Another terrible rumble. Except this time it didn’t come from behind. It originated in front of her. Near the prayer. She could see it plainly now, the flat rock of the histories, the thing her people had been forbidden to search for but which was now hers.

The earth was angry, its shaking tossing her from side to side. The Senatus would have to do more than that to get her to turn away. A Chimeran warrior woman was hunting. Didn’t they know nothing could ever block her from her quarry?

Distantly, she realized that Griffin had stopped shouting.

Keko reached the edge of the patch of lava rock and launched herself onto it. If she could just touch the prayer, the Queen would protect her. The Queen would bless her.

Thunder emanated from beneath her feet. It wrinkled the rock, flowing toward the prayer, making the great tree over it shudder and tip.

Then the tree itself moved.

The trunk straightened, lengthening, like a man unfolding to stand from a crouch. The bulk of the tree swiveled toward Keko, its dome of branches becoming tens of waving, threatening leaf-tipped arms. A face shifted among the boughs. A man’s face, snarling and menacing, its eyes gold and silver, its amorphous mouth open in a soundless scream.

Keko skidded to a stop, the lava rock tearing into the pads of her feet.

The tree’s trunk cracked up the middle, becoming legs that ripped free from the earth, dislodging chunks of rock and sending Keko falling backward. Immediately she scrambled back to her feet.

The treeman was coming for her, his great strides eating up the space between them, each step grinding rock under the tangle of roots that were his feet.

What magic was this? Ancient Hawaiian she’d never heard of? The Queen’s? Elemental?

A great bough swung toward her, sweeping away everything in its path. Crackling, crashing, rumbling. The movement was lumbering and heavy, but coming fast.

She drew a Chimeran breath, but the bodily shock of hitting the ground and the narrow window of time only allowed her a shallow inhale. Deep enough to let her release a small stream of flame, though, and she spewed it at the bough coming for her. The tree was wet, however, its bark damp from the ocean proximity and the perpetual rain, its leaves unable to light. That shouldn’t have mattered to her magic, which meant he was doing something to parry her flame. The bough arm kept coming at her. Then another joined the attack.

She’d be crushed if she didn’t run, so that’s exactly what she did. She sprinted toward the edge of the valley, where she could use the steep sides, maybe climb above the tree. Then she’d make her way back to the beach and onto the narrow rock ledge. The treeman was too large and couldn’t follow her there.

A terrible screech filled her ears—one that sounded vaguely like her name being pushed through a grinder made of rage and vengeance. Did this thing know her?

Keko refused to panic. Chimerans didn’t fight this way, didn’t run—this was a new enemy, a new challenge—but she would find a way to defeat it, to get around it. There was no chance, however, to stay still enough to catch her breath. No chance to dig for her fire and let out enough to burn away and eat through the damp of the tree and whatever magic it was using. Fire knocked against the inside of her chest, begging to be let out. To do what it was meant to do.

For the first time ever, she wished Chimerans had been taught ways to defend themselves other than with fire and fists.

A powerful gust of air came at her back, the suck of forces that told her another bough arm was coming her way. The treeman had closed the distance between them.

“Keko! Keko!”

A man’s voice this time. A voice she knew. A voice that created more conflict than ease.

She couldn’t see Griffin but she could hear him drawing closer, the sound of her name getting louder. He was coming for her like the treeman. Working together? An attack from both sides? This awful creature was part of Griffin’s larger plan, maybe. A last-ditch effort to turn her away. His chase and his words had failed, so he’d summoned this thing. Or maybe it was a soldier of the Senatus, sent for her because Griffin had failed. Who knew what sort of magic the premier had access to? And Chief had hid so much from her, why not this?

The great splinter of tree boughs filled her ears and she knew it was close.

She veered to one side, changing course, trying to throw off the treeman, but his bough caught her in the back of her left shoulder, tearing across her skin, making her howl with pain. Sending her body airborne.

She flipped midair and hit the ground hard, skidding. Dirt and sticks wedged into what she knew to be a bad laceration across her upper back and shoulder. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she rolled to her side. The valley winked, and she could vaguely make out Griffin’s shape through the vegetation, sprinting toward her, a giant knife clutched in his hand. A two-pronged attack then.

It only made her more pissed off.

She would not lay eyes on the Queen’s prayer only to be destroyed by a magic being that could be leveled if only she could get enough fire. She would not fail her people because Griffin Aames wanted to sit gabbing with other elementals around a campfire in the middle of nowhere.

Biting back the agony, she flipped onto her raw back. Her knee felt wrenched, too, though she hadn’t known when that had happened. With her back pressed to the ground, she looked up. The treeman—massive and trembling with rage, that strange face among the leaves twisted in determination—loomed over her. He looked more man now, each terrible limb delineated in powerful muscles made of razorblade bark. Every bough arm pulled back, some ends making fists, others sharpened into spear-like points. He was gathering his strength, intent on smashing her, pulverizing her into the earth.

If she was going down, she was going down with her fire.

And she’d take Griffin with her, because she could plainly see him now. He charged through the last barrier of brush. Toward her. Mouth open in soundless fury. Blade shining in the blast of sunlight that shot down from the parting clouds.

Keko found her breath, took control of her heaving chest, and inhaled. Deep and long, the kind of breath that tasted of death. Fire magic built inside and shot up her throat. It dared her to use it. Despite the chaos, despite the danger, it brought her peace.

Oh, Griffin, she thought in the moment the fire touched her tongue and she scrambled to her feet. For a few days we were magical.

The boughs with their clubs and spears were descending, descending toward her.

She brought her hand to her mouth and fed her palm fire. Dropped her arm back to throw.

Griffin planted a foot on a chunk of tilted lava rock and launched himself off it. His body soared, making an arc. His face twisted with murderous intent, the long knife in his fist.

She released the fireball, arm and shoulder muscles screaming from the injury and the force of her pitch. Both targets were in range and scope: Ofarian and treeman. They would feel the power of her burning weapon.

Griffin’s body hit the apex of its curve and came down. Only not on her. Not anywhere near her.

He slammed into one of the legs of the treeman high up on the thigh, and held on in a three-limb clutch. The arm with the knife stabbed downward, piercing the bark that was somehow now half flesh. The treeman howled, boughs pulling up.

It was too late. Too late to realize that Griffin was helping her. The fire had already left her hands and was catapulting toward the treeman’s leg. Toward Griffin.

“Griffin!” she screamed.

He was holding on to the knife handle with both hands, the blade dragging down and through the treeman’s strange flesh, when he looked up and saw what was coming for him.