The Shadow Crosser (The Storm Runner 3)

The earth spirit stood over me, rubbing his chin and frowning. “That’s not the effect I was going for. Tell me, what are you feeling?”

Feeling? I was doubled up, roaring with laughter. I couldn’t talk, could barely see, since my eyes were leaking like crazy. My sides were going to split open and all I could think of was how long it would take for my friends to find my dead body.

The laughter gripped me like an iron claw. It was torturous. Worse than tortuous.

The earth spirit said, “This is not the right effect. Not even close!”

I sucked in a breath in between uproarious hoots and managed to grunt, “Make…ba-ha-ha…it…ba-ha-ha ga-ha-ha stop.”

The guy walked out of the periphery of my vision, and when he came back, he kneeled down and shoved a small red flower into my mouth. “Eat this.”

The thing tasted like ground-up aspirin. Look, I didn’t want to eat it, but I also didn’t want to die from laughing hysterically. The second I swallowed the last morsel, the laughfest ceased. My ribs felt like they were going to snap in two if I so much as sneezed. Tears streamed down my face. I rolled onto all fours, catching my breath. “Why…did you do that?”

“It was supposed to make you speak only the truth,” he said, sounding perplexed. Then he gasped, sneezed twice, and shouted, “That means you’re not human!”

“I am human, but I’m also a godborn.” I cleared my throat, grabbed Fuego, and stood up.

The guy remained on his knees and bowed his head down to the floor. “Oh, master, godborn, blood of the gods, forgive me,” he wailed. “I had no idea. I’m old. I don’t get many visitors. I have terrible allergies. I can’t think clearly. I was mistaken. I should have known.” He looked up at me. “I’m Kip, at your service.”

I helped him to his feet. “It’s fine. Really.” I mean, it was totally not fine,

but the guy looked so desperate and freaked, I couldn’t watch him spiral downward another inch.

Rosie reappeared, licking her chops happily as if I hadn’t almost just been murdered by laughter.

“The Red Queen,” I said. “She told me about you. She told me to find or follow chapat.”

“Chapat?” Kip brightened. “Why didn’t you say so? I can show you the way.”

“You can?” This was too easy for my comfort.

Kip headed toward the back of the greenhouse.

“I almost died,” I muttered to Rosie, who gave me a wary yeah-right expression. “Fine,” I said, seeing my hellhound’s logic. “But it felt like I was going to die.”

We followed the spirit out a doorway into a lush flowering garden in the middle of the dense jungle. At the center of the garden was an undulating path in the shape of a centipede.

Chapat is a labyrinth? I thought.

“This is chapat. A place to meditate away your worries,” Kip offered as he wrung his hands.

Rosie howled and reared up on her hind legs, punching her front paws like a prizefighter.

“Meditate?” Seriously? The Fire Keeper wanted me to meditate? Was this some kind of joke?

Kip wiped his head with his handkerchief, flicked his eyes to Rosie, and said, “This is a special path. It will ease your worries, I promise.”

If he only knew that my worries started with hijacked gods and ended with a ruined world.

Gesturing toward the path, Kip said, “Like me, the centipede is a very misunderstood creature, but this will clear your mind. I promise. And then you will have good memories of my home.”

I drew closer to the labyrinth, holding my breath.

The Red Queen’s voice rang out in my head. Follow chapat.

Just as I was about to step onto the trail, Kip gripped my arm. “I nearly forgot. You must consider your deepest worry as you walk. The path will do the rest.”

“Got it.”