Storm of Ash. Michelle Kenney

up the trail. Unus followed my gaze, his single pale eyebrow forked and anxious. We all knew why. Lake was roaming closer to the village with each passing day, and whether she was friend or foe, we had to find her.

      Eli frowned. Art and the rest of the Council had heralded his return as nothing less than a miracle. There was a full day of celebration, and while my jubilation was no less real, it was shadowed too. My twin was back, but there was a new quietness about him, as though he carried the weight of the ocean inside. I recalled his image smiling inside Prince Phaethon’s eyes, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was more significant than I had first realized. Once I mustered enough courage to ask about Aelia too, but he only shook his head. I didn’t press him – I knew the answers would come in their own time.

      And Mum’s reaction was worth all the unanswered questions in the world. She was still fragile, but hadn’t stopped smiling since Eli followed me into the treehouse that morning. She glowed as though a thousand sunbeams had coalesced inside her all at once.

      ‘I knew you’d come home … I said you’d come … I knew you’d come home … I said you’d come,’ she repeated.

      But no one stopped her.

      And if Eli’s return had provided some semblance of hope, Prince Phathon’s deal had provided a grim focus. I wasn’t ignorant to the irony of a mythical prince with an Oceanid army at his fingertips, challenging a feral Outsider to rid the world of a monster, but knew enough to understand there were rules. It had been my legacy from the start after all. I could only hope our deal would stand, and the Oceanids would stand beside us when we needed them. I glanced at my quiet brother. Perhaps we stood more chance than I realized.

      ‘Tal … look?’

      Unus paused again and threw a long look around, before returning his attention to his feet. Eli and I caught up to find him staring at the mangled hindquarter of an ocelot, strewn across the shaley path. It was clear it hadn’t died from natural causes. I glanced up into Unus’s blue eye, barely visible beneath huge flushed folds of squinting flesh.

      ‘It’s fresh,’ I confirmed, racking my brains for any other animal that may have had the power to rip a body apart in this way.

      Only a larger mountain cat would come close, and those I’d encountered would never leave half a carcass for another creature to finish. I turned the unfortunate animal’s remains over and something hard and ivory rolled away. Frowning, I picked it up and held it aloft, so it glinted in the sunlight.

      ‘Looks like someone is losing their milk teeth,’ Eli signed.

      I stared in fascination. It was about the size of my fist, ivory-white, and tapered to a perfect razor-sharp point. Carefully, I reached out and tapped the tip of the tooth on a spiny cactus plant. Instantly its tough exterior skin split open, spilling its soft pulp and inner juices down over its spiny prickles until they pooled at our feet.

      ‘Bigger teeth … bigger draco,’ Unus remarked, his eye stretching as round as a rice bowl.

      I frowned, assessing the steep mountain pass. ‘Which is why we can’t wait,’ I muttered, refusing to think about the promise August had extracted before he left.

      The higher we climbed, the steeper the trail, and the more frequently we needed to rest. We reached the mid-peak summits without too much trouble, and though we were still within a few hours’ hike of Arafel, the air was noticeably thinner. There was also less animal life the higher we climbed, while mountain shale grew more crumbly underfoot. I fought to suppress the dark memories pushing to the forefront of my mind, and focused instead on the stark cries of the golden eagles circling above our heads.

      Within a breath, I was back in Isca Pantheon with August, looking down on the main dome floor as Octavia’s regal two-headed eagles dived past.

      ‘The haga are two-headed – it’s a Roman thing,’ he joked.

      Gritting my teeth, I spun on my feet and looked for Unus. He’d dropped a little way behind. His face was flushed, and his usual lumbering rhythmic pace had slowed. I glanced at Eli anxiously.

      ‘I don’t think Cyclops’ circulatory systems are designed for altitude,’ he signed. ‘Anyway, it’s well past midday … time we turned back.’

      He met my rigid look warily. He could sense that another sleepless night was one too many. I had to find her, even if it meant staying out all night.

      ‘Tal, I promise … we’ll come back tomorrow.’

      His signing was almost persuasive, and then an ominous shuddering stopped us all in our tracks. It was chased by a barrage of sharp stones raining down on the pathway just ahead of us. Small avalanches of slippery mountain shale weren’t unusual, but something told me this freshly dislodged debris wasn’t due to the variable weather. We jumped back as another torrent of hardened topsoil and shale cascaded down. It was closer this time. Unus shuffled in front of us protectively, but I could feel his fear. A Cyclops was stronger than ten men, but pitching brute strength against a hormonally charged adolescent Hominum chimera wasn’t likely to end happily.

      ‘Wait here with Unus!’ I signed to Eli, knowing Unus’s wheezing would slow them both for a couple of minutes.

      Then without waiting for a response, I turned and flew up the edge of the falling debris as lightly as I could. The trail was lined with boulders, their narrow crevices providing scant protection for the mountain’s hardy plants. Occasionally, foragers would bring a basketful back to the village for Raven to use in herbal compresses or medicines. Today though, my eyes were trained on the jagged mountain path that disappeared up ahead. I’d seen this mountain’s summit once before, could just recall the haze of shaley paths and treacherous passes I’d pushed to the back of my mind. We had every reason to turn back – except the air was filled with the faint scent of smouldering ash.

      With blood thumping in my ears, I continued upwards until the trail met a near vertical, creviced wall. Scanning the rock, I spotted a shelf about five metres above my head. It was a short easy climb providing the rock was stable. There was no time to waste, and I scurried up the jagged surface as swiftly as I dared, so conscious Eli and Unus would catch up at any moment, just when she was close at last. Dark to dark. I gritted my teeth, unable to deny the truth clawing up my throat with each hand and foot hold – she knew I was near too.

      I peered over the top cautiously, and was surprised to find a wide, barren mountain shelf, lined with piles of fallen rock and shingle. It looked barren enough, but somehow I knew it wasn’t. There was a waiting in the air, an anticipation of the kind that forces every nerve to strain beyond comfort, and today it was because of the looming black cave set about twenty metres away to my right. A cave that looked as black and uninviting as any of Pantheon’s tunnels.

      And though it couldn’t conceal any strix, I knew that Lake in draco form could incinerate one hundred of the mythological flesh-eating birds with a single, violent breath if she chose.

      I crept forward, aware the eagles overhead had quietened, as though they too were able to sense a menace reaching through their spiralling thermals. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to achieve. I was hopelessly ill-equipped to challenge Lake in any form. She was the most successful of all Cassius’s trials – brutal, powerful, and more than capable of reducing a girl from the forest to dust – and yet, my leather-clad feet kept on stealing forward anyway. I just had to gaze into her yellow, double-lidded eyes, and know she felt it too.

      Then I glimpsed her, or rather I glimpsed her breath, hanging on the cool air just outside the cave. I froze, my chest tightening. I hadn’t set eyes on her for more than three months, when she unwittingly helped us escape the research centre by incinerating it. August and I had only escaped by squeezing inside one of the life-support canisters, but her abject fury had imprinted on me for ever. There was no doubting the astonishing myths about Hominum chimera’s strength and abilities were not to be dismissed. She possessed a nature that was different to every other creature I knew, natural or otherwise.

      ‘There’s an ancient myth that Hominum chimera is capable