Aria POV
The North was a memory of white and iron, but the South was a fever dream of emerald and rot.
Every breath I took in the Great Canopy felt like inhaling steam and sugar. The air was thick, a humid soup that clung to my skin, making my tunic stick to the silver-white burn scars on my shoulders. I missed the bite of the frost. I missed the clean, lethal silence of the mountain. Here, the silence was a lie a hum of a billion insects, the wet slide of scales over moss, and the distant, territorial shriek of things that hadn't seen a human in centuries.
« Too much life, » the White Wolf muttered in my mind, her voice a low, shivering growl. « It smells of decay disguised as growth. Watch the shadows, Aria. The green is hungrier than the black. »
I adjusted the strap of my leather pack, my fingers grazing the cold hilt of the black-steel dagger Gabriel had given me. Gabriel was twenty paces ahead, his massive frame cutting through the thigh-deep ferns like a scythe. He didn't have his duster on; he wore only a sleeveless vest, his corded muscles glistening with a fine sheen of sweat.
The Black Lion in him was pacing. I could feel it through our link—a dark, vibrating chord of tension. Gabriel hated the jungle. He was a creature of the abyss and the open plains; here, the trees felt like bars.
"We're being followed," Gabriel said, his voice a low rumble that didn't even disturb the heavy air. He didn't turn around. He didn't have to.
"I know," I replied.
The silver fire in my veins was humming, a rhythmic pulse that matched the thrum of the jungle's heart. Ever since we crossed the border of the Jade Territories, the silver wire that had once tied me to Logan was gone, replaced by a new, ethereal sensitivity. I could feel the life around me the frantic pulse of a lizard, the slow, tectonic consciousness of the ancient banyan trees, and the oily, sibilant presence of the Emerald Serpent's scouts.
"How many?" I asked.
"Six on the left. Four in the canopy," Gabriel said. He stopped, his hand going to the hilt of his Abyssal claymore. "And one directly in front."
The Sentinel of Vine
The ferns twenty feet ahead didn't part; they dissolved.
Virens, the man we had met at the Ivory Grave, stepped out of the emerald gloom. He looked exactly the same, his bronze skin glowing with a sickly vitality, the jade serpent still coiled around his neck like a living noose. But here, in his element, his aura was suffocating. It smelled of damp earth and the sweet, cloying scent of flowers that only bloom on corpses.
"You move slowly for a Goddess," Virens hissed, a slow, predatory smile stretching across his face. "The heat of the South isn't as kind to the Moon as the mountain frost, is it?"
I stepped up beside Gabriel, my silver eyes flashing a warning. "We aren't here for the climate, Virens. You spoke of the Primal Grave. You spoke of a fourth line. Where is it?"
Virens laughed, a sound like dry leaves skittering over a tombstone. He gestured with his vine-staff toward the heart of the jungle, where a mountain of solid emerald rock rose into the clouds the Temple of the Serpent's Coil.
"The Grave is not a place you simply walk into, Aria," Virens said, his eyes narrowing. "It is a living stomach. It digests those who are too weak to master their own blood. You've mastered the Moon. You've tasted the Sun. But the Earth... the Earth does not care for your titles."
He turned, his green robes fluttering despite the lack of wind. "If you want the truth of the fourth line the Cobalt Kraken, the master of the deep and the blue—you must first survive the Trial of the Roots. My master is waiting."
"Your master?" Gabriel growled, the shadows around his feet beginning to rise in a jagged mane of black smoke. "I thought you were the Serpent."
Virens looked back over his shoulder, his tongue flicking out to taste the air. "I am a fang. The Serpent is the jaw. And the jaw is hungry."
The Trial of the Roots
Virens vanished into a swarm of emerald moths, leaving us alone with the encroaching jungle.
Suddenly, the ground beneath our feet buckled. Massive, gnarled roots—each as thick as an Alpha's torso burst from the soil, lashing out with a speed that defied their mass.
"Aria, jump!" Gabriel roared.
He grabbed me by the waist and leaped, his Abyssal aura exploding outward to incinerate the roots that tried to snare his ankles. We landed on a high, moss-covered branch, but the tree itself began to move, its limbs twisting into claws.
The jungle was no longer a setting; it was an antagonist.
« Burn it, » the White Wolf urged. « Burn the green with the gold! »
I reached deep into my chest, pulling on the ember of the Phoenix I had absorbed from Ignis. I felt the golden heat surge through my arms, turning my silver light into a blinding, white-hot flame. I slammed my palms into the trunk of the tree.
BOOM.
The golden-silver fire roared through the wood, but it didn't incinerate it. The emerald bark absorbed the heat, the tree glowing with a terrifying, sickly luminescence before it grew even larger, its thorns dripping with a black, acidic ichor.
"It feeds on energy!" I shouted, pulling my hands back as the bark tried to fuse with my skin. "Gabriel, don't use the Abyss! It'll drink you dry!"
Gabriel skidded back, his dark eyes wide as he saw a massive root drain the black smoke from his aura, the plant turning a midnight-purple as it pulsed with his stolen strength.
"We can't fight it with power," Gabriel wheezed, his muscles straining as he held back a vine with his bare hands. "It's the Earth. It's the source."
The Descent of the Serpent
The ground beneath us dissolved into a pit of quicksand made of rotting leaves and liquid moss. We fell, tumbling into a subterranean chamber that smelled of salt and ancient depths.
I hit the floor hard, the air leaving my lungs in a ragged gasp. I looked up, and my heart stopped.
We weren't in a cave. We were inside a ribcage.
Massive, fossilized bones the size of cathedral pillars arched over us, encrusted with glowing emerald fungi. At the far end of the chamber, sitting on a throne of living serpents, was a woman.
She wasn't like Virens. She was ancient. Her skin was a translucent blue, revealing the silver and green veins that pulsed beneath. Her hair was a mass of white eels that writhed in the air, and her eyes were two endless pits of sapphire water.
"The White Wolf has arrived," the woman said, her voice sounding like the crashing of waves against a cliff. "And she brings the Black Lion as a gift."
She stood up, and as she moved, the salt in the air intensified until my eyes stung.
"I am Mera," she said, walking toward us. "The Emerald Serpent was my guardian. The Cobalt Kraken was my consort. And you, Aria... you are the key to the tomb I have been guarding for ten thousand years."
She stopped in front of me, her cold, damp hand reaching out to touch the Phoenix-scars on my neck.
"The Sun, the Moon, the Abyss, and the Earth," Mera whispered. "The four keys are finally in one room. The Primal Grave is hungry, Aria. And it's time to find out which of you is the sacrifice."
I looked at Gabriel, but he was pinned to the wall by a dozen emerald vines, his face turning a dark, bruised purple. I tried to summon the fire, but my veins felt like they were filled with cold seawater.
"Don't fight it," Mera smiled, her teeth sharp and blue. "The fourth line isn't dead. It's waiting for a heart to beat in. And I think yours will do nicely."
The emerald vines wrapped around my throat, pulling me toward the black abyss at the center of the chamber. My last thought, as the water filled my lungs, was of the silver wire I had snapped.
I had freed Logan, but in doing so, I had lost my anchor. And now, the jungle was pulling me under.