The journey back to the path seemed to take forever. Without her enhanced speed and strength, each step required conscious effort. The forest around her warped and shifted, landmarks appearing and disappearing as if the very geography refused to hold still.

  She almost cried with relief when she spotted the rune-marked stones of the main trail. The caravan had halted completely, and the scene before her was one of controlled chaos. Guards formed a protective perimeter around the wagons while merchants huddled together in the center.

  Near the lead wagon, she spotted Ember, Cinder, and Ash engaged in combat with two massive Mistfangs—each creature nearly twice the size of those that had ambushed her and Pyra.

  Even as she watched, Cinder executed a perfect leaping strike that caught one Mistfang beneath what passed for its jaw. The creature's form rippled like disturbed water, momentarily destabilized by the impact. Ember and Ash moved in perfect coordination, using their dampened flames to herd the second Mistfang into a pincer movement.

  Kindle staggered toward them, her voice ragged as she called out: "Help! Pyra needs help!"

  Three heads snapped in her direction, identical expressions of alarm replacing battle focus.

  "Kindle?" Ember was at her side in an instant, supporting her wobbling form. "What happened? Where's Pyra?"

  "Mistfangs," Kindle gasped, pointing back the way she'd come. "Multiple. They've got some kind of intelligence—they coordinated, set up an ambush. One bit me, neutralized my powers. Pyra... she created a distraction so I could escape. She led them deeper into the forest."

  Cinder's expression hardened. "Which direction?"

  Kindle pointed toward a dense patch of undergrowth where the forest seemed to darken ominously.

  "How many Mistfangs?" Ash asked, her normally dreamy voice sharp with urgency.

  "At least three, maybe more by now. They seemed to be gathering."

  Ember made a quick decision. "Ash, stay with Kindle and help guard the caravan. Cinder, with me."

  Without waiting for acknowledgment, the two blurred into motion, vanishing into the forest.

  Ash supported Kindle toward the nearest wagon, her smoky gaze fixed on the forest where their other selves had disappeared.

  "She'll be fine," she said, though whether she was reassuring Kindle or herself wasn't clear. "Pyra is chaos incarnate. Chaos always survives."

  "I should have stayed with her," Kindle whispered, guilt a leaden weight in her stomach.

  "Then two would be imperiled instead of one," Ash replied. "Pyra made the tactical choice."

  "Since when does Pyra make tactical choices?" Kindle demanded, a hint of her normal spark returning through the venom's effects.

  Ash's lips curved in the ghost of a smile. "Even chaos occasionally bubbles in constructive patterns."

  Before Kindle could respond, a commotion near the front of the caravan drew their attention. Marta Koval strode toward them, her weathered face set in lines of grim determination. Behind her followed Malik, his instrument clutched in white-knuckled hands.

  "Your sisters went into the forest?" Marta demanded without preamble. "After we explicitly warned against leaving the path?"

  "Pyra was attacked," Kindle replied, too exhausted for diplomacy. "Ember and Cinder went to help."

  Marta's expression didn't soften, but something in her eyes shifted—recognition of the fierce loyalty that drove such decisions. "The Mistfangs are unusually aggressive today. Something's stirred them up."

  "Us," Ash said simply. "They sense our fire, even dampened."

  Marta's gaze sharpened. "What are you people?"

  Before either could answer, Malik stepped forward. "I might be able to help," he offered, lifting his instrument. "My music can temporarily disorient Mistfangs—disrupt their hunting patterns."

  "You didn't mention that earlier," Kindle noted with suspicious narrowed eyes.

  Malik had the grace to look abashed. "It's not exactly reliable. More of a... theoretical application I've been developing."

  "Theoretical or not, it's more than we have now," Marta decided. She turned to issue orders to her guards. "Maintain perimeter security. No one else leaves the path under any circumstances."

  Kindle straightened as much as her weakened state allowed. "I'm going back with you."

  "You can barely stand," Marta objected.

  "She's my sister," Kindle said simply, as if this explained everything—and in a way, it did.

  Marta studied her for a moment, then gave a curt nod. "Stay behind me and do exactly as I say." She pulled a wicked-looking blade from her belt, its edge gleaming with an oily substance. "Mistfang venom may neutralize magic, but good steel still cuts them fine."

  With that grim assessment, their rescue party moved toward the forest's depths, following the faint trail left by Ember and Cinder's passage.

  None of them noticed the faint echo that seemed to ripple through the remaining three selves as they entered the shadows—a momentary dissonance in their shared consciousness, like a string plucked and suddenly silenced.

  Deep in the Shimmerwood, where the ancient trees grew so close together that their trunks formed natural walls and their branches wove an impenetrable ceiling, Pyra was having significantly less fun than she'd anticipated.

  The good news: she'd successfully led the Mistfangs away from Kindle's escape route.

  The bad news: "led" had become "was being herded by" somewhere in the last ten minutes, and her options were rapidly diminishing.

  The forest had changed around her, paths closing and opening with deliberate manipulation that suggested either extreme bad luck or active malevolence. Each time she thought she'd found a route back toward the caravan, the underbrush would thicken or massive roots would suddenly protrude from the earth, forcing her to change direction.

  The Mistfangs pursued with the patience of predators who knew their territory held no exits.

  "Okay," she muttered to herself, pausing behind a massive fern to catch her breath. "This is fine. Just a minor detour. Slight navigational hiccup."

  Her internal pep talk was interrupted by a crystalline hissing from somewhere to her left—a sound quickly echoed from her right, then behind her.

  "Surrounding me again?" she called out, rising to her full height. "We tried that already. Didn't work out so well for your friends."

  The hissing intensified, multiplied. Not three voices now, but at least six or seven, converging from all directions.

  For the first time, genuine fear crept through Pyra's bravado. Her dampened flames flickered weakly along her arms as she tried to summon enough fire for illumination in the deepening gloom.

  "Cinder?" she called, reaching mentally for the connection that bound her to her other selves. "Ember? Anyone receiving this telepathic distress call?"

  The connection felt stretched, attenuated by distance and the forest's strange magic. She caught fleeting impressions—concern, determination, movement—but couldn't establish clear communication.

  A rustling directly ahead snapped her attention back to immediate survival. She dropped into a defensive stance, fists raised.

  "Alright, let's do this the—"

  She never finished the sentence.

  The Mistfang that emerged from the underbrush was unlike the others she'd encountered. Where they had been relatively small—perhaps the size of a large python—this one was a behemoth, its translucent body nearly as thick as her waist and at least thirty feet long. Its eyes weren't mere whirlpools but complex vortices that shifted between colors as it regarded her.

  Even more alarming were the crystalline fangs that protruded from its massive jaws—not translucent like the others, but a deep, venomous purple that seemed to absorb rather than reflect light.

  "You must be the boss level," Pyra said, her voice admirably steady despite the cold dread pooling in her stomach.

  The creature regarded her with something that went beyond predatory interest—something almost like recognition. Its massive head swayed hypnotically from side to side, those vortex eyes never leaving her face.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Pyra felt an unsettling pressure against her consciousness—not physical, but a psychic probing that sent ice down her spine.

  "You're not just hunting, are you?" she realized aloud. "You're... scanning me. Reading me somehow."

  The Mistfang's body rippled in what might have been acknowledgment.

  "Well, read this," Pyra muttered, and exploded into motion.

  She didn't attack—even she recognized the suicidal futility of that option. Instead, she employed her greatest strength: unpredictability. She launched herself sideways, rebounding off a tree trunk to gain height, then caught a low-hanging branch and used her momentum to swing over the massive Mistfang's head.

  For a creature so large, its reaction speed was terrifying. It twisted in mid-air, nearly catching her boot with those purple fangs as she sailed overhead. Pyra tucked into a roll as she landed, coming up running at her maximum dampened speed.

  She had no destination in mind, no strategy beyond creating distance between herself and the monster. Her only hope was that her erratic movements might shake off pursuit long enough to circle back toward the caravan.

  The forest, however, had other ideas.

  As she ran, the trees themselves seemed to shift and rearrange, closing off potential escape routes and funneling her deeper into unknown territory. The ground beneath her feet changed from relatively firm soil to treacherous, root-laden terrain that threatened to trip her with every step.

  The massive Mistfang pursued with relentless determination, its sinuous body flowing over and around obstacles that slowed Pyra's progress. Worse, she could sense the smaller Mistfangs paralleling her course, maintaining formation to prevent lateral escape.

  They were herding her. The realization hit with crystal clarity. Driving her toward something—or somewhere—specific.

  Ahead, the dense forest abruptly opened into a roughly circular clearing. At its center stood a single massive tree, ancient beyond reckoning. Unlike the shimmering trunks that surrounded it, this behemoth was ghostly white, its bark resembling bleached bone rather than living wood. No leaves adorned its skeletal branches; instead, thousands of tiny crystals hung like frozen tears, catching what little light filtered through to send rainbow fractals dancing across the clearing.

  Pyra skidded to a halt at the clearing's edge, instinct screaming that entering would be a catastrophic mistake.

  Too late, she realized the pursuit had ceased. The massive Mistfang and its smaller companions formed a loose semicircle behind her, effectively blocking retreat into the forest.

  "So this is where you wanted me," Pyra said, turning slowly to face the creature. "Nice spot for an ambush, I'll give you that. Great atmosphere. Very sacrificial-altar chic."

  The massive Mistfang regarded her impassively, its vortex eyes spinning with increasingly complex patterns.

  That strange pressure against her consciousness returned, stronger now—not painful, exactly, but profoundly invasive, as if something alien were sifting through her thoughts and memories.

  "Get out of my head," she growled, bringing her hands to her temples.

  The psychic intrusion paused briefly, then redoubled. Images flashed before Pyra's mind's eye—fragments of memory not only from her existence as Pyra, but from before the splitting: Abigail Callahan racing through Manhattan skyscrapers trailing blue flame; the battle with Nyx; the laboratory accident that had hurled them into Eldoria.

  "How are you—" Pyra gasped, staggering under the mental assault. "That's private property you're rummaging through!"

  The massive Mistfang's exploration continued unabated, sifting through memories with the casual indifference of someone flipping through a stranger's photo album. It paused momentarily on the memory of Nyx's curse, its massive crystalline body rippling with what might have been excitement or recognition.

  "Oh, you like that one?" Pyra growled, fighting to maintain consciousness as the psychic pressure intensified. "Cursed by a drama queen in a bad cape. Not my finest moment."

  The creature's eyes pulsed with violet light, and suddenly the pressure in Pyra's mind shifted from invasive to crushing. The mental probe was no longer merely observing—it was extracting, pulling at the very essence of her consciousness like marrow from bone.

  "Stop," she gasped, dropping to one knee. Her flames flickered weakly along her skin, responding to the assault by burning whatever meager energy remained. "That's... not... yours..."

  Through the haze of pain, she sensed movement at the clearing's edge. Familiar presences—Ember and Cinder, approaching at maximum speed, their shared consciousness reaching for hers across the strained connection.

  Too late, she realized the Mistfang had sensed them too.

  The creature's massive head swung toward the new arrivals, its probe temporarily withdrawing from Pyra's mind. The smaller Mistfangs that had formed the containment perimeter shifted, flowing like quicksilver to intercept the incoming threat.

  Pyra seized the moment of distraction. Drawing on reserves she hadn't known existed, she summoned her flame—not as defensive fire, but as pure energy channeled into her muscles and reflexes. She launched herself not away from the massive Mistfang, but directly at it.

  "Hey, ugly!" she shouted, her body slamming into the creature's side with the force of a small car. "Eyes on me!"

  The impact sent ripples through the Mistfang's translucent form, disrupting its cohesion momentarily. It whipped around, those venomous purple fangs slashing through the air where Pyra had been a fraction of a second earlier.

  She rolled, came up running, and darted toward the bone-white tree at the clearing's center. The Mistfang pursued, its massive body flowing across the ground with terrible purpose.

  At the clearing's edge, Cinder and Ember erupted from the underbrush in perfect synchronization, their dampened flames still bright enough to cast jumping shadows across the ancient trees. They arrived just in time to see Pyra dodge another strike from the massive Mistfang, her movements slowing as fatigue and the forest's drain took their toll.

  "Pyra!" Ember shouted, already calculating trajectories for interception.

  "Little busy!" Pyra called back, ducking beneath the creature's sinuous body and rolling to avoid a tail-lash that could have broken her spine. "Big guy's been reading my mind! Not a fan of the invasion of privacy!"

  Cinder didn't waste breath on words. She was already in motion, her body accelerating to maximum dampened speed as she targeted the first of the smaller Mistfangs blocking their path. Her strike caught the creature mid-lunge, sending it tumbling back into the underbrush with a crystalline shriek.

  "There's too many," she called to Ember, dancing back as two more Mistfangs converged on her position. "We need a disrupter!"

  Ember nodded grimly, her flames shifting from orange to a deeper crimson as she focused her energy.

  She sent a thin stream of fire arcing over the Mistfangs' heads, targeting the ground in their midst. The flames hit with concentrated force, not as an attack but as a distraction—a momentary flash that disoriented the creatures' sensitive vision.

  The tactic bought them precious seconds. They charged through the gap, dodging snapping jaws and whipping coils as they fought toward their besieged self-sister.

  In the clearing, Pyra's luck had run dry. The massive Mistfang had her cornered against the bone-white tree, its enormous body coiled to strike. Those venomous purple fangs dripped with iridescent fluid that sizzled when it struck the ground.

  "So," Pyra panted, blood trickling from a scrape above her eye, "I guess this is where we discuss terms? I've got about twelve copper coins and a slightly used handkerchief. All yours if you let me walk away."

  The Mistfang's answer came not as words but as renewed psychic pressure—a force that pinned her consciousness like a butterfly to a board. Its intentions became terrifyingly clear: it didn't want to kill her. It wanted to consume her, to absorb whatever strange fire burned within her fragmented self.

  "Not... on... the... menu..." Pyra gritted through clenched teeth, fighting the mental paralysis with everything she had.

  The white tree at her back began to resonate, its crystalline decorations tinkling like tiny bells. The sound cut through the psychic assault momentarily, allowing Pyra to glimpse Ember and Cinder battling their way through the smaller Mistfangs, still too far away to help.

  An idea formed—less a strategy than a Hail Mary born of desperate circumstances.

  "You want a taste of my fire?" Pyra challenged, forcing herself upright despite the crushing mental weight. Her flames responded sluggishly, but they responded, rippling along her arms in weak orange pulses. "Fine. Bon appétit, you crystalline creep."

  With the last of her strength, she didn't run or dodge. Instead, she thrust both hands forward, palms out, and channeled everything she had left into a single, concentrated burst of flame.

  In the uncontaminated outside world, the attack would have been devastating—a column of blue-white fire hot enough to melt steel. Here, dampened by the forest's strange magic, the flame emerged as a pale echo of its potential—an orange-gold spear that struck the Mistfang directly between its vortex eyes.

  The creature recoiled, not from pain but from what it sensed within the flame—a fundamental wrongness, a fire not of this world, saturated with foreign elemental energies.

  Its psychic probe, still embedded in Pyra's mind, transmitted its confusion and sudden uncertainty. The hesitation lasted only a heartbeat, but it was enough for Pyra to wrench one hand free and press it against the bone-white tree behind her.

  The tree's crystalline decorations flared with blinding light as they absorbed Pyra's otherworldly flame. Each tiny crystal transformed from dormant ornament to active conduit, channeling energy into the ancient tree and back—not to Pyra, but to the Mistfang still mentally connected to her.

  A feedback loop of magical energy exploded between them—Pyra's flame, the tree's ancient power, and the Mistfang's psychic probe all converging in a cataclysmic surge that lit the clearing like a miniature sun.

  Ember and Cinder skidded to a halt at the edge of the conflagration, shielding their eyes against the brilliance. The smaller Mistfangs scattered, fleeing back into the forest as their leader's triumphant hiss turned to a crystal-shattering shriek.

  When the light faded, the massive Mistfang lay thrashing on the ground, its translucent body fracturing along countless hairline cracks, vortex eyes spinning in chaotic, discordant patterns. It was dying, its cohesion fatally disrupted by the magical backlash.

  And Pyra...

  Pyra stood swaying beside the bone-white tree, her flame-orange hair floating around her as if suspended in water. Her golden eyes had gone white—pure, blinding white from lid to lid. Her skin had taken on a translucent quality, the veins beneath glowing with traces of orange fire that grew steadily brighter.

  "Pyra?" Ember called, taking a hesitant step forward.

  Cinder caught her arm, holding her back. "Wait. Something's wrong."

  Pyra turned toward them with eerie slowness, her movements liquid and unfamiliar. When she spoke, her voice echoed as if coming from the bottom of a well.

  "That... was... probably a mistake."

  The glow beneath her skin intensified, flames now visibly coursing through her veins like luminous blood. She looked down at her hands with detached fascination as the fire began to consume her from within.

  "What's happening?" Ember demanded, shaking off Cinder's restraining hand and rushing to Pyra's side.

  "Tree," Pyra managed through gritted teeth. "Magical conduit. Not meant for... our kind of fire."

  The bone-white trunk behind her had begun to darken, black lines spreading outward from where her hand had touched it, as if the ancient wood were being charred from the inside out.

  "Can we stop it?" Cinder asked, her usual sarcasm replaced by raw concern.

  Pyra laughed—a sound halfway between her normal exuberance and something wild and uncontained. "Don't think so. But hey, at least I took the big guy with me." She nodded toward the massive Mistfang, now little more than a rapidly dissolving puddle of crystalline fluid.

  "We're getting you back to the caravan," Ember insisted, reaching for Pyra's arm. "Thaddeus said there might be healers in Amaranth who—"

  She broke off with a hiss of pain as her fingers made contact with Pyra's skin. The heat radiating from her sister-self had grown searing—hot enough to overpower even their natural resistance to fire.

  "Sorry," Pyra whispered, taking an unsteady step back. "I think this is a solo exit."