Pellina did not calculate the drop, the terminal velocity, or the odds of survival. Her heels simply kicked off the shale edge. Wind sheared against her cheeks, whipping loose strands of hair across her face like tiny lashes. Below, the gorge was a jagged gullet of midnight rock, spiked with the glistening black needles of Gloom-thistle. One prick curdled marrow. Two dissolved lungs. Timoq was five yards below her, flailing upside down, his tunic billowing, a scream torn from his lungs before the rushing air swallowed it. "Timoq! Catch!" Pellina bellowed. She ripped the embroidered leather sachet from her belt with her teeth, spitting leather threads into the slipstream. Inside lay three desiccated pods of *Aerofila bullata*, harvested under a gibbous moon and primed with concentrated lye. Pellina crushed the outer husks against her palm, ignoring the alkaline burn that flared across her skin. The moment atmospheric moisture hit the dehydrated inner membrane, the reaction was instantaneous. A violent hiss erupted between her palms. Fibrous green tendrils exploded outward, multiplying at frantic speed, ballooning into a mass of spongy, buoyant, air-trapping cellulose. It surged into an expansive, emerald-tinted cushion twelve feet across, sprouting coiled, anchor-like vines along its perimeter. Pellina dropped onto the bulbous center just as she caught the tail of Timoq's jerkin. She yanked him into her chest, locking both arms around his ribs. *THWUMP.* The air-bladder hit the updraft rising from the gorge floor, groaning under their combined momentum. It compressed, bouncing violently like a struck tambourine, skimming five feet above a carpet of glistening, flesh-liquefying thorns before the side-tendrils whipped out, driving anchoring suckers into the cliff walls. They hung suspended, swinging in a hammock of living, fibrous moss. "Pelli?" Timoq gasped against her collarbone, his fingers digging into her ribs. "What—what is this? Are we ghosts?" "No, you idiot," she wheezed, her bruised ribs protesting every expansion of her chest. Her grin was lopsided, cracked, and completely devoid of her vacant, court-approved simper. "It's advanced horticulture." High above, an ungodly sound split the canyon rim. It was not a wolf's howl. It was the shriek of a god tearing through flesh. On the cliff edge, Vrokas had seen his mate jump. The world dissolved into red ash. The agony that usually crippled him when his skeleton tore itself apart—the agonizing curse of the royal lineage—simply failed to ignite. Her touch from the night before, the stubborn, earthy magic she carried beneath her fingernails, was still rooted in his marrow. The bones of his shoulders lengthened with a sharp *crack*, not in torture, but in pure, liquid fury. His human form shed like wet bark. A behemoth of jet-black fur, three times the bulk of an ordinary wolf, stood where the Alpha had been. His muzzle was a cavern of ivory spikes, his flanks rippling with corded sinew. Zarkalla took one stumbling step backward, the silver dagger trembling in her grip. "Vrokas—wait! She jumped! She chose to die! She was an imposter anyway—" The black beast offered no bark, no snarl. He simply crossed the distance in a single, blurring lunge. Zarkalla's two conspirators, elite guards from the northern crags, threw their halberds up in panic. The Alpha bypassed the iron blades entirely. His heavy forepaw came down on the first guard's skull with the force of an avalanche, snapping vertebrae like dry kindling. Before the corpse hit the gravel, Vrokas spun, his jaws clamping shut over the second guard's shoulder. With a single, savage flick of his thick neck, he ripped the wolf's torso entirely from its hip joints, spraying hot, steaming gore across the gray rock. Zarkalla shrieked, scrambling on hands and knees toward the path. Vrokas pinned her with one broad claw planted dead center between her shoulder blades. The stone under her cracked from the pressure. He leaned his dripping snout close to her ear, letting the heat of his panting mouth cook the side of her face. He refrained from killing her. Not yet. A quick death was too soft for vermin that made his mate leap into an abyss. Instead, with a guttural rumble that rattled the loose gravel around them, he turned toward the edge. Down in the chasm, Pellina was busy brushing stinging nettles from Timoq's sleeves when the wind suddenly shifted, carrying the rich, iron stench of fresh blood and rain. A colossal black head peered over the lip of the stone overhang. "Oh," Timoq whispered, shrinking into the spongy moss. "That's... that's the Lord Alpha. And he looks like he wants to eat our ancestors." "Hush," Pellina said, though her knee twitched. The giant beast leapt down. Not in panic, but sliding with terrifying precision down the vertical shale, claws gouging twin furrows into the granite to arrest his momentum. He landed on the edge of the vine-hammock with a dull thud, the spongy mass sinking beneath his immense weight. Golden, dilated pupils locked onto Pellina. He took three slow, deliberate steps toward her. Every muscle in his hulking frame trembled with residual slaughter, dark crimson matting his chest fur. Then, the nightmare of the Garkyran Sovereignty collapsed into a pathetic, whimpering heap at her knees. Vrokas nudged her knee with the soft bridge of his snout, burying his broad jaw into her lap. A low, rumbling whine vibrated against her thighs, so deep it rattled her teeth. He sniffed her neck frantically, checking for punctures, inhaling the wild, green scent of crushed leaves and sweat, his rough tongue coming out to deliver one wide, clumsy lap across her cheek, wiping away dirt and tears. "I'm fine, you brute," Pellina whispered, resting her bruised knuckles against his broad skull. "Stop that. It's undignified. Timoq is watching." Timoq, meanwhile, was pressed flat against the moss, hands over his head, squeaking softly. Vrokas ignored the boy. With excruciating delicacy, the monster clamped his jaws around the scruff of Pellina’s tunic—careful not to let a single fang graze her throat—and hoisted her effortlessly onto his back. He then snapped his teeth around Timoq's belt, lifting the terrified boy like an errant pup. With two thunderous bounds, using the rock outcroppings he had carved on the way down, the Alpha vaulted upward, clearing the rim of the gorge in seconds. He set Pellina down upon the gravel as if she were spun sugar, nudging her feet until she stood firmly, before dropping Timoq unceremoniously into a patch of clover. The black fur receded, bone snapping smoothly back into muscle, until Vrokas knelt naked against the cold wind, his breathing ragged. He pulled her against his bloodied chest, his large hands engulfing her waist, burying his face into the crook of her neck. "Never," he rasped, his voice raw from the shift. "Never do that again. Do you hear me? I will burn the entire mountain before I let you fall." "I had to save him, Vrokas," she muttered, though she made no move to push him away. For the first time, her face wasn't arranged in a polished, placid mask. Her brow furrowed, raw and fierce. "I won't apologize for it." A faint, possessive smirk touched the corner of his bloody mouth. "Stubborn weed." "Look who's talking, wild dog." The fragile quiet broke under the crunch of heavy armored boots. Out from the mist marched a phalanx of the royal vanguard, banners bearing the fractured crown snapping in the high wind. At their center stood High Elder Morvath, cloaked in heavy ermine, his gnarled hand gripping an iron staff capped with the Sovereignty's judicial seal. Beside the magistrate, Zarkalla crawled on her stomach, weeping hysterical, crocodile tears, smearing mud across her cheeks. "Elder! Look at them! The slaughter—she enchanted him! She isn't the bride! She threw herself into the thorns and commanded the very earth!" The judicial head ignored the sniveling noble. His yellowed eyes moved from the slaughtered guards, to the blooming green monstrosity still visible in the canyon below, and finally settled on Pellina's face. The Elder raised his iron staff, striking the bedrock with a deafening crack that echoed across the gorge. "By the ancient code of the First Fang," Morvath's voice boomed, cold as winter sleet, "the truth is laid bare upon the stones. You stand unmasked, imposter. Guards, seize her—I pronounce the immediate sentence of death!"

Feral and Falling