Chapter 01

A Hunter’s Path

The hum came first. Low and rhythmic, almost melodic, it threaded through Zuberi’s groggy mind like a song once cherished, now half-remembered. Then awareness crashed over him, wrenching his body taut as if invisible chains had snapped tight. Each breath burned sweet and sharp, like grilled peppers forgotten on the coals. The air itself vibrated against his skin, demanding his full attention.

He pried his eyes open to a deep purple sky streaked with emerald and gold. Two suns loomed on the horizon, one scalding red, the other cool blue, bathing the world in surreal mauve hues. Long, distorted shadows stretched around him.

Wincing as his body protested, Zuberi pushed himself upright. The ground beneath him shifted with a faint, crystalline sound. Where he expected soil, grass, or mud, iridescent pebbles blanketed the clearing, smooth and shimmering as if each held a tiny flame within. When he moved, faint lines of light rippled across their glassy surfaces, pulsing in sync with the hum that had awakened him.

Images surged through Zuberi’s mind hard enough to nearly send him back to the ground. Dark waters crushed him. Salt, overpowering, burned his tongue. Fear clawed at him. Pressure, ever increasing, bore down on him. The aching struggle for one impossible breath. The helplessness as the ocean swallowed him. Faces followed, haunting, disorienting, accusing. Amara’s laughter. Father’s stern gaze. His people’s cries for help. Each memory was a shard of pain pressing deeper, threatening to pierce his chest. Zuberi could not afford the distraction, but the flashes refused to recede. Like wounds he could not bandage, they demanded his attention.

He forced his eyes closed again, willing the spinning world to settle. Zuberi's hand found the cool metal of his chakram. The weapon’s presence steadied him. Though something felt different about it, the familiar etchings on its surface calmed his racing heart.

He slowed his breathing and anchored himself in the present. He focused on his damp robes clinging to his skin, the sash around his waist loosened by a struggle he could not remember, and the tremors the pebbles sent against the soles of his boots.

When he opened his eyes again, he could focus on the clearing around him, ringed by tall trees, their indigo bark and translucent leaves casting shimmering rainbows. Strange bushes nearby swayed in a nonexistent wind, bristling with bulbous fronds, glimmering pods, and twitching vines, a screen that could conceal as readily as it decorated. The air felt alive, heavy with expectation, as though it were holding its breath.

The hum grew louder, spreading through the forest. Every patch of moss, every blade of grass, every glowing vine seemed connected. Whenever the buzzing peaked, the hair on Zuberi’s arms stood on end, as if he stood before a gathering storm. Faint lines snaked across his skin in strange patterns like tendrils of lightning, pulsing in time with his heartbeat and the low hum. He rubbed at the lines as if they were stains. They faded where he touched, only to return the second he removed his hand, resuming their gentle pulse.

A rustling sound drew Zuberi’s attention. His grip tightened on his chakram. He held his breath, sinking into a low crouch, chakram angled toward the nearby bushes.

At first, only silence. Then something burst from the underbrush. It was sleek and low to the ground, its silver scales shimmering like liquid light. Long quill-like spines lined the creature’s back, refracting the twin suns into dazzling flashes.

The beast circled Zuberi, each step taken with care, muscles rippling beneath its silver scales. Zuberi matched its pace, every nerve attuned to the predator’s movements, chakram ready. The skin along each glowing line pulled taut, like blood drying over a wound after a battle.

For a heartbeat, the creature paused. It seemed to reassess him, as if acknowledging that what stood before it might not be prey after all. Then, as if deciding it was the hunter, it growled, lips pulling back to reveal huge canines and serrated teeth. It coiled, then sprang.

Zuberi sidestepped the leaping beast at the last moment, his hand closing around the chakram as naturally as drawing a breath. He hurled it toward the creature, its edge glowing red like a branding iron left in the coals. The weapon struck the beast mid-leap, digging deep into its scaled hide. Then, as if something unseen had tugged it back, it changed course and arced toward him. His hand moved as if on its own, catching the weapon that should have severed his fingers. Instead, the deadly edge stopped the instant it touched his palm, as though recognizing its owner. The glow around the rim faded back to its usual silver-on-black sheen. Zuberi kept his eyes on the beast as the smell of charred turtle shell reached him from its wounded flank.

Keeping the panther-sized creature in sight, Zuberi checked the spear slung across his chest. He shifted the chakram to his left hand and gripped his machete. His other weapons were present, though apparently altered as well. Studying them now was the best way to get himself killed. Zuberi returned his attention to the creature ahead of him.

The beast remained wary, its neck lowered, its violet gaze tracking Zuberi without meeting his eyes directly. For a moment, they watched each other, predator and prey caught in uneasy silence, each trying to impress on the other which role they played. Then a low, thunderous roar cut through the air, one Zuberi could not identify. That he could not name it frightened him more than the roar itself. The beast’s head snapped toward the sound, its silvery spines flattening against its body without so much as a rasp. It hissed, gave Zuberi one final glare, and darted back into the forest.

The roar came again. Closer. Goose bumps rose on Zuberi’s skin. With no desire to identify it more closely, he turned and ran in the direction opposite to where the beast had fled. As Zuberi ran, the forest blurred past, glowing vines whipping at his face. Bird-sized insects that looked like dragonflies scattered around him. A smaller thing with a glowing abdomen and feathery head fluttered and wove a path among them. The hum shifted between chaos and the steady drone he had begun to expect. Zuberi soon found a sustainable pace, building distance from whatever had loosed that cry while saving enough stamina for a burst of speed if he needed one.

Zuberi surged through a curtain of vines and stopped short of a sudden drop. He cursed himself for losing focus while running through unfamiliar terrain. Panting, he studied his surroundings. Here, fewer iridescent pebbles dotted the jungle floor. The forest behind him, which had fallen silent, now seemed to hold its breath. Ahead, the ground dropped steeply, not quite a cliff but difficult to climb back up. Some five to ten meters below, the jungle gave way to black sand studded with larger, jagged crystals. In the far distance, enormous, half-crumpled structures clawed at a sky the color of a dying bruise. One particularly tall, slender ruin, like the broken shaft of a colossal spear, captured his gaze. Halfway up the dark spire, intermittent flashes of blinding white light pulsed within a single ring. From this distance, the ring of light looked no thicker than a finger, as if a captive lightning storm raged within.

Before Zuberi could fully process the unsettling vista, a series of sharp cracks, deep huffs, and guttural snarls directly behind him made his blood run cold. Then came the wrench and snap of timber. Something colossal tore through trees as thick as his body, uprooting some and splintering others. Something far too close. His gaze swept left, spotting a glimmer of silver. Zuberi recognized the scaled predator he had fought earlier. Watching it approach, Zuberi finally gave the creature a name. Silverquill. It limped, favoring the wounded side, its violet eyes locked on him. Then a flicker of motion to his right revealed not one, but three more silverquills, smaller than the wounded one to his left, but still sleek and powerful, emerging from the jungle’s edge. A pack.

Zuberi gritted his teeth in grudging respect. Perhaps the beast had recognized it could not take him alone and had used the louder threat as cover to rally its pack. Perhaps the roar had simply driven them all to the same gap in the trees. He could not know. It mattered little. Any path back into the forest was out of the question. So were the routes to either side. That left one path.

Ahead.

He did not like the thought taking shape. Perhaps this was no coincidence at all, but strategy. He had felt it once before on a hunt, when his party stole a kill from a pack of wild dogs. The dogs took it personally. They gathered in numbers and waited for dusk, when his tired men made camp and lowered their guard. This felt like that.

Trapped.

Behind him, the forest erupted as the behemoth crashed closer still, each impact shaking the ground. To his flanks, the silverquill pack closed in. Ahead, the spire pulsed its silent, alien storm. Below, black crystals jutted from the sand. Poor shelter, riddled with gaps, but the only one he had.

Zuberi leaped over the edge. He struck the slope hard, his boots skidding across loose roots and dislodging pebbles as he plunged toward the crystals. A gust of warm, fetid air swept past his head. Whatever chased him was almost on top of him. What if the thing followed him across the black sand?