Page 99 of Ember and Ash

“Fine,” I say, not in full agreement. “Take me to the forest.”

We stand at the edge of the forest, and the trees whisper, the collective voices making me crazy. I can’t hear their words, but I can feel them mocking me. They do not think I belong in this forest, even if Micah does. “How do you tell the forest to shut up?”

“You don’t. It never shuts up. It still mocks me.”

I glance up at him. “I bet it doesn’t cross you.”

“Oh, the trees are wicked. They love to play games, even with me.” He motions me forward, and we enter the forest, my hand settling on my blade as we do.

For a good mile, we travel in silence, and I scan the area around me, looking for the forest version of the giant crab.

Another half mile in, there’s a growling sound that I’m fairly certain, from my slight obsession with National Geographic, is a big cat. I rotate as a white tiger leaps from a giant rock, and by the time I start running, he’s on the ground and on my heels. I rift back to the rock where he’d been moments before, only to find a second cat join me so close I can see every muscle in his lithe, agile body, his teal blue eyes fixed on me, and I’m fairly certain he sees me as dinner.

My heart leaps, and I rift back to the edge of the forest. Micah appears by my side. “Running won’t kill a demon, and if you let it live, it will kill someone else.”

“Okay, but those are not demons. I’m not killing those tigers. This is their home. I’m the intruder in the forest. Did you see how beautiful they were?”

“You are not making your training easy.”

“If I didn’t care about those tigers, I don’t think you should want fire in my hands.”

His lips press into a fine line. “Fair enough. Let’s try something else.” He catches my hand and rifts us back into the forest to stand in front of a cave.

“What is this place?” I ask.

“Why don’t you go inside and find out? I’ll wait for you here. And remember, rifting doesn’t teach you to fight, Ember. You have to stand and face the danger.”

Okay, I’m officially nervous. “What’s in there?”

No sooner do I ask that question than a giant, hairy spider comes crawling out of the cavern, and the damn thing locks its attention on me. Micah disappears. Asshole, I call out in my head. I hate spiders.

Then kill it, he replies.

It’s the size of an elephant, and it has fangs like the crab. Why is that a thing here?

Big means a bigger target.

The damn spider lets out a scream that sounds like an old lady who smokes, and it charges at me while the forest taunts me with an onslaught of whispers. I yank my dagger from my sheath, but the creature is so fast, it’s already almost on top of me. I now have the joy of a close look at creepy, beady eyes accented by those ridiculous long white fangs.

I dive underneath the spider.

It’s not a smart move. It has some sort of claws underneath its belly that start punching at me, and it’s all I can do to roll out from underneath it with my body intact. What ensues is a lot of me rolling and it screaming while I stab it everywhere I can and still fail miserably at killing it. I end up pinned to a tree with its fangs in my face, and I attempt to stab it in the eye but hit its forehead. It doesn’t care. It’s not even a little fazed.

I rift to the outer edge of the beach and drop to my back, huffing and puffing. Micah kneels beside me. “Eyes and vital organs, Ember.”

I sit up, riled all over again. “I tried! I stabbed that thing over and over, and it did not die.”

“You’re operating out of fear, not strategy.”

“It was scary,” I argue.

“It’s nothing compared to a demon.”

I glower at him in utter frustration. “Then you go kill it.”

“All right. I will.” He disappears.

I rift to the area where I left the spider, and Micah is standing in front of it while it screams in his face. Daggers appear in each of his hands. He shoves them into the spider’s eyes, and as it squeals in pain, he yanks the dagger from the sheath at his thigh and plants it in the top of the spider’s head.