Fallen University: Year Two

Jayce shuddered. “I don’t like these options.”

“Maybe you should scout ahead,” I suggested. “With that super speed of yours, you’re the best for the job.”

“Um, excuse me? I can fly over the forest and find a path,” Kingston pointed out.

“I can melt into the shadows,” Kai added. “Stealth can be more important than speed, you know.”

I nodded, narrowing my eyes at the forest before us. “Sounds like you should all go. Xero and I will follow behind. Kingston, keep track of the other two from your vantage point. Don’t want somebody getting lost in there.”

Each of them shifted into their demonic forms and disappeared in a flash. Xero and I walked close to one another, our shoulders brushing and our senses at full alert. The trees had looked closer than they actually were. When we finally reached them, I saw why; they must have been a hundred feet tall, all twisted and full of tangled branches.

“Those trees aren’t alive, are they? I mean, obviously they’re alive, they’re plants, but—” I looked doubtfully at a branch which looked suspiciously like grasping claws. “They aren’t going to suddenly wake up and start attacking, are they?”

“No,” Xero said without even a shadow of a smile. “But if you come across a bright purple flower as big as your head, run. They’re carnivorous and somewhat mobile.”

“Fantastic.”

He squeezed my hand. “I’m pretty sure we’re too far north for those. But—just keep your eyes open.”

Yeah, that won’t be a problem.

I couldn’t imagine I would ever be able to close them peacefully again. Between the fight outside the castle and what we’d encountered so far in the landscape of the underworld, I was set on nightmare material for a good long time.

Xero and I skirted the woods, sticking to the no man’s land between the forest and the swamp. At first, that space was wide enough for us to walk side by side, but after a while we were forced to go single-file. Xero kept me in front of him. Apparently keeping an eye on me was more important than being the leader, but I wasn’t complaining. It wasn’t like I had fireballs to protect myself with.

“We’re out of land,” I said after we’d walked for a while in silence, stopping short suddenly. The woods had reached the swamp, and the sliver of beach we had been walking on was replaced by a black tangle of slick, wet roots. They lay horizontally enough that we might be able to cross them, but I didn’t like how slippery they looked. One false move and we would be fish food.

No fucking thanks.

Xero put his hand on my shoulder as he peered over my head. “Yep. We are.”

“So—into the woods, then?”

He shook his head. “Not without the others. We’re already split in too many directions. Worst thing we could do right now is lose each other.”

We sat with our backs to a giant tree and looked out over the swamp.

“It’s so much more… alive than it looked from my room,” I said. “All those bugs and fish and things out there. I still can’t figure out what those are though.” I pointed at the ivory fingers pushing out of the swamp.

“They’re probably giant ribs,” Xero said matter-of-factly.

“Like… the ribs of giants?” I asked, feeling stupid for rephrasing but not quite sure I was understanding.

“Yeah. There aren’t a whole lot of giants here anymore. Gavriel considered them nuisances and lesser beings. Well, lesser-lesser beings. Everything is lesser in Gavriel’s opinion. He’s real into himself.”

I laughed, then jumped as my own laugh came back at me from the treetops.

“Real mocking birds,” Xero said, nodding upward. “They match voices and everything. G

reat for framing people.”

I gave him a sideways look and he blinked at me innocently.

“Have you ever done that?” I asked.

“Not recently,” he dodged with a slight grin. “It’s a rough world in here. Vicious animals around every corner, just waiting to devour you. The most dangerous ones used to be human.”

“I guess we all do what we have to do to survive.”