Book Five: Chapter 86

Something about that anguished cry struck a chord deep inside of him. It cut through the noise of battle and lodged itself somewhere behind his ribs, vibrating in a place he didn’t like to acknowledge. When they had been ambushed earlier, he had mostly run interference—screaming, posturing, making himself big and terrifying enough that the Nirumbi scattered rather than pressed the attack. While his friends did the heavy lifting—blood, blades, and magic—it had been easy to frame the enemy as monsters, faceless threats that existed only to be stopped.

But now?

Now he had heard pain. Real pain. Fear, confusion, and something that sounded uncomfortably like grief.

Mike shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold seeping through his coat and into his bones.

“Yuki! Bigfoot!” he shouted, forcing himself back into the moment. He