Syl’s mind reeled. The arrow had hit the Anihazi. No doubt about it. But for it to go straight through without doing any damage… was it truly some kind of spirit?

  While Syl’s brain struggled to make sense of the unfolding events, her body kept in time with the beating of En Da. Had she thought about it, she would have hesitated. But she didn’t, and her second arrow was off before the futility of it stopped her hands.

  The arrow cut through the air on a collision course with the Anihazi, which didn’t try to avoid it. Syl could feel a sudden confidence oozing from the creature. Their weapons couldn’t hurt it, and nothing would stop it from enacting its vengeance.

  Vengeance?!

  Syl’s eyes widened as that single word slammed into her. What could it want vengeance for? What did they ever do to it?

  Then the arrow hit.

  Syl expected to feel it continue through the Anihazi without slowing. Syl expected to feel the spirit’s exultation as it proved how untouchable it was. Syl expected to die within seconds.

  What she got, she didn’t expect at all.

  Lightning cut the sky like an angry god. Lightning that went from the ground up. Before Syl had a chance to question that, a concussive wave of rolling thunder blew the group back like leaves in the wind. Somebody screamed. Maybe they all did.

  Her body hit the ground, or maybe a tree. She couldn’t tell up from down as she bounced and rolled. She instinctively kept her bow close, somehow managing to not lose it, and finally skidded to a stop. The afterimage of the lightning bolt filled her eyes and she blinked repeatedly to clear them.

  Am I blind? She’d never seen anything like that. What did the Anihazi do?

  The Anihazi!

  Syl reached out with her senses; she’d never be able to see or hear it in her current state. But, even if she did find it, was she in any shape to fight?

  Where? Where? Where? She repeated in her mind as she searched for it. There!

  The Anihazi lay on the forest floor and Syl’s mind reached out to touch it.

  It was weak. Hurt. But not dead. Blasted trees lay in a ring around it and the ground smoked. Whatever had happened, the Anihazi didn’t do it on purpose.

  Like her, it was shaky, though it managed to find its feet. The thought of risking everything to continue the attack flitted across both their minds. It could taste them on the wind. Vulnerable. The Anihazi took a step in their direction.

  And stumbled.

  It cursed the arrow that struck it and its own overconfidence. The Anihazi tried a second step towards the group, and if it found the strength to attack, they’d never be able to defend themselves.

  But it didn’t have that strength. Its second step faltered just as surely as its first did. Its hatred seething to the point of bursting, the Anihazi reluctantly turned away to lick its wounds.

  Syl let out a sigh of relief and pushed herself to her knees. The afterimage of the lightning was finally fading and movement stirred around her. The others were moving in silence. No, not silence, her hearing was recovering slower than her sight. Everything was muted from the… was that thunder?

  A touch on her shoulder startled her, but the blurry form resolved itself into Dena’s worried face.

  Dena was saying something to her, but she couldn’t make it out. Syl squinted as she tried to read her friend’s lips, but that didn’t help. Dena leaned in close to Syl’s ear and practically screamed, “What did you do?”

  “I don’t know,” Syl said.

  “What?” Dena asked, pointed at her ears, and then shook her head. The answer to that question could wait. They needed to check on the others. Dena helped Syl to her feet, and together they surveyed the damage.

  Cracked and broken trees lined the opposite side of the road littered with debris. The blast had thrown them more than ten feet deep into the woods on their side. The others were on their feet, but looking no less stunned than Syl was feeling. All except Milia, who was still lying on the ground clutching her injured leg.

  The splint held, but it wouldn’t make flying through the air, and hitting the ground, any less painful.

  “What was that?” Rogar asked loudly as he joined Syl and Dena.

  “The Anihazi?” Reylo suggested.

  Syl noticed he was cradling his arm more than he had been. “Yes,” she said.

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  “How did you know it was there? Did you kill it?” Rogar asked her directly.

  Dena’s attention was firmly on Syl. These questions were far too close to what Dena had asked before. Questions Syl had done her best to avoid. With the others gathering around and waiting for answers, it didn’t look like she’d be able to avoid them much longer.

  “We should help Milia,” Syl started, but Dena was already shaking her head.

  “No,” Dena said. “Syl, I know there’s something going on. And you don’t want to talk about it, but we’re your friends. And after that,” she pointed at the devastation across the road, “I think we deserve to know. We are out here for you, after all.”

  Curious looks passed among the others as they realized this wasn’t the first time Syl and Dena had this conversation.

  “What aren’t you telling us?” Rogar asked. There wasn’t accusation in his voice, not exactly.

  Syl sighed and took a deep breath. “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” she started. “Which is why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know if it was my imagination or… something else,” she finished as she looked at the toppled trees. No way her imagination did that.

  “Just tell us,” Dena pleaded. “We won’t think you’re crazy.”

  “Just dangerous,” Kule said helpfully.

  “I don’t know how, but I can somehow… sense the Anihazi when it’s close. There is some kind of connection,” Syl explained, trying to find the right words for it. “That’s how I knew where it was outside the village. And when it was coming after Reylo.”

  “And that Milia’s shouting was a trap,” Reylo concluded.

  “That’s right,” Syl said. “I could feel it out there waiting for us. It hates us,” she added quietly.

  “You can tell what it’s feeling too?” Leeze asked.

  “Maybe not everything,” Syl admitted. “Strong emotions. Mainly hate and anger.”

  “Aimed towards me, I’m guessing,” Kule said. “My arrow…”

  “I think Syl’s arrow trumps yours,” Leeze interrupted, and pointed across the road.

  Kule’s eyes drifted to the destruction, and he rubbed his chin. “By a tiny bit,” he said seriously. “Speaking of which, how did you do that?” he gestured emphatically with both hands as he asked. “Seriously. You couldn’t have done that a few nights ago?”

  “I didn’t do that,” Syl said.

  “Then who did?” Rogar asked. “None of us even had arrows nocked. You did it.”

  “Maybe it was the Anihazi,” Dena suggested.

  “No,” Syl said and shook her head. “It was hurt. Badly, I think.”

  “That didn’t kill it?” Kule asked, his eyes wide.

  “So, what did you do?” Rogar brought the conversation quickly back to his question.

  “I don’t know. I felt my first arrow pass right through it, like it wasn’t even there. Then the second arrow, I didn’t do anything different. I swear.”

  “You didn’t,” Reylo agreed with her. “Did you have a third arrow drawn?”

  “Huh?” Not the expected question. “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Could you have dropped some arrows in the explosion?”

  “I guess I could’ve, but,” Syl said and looked at her quiver. It didn’t seem like any arrows were missing…

  “In the cave, I gave you some arrows. I watched you put four in your quiver. Now I only count three. Did you use one of them?” he asked.

  He was right. She only had three of those arrows in her quiver, and when she pulled one out, it didn’t feel any different from her regular arrows. She could have very easily drawn one in the heat of the moment and not noticed.

  “I might have,” she said, and looked closer at the arrow. “Does this look… blue… to you guys?” she asked, and pointed at the arrowhead. The metal had a blue tint to it that wasn’t normal.

  “I guess so,” Dena said. “So what, you’re saying the arrow did that?”

  Kule held out the four arrows he’d been given. “Here, why don’t you carry mine too,” he said nervously.

  “Your bravery never ceases to amaze me,” Leeze said dryly. “Or lack of bravery I should say.”

  Syl inspected the arrow, even going so far as to run her finger across the arrowhead. She didn’t feel anything that would suggest it was capable of the blast.

  Just to be sure, Syl fluidly nocked, drew, and released the arrow before anybody could stop her. As it buried itself in a tree across the road, everybody threw their arms in front of their heads and prepared for the inevitable explosion.

  Nothing happened.

  “Keep the arrows, Kule,” Syl said. “Rest of you too. I think it only reacted like that because I hit the Anihazi with it.”

  “These arrows were made to fight Anihazi?” Reylo made the logical jump. “Is that possible Edar?”

  Edar didn’t answer immediately, and when Syl looked at him, he was glaring at her.

  “What’s wrong Edar?”

  “It’s not right,” he said, quietly. “The Anihazi are evil.”

  “Well, it’s certainly not friendly,” Kule said.

  Edar ignored him. “If you’re connected to one… Are you evil too?” he asked.

  Syl wasn’t the only one taken aback by the question. Everybody stood with their mouths open.

  “Syl’s not evil. She’s dangerous, but not evil,” Dena said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Are you sure? Maybe she brought us out here so it could hunt and kill us more easily. Maybe she didn’t really come out here looking for her father,” Edar accused and pointed at her.

  “Then why did she save me?” Reylo asked. “Or make us wait to go out and save Milia?”

  “Or do that?!” Kule pointed, again, with both hands across the road.

  “I’m not evil. Or working with the Anihazi,” Syl said, trying to comfort Edar. The existence of the legendary creatures had been difficult for him from the beginning. But, if anybody could’ve handled the news, it should’ve been him. It wasn’t.

  “Yeah, Edar. Come on, you can’t actually believe Syl is involved in this,” Leeze said.

  Syl looked from friend to friend. Other than Edar, none of them blamed her.

  “I don’t know,” Edar said, and didn’t take his eyes off her.

  “Can you sense it now?” Rogar asked, changing the subject.

  Syl reached out with her mind for any trace of the Anihazi. “No. Nothing. The arrow hurt it badly. I’m not sure where it went.”

  “How far away can you feel it?” Dena asked.

  “I’m not sure exactly,” Syl said. “A few hundred feet at most. When I’m concentrating. I think it knows I can feel it now though. It was trying to hide from me before it attacked.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t figure out how,” Leeze said.

  “You’re in the middle from now on Syl,” Rogar said. “We’ll keep our eyes open, as we have been. But if you can feel it through all those trees, that’s what you need to focus on.”

  “Right,” Syl said, a weight lifted from her shoulders after finally letting the secret out.

  They helped Milia get back onto the stretcher and it wasn’t only Edar eyeing Syl suspiciously.

  Theycan think what they want, Syl thought and took her position in the middle of the group as they started moving again.

  Edar refused to walk with Syl behind him, and despite the others pointing out how silly that was, he and Kule carried the stretcher near the back of the group.

  Syl tried not to take offense to it. She’d turn around his opinion of her. He couldn’t honestly believe she was working with the Anihazi to kill them.

  Could he?

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