“What do you think is it, then?” I asked, not really wanting them to confirm what my mind screamed was true.
“It’s the pack.”
No! We mustn’t let them overtake us! I felt Tia’s panic and tried to soothe her, but she wouldn’t listen.
“Are you sure?” I asked quietly.
He nodded. “They must’ve gotten themselves freed somehow.”
“And now they’re coming for us.” The three of us watched the pack of hellhound jackals, which I estimated were still a few miles off but they were closing in fast. If we’d been downwind, I would have already been able to smell them.
“The mountain will slow them down,” Asten said.
Ahmose rubbed his jaw. “Yes. But they’ll overtake us eventually.”
“Can we fight them?” I asked.
Asten shook his head. “No. There are too many. We could fight off a pack half that size, but all the hellhounds in the netherworld? It’s not possible.” He glanced up at his brother. “I say we make a run for it. Worst-case scenario, we take to the sky.”
Ahmose considered this and then nodded. “Agreed. It’s time to go, Lily. Let’s test your speed. See if you can outdistance us.”
I was eager, afraid, and hesitant all at the same time, but thinking of Amon drove me forward. Realizing that he and his suffering had not always been at the forefront of my mind racked me with guilt. When the descent from the mountain became treacherous, Asten picked me up, and the three of us floated down. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck.
Flying felt more natural now than it had the other times. It was almost…instinctive. I wasn’t affected by dizziness or vertigo. I didn’t realize until we touched down that I’d been absentmindedly playing with Asten’s hair. All my concerns of before had lessened significantly just by being near him. He hadn’t said anything about my mood shift, and I flushed with embarrassment at my actions. What was going on with me?
I’d say acting like a bit of a hoyden, a voice whispered in my mind.
That sounds about right, I thought. To be fair, though, I wasn’t doing it on purpose.
A part of you was, the voice argued. A part of you wanted to.
Tia? I asked.
What? I heard her sullen, dull voice respond.
Tia, you know how I feel, I said.
It’s the same as before, she finally said after a tense silence. If you weren’t open to the idea, these feelings wouldn’t be there.
I sighed. How was I ever going to straighten this mess out? Still, I rationalized as I ran, the most important thing isn’t my love life; it is saving Amon. Everything else I could figure out later.
Are ya sure ya want to fight? my inner voice countered. A good run is better than a bad stand, ya know.
What was I saying?
Did a part of me fear standing up to the Devourer? We could win. I believed it. The gods must believe it, too; otherwise why would they have sent us here? When I first began to run, I staggered. My skin burned and sweat poured down my face. Something was wrong. I felt like I was in a three-legged race and my stride was strained and disjointed. The power and grace of the sphinx eluded me. Bending over, I panted and begged Tia for her help. We’ve got to regulate our temperature or we’ll burn up before we get there, I said.
I tried again, and it took a few minutes, but then something clicked into place once, twice, and I found my rhythm. My body cooled, and I ran faster than I ever had before. The speed I was capable of astounded both brothers, and I could have easily outdistanced them if it hadn’t been necessary to stick to Ahmose’s path.
We’d run for a couple of hours when Ahmose called for a halt. They were drained, and I knew it was because they were feeling the effects of Amon’s torture again. The three of us rested as we felt the energy leak out of us. When we came to our senses, I was famished and quickly scarfed down the meager remnants of the food the tree had given us after the brothers insisted that my living body needed the fuel more. Seeing Asten and Ahmose only drinking water didn’t sit right with me.
I offered to hunt for them, but they determined that hunting would take too much time, and I knew they were right. When I lifted my nose to