Vensha had not slept in days; how could she? She was furious.

  Anger was easier than helplessness. Easier than terror and frustration. Her niece and nephew had gotten caught in the middle of foolish political shenanigans. A tribunal, she'd heard, had been established to try several high-ranking military officials at the Odaton camp. Vensha cared for none of it.

  The idiot whom they'd tried to assassinate was doing nothing to help support the search for Zeris and Caen. She'd scuttled back into the hole she'd crawled out of. Vensha wished it could have been that woman stuck in there instead of her Zeris and Caen.

  She stood now in a rounded chamber that had the glyph number 14 on the floor in Caen's handwriting. There was dried blood on the floor, and even now, she could see pieces of ant corpses sticking out of the walls and ceiling.

  Ladia and another Space mage—a lanky man with dark puffy hair; he'd called himself Antoine—fiddled around a cluster of roots on the wall. It was hard to stay entirely angry at Ladia. She'd put Zeris in danger. But she'd also teleported herself and the bomb outside the chamber, preventing the deaths of everyone there.

  Sh'kteiro was casting a spell, while Hshnol, the very quiet and mysterious man who worked for Uncle Vai, stood to the side.

  The other members of their small group were the older siblings of the other girl trapped in this Plane with Zeris and Caen. They seemed to have a means of communication, most likely a bloodline.

  The brother was a man who seemed to be in his thirties with tediously groomed blond hair. His sister, beside him, had green eyes, and her Contracted bond was a thick, blue-skinned flying serpent—a Planar creature, no doubt—that was partially wrapped around her abdomen and floated in the air even now. The creature had carried and transported them all over long distances, very quickly.

  Everyone here was more powerful than Vensha. She'd seen for herself some of the terrifying things they could do. Sh'kteiro and Hshnol, she'd known for years, but those other two—the siblings—were proper monsters. They'd insisted on continuing the search by themselves, but Sh'kteiro had allowed her and Ladia to come along.

  “Okay, we are live! The portal’s working,” Antoine the Space mage said, pointing at the roots that had not changed in the slightest. This was supposed to be a portal of some sort, and they'd walked through several of these themselves. “If that girl was able to do this by herself, then she is a right and proper genius, I'm telling you.”

  “There are no human minds within that chamber,” Hshnol said.

  Vensha held back her incredulity. It still made no sense to her how he could tell this just from looking at the roots.

  “The Interactance between this chamber and that one is strong, regardless of what the numbers on the floor say,” Sh'kteiro said.

  “So, you're saying…” Antoine began, seeming unclear.

  “I believe the next one will be pivotal,” Sh'kteiro clarified. “Try again.

  * * *

  A few roots strangled Caen from behind. Several others pulled at his hands, his legs, almost dislocating his joints as they pulled him into the wall in the same manner they did for corpses.

  He could feel the corpse of the ant he'd killed pressed firmly against him, as the roots struggled to pull it into the wall too.

  He was blind, couldn't see anything to Mimic, couldn't move. His throat was being crushed. He couldn't even scream.

  [Caen! Guinevere!] Zeris sent. [Help! I—]

  [I'm trying,] Guinevere sent. [I— AAAARGH!]

  [Roots.]

  [Caen? Caen?]

  Caen's consciousness was quickly fading. His mind grasped desperately for something, anything.

  Nothing.

  His body was immobilized. And even without his abjection, his spirit couldn't move quickly enough to perform the patterns of a spell, especially not now when he was in distress.

  Death loomed. The crushing, the grinding, the pulling of the roots. His spirit, mind, and body were out of options.

  Individually.

  With the last sliver of his consciousness, Caen unfurled his existence.

  * * *

  Zeris screamed at the top of her lungs and could barely hear her voice over the chittering sounds of the ants. With her dagger, she stabbed into the eye of an ant. Another pushed her against the root-portal, spewing acid on her. She shoved her right hand, heated by a spell, into the face of another ant, and it screeched, mandibles tearing her arm. Something bit into her leg. She screamed, scratching and clawing desperately.

  If she had Passionfire… she didn't. She was going to die here.

  What am I doing?

  All her life, Zeris had nursed the fear that she was unworthy of her talents. A very high affinity in Space magic, along with rather high ones in Spirit-healing and Fire magic. But she had been born with those advantages. Magic was not difficult. It was easy. And she loved it as it was. But that terrified her.

  When Fermien had told them about Passionfire, she had known deep down that it would find her unworthy: she had no ardor, no fervor. She did not burn with pathos the way her grandfather did for Blood-healing, the way Caen did for anything magical.

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  She was not an explosion. She was not a blazing furnace.

  But did that make her passion any less?

  She was… she was… a controlled burning. A steady, persistent, enduring flame. She was zeal, tireless, relentless.

  Streaks of purple, pink, and red burst around her hands, impassioning the spell that kept them searing hot. She tore off the face of an ant as a warm calm settled over her, blanketing her emotions. She was of Ardor.

  When she set everything around her on fire, the tri-colored flames did not burn her.

  * * *

  Just as Caen could sense the souls of others through physical sight, he would do so through touch as well. Through the sensations of physical contact.

  His will, his volition, was unbreakable. The ghostly sensations came first. Then the myriad impressions, many of which he'd grown accustomed to. Even without any physical sight, his soul structure and that of an awakened tree's came into… not view. But he could see it. As though in his mind's eye.

  Caen Mimicked its affinity for Blood-healing faster than he ever had. He wasn't breathing anymore. His windpipe was slowly being crushed.

  For weeks now, he'd been acquainting himself with the internal structure and makeup of these awakened trees. He now understood features of their anatomy that he hadn't before coming here.

  He cast the paralysis spell, flooding it with mana and stacking more modifiers than he ever had in his life. He pushed past the tree's innate resistance to being affected directly.

  Every single root in contact with him went still. Even those not in direct contact with his skin. The physical pressure of their grasp on him was enough.

  The Blood-healing affinity cluster of the tree he was connected to grew less prominent.

  He cast the paralysis spell on the roots again and ethereally reached for a Flora affinity. In seconds, he'd Mimicked it. He stacked modifiers on a spell chain that strained his mind and spirit, but he was no stranger to heavy burdens.

  He manipulated the root that had bound his arm partway into the wall, batting aside its will. The root had more give than anything else binding him, but was still quite firm. He forcefully wrenched his arm out and began casting a more complex spell chain as he grabbed the root on his neck and pulled with all his unempowered might. Between the spell chain and the pulling, there was enough give for him to gulp in air through the agony of his fairly damaged windpipe.

  He was still blind, but all his other senses slammed into him at once. The loud chittering of ants, the crisp burning scent in the air, the pain all over his body. And—

  [Caen! Caen, please, answer me!]

  [Zeris, I… I don't think he's—]

  [I'm here,] Caen sent back quickly as he scrubbed his forearm across his goggles to restore vision to his eyes. There was just enough light from the placid reshent and fire to make out the two ant corpses lying over his body, blocking his field of vision, roots holding them in place.

  [Oh my god! I thought you died!]

  [Where are you? Are you okay?] Zeris sent.

  [I got grabbed by some roots, but I'll be fine. I paralyzed them with a spell.] At this, he connected to the tree's Blood-healing affinity and cast the paralysis spell once more on all the roots in contact with him. No point taking any chances. [Are you both okay?]

  [Ancestors! Caen! I—burn, you bastard insect! Burn! I was so scared you—Ancestors. We're injured.]

  [There's too many of them,] Guinevere sent. [We can't reach you.]

  [Stay alive. I'm getting myself out.]

  A quick diagnosis spell showed him the critical injuries. A soothing spell eased some of the pain. Working very quickly, he set the dislocated bones in his left hand, released his right hand using a boosted Flora affinity, then began using spell chains to loosen the roots holding him in place.

  He deeply regretted not taking the time to learn better Flora spells that might have helped him here as he worked to free himself. He switched to Blood-healing and cast the paralysis spell two more times. Once he had enough mobility to push the ant corpses away from him, his feet touched the ground. He strained against the paralyzed roots till he was free of them. He fell. One of his knees was badly dislocated. An ant threw itself at him. He dropped his connection and flickered Soul-sense just in time to sink a dagger beneath its head. Another ant did the same; several of them were crawling on the wall. And even now, they attacked him. Caen hacked at them with his dagger mercilessly, growling as they bit and spat acid.

  This is never happening to me again, he swore as he wrenched off his goggles, then helmet, and wiped the gunk away from his speculon. He hurriedly worked on setting the bones in his leg, having connected back to the tree so quickly. If he weren't still so weak, he'd never have even been in this situation in the first place.

  I already have the means, he told himself, working as fast as he could. I just need to get stronger.

  The chamber was hot and bright with Passionfire.

  Many of the ants lay in flaming, wriggling masses on the floor, courtesy of Zeris. Even the broad ant was a smoldering corpse off to the side. Zeris and Guinevere fought brutally with their backs to each other. Zeris was using Passionfire.

  He halted his healing several times to kill ants that attacked him. Then, wielding a pair of daggers, Caen joined Zeris and Guinevere. He flickered Soul-sense on the ants, tearing into their heads with relative ease. He would Mimic Guinevere's Body-enhancement, empower himself with a spell, drop the connection, and flicker Soul-sense as he killed the ants.

  The three of them fought for minutes, thinning the swarm considerably.

  A broad ant and four other ants flowed out of the root-portal. Zeris set them all on fire. Caen dispatched two of the regular ants while Guinevere hacked off the broad ant's front leg. She climbed onto its head, stabbed her sword into its eye several times, screaming, and rode it down to the ground.

  After this, they rounded off the remnants quickly, retrieved their items, and jumped through the still-active root-portal.

  * * *

  In the darkness of a new chamber, Caen healed their wounds and his own wounds he'd neglected. It took him hours. Not merely because of the intensity of their wounds, but because they had to keep moving whenever more ants found them. They jumped through two more root-portals, killed more ants, and acquired more injuries. They'd mixed their remaining water with the final drop of Guinevere's healing potion.

  The hunger was intense, and he'd needed to cast sleep abeyance on himself three times before the desire to sleep vanished significantly. He'd cast it on the others, too, while attending to their wounds.

  Zeris had acid burns on her face and her hands, and several deep gashes from ant mandibles. Guinevere, along with acid burns of her own, had very, very few fractures but multiple bruises.

  They were all in serious pain, forcing Caen to use up the last of his numb-root.

  Their rations were not even enough for one more very moderate snack, and the ants were too poisonous to eat. Blood-healing and healing potions put great strain on the body's internal resources. Food and sleep were requirements. They'd been getting very little of the former and none of the latter.

  They talked through the telepathic link as Caen worked. It was the only distraction from the hunger pangs, the injuries, the physical pain, the exhaustion.

  And the fear.

  Guinevere's siblings had joined the search, and she'd been relaying information to Hshnol and Sh'kteiro through them.

  The distant chittering of approaching ants disrupted their healing session and forced them through another root-portal.

  Phew!

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