A bright silver glow emanated from the gilded bowl at the center of the chamber, held aloft by the thick, verdant vines. Spiraling tendrils branched off of the vines, some as thick as my arm, others as delicate as my little finger. Would they be strong enough to grasp onto if Devrim or I slipped off of the vine walkways?

  “This . . . bowl is what you’ve been looking for?” I ventured, returning to stand by Devrim’s elbow as he stared across the vast chamber where the giant bowl balanced on a stone pedestal in the center. In my research, I’d never found mention of vines used as pathways within islas, and the decision was even stranger given the intricate stonework elsewhere.

  “It is,” Devrim answered. His voice echoed across the chamber.

  Unlike the hallways we’d been traversing, this room’s spherical ceiling had also been etched with light, carved in the pattern of the ancients’ stars. Their glow was bright enough to illuminate the carvings for giant murals upon the walls of the chamber. The carved stars were bright enough to give the impression of figures from Lifkin lore, their long pointed ears speaking proudly of their heritage, but not brightly enough to discern which figures the chamber showed.

  I lowered in my stance to retry the vine pathways. If this bowl was what Devrim was after rather than the Seed, then I would do whatever was in my power to help him access it for the sake of my people.

  Bansaerin’s disbelief at my insistence on helping the Hume echoed in my ears—whatever the silver bowl contained was our birthright, not the Hume’s—but I pushed the voice away and focused on the bowing vine beneath my feet.

  The entire vine bobbed below me, and I sank from crouched to crawling on my hands and knees. It wasn’t dignified, but I wasn’t taking any chances and plunging into the strange ether in the depths of the isla.

  I didn’t look around to study Devrim or the chamber around me, though I listened closely to my surroundings as I crawled. Aside from my nervous exhalations, there was a low hum coming from the edge of the chamber and something like a melody remembered from a dream emanating from the silver bowl.

  Beneath these sounds, my senses couldn’t help but remind me of the heavy scent of death hanging over the chamber. It didn’t grow thicker nearer the center, but it didn’t abate either.

  I sighted as I reached the central stone platform and glanced back the way I’d come. Devrim was carefully picking his way across a different thread so as not to disturb the one I’d crawled along. Behind him, the door we’d passed through yawned open, and I cursed beneath my breath at my forgetfulness.

  “Observe before you touch,” Devrim called out to me. He somehow managed to maintain his air of severity even when sliding along a giant, suspended vine.

  I scoffed at his warning but, turning my attention to the bowl itself, was glad he’d reminded me to check my impulses. The silver was pale and bright, more like slivers of moonlight than the carefully crafted beads of Lifkin lifestrands. I rested my fingertips against the necklace my mother had made for me to resist the pull of the bowl itself.

  It was large enough around that one could swim inside. Across its surface was a pool of darker silver, though it appeared to have solidified in place. The Bright Age mages’ concoctions were many and varied, so I couldn’t tell at a glance the nature of what filled the bowl.

  Devrim would reach the platform in a matter of moments, and he might be able to say since he’d been seeking it out in the first place.

  The runes along the rim of the bowl and etched inside it spoke of restoration and healing, though of a magical nature rather than through the work of an apothecary, differently than I’d ever seen restorative magic expressed before.

  Devrim stepped up onto the platform and brushed off his robes which had remained impeccably clean and unwrinkled throughout our expedition. “A well of healing.” He stepped closer than I had dared, and the silver of the bowl reflected upon the tan hue of his skin.

  I’d noticed an enhancement of my own skin complexion within the isla. My hands reflected the purple light, and I assumed my face did as well. It gave my skin the look of lilac moonstone, an effect I’d never encountered before. On the Hume, the purple lights made the paler among them appear even more so. For Hytham, it added a flush to his cheeks and enhanced the shadows of his features.

  I looked over the herald—nothing about his air or the way he carried himself suggested illness. “Is someone sick? Or injured?” My thoughts raced ahead—was it the Hume king, Aenulf, who had sent the herald to find a place of healing for himself? But if that were the case, why would my people have needed to be removed? Was he so weak that he believed we posed a great threat?

  There wasn’t time for the herald to answer my question.

  A choking waft of decay clogged my nostrils. Wave upon wave of sour-sweet rot clinging to nose and tongue. “Devrim—”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The herald tore his gaze away from the silver bowl and its etchings to study the vines and the swirls of shadow beneath them. “There!” Devrim cried, pointing to one of the vines.

  The shadows around the spectral pool on either side of the vines seethed, surged, and then took shape as a trio of mournlings burst out of the underside of the vines and crawled up into the pale purple light of the topside.

  The ancients’ lavender glow heightened their shadows—more like the giant spider-mournling Hytham and I had fought in the woods than the goat-mournling that had killed the Hume. Their form was bipedal, but with overlarge shoulders and claws, like a monster from Lifkin spirit-tales.

  Without conferring with the herald, I slung my bow from my back and tugged an arrow from its quiver. The magic I’d practiced helped with close-quarters combat, not ranged attacks.

  From the shivering shadows across the vine structures, there were more mournlings coming. We’d be even more outnumbered. I traced the vine trails, searching for the quickest way out of the chamber. We’d have to run.

  The mournling nearest to me and Devrim in the center of the chamber slumped forward, elongating its shadowy claws. It twitched its gaze back over its shoulder—the movement so quick I could scarcely track it—and it released a guttural caw back to its fellows.

  My breath shuddered. Organized mournlings? Not even in the wildest reports from Scaoden had I encountered such a possibility.

  “We need to go!” I called out to Devrim while I took aim at the lead mournling. I didn’t know how to fend off three at once, and eliminating the leader might grant us an advantage. How was it that I had neglected to ask Devrim about his magic and whether or not he’d had any experience fighting mournlings?

  The mournling screeched as my arrow pierced through its chest. Its shadowy form pooled away from the arrow hole, and its entire torso writhed, trying to reform itself. The creature adopted a slanted stance instead, its head balanced almost perpendicular to the vines. With the rent in its form, the mournling stretched its arms out further, widening its reach.

  I searched the walls while I notched another arrow into place.

  On the far wall, opposite the way we’d entered, there was a wider archway, its doors shut, but I’m grown accustomed enough to the archway patterns to pick it out of the other decorative wall carvings. The shelf-like protrusion along the wall widened before this doorway. If we could reach it in time, I could use the keystone I’d taken from the skeleton and use it for our escape. “There!” I pointed so Devrim could begin his escape.

  The injured mournling screeched to rally its fellows. Additional cries echoed up from beneath the vines.

  I sprinted to the edge of the platform and the second-best vine-route to the doorway. Devrim had already moved toward the first.

  I turned back toward the mournling, searching inside myself for magic or a spell strong enough to eliminate their leader. The look of horror on Bansaerin’s face the first time I’d shown him my magic when he’d been injured in the woods flared to life in my memory. Hytham’s dismay at the twisting vines intended to save him quickly followed.

  The vines. My breath quickened, and I readied my aim at the mournling.

  Just before the arrow struck the mournling, it splintered into a dozen shadowy points like a spray of thorny branches spit by a forest guardian in the ancients’ stories.

  The mournling screeched again, its shape dissolving and striving to reform, but the dispersed damage was too much. It faded into mist.

  I spun back to my vine route. There wasn’t time for me to gauge the remaining mournlings’ reactions. A new mournling crawled up onto the vine path before me, and it chirruped back to the two remaining. One of them had gained on me while I fought its leader. It was on the other side of the healing bowl from where I waited.

  Devrim’s vine remained unoccupied. He was fully suspended over the ether and watching me intently rather than proceeding forward.

  “Help if you can!” I shouted at the herald. That same hungry curiosity had overtaken his expression, but there would be time for questions later. We needed to survive this first.

  “We cannot risk the well.”

  I slung my bow onto my back and withdrew the dagger from my belt. I’d use it to stab into the vines should I lose my balance. “Then eliminate that one without harming my path!” I pointed at the mournling between me and the door and lowered in my stance, preparing to rush across the vine path.

  The mournlings’ spectral forms granted them an advantage for navigating the vines beyond their lack of fear for their demise. So long as living, breathing beings hovered within their perception, Devrim and I would be under threat.

  “Very well.” Devrim’s voice grew in volume as he resigned himself to come to my aid. He halted upon the vine as I started my scurry across, balancing as best I could.

  Devrim clutched the amulet hanging low around his neck, the one bearing the sign of the Order while I ran along the vine. He extended his other hand toward the mournling ahead of me on the vine.

  Thunder echoed so loudly within the chamber that I nearly stumbled in my rush across the vine. A bolt of solid white light burst from Devrim’s palm and struck the mournling in the chest, blowing it off of the vine entirely. The spectral remnants of its spirit floated down into the ether, lending a haunting possibility to unasked questions of how the ether had come about.

  “Behind you,” Devrim called.

  I glanced back over my shoulder without stopping and released the same spell I’d used to fight the first mournling I’d encountered in the isla years before.

  The mournling gurgled as it melted into a puddle of shadow behind me, ebbing into the swirling pools of ether beneath the vines.

  Devrim had just reached the doors, and I was but a few paces behind him.

  The screeching from below grew louder, echoing all around us as the mournlings gained the tops of the vines.

  I hadn’t wanted Devrim to know about the keystone I’d discovered lest he take it from me too, but my desire to survive was stronger. I reached into the satchel at my hip, my dagger tight in my opposite fist, and brushed my fingers along the cold stone, willing it to allow us through.

  The low grumble of rock upon rock carried a sense of disappointment, like the isla was rooting against us. Or the spells were starting to wear on me—how long had we been underground?

  “Go!” I shouted at Devrim who had glanced back at me, a frown carving a line between his brows.

  I picked up speed as I gained the end of the vine path, brushed the keystone again to will the doors shut, and hurled myself through the opening.