The easiest thing to do would have been to turn around and run after whoever was following him. The problem was that if there were multiple assassins, he'd be letting several of them go. No, in classic Chad style, Nathan was going to lure them in.

  Eventually, Nathan reached the outskirts of the urban pocket. The buildings gave way to forest, as they always did. After several more minutes of walking, he stopped. They were close. They had gotten overconfident.

  Nathan's lips twitched.

  He broke off to his left, behind him, and slammed into a shadowed figure. The figure went to the ground, crashing with a loud thud. Nathan raised his hand to punch the figure's face when he caught sight of who it was.

  "Derek?" Nathan said.

  "Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you!?" Derek yelled.

  Nathan hesitantly stood back up and away from Derek. "You've been following me for the past hour. Why am I the crazy one?"

  Derek pushed himself to his feet and brushed off his dark cloak. Out of the shadows, several other figures stepped forward. "We wanted to make sure that Bree's men weren't following you."

  "…Okay? Why?" Nathan said.

  "Look, it's—" Derek paused. "It's complicated."

  "Then how about you make it uncomplicated," Nathan said.

  Derek kicked his foot against the ground, then sighed. "You like the lady, am I wrong?"

  "She's my partner. We work together toward a mutual goal."

  "Still, you've got to admit that for all of her abilities, she's probably not the best one to be leading this pocket."

  Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?"

  "We've had our differences, Nathaniel. I'll admit, I've said some things that I shouldn't have. But I think now's the time to put all that aside for the greater good."

  "You want me to help you overthrow her."

  "Basically, yeah."

  Nathan squinted his eyes. "Who would replace her?"

  "Me, of course."

  Nathan resisted the urge to burst out laughing. Instead, he kept his facial expression still. Thankfully, it had long since turned dark. Derek probably wouldn't notice Nathan's twitching lips.

  "What gives you the… qualifications to be a leader?" Nathan said.

  "I'm young, I've got ambition. I've got a group of followers who believe in me," Derek said. "Have you seen Bree? How much does she actually do? The little she's done could be done by anyone else."

  "Still, she seems to be doing a good job," Nathan said.

  "Has she?" Derek said. "Because from where I'm standing, the person responsible for getting us through the first dungeon was you, not her. She may have found the location, but that wasn't even her. It was the people she assigned to do it. I think the truth is that we all followed her because she's the seventh highest, not because she's the best qualified."

  Honestly, Nathan kind of heard where the kid was coming from. How much of their success could be attributed to her? It was a tricky question.

  It was also a question Nathan was completely uninterested in answering.

  "Look, Bree isn't the perfect leader," Nathan said. "But I can guarantee you're gonna do a much worse job. Besides that, I really have no interest in starting revolutions while we're in the middle of an apocalypse."

  Derek's jaw clenched. "Is that your final decision?"

  "Yeah, it is."

  The sound of thunder echoed in Nathan's ear, and something slammed into his chest. He stumbled backward and reached out toward his chest. Something had pierced straight through his jacket and hit his skin, bruising it.

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  A man stepped out of the shadows, a hard look in his eyes. He was holding a shotgun with runes engraved along the barrel.

  "Sorry about this," Derek said with a dramatic sigh that screamed 'I practiced this in the mirror.' "I was really hoping we could be allies."

  Nathan pushed against his wound—superficial. He'd heal up in a day.

  "At this very moment, you probably feel blood dripping down your insides. That was an enchanted slug, custom-made by an arcane smith. I don't care how high your Constitution is, nothing can survive that."

  Nathan poked at his wound. No blood. Just a dull ache and what would probably be an impressive bruise by tomorrow.

  "As long as Chad stays out of our way, we'll try to avoid getting him involved in this."

  Nathan rotated his shoulder around. It kind of stung, but he'd definitely had worse. Like that time he stubbed his toe while carrying groceries.

  "Do you have any last words?" Derek said, his voice dropping an octave in what Nathan assumed was his 'intimidating villain' impression.

  Nathan stood up and brushed himself off. All of the people in the group stumbled backward.

  "What the hell!?" Derek yelled. "How are you standing?!"

  The shotgun guy raised his weapon again, panic in his eyes. Nathan moved on pure reflex—one moment he was standing ten feet away, the next he was right in front of the gunman. There was a sickening crunch as Nathan's fist connected with the man's sternum, driving straight through flesh and bone. The man's eyes bulged in shock before the light in them went out.

  Nathan yanked his hand back, now covered in gore, as the man collapsed in a heap at his feet. The forest went deadly silent.

  "Oh shit," Nathan muttered, staring at his bloody fist. He hadn't meant to hit that hard. Dammit, these were his good pants.

  One of Derek's lackeys vomited into a bush.

  Derek's face had gone the color of spoiled milk. "T-that's impossible! That... you just... Todd—!”

  "Yeah, well," Nathan shrugged, wiping his hand on a nearby tree, "maybe Todd should've picked better friends." He flicked a bit of... something... off his sleeve. "So! Who's next? Anyone else feeling lucky?"

  The remaining lackeys started backing away slowly.

  Nathan snapped his fingers, and water materialized out of the air. It rushed forward and slammed into all the figures, knocking them to the ground like bowling pins. Derek tried to scramble away, but Nathan casually strolled over and planted his foot on Derek's chest, pinning him like a bug.

  "P-please," Derek wheezed, "we can talk about this—"

  "Here's the thing, Derek," Nathan said, pressing down just enough to make breathing difficult but not impossible. "I've killed a lot of people lately. Like, a genuinely concerning number. I've honestly lost count, which my therapist would probably have a field day with."

  Derek made a sound like a squeaky toy being stepped on.

  "The only reason the rest of you aren't joining Todd in the great loot drop in the sky is because I'm trying this new thing where I don't murder everyone who mildly inconveniences me." Nathan leaned down, his smile all teeth. "It's called personal growth."

  "G-growth is good!" Derek squeaked.

  "So here's what's going to happen. You're going to take your little rebellion club and fuck all the way off. If I see you plotting against Bree again, I won't be in such a generous mood. Got it?"

  Derek nodded so fast Nathan worried his head might detach.

  "Great!" Nathan removed his foot and stepped back. "Oh, and Derek? Next time you want to shoot someone, maybe make sure they're actually mortal first."

  Underneath Nathan's chest, he felt Thalassa's necklace flicker as Derek and his remaining followers scrambled to their feet and fled into the darkness, one of them dragging a second vomiter behind them.

  Nathan looked down at the dead man and sighed. "This is why we can't have nice things."

  Nathan continued to walk toward the spirit pool, frowning as he thought of the earlier encounter. He hadn’t meant to get so violent. Even now, that familiar voice whispered to him, insisting that Derek had tried to kill him—that the threat had to be eliminated.

  The voice wasn’t entirely wrong. Derek had tried to kill him. But in the end, no real harm had been done. Nathan hadn’t heard of any of Bree’s lieutenants disappearing in the night, so he was reasonably sure no one had been killed. Besides, the idea of being someone’s judge, jury, and executioner made him deeply uncomfortable.

  Something tugged at his neck.

  He pulled out the necklace and stared at it. The coral shell at its center glowed dimly, a crack running through it.

  This thing’s about due for replacement.

  The only problem was that he’d have to speak to her. Nathan had a feeling Thalassa wouldn’t cooperate unless he did the same.

  Of course, there was always the option of trying to work through his issues mentally. Nathan idly wondered if there were any therapists still alive this far into the Nine Circles.

  Probably not. But it might be worth a try.

  Soon, he reached a clearing—he was getting close. His feet slowed, and he came to a stop.

  In the area where Chad had said there would be a spirit pool, there was nothing but an empty crater.

  Nathan clicked his tongue. “Well, shit.”

  At this point, Nathan was feeling pretty down. The sun was rising, and the only thing he’d accomplished was beating up a particularly stupid teenager—at least he was pretty sure Derek was a teenager—and finding a crater in the middle of a forest. Not exactly the height of productivity.

  He made his way back toward the town.

  He caught a whiff of something—smoke. And were these trees always here? A sinking weight settled in the pit of his stomach. In the distance, he spotted a body—impaled by vines. He kept walking. Every few feet, he’d see another body. All of them were different—some old, some young. Eventually, he came upon a recognizable building—the one he’d trained on top of. It was now overgrown with roots and plants.

  Nathan knew what had happened, though he found it hard to stomach. The Tree Wrath had attacked. And he hadn’t been there to stop it.

  “Nathaniel!” He turned to see Bree. Behind her stood a half-dozen of her men. She glared at him, her expression sharp and unyielding.

  This would be an awkward conversation.