Page 103 of Anomalies

I raise an inquisitive brow, and Devon shrugs. “8 out of 10.”

“Really?” I ask, exchanging the dagger for the sword at my back.

“I’d have ranked you higher if you’d picked one that weighed less. You realize we’ll have to carry him⁠—”

I grip the Rogue’s blood-soaked hair, yanking it back as I bring the sword down. The blade crunches through bone, and Devon curses when the head pops free, dangling from my outstretched hand.

“Don’t worry, D, I’ll carry him the whole way.”

“Did he scream?” Phoenix asks, his mismatched eyes bright with intrigue as he assesses the severed head tucked under my arm. “What did it sound like?”

“Didn’t have time to,” Devon replies, flicking his chin to Easton. “Find anything out while we were gone?”

“The ward is deep.” Easton pulls his mask down around his neck, wiping sweat off his brow. “Deeper than we can dig without breaching fatal temperatures.”

“It will have to come down, then,” I tell them, swatting Phoenix's hand away from the blood-soaked head.

I take a steadying breath, then I grip the Rogue’s head and roll it across the Ward. It passes with ease, the glossy sheen rippling around it then settling back into a bone-chilling stillness.

Rogue blood can pass.

I move forward, my hand slamming into the ward, and it bites into the surface of my skin, jolting the nerve endings in my palm until I’m forced to pull away.

Sol blood can’t.

I fight the urge to ram my fist through it.

“We need a lakelet,” Easton suggests, but my ears have started ringing. “They know the most about wards and⁠—”

The wooden rafters above us groan, and rocks flake off the walls in response. All four of us freeze, and I exchange a sharp glance with Devon.

“The storm,” he murmurs, and I whip my head back as the ward trembles, rippling like the surface of water. “It’s here.”

Wood splinters and our gazes shoot skyward in unison, to the rock overhead, to the wind that must be picking up at the surface… disturbing the ground beneath.

“Put your masks up,” I say as calmly as I’m able. “Take a deep breath.”

The ceiling fractures, splitting down the center with a guttural crack that I feel deep in my bones. Then I give what might very well be my last order.

“Run.”

25

LUCINA

Ipeer down over the top of my sunglasses, examining the dense forestry behind Pa’s little hovel, then I glare skeptically at Kimber. “Why do the trees look like that?”

Her pupils are blown wide, a perfect rosiness to her cheeks–as flawless as a baby doll. She yanks the sucker out of her mouth, and the potent smell of cherries hits my nose. “What if that’s how trees have always looked?” she ponders. “What if you’ve just been too closed off to see them for how they really are?”

I blink back at her, my face flat. “Hey, listen,” I pull my leg in from where they had been dangling over the side of the wooden bridge, and turn to face her. “I agreed to trust you with whatever you put in my tea, but I would like to know what it is.”

Kimber twists her heart shaped lips to the side, the stick of the sucker tilting, then she looks back out into the dense forestry. “Azhrith,” she says finally.

The bridge sways as she kicks her feet, and I give her a stern look to stop.

“It’s a psychedelic that opens your third eye and peels back the layers of reality until you are left with something much purer.” Kimber waves the hard candy around as she talks, then plops it back into her mouth. “The way you see the trees now is how I always see them, like living, breathing beasts.”

I’m not sure I needed my third eye opened, but these days, I’ve been abnormally welcoming to any distraction.