Page 90 of Unleashed

The thought had come from Vortok, but she brushed it off as Balir walked forward. Her awareness of herself was limited to the shadowy image Balir had of her and the distant, nearly-numb sensation of forcing her legs to move. She kept her hand on Balir’s arm, the physical contact helping to solidify the mental connection. Aduun and Vortok kept close behind.

Nina’s mouth was suddenly dry as they stepped onto the walkway. It was perhaps three feet wide at best — wide enough to maintain one’s balance while still serving as a constant reminder of the seemingly bottomless pit lurking to either side.

Her stomach flipped at the thought of falling.

The ringing, humming noise reentered her awareness, making Balir’s mental image fuzzy and indistinct.

Gritting her teeth, she strengthened the bubble, hardened it, and thrust away the invasive sound. She would not allow fear to be her master, just as her valos had refused to let Kelsharn be theirs.

Balir increased his pace with renewed confidence, and soon the platform behind them was outside of his perception. Everyone but Balir shuffled their feet as he led them through the many turns, as though afraid the walkway would vanish if they broke contact with it for even an instant.

We feel you near,the voices whispered loudly in Nina’s mind, sweeping through the open link for the valos to hear. The hair on the back of her neck and on her arms raised.

You’re almost here.

Help us!

The group’s steps faltered at the volume of those voices, at their sudden intrusion. Confusion flowed from Balir and Vortok, but from Aduun she sensed only further uneasiness; he alone had heard the voices before.

“Nina?” Aduun grated.

She shook her head, gathered her willpower — borrowing some from her valos — and cast the voices out. Nina could not afford a break in her concentration; she and her companions wouldn’t survive any distractions. For an instant, she felt a hint of displeasure, ofanger, but it vanished as quickly as it had come.

Each step forward seemed a mile long, each moment a self-contained eternity. The change in Balir’s sound-sight was subtle at first; he picked up the hint of objects in the nothingness around them, too indistinct to identify, too sparsely placed to investigate. Then Nina realized the bottom of the pit was within his perception, slowly rising to meet the path as they proceeded.

The objects his clicks had been bouncing off grew more numerous and distinct, and soon were rising to tower over Nina and the valos.

Trees.

She picked up the scents of earth, bark, and leaf through one of the valos well before her own nose could detect them. She slowly pulled back from their minds and opened her eyes.

Ahead, the inky black path was flanked by tall, familiar, purple-leafed trees. The starry backdrop remained, but there were hints of ground, now — dead leaves seemingly suspended in the nothingness as though gathered on the forest floor, the occasional jutting root. She glanced over her shoulder. The trees behind them were ghostlike things, meresuggestionsof physical objects.

Farther back, the trees weren’t visible at all.

“The sound is back, Nina,” Balir said, muscles tensing beneath her hand.

“I know. But I think we’re almost there. We just need to walk straight.”

Nina took his hand, lacing their fingers together, and led him forward. Aduun followed, maintaining his grip on her shoulder.

The forest materialized around them as they advanced, the trees shimmering as they came into view. A strange sense of excitement and familiarity sparked inside Nina. These were the kind of trees that grew in the forest near her home. And this landscape, with its dips and rises…

She had a sense that she’d been here before, even though that was impossible.

Aduun and Vortok moved up to walk beside Nina, both looking around with awed, suspicious eyes.

“Are these trees real?” Vortok asked.

Balir ran a hand along the rough bark of the closest trunk. “As far as I can tell, they are.”

The trees stopped up ahead, and there appeared to be bare ground beyond them. Dread seeped into Nina’s excitement, souring her stomach and making her mouth dry. She squeezed Balir’s fingers.

“What is wrong?” Balir asked.

She didn’t reply,couldn’treply. When they emerged from the trees, she lifted her gaze to the mountain slope ahead of them, and her dread burst to mingle with a torrent of conflicting emotions.

“What is this?” Aduun asked.

---