It was a deadly bet. He could only merge with creatures belonging to one denomination of fantasia at a time, therefore, he was forced to release his iris, silencing its song. If this were any other type of elexos, he would be long dead by now, but since it was a floraxos—a living being—it was worth the risk.

  Channeling through his ankles and wrist, he tried to merge with the thorny tentacles, feeling the floraxos tense as he succeeded. A bizarre noise assaulted him as they sank into his bones, like a hundred bands playing discordantly at the same time. Without delay, he passed through the vines, breaking free.

  Scrambling to his feet, he sprinted toward Rierana, the slippery ground threatening to trip him with every step. “Get up!” he yelled. “Run!”

  Something heavy slammed into his back, throwing him off the ground. A vine coiled around his torso, yanking him back toward the monster. He gasped as it tightened, pain searing through his ribs. He tried to channel, but he didn’t have the iris, and his clothes separated him from the vine.

  The floraxos growled, pulling him close to its skull. It stared him down, glaring with its dead, hollow eyes as it wrung the life out of him.

  Blood burst from Skye’s lips. He struggled to speak. “Not… yet!”

  He’d promised his master he’d fight to the end, and he would.

  Summoning the last of his strength, he grabbed the floraxos’s moss-covered skull and channeled into it. A mournful melody of galloping hooves and rustling fields filled his mind as he forced the merger. The monster howled in confusion, its vines slackening just enough for Skye to slip free and drop onto its shoulder.

  It was a long jump to the ground that was bound to break a leg or two, and he didn’t have time to climb. As vines whipped toward him, he leaped onto the floraxos’s back.

  “Don’t look!” he shouted to Rierana as he frantically shed his shirt and shoes.

  “What?” she shouted back, bewildered.

  “Just look away!”

  Stripping off the rest of his clothes, even his undergarments and the ribbon, he plunged his hands into the floraxos’s body, channeling into the mass of plants. The cacophony returned, louder and more jarring than before, as he merged with the dozens of different flora that comprised its form.

  The floraxos roared in fury, thrashing wildly. He’d merged with trees during his training, but those were normal plants, not conscious beings with personalities and thoughts. The monster resisted him, rejecting the intrusion. It lashed with thorny whips, tried to crush him, choke him, pull him out. But each time, Skye dissolved further into its body, refusing to let go.

  He buried himself deeper into the creature, leaving only part of his face exposed to breathe. The wood was cold and hard, with overlapping parts, and gaps, forcing him to channel in and out of different parts as the beast moved to avoid being mangled.

  Hysteria overtook the floraxos. It clawed at its own body, tearing apart its chest and back in a frenzy as he dove and emerged from opposite spots. Rocks tumbled, splinters flew, and shards of wood rained down as the creature stumbled and thrashed.

  “How do you like this, you freak?” Skye shouted, surfacing briefly near the stag skull before dipping back into the writhing mass.

  Roaring, the monster crushed its own shoulder with a massive wooden fist. Skye dove into the timber just before the blow landed. The impact shook him, but he grinned at his brief invulnerability.

  At the far end of the street, Rierana crouched behind a tree, eyes darting anxiously, most likely trying to discern whether he still lived. He knew it’d cost him his astrum and even the irreplaceable ribbon, but he had no other choice. With a ring of his bell, he cleared her memory, and she sprinted away.

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  “Wonderful job. You saved the girl,” Redeyes drawled, perched on the floraxos’s shoulder as it pummeled itself. “Now, how will you save yourself?”

  I’ll find a way, Skye thought. He’d hoped that by activating his curse then remaining still, the creature would forget him. Instead, it sniffed him out immediately and resumed its frenzy.

  “You’d better act fast,” Redeyes warned. “Your fantasia isn’t bottomless. Stay too long, and it’s not only your skull it’ll wear; your entire body will become a part of it.”

  Through the gaps in the branches, Skye looked at his hands. His fingertips had darkened to brown, the skin stiff. Similar to the petrification in the Deeps, the floraxos Flora fantasia was turning him into wood.

  Panic clawed at him as he realized that a few more minutes here would turn him into timber. No, his limbs would lock sooner; he had to exit now.

  Frantic, he descended into the creature’s leg, aiming to escape there, surfacing occasionally for air. But the monster smashed through the rubble, then rolled on its back to dislodge him. Each movement jarred his bones. Each scream rattled his teeth.

  When he’d finally peeked out through the floraxos’s rear, he found Rierana still here, now joined by Nakais, who carried a large staff crowned with a crimson pyrpphire.

  “Someone’s sticking out of that monster’s butt!” Nakais shouted, pointing at him.

  Heat flared in Skye’s cheeks. He dove back inside, casting his curse again. There was no way he’d crawl out naked in front of them. Even if it’d kill him.

  He tried to steer toward another exit, but the floraxos twisted riotously, shrieking all the while. Heat built around him, searing, blistering, and Skye hissed as his lignified flesh burned. Then he heard the raging flames and realized Nakais had set the monster ablaze.

  Flames surged over the monster’s shell, turning the beast into a staggering torch, but they couldn’t reach him inside. He wanted to sigh in relief, but with his face fused with a branch, it was impossible. He waited, and waited, but it turned out that floraxii made great firewood. Worse, the inner layers of the floraxos were much more contaminated, making them more toxic and harder to merge with.

  No one had ever killed an elexos. Legends claimed it happened once a century, but they were just that—legends, made up to give frightened people false hope. You could distract them, bind them, chip away at their bodies, but how would you snuff out wind? How would you stab water in a river? They always returned, rebuilt from a clump of mud or a spark of cinder, always angrier than before.

  So, what in all the Void did Nakais think he was doing, setting the floraxos ablaze, except making it more dangerous?

  Grinding his teeth, Skye plunged deeper into the creature, fleeing the flames eating through its outer bark. The deeper he went, the heavier the contamination affected him. His skull felt ready to crack from the warring voices in his head, and his chest burned where the woodification had reached inside him, stiffening ribs and gut alike.

  He needed to breathe, but surfacing would only get him a lungful of fire. As he moved around, searching for air pockets within the creature, his fingers struck something they couldn’t merge with. Hard. Oval. Cool even inside this furnace. And very smooth.

  Like a gemstone.

  No book ever mentioned crystals inside elexii. Once or twice, he’d glimpsed a faint gleam in the skulls of aeroxii, but he’d dismissed it as the light playing tricks.

  He felt around the gem and observed that the roots latched onto it pulsated like veins around a heart. He tried prying it loose, but they were so dense they might as well have been stone.

  With no other options, he merged with them.

  His fingers—wooden like a whittling—couldn’t grasp, so he crawled forward to press his chest to the gem, curling around it, isolating it from the roots.

  The floraxos screeched, a raw sound of agony. Likewise, pain tore through Skye’s midsection as his organs stiffened. His heart struggled to push blood; his bowels creaked as he shifted. This was a contest between him and the floraxos, and his body was going out fast.

  The monster buckled, dropped to its knees, and crashed to the ground. It lay there motionless as Nakais’s fires burned its outer body.

  Gasping, Skye shoved upward through the packed wood, then through the layer of smoldering charcoal. The first breath he drew was hot, full of smoke. He coughed, each motion a torment, fighting to steady himself. With his joints locked in stiff, painful angles, he couldn’t force himself back inside, and the heat here was unbearable, so he ejected entirely, hitting the ground naked. He couldn’t crawl, couldn’t summon his bell.

  Still clutching the crystal, he realized he’d collapsed at someone’s feet.

  “Rierana…” he croaked, wondering if she was safe as his vision dimmed.

  A shape kneeled beside him. Nakais’s wide eyes reflected the dying firelight. “Damn me if this isn’t the Void’s bottom!” he shouted in disbelief. “You killed an elexos!”

  ?????Days until Green Eve: 13?????