"Help?" I said more to myself than to the harpy. "Sure, just give me a second to wake up." With a yawn and a stretch, I took stock of myself. While I was still tired and quite a bit too heavy, I felt much, much better now than I had the night before. That was good. With a deep breath, I pushed myself up onto my elbows, causing the wool blanket someone had placed on top of me to fall onto my lap. "Okay," I said, mentally grappling with another day of putting out fires. "How can we help you, Irileth?"

  Irileth bowed her head. The movement caused her to sway on her feet. "My flock tried to keep our oaths to the Great Mother, but the stained ones... they hunt us with their filth-soaked arrows." Her lip quivered.

  "The stained ones?" What did she mean?

  "The little ones, like your mate."

  Oh, she meant goblins. "Where are they, and what would you like us to do?"

  "In the old city below the Dreaming Crown." Her eyes hardened. "Please, hunt them for us. If you do not..." She wobbled again, this time more violently.

  "The Dreaming Crown? Where is that?"

  She pointed a talon at the massive tree in the distance. "There."

  "Can you take us there?" With her guidance, I was sure we'd be there in no time.

  "No..." She shook her head, then closed her eyes.

  "Why not?"

  "I thought, before the winds take me, that, maybe—" Her breath hitched, and a thin trail of blood fell from the corner of her mouth. "I thought the hoo-man who called me friend might try to save my people, before we..." Her eyes rolled up, her skin turned ghostly white, and she went limp.

  Shooting to my feet, I caught her before she fell to the ground. As my hands wrapped around her slender body, I felt something hard and slender brush against my fingertips. It was protruding from her back. "Shit," I murmured. "Tris, I need you."

  "Love?" Tristan, who'd been curled up beside me, opened her eyes. When her hazy eyes flicked to Irileth, she asked, "Is... is that Irileth?" Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she blinked a few times before her sapphire eyes locked onto the harpy, then trailed to her back. "Goddess! She's hurt!" She leapt up and reached for the thing my fingers were touching.

  "What is it?" I leaned forward, only to find a long, thick arrowshaft embedded in Irileth's ribs. The wood was stained with a brownish tar-like substance, and it was buried halfway to the fletching. "Oh..." That wasn't good. "Oh damn."

  Irileth coughed, causing a wave of blood to splatter onto my shoulder. "Please... I don't care about my life. Go and help my—" With an audible gag, her wings fell to her sides, and she started shaking.

  "Na-Ya!" Tristan shouted as light trailed from her fingers and into Irileth. "I need you!"

  "Coming!" The elf shouted from her and Ro's tent. A moment later, she exited the flap, took a single look at us, and ran to Irileth. "Goddess," She breathed. "What happened?" Her fingers began tracing the wound. "This is really bad."

  "I—" Irileth choked, then vomited more blood onto my chest. Despite that, she tried to pull away.

  I grabbed her head and pulled her close. "Don't speak, Irileth. Save your strength."

  "Okay..." Irileth said weakly. "Thank you..."

  "What do you know?" Light was pouring from Na-Ya's hands.

  "She just woke me up a minute ago. She was asking for help against the stained ones." I nodded at the big tree. "They're at the tree."

  "I see." She frowned. Touching the arrow's fletching, she wiped her finger on the black stuff coating the shaft. Lifting her finger to her nose, she gave it a sniff, then licked it. Her face twisted, and she immediately spat the stuff out. "It's poison." Turning, she pointed at the embers of the fire and commanded, "Lay her down next to the fire. She's going to need its warmth."

  Picking Irileth up into my arms, I walked her to the fire. Tristan grabbed my bedroll, and, once she'd laid it at my feet, I placed Irileth face down onto it.

  "Uhhh..." The harpy moaned weakly.

  "We've got you," I whispered back.

  "My... flock..." She turned her head and looked up at me. "Please..."

  "We will." I brushed the hair from her face, then made space when Na-Ya crouched beside her. "Can you heal her?"

  Na-Ya's shoulders tensed. "Maybe. I don't know." Her voice was tense. "Can you please pull my things out of your inventory? I'm going to need everything we brought."

  Nodding, I opened my inventory up and pulled out her pack, plus the smaller sack of healer's things she'd given to me. Setting them beside her, I asked, "She said her flock's in danger." I looked to the west, where the tree was swaying in the wind. "I'm afraid of what will happen if we don't go."

  "Then go." Na-Ya tore into the bags and started prepping her things.

  "Do you need my help?" Tristan asked.

  She shook her head. "No. If there's anything to be done for her, I can handle it." Pulling a variety of potions from her sack, she added, "Once Irileth's healed, we'll catch up to you."

  Ro appeared at my side. "The way to the tree is mostly straight." He pointed to the raised cobblestone road out in the marsh. "We didn't go all the way into it last night, but there's an old city on the far side of the marsh. I'm confident the tree is in the center of it."

  "Will you be okay?" I asked.

  "We will, brother." Nodding, he added, "I don't well understand your path in this life, but you've been chosen to be in this place at this time for these..." He hesitated as his eyes trailed down to Irileth. "For these people." He squeezed my shoulder. "Go be a hero. And know that we'll be right behind you."

  "I can do that." I turned to face the big tree. The Dreaming Crown, as Irileth had called it. Reaching into my inventory, I quickly started pulling out my and Tristan's gear, and we hastily got dressed. Right when we were finishing up, Vral popped around a bush.

  "What's all the commoti—Oh!" She bounced toward us. "And here I was, just thinking that third watch was boring as hell today. Looks like I was wrong." She stopped next to Tristan and me. "What's the harpy doing here?" Circling us, looked down at Irileth. When she saw what was happening, she sucked in a lungful of air. "An arrow?" Crouching until her face was inches from the arrow, she was still for a time. Then, her face darkened, and with trembling fingers, she reached toward the object.

  "Vral, don't touch it," Na-Ya snapped.

  Vral dropped her hand and gazed at the object with an intensity I hadn't seen on her face since we'd fought in the Pit. In a threatening tone, she whispered, "I've seen this type of fletching before."

  Fletching was fletching, wasn't it? To be fair, I wasn't much of an archer. "What does that mean, Vral?" I noticed that the feathers looked like vulture feathers, and they were glued in a spiral shape rather than the normal, triple-feather triangle shape that most arrows had.

  "That arrow and the poison it's coated in are made by one of the cunts that fucked over my tribe." She stood and turned to the west. Her teeth were fully bared. "Ark said the Black Ears were made up of goblins from a bunch of tribes, right?"

  "Yeah," Ro said. "Why?"

  Vral looked up at me. Her red eyes were practically glowing with rage. "Where are they?"

  I pointed to the west. "The big tree."

  Without another word, she drew her daggers and broke out into a sprint, running straight for the cobblestone road that crossed the marsh.

  "Vral!" Tristan shouted, but when Vral didn't turn around, Tristan grabbed her mace and took off too.

  I watched Vral and Tristan go, then turned back to Na-Ya and Ro. "Do your best."

  "We will," Ro said.

  "I'll try." Na-Ya's voice and hands were shaking as she grabbed the arrowshaft. "I just don't know if I can..."

  My jaw clenched. I understood the unspoken words. Na-Ya didn't know if she could save her. There had to be something else I could do to help, right? Wracking my brain, I felt my wheel grind. Then, all at once, the answer came to me. I'd completely forgotten about it. Reaching into my inventory, I pulled out the last of the vials that Kasimir had given me. It was one of the green ones. Pressing the vial into Na-Ya's hand, I said, "Use this."

  "Alex," Na-Ya's eyes went wide when she saw what I handed her. "You'll need this more than—"

  I held up my hand. "If it'll help her heal, it's worth it. We'll be alright." I turned and stepped to the west. "Make sure she lives." Drawing my sword and unslinging what was left of my shield, I ran after the girls.

  ***

  We'd barely made it a mile into the marsh before Vral had disappeared into the mists ahead of us.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  She was just too damn fast.

  Luckily, aside from the occasional crumbling ruin and a half-dozen startled monsters, there wasn't much out here to slow us down.

  "I'm going to strangle her," Tristan growled beside me.

  "Me too." While she used to run off on her own all the damn time, she hadn't done anything like this in a while. I could absolutely kill her sometimes.

  "She'd better stay safe."

  "You, too." I picked up the pace a bit, putting myself between Tristan and the open road ahead. "If any enemies appear, jump behind me, okay? Don't take any risks." I didn't know how much of a help they'd be against poisons, but between my high resilience and the [Purity of Body] talent I received back when I picked up the monk class, I was in a better position to tank the hits out here. Not that I wanted to test that little theory out against poison, but still. It was what it was.

  "Deal," Tristan said behind me. "Party up?"

  "Yeah. Let's do it." I willed for the System to do the thing.

  Na-Tristan, Elf-Human Acolyte of the Tower 26, joins your party.

  She immediately started chanting.

  [Bless]

  A wave of pale light surrounded us. Just as soon as she finished that chant, she started another.

  [Armor of Faith]

  When she finished her second chant, I looked over my shoulder and watched as a suit of ethereal armor surrounded her body, then disappeared.

  "That'll help a little," She breathed.

  "Thanks." I couldn't help but grind my teeth. "Let's pick up the pace."

  "Let's." Tristan's footsteps quickened, and together, we ran after our missing partner.

  ***

  By the time we reached the far side of the marsh, dawn had turned into day, and the thick mist covering everything was just starting to clear. As the air around us cleared, we found that we'd entered the outskirts of an ancient, crumbling city. All around us, old, crumbling buildings stretched out to the north, west, and south. They looked vaguely familiar, designed in a way that seemed like a cross between ancient Roman and ancient Chinese architecture, but they were all overgrown with trees, roots, and vines.

  Even more impressive, the Dreaming Crown, which had already looked massive out in the distance, covered half of the sky with its foliage. It was so tall that I had to crane my neck all the way back to see its top.

  "Wow," Tristan breathed.

  "Yeah." I shook my head. "It's incredible."

  "Maybe, one day, we'll have time to sightsee?"

  "Yeah, maybe." I broke out into a jog. "Next time."

  Sighing, she fell into pace behind me.

  As we ran, I couldn't help but note the old city's layout. All the buildings were laid out in massive concentric circles, with the spaces between them forming the roads. I had a feeling that the wider road we were running down formed the arteries that led to the great tree at the center of it all. If that were true, maybe there were other roads like this one spreading out in different directions, similar to how Rome built its roads in the Bronze Age. That made me think this place might have been a capital city long ago.

  The farther we ran, the larger and more ornate the buildings got. Not only that, but the foliage got denser as well. By the time we'd reached what felt like the city's interior, the vines and roots got thick enough that we had to jump over them. Not only that, but crystals, the same ones that we found out in the forest west of Goodfield, were all over the place, growing from everything the could grow from.

  That's when we started finding the goblins. What was left of them, at least.

  The first goblin's throat was slit open. Even in death, he was clutching at his neck, and his blood coated the cobblestones in thick lines. The second had died while taking a piss on a crumbling wall. The third's arm had been cut clean off, and the arteries in her legs had been severed. The fourth looked like she'd been put in a blender. Every goblin after that was in much the same shape. The only thing that changed was that the farther we went, the more we found groups of corpses instead of individuals.

  Vral certainly wasn't pulling any punches.

  Continuing up the main road, we eventually reached a massive root that was at least eight feet tall running across the road. Knowing Tristan was too short, I stopped beside the root, bent over, and laced my hands together. "Here." I gestured for her to step into my hands.

  "Thanks." She ran straight at me and jumped.

  When her boot hit my hands, I heaved and sent her flying over the root, then grabbed the top and leaped over, then landed in a crouch beside her. Giving the new space a quick once-over, I saw that we were in what looked a lot like an old market. The area was shaped in a large square, and the bottom floor of each building contained an open storefront. Not seeing anything else of note, I took a deep breath and stepped forward, into the square.

  Tristan's hands grabbed my wrist, stopping me. "Wait." She yanked me to a stop.

  "What?" I crouched low. "Did I miss something?"

  "Look." She pointed to the center of the square, where an ancient, crumbling well was jutting from the ground. All around it, at least a dozen small, green bodies were lying in a large pool of blood.

  "Do you see anything else?" I looked around but didn't see much else of note.

  "No." She let go of my wrist.

  "Let's take a look." Walking out to the well, I stopped at the edge of the blood and inspected several of the bodies. Every one of them had a vital torn open, and most were carved to bits.

  "Look." Tristan pointed at one of their ears. "These have to be the Black Ears."

  Looking closer, I saw that the tip of the corpse's ear was black and shriveled up. "Yeah, looks like it." We hadn't stopped to inspect the corpses earlier, so this was our first confirmation that we'd found the right people.

  "Sometimes I forget who Vral used to be," Tristan whispered beside me.

  "She's certainly living up to that nickname of hers." I sighed. Whoever this woman was who'd shot Irileth, she'd certainly brought out the beast in Vral.

  Tristan rubbed her arms. "I can't imagine what she's feeling. All I want to do is hold her right now."

  I reached out and squeezed Tristan's hand. "We'll do that, after all of this is done."

  She nodded. "Yeah."

  Just then, a shriek echoed off the buildings overhead, and something large and winged darted out of the sky, aimed directly for us.

  "Shit!" I jumped up, pulled Tristan into me, and held my shield above us.

  "It's a harpy!" Tristan drew her mace and covered my blind spot.

  "Thanks!" In my best Skysong, I shouted, "Irileth sent us! We've come to help!"

  In response to my words, there was a chirp. Then another. Within seconds, the square was filled with the sounds of birds. The sounds grew louder and louder until, all at once, they stopped, and something landed on the ground behind us.

  Turning to face it, I found myself face-to-face with a harpy. Unlike Irileth, whose dark black hair and clear, flawless skin revealed her youth, this harpy was clearly older, with long grey hair, sagging skin, and wrinkles around her eyes. But the eyes... the eyes were the same. Like hawk's.

  "We've come to help," I repeated in a strong, confident voice.

  For a time, her hawk eyes studied us. With a single step forward, she slowly cocking her head to the side as if she were an owl. At the same time, other harpies looked down at us from the rooftops above. Inwardly, I prayed that we'd made the right decision in coming here. If not, we were screwed.

  "My daughter said she knew one who could help us." The grey-haired harpy took a second step forward and, stooping as if she were a raptor, she bared her sharp, pointed teeth. "I cannot believe she would bring two hoo-mans into the midst of this slaughter." Sniffing, she shook her head and added, "Not only hoo-man. Though weak, I smell the elder blood in that one." The harpy pointed a wing at Tristan.

  "What did she say?" Tristan whispered, her voice shaking.

  "She says she smells the elder blood in you."

  "Oh..." Tristan pressed closer to me. "I hope that's a good thing."

  The harpy's head twisted the other way. "Who are you?"

  "We're friends of Irileth's," I said, stepping in front of Tristan. "Irileth told us your flock was in danger, so we've come to help."

  "And where is my daughter?" The harpy's eyes got hard.

  "Safe, with our family." I pointed back to the east. "She was injured, so we're healing her."

  "Injured?!" The old harpy shrieked and flapped her wings. "How?!"

  "An arrow struck her in the back."

  For a moment, the harpy considered my words. At length, she whispered, "I was afraid..." The woman's eyes grew misty. Blinking away her tears, she continued, "I was afraid she would not survive the journey."

  "She did," I affirmed. "She's in good hands."

  The old harpy's face softened. "If only I'd torn the stained one's throat from her neck when I had the chance."

  "Have you seen the archer?"

  "Yes." The harpy pointed to the north. "She has nearly taken the gate."

  "The gate?"

  The harpy frowned. "One of the stained ones has turned on the others. She has done more than my flock could do, though I know not why. What do you know of this?"

  I clarified, "Her name is Vral. She's not with the black ears. She's our partner."

  "Par-ten-er?" The harpy said the words slowly, as if they were unfamiliar.

  Was that not a word in Skysong? "Vral is our mate."

  The harpy's face twisted. "You lie with a stained one?" Her lip curled into a sneer. "Hoo-mans are fouler than I'd believed."

  It was my turn to frown. "There is nothing foul about love."

  "Love cannot wash away the sins of her kind."

  Remembering Dhurak's words, I pointed at her and said. "Mortals call your kind monsters. They hunt your nests and kill your mates. They slaughter you without thought or compassion and call it heroism. Does that make it so?"

  "I care not what mortals believe." She laughed. "Mortals lie and betray as easily as they breathe, and they make vows they cannot, or will not, keep." Pain, old pain, flashed behind her eyes. "I learned long ago what mortals truly are. They cannot be trusted."

  "You say that, even when your daughter is struggling to survive? Even when we mortals are fighting to save her life?"

  The harpy snarled. "If I had my way, every mortal would fall to my talons."

  I stepped closer. "That's the cycle of pain and death that we're all trapped in."

  The harpy hesitated.

  I took another step toward her. "Mortal, beast, dragon. Elf, human, goblin. Together, we can work to make a better world."

  The old woman fell back. "I remember hearing words like yours..." She swallowed. "Long ago, she..." She swallowed. "It has been a long time since those days."

  "I'll show you that they're right."

  The harpy's eyes fell.

  "It starts now." I gestured at the bodies. "Our mate did this for herself, but she also did it for you. For Irileth."

  "Why would a stained one fight for us?"

  "Because she's more than you know."

  Her lips twisted. "So you say." She thrust a wing toward the massive tree. "More of the stained ones came to this place yesterday. They befoul the Great Mother's home with their filth."

  Did she mean Ark and the others? "Were there five of them? And were they accompanied by a small creature?"

  She nodded. "We would have devoured their entrails had the Prince of Dreams not forced us to restrain our talons."

  "The Prince of Dreams? Is that the small animal's name?" Did she mean Fluffy?

  "None dare speak his name. "She bowed low. "It is his title. May the winds guide him."

  Fluffy... was a prince? I shook the thought from my mind. "Where can I find them?"

  "You cannot reach them." She shook her head. "The gates are besieged. Even with the little stained one's efforts, this Vral of yours, it is only a matter of time before they enter the Dreaming Crown."

  My heart skipped a beat. "Where is she?"

  Irileth's mother pointed a wing to the north. "The gates are that way." She shook her head. "We have failed in our duty. Far too many of my flock have died. We cannot keep our vows to the Great Mother."

  That's where I had to go then. "You've done enough. It's our turn. I'll keep your vows for you."

  Her eyes narrowed. "Why would you do this for us?"

  "Because it's the right thing to do."

  The harpy hesitated. "Even if you stop them, they have spread their filth into the Dreaming Crown."

  "How?"

  "When the Great Mother tried to defend us, she was struck with poisoned arrows and fell into a deep slumber. Unless the Great Mother awakens, the Dreaming Crown will die. It is only through her power that this place of power that it might heal."

  Tristan's fingers wrapped around my wrist. "Love, what is she saying?"

  "She said that the Great Mother has been poisoned and the tree will die without her."

  "I see." She stepped out from under me. "I don't know why or how, but I feel so much sadness within her."

  How was that possible? "You can feel her through the roots?"

  "Yes." In a soft voice, she asked the harpy, "I don't know what I can do to help you, but I'll do anything that's within my power."

  "That voice... Those eyes..." The harpy's eyes locked onto Tristan. "I know them."

  Tristan looked at the woman, then back at me. "What did she say? Did I say something wrong?"

  "My old friend..." The harpy swallowed. "I have been blind." Her pupils narrowed. "I see now." Walking forward, she only stopped once she and Tristan were face-to-face. Taking several moments to study Tristan's features, she finally said, "I thought you had forgotten us, my old friend. For years, I believe you abandoned us. Abandoned me." She enveloped Tristan in her arms. "Forgive me."

  Gently, Tristan wrapped her arms around the harpy and pulled her close.

  Lifting her head to the sky, she shouted in a loud, pure tone, "After many long years, the blood of Ura-Elathiel has returned to Caer-Elath-Sylnareth!"