and while I saw Kline kill a third, three more were coming up on Kael. It was going to be a bloodbath—but something remarkable happened.

Kael and the whole pack surrounded Aiden.

They already had their cores and drank Diktyo water, allowing them to evolve. They had no obligation to protect us by their contract. If Aiden died, it would be ideal—but they protected him with their life.

I saw that and cried and then disappeared as Sina flew up a boulder and pulled us deeper into the forest.

3.

Sina ran for probably five miles before I could finally get out of my ropes safely. By that point, I jumped off and cut one of their heads off in a passion-filled fury. Sina wrapped her body in flames and ripped another to shreds. Kline caught up and killed a third.

Then all went still.

I stood there in that blood-soaked meadow with a pounding heart, breathing hard, mind hazy and primal and angry, trying to clear my mind but only seeing Aiden—the way that he flew forward to protect me. The way that he was launched off by the obvious physical forces he must’ve known about. The sound of the crack as his head hit the tree, the blood on him, his limp body—the lurvine protecting his life.

Then, I tried to grip my hands and found that one wasn’t working. I looked down and saw that half my forearm was missing and bleeding out.

I panicked, hyperventilating as I forced off my backpack. With one arm and my teeth, I opened the bag and pulled out an Ilyndra elixir, ripped out the seal with my teeth, purified my arm, and then chugged it down.

It was just as foreign and disgusting as I remembered—but a lot worse.

Instead of going through my whole body, it moved straight to the injury like a magnet, filling my left half with the elixir. It felt like a parasite or an Alien growing within me, snaking around until it made it to my arm. But once it hit that wound, it webbed out with magenta goo that quickly blackened. It was miraculous—

—but it stopped as if I were 3D printing and ran out of plastic.

In essence, that’s what happened. There was only a test tube to replace my entire forearm. So I drank another. A third. A fourth. A fifth. And finally, after my entire arm looked like I had 3-D printed capillaries and veins and muscle to fill my arm, I drank a sixth, and the wound finally shut.

My arm didn’t work yet—but I could feel blood finally pumping through it, and the swelling in my bicep calmed down. It was a miracle.

That was close…

I almost lost my arm. That was a fact. This elixir I spent so much time on was finally worth it. A miracle.

"Come here," I said to Kline. He had shallow wounds, so I gave him a normal healing elixir, filling his body with building blocks necessary to replace muscles, tendons, veins, and the like, and then gave him Diktyo River water to heal the wounds. Soon, he was strutting around normally, meowing and rubbing against my legs—anxiety wrapping his body like a thick coat.

"I hope he’s okay…" I circled around Sina, examining her wounds. Nothing looked too serious, so I brought out normal healing elixirs. "I need you to drink these."

Sina narrowed her eyes at me and scrunched her nose.

"It’s the same elixir I just used on Kline."

She chuffed.

"Why would I kill my ride?"

She didn’t budge.

"Or mess with the woman who just saved me?"

She looked away.

"Just drink the damn potions. I wanna go check on Aiden and the pack, but we’ll all die if you’re injured!"

Sina looked at me and growled, but I popped the seal with my teeth and thrust a whole jar into her face. "Drink. The fucking. Elixir!"

She scrunched in her nose but opened her mouth.

I poured it into the side of her teeth, and she almost snapped her canines on my wrist by reflex. She gagged but held it down, exhibiting great control as she swallowed.

The elixir gave her building blocks for healing. I then purified the wounds and used my stitching spell to seal them. Ten minutes later, her fur was missing in patches, but her wound was healed. Without asking permission, I jumped onto her back, and we turned around, searching for Aiden and the rest of the pack.

2.

A solemn atmosphere hung in the air when we returned. The lurvines were hovering around a certain area like vultures, and I expected the worst.

My heart ached as Keal looked at me and then away, giving room for Sina to join them.

Aiden and a lurvine were lying on the ground. The lurvine was an abstract painting splashed with crimson and brown. It was missing limbs and was half-eaten. Another was badly maimed, missing an eye and part of its shoulder—a deep wound on its leg. A third was seriously wounded but could make a full recovery. As for Aiden, he was wheezing on the ground, unconscious and dying.

"Damn it…" I jumped off Sina and looked around. "I’m going to heal you. All of you. Just… wait."

Let this work… I forced Diktyo River water down his throat by pouring it into his mouth, pinching it shut, and gripping and pulling his throat like a shotgun. He tried to cough, but he couldn’t, so he swallowed by reflex instead.

That was definitely not how people should do it, but it wasn’t like I knew how to do first aid.

I wasn’t taught.

Either way, it worked, and his body stilled—but he didn’t wake up.

"Onto you." I tried to touch an injured lurvine, but it backed away and snarled. "Come on… We need to get to the river. It can save Aiden… and you and everyone. We’ve been running…" I looked around and saw landmarks I was accustomed to. That made it worse. "We’re so close…"

They didn’t budge, thrusting their nose to the side to get me to back away. Kline stepped in, but they barked at him, resentment welling in their eyes.

It was over.

Suddenly, Sina walked past me and looked at them. She turned to me and pawed my elixir, then turned her body to show them her closed wounds. She then looked at me and sneered but looked back with an intense gaze.

Keal took his eyes from Aiden and looked at Sina. He then studied me with an intensity that made me feel like he was looking through my soul.

Sina backed up so Kael could look at the rest of his pack.

A tense minute passed, but there was a breakthrough. One of the injured walked up. My heart fluttered and quaked, and tears filled my eyes. I looked at Aiden. He wasn’t waking. His wounds closed, but that was it. His brain could collapse at any moment.

I walked up to the beast, unscrewed the jar with my teeth, and poured it into its mouth like Sina. The lurvine gagged, and the rest of the pack snarled and snapped and prepared to attack. But the beast gave a half-hearted growl, and dirt and grime poured from its wounds.

I purified the blood from its wounds and stitched them shut, petting the fur. My left arm was feeling better now, artificial like a cyborg but functional and I sighed a breath of relief.

I turned to the maimed lurvine with a wince. Its eye was gone and it was missing part of its shoulder.

"I can’t help you completely," I said as it limped forward. I turned to Sina, hoping she could translate. Sina seemed to shrug and nudged her nose at the beast.

I gave it a healthy dosage of the health elixir to build up its proteins, then gave it ample Diktyo River water. To my surprise, it rebuilt most of its shoulder, but its eye didn’t grow back. It was too damaged.

Once I finished, I said, "Sorry. I wish that I could do more for you." But it just nudged me with its nose, backed up ten feet, and bowed its snout. I bowed my head back, and it walked away.

Kline pawed at my leg.

"What is it?"

He looked down and saw a rope in his mouth. I followed his eyes and landed on Aiden, who was now on Keal’s back like a loose sleeping bag draped over a donkey.

"Got it."

I tied Aiden onto Keal the best I could without knot knowledge. Then I got onto Keal’s back to hold Aiden in place like a seatbelt.

We rode on.

The rest of the trip was solemn but uneventful—but it quickly picked up when I heard Thorvel and a pack of wyverns roar from the Bramble just like the first time. The minute I did, I realized that Aiden could be the least of our worries.

I gripped Keal’s fur and screamed, "To the river—run!"