Stark white light spilled forth from above. It flooded down the bunker’s sloped sides, casting the churning clouds of dirt and ash in an unsettling gray-brown glow. Overpowered by the blinding light, darkness receded, tucking deep into shadowed nooks and crannies. The light overwhelmed Daana’s vision, boring deep inside her skull like molten fire pokers into an overripe melon. She snapped her eyes shut. Cold tears trickled down her feverish face, but it did no good. The pain persisted. She retreated within herself, burying her consciousness deep, deep down, out of reach.

  Vaguely, Daana was aware of the commotion around her, in the same sense that a fish was aware of the world beyond the shoreline. It existed, but in a hazy, unimportant sort of way. All that mattered now was to burrow deep beyond the reaches of pain and stay there until she was strong enough to come out again.

  It was the same place she’d gone after the fight in the village. How long she’d stayed there, she didn’t know. Occasionally, her consciousness would resurface for a few, fleeting moments, before concluding that her outside conditions had not improved enough to warrant remaining lucid for any longer than necessary. And then, riddled with fresh pain, she would sink back under the murky depths until the blessed numbness returned.

  “Daana!” A distant voice called to her.

  Daana’s consciousness slowed its descent. She’d heard many voices speaking to her over the course of the last few days—soothing, comforting, attempting to draw her back into the light—but not this one. Something told her she would have moved mountains for this voice. And it, her. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember why.

  “Come on, girl. You can’t go back under. I only just got here.”

  Daana hesitated. She wanted to return to the depths and exist without pain once more, but the voice persisted. Its barbed hooks latched into her mind, commanding her attention. Demanding she remembered what it was about this person that made clawing her way back to the light worth the pain.

  A heavy sigh followed. “Please don’t make me sing the stupid song, Tadpole.”

  Tadpole? The word struck like a match in the dark, stirring Daana’s memories from their slumber. Snag!

  The issue was no longer a matter of whom, however, but was. Was he real? Was Snag really here, waiting on the other side for her? Or was this simply another cruel hallucination fabricated by her slow demise? Would the disappointment crush her, as it had done so many times before?

  Below, the lure of the deep beckoned her, promising to swallow her pain. Like pain, disappointment did not exist in the dark. All Daana had to do was drift a little further, and it would go away. Pain, disappointment, hallucinations—forgotten.

  And then the impossible happened. The lullaby, the song she had clung to all those years on her own, drifted down from above, bearing fresh verses.

  “Little Tadpole, little tadpole, what do I see?

  Little tadpole, little tadpole, ya not like me.

  All big and grown, always in a hurry,

  Little tadpole, little tadpole,

  Stop makin’ your dear dad worry.”

  That was it. The final straw. As convincing as her hallucinations could be, her mind could not have fabricated anything close to Snag’s unique brand of affection. It made her warm and fuzzy and riddled with guilt all in the same breath. Fully convinced of his legitimacy, Daana’s consciousness clawed its way out of the deep, dark. Awareness flooded back into every aching finger and toe. Slowly, she eased her left eye open, grimacing at the way the stabbing beams of sunlight flooded her vision once more.

  Sunlight. Huh.

  She hadn’t found its presence odd before, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized sunlight was something that definitely did not belong buried beneath the dirt deep underground. Some fuzzy part of her memory recalled a burst of magic and then the ceiling lifting, but she’d dismissed it as yet another fever dream. Daana was now beginning to wonder if it, like Snag, had been real as well.

  The grizzled face looming over hers steadily came into focus. Daana saw a nauseating mix of fear and worry dancing in those wide, yellow eyes. She lifted her trembling hand and placed it against the side of Snag’s face. His leathery skin felt cold against hers.

  Real or not, she didn’t care. This was one fever dream she would have stayed in forever. A sad smile pulled at her dry lips. “I did something stupid.”

  Those wide yellow eyes stared back at her unblinkingly, as if afraid that in the span of a single blink, she’d go back under again. Snag’s voice sounded hoarser than usual. “That you did.”

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  “You’re not even going to ask what it was?”

  “Oh, I heard, believe me.” And, in a mere matter of words, his tone changed from concerned to barely-bridled fury. “Ashwyn says you took on Cray, a wind shifter, and a shadow witch all at once.”

  “It wasn’t all at once. They took turns, one right after another.” Daana mustered the strength necessary to roll her eyes. The pain was unbearable, like rolling broken shards of glass beneath her eyelids, but the look on Snag’s face made it all worthwhile. “Besides, what would Ashwyn know? She wasn’t even there.”

  Snag whipped his head up, bangles jangling from his long ears as his lower jaw quivered. “You were supposed to be watching her!”

  Daana followed Snag’s glare with her eyes. The large orc was kneeling on the other side of Daana, doing her best impression of someone definitely not playing third wheel to an uncomfortably tender moment. The light in Ashwyn’s gray eyes changed, as if relieved someone was yelling at her just so she wouldn’t have to sit in awkward silence any longer.

  “Your girl doesn’t need no minding, Snag. She can handle herself.” Ashwyn gestured loosely over at Daana with her hands. “Just look at her.”

  “I am looking at her! She’s half dead.”

  “Alright, bad example,” the orc conceded. “But, she did survive all on her own. And she got rid of her magical curse while she was at it. That’s something, isn’t it?”

  “She did?” Snag said.

  Daana shared his confusion. “I did?”

  In true Ashwyn fashion, she clarified in a rambling manner that was only slightly more informative than it was insulting. “Alright, I admit, I don’t think it was you actively getting rid of the dark entity so much as it was the entity trying to hitch a ride elsewhere while you were dead and dying. But you did manage to pass it off to another witch right before they were killed, effectively destroying both the shadow witch and the dark entity. So, win-win, really.”

  Daana held her wrist near her face and studied her bruised flesh. What Ashwyn said was true. The dark veins branching beneath her skin were gone. She was free.

  Tears of joy leaked out of the corner of her eyes. “I did that?”

  “Well, again, no. Not really. It was actually some piddly sergeant who killed the witch and, by extension, the dark entity. But you didn’t die. And that, Daana, is something to be proud of.”

  “You can stop talking now,” Snag told Ashwyn.

  “Yeah, I’m getting that same sense, too. Tend to ramble when I’m flustered.”

  “I’ve got it from here, thanks.” Snag pulled something from his satchel and pressed it into Ashwyn’s hand. “Go help Oralia. Tell her to give Sascha this.”

  Ashwyn stood and moved away. Daana followed the orc’s movements. Her vision had cleared, allowing her to take in more details than before. Daana took in what remained of the underground bunker. A mix of smoke and dust clouded the air. Shafts of sunlight penetrated the airborne debris, coating the damp ground in hazy patches of yellow. Across from her, along the edge where the ceiling had once been, Daana spied a curious reunion. She recognized two familiar faces amongst them.

  Swept up in her surprise, Daana heaved upright, intent on getting a clearer view. Attempted to, anyway. She made it only halfway before the ripples of agony coursing across her abdomen reminded her that sudden movements were for the uninjured. She collapsed back into the dirt, groaning.

  Snag stopped scrounging through his leather satchel long enough to deliver a withering glare. “Don’t do that.”

  “Is that Faris and Rasp I see?”

  Snag didn’t bother to look this time. “It is.”

  Well, that certainly explained the missing roof.

  A large shadow passed overhead, rendering the roofless bunker dark once more. Daana’s eyes widened. “Dragon!”

  “It’s Whisper,” Snag said calmly. “They’re keeping Cray’s witches distracted while we get the rest of you out of here.”

  Daana reached for Snag’s wrist and squeezed. “Cray has a dragon, too.”

  Useless words spilled forth from Snag’s trembling mouth as he locked eyes with her. He searched her face for the truth and found it. For a split second, his expression wilted before the cold face of determination set it. “Right. No time for lengthy goodbyes then. Me and the others are gonna have to go pull our weight if we hope to win this.” Finding what he sought, Snag selected a glass vial from his satchel and uncorked it, depositing a pinch of dried leaves into Daana’s palm. “You and I will reconvene later. But for now, you’re gonna take this. It’ll help with the pain.”

  “Be careful.” Daana closed her hand around it and smiled weakly. “And thank you.”

  “Oh, no, no, no. Don’t start that. That isn’t to make you feel better, girl. It’s to ensure you live long enough for me to get back and give you the telling-off of a lifetime.”

  Daana placed the dried leaves over her tongue and grimaced at the bitter taste, suddenly desperate for something with which to wash it down. The combination of a dry mouth coupled with her exertion made it difficult to speak. “Promise?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Snag looked away, trying and failing to maintain his tough-as-nails composure as he hailed one of the bustling bodies nearby. “Oi, you! Yes, you. Come here.”

  A nervous man wearing a soiled military uniform joined them.

  “I’m tasking you with getting her out of here,” Snag told the man. “Make sure she gets somewhere safe. And no funny business, either, you hear me? I’ve seen the way you’ve been ogling her this whole time. Unless you want the wrath of the entire Flatland army on your ass, son, you’re gonna act the proper gentlemen, understood?”

  The nervous sergeant lifted his palms innocently. “I would never.”

  Daana tilted her head to get a better look at the sergeant’s face. Normally, it wasn’t something she would have said aloud, but the combination of drugs and Snag’s sudden overprotectiveness made it simply too irresistible. “Now that you mention it, he is cute in a flighty kind of way. I wouldn’t say no to some ungentlemanly-ness.”

  Snag’s scowl deepened. “Great. Now I get to go to war with that unfortunate mental image in my head. Thank you, Daana.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You realize I could die out there with that being my last thought. Bet you didn’t consider that, did you? Of course not. Nobody ever considers ol’ Snaglebrag.”

  Daana reached for Snag’s hand one last time and squeezed with all her might. “I love you, too.”