This tunnel is far weaker than it looks. The earth displaced in the valkerax’s thrashing will kill us before its fangs do. Malachite sees that, too—our eyes meet in an impossibly quick moment. That one lapse in concentration is all it takes, and Evlorasin slams its back into the dirt, Malachite peeled off like a fly. He hits the ground hard and doesn’t move, and it feels like all my blood drains out through my feet at once.

I bolt for him, but as if it’s slowed time on a sandclock, Evlorasin raises its massive paw, claws hanging sharp, and hovers just above Malachite before slamming down on him.

I grip Father’s sword, knowing it’s not meant to be thrown, knowing it’s all I have left of him, and give a mighty heave, the blade spiraling over itself. My aim is only half true, the blade sticking into Evlorasin’s knuckle, but it’s enough. It’s enough, and the valkerax makes an ear-splitting shriek, recoiling away from Malachite. The beneather is still one moment and then stumbling to his feet the next. He blearily squints at me, the red glow thinned, and then he regains himself.

“The mouth!” His shout pierces, simple and straightforward and leaving me to make guesses. He turns on his heel, broadsword in hand, and I understand only when he draws Evlorasin’s attention by stabbing it in the chest. The metal of his blade barely sinks beyond the scales, but it sticks there, irritating, and the valkerax does a complete turn on him instantly and roars, its mane bursting forward around its face in its full intimidating, pearly-white spectacle of a million feathers. The beneather rams himself, shoulder first, into the mouth of the valkerax, the countless razor teeth stopped by his sheer strength. I’ve held that same mouth open, once, as best I could, with all my desperate hunger-strength, and I could barely hold it aloft a few inches.

Malachite holds it above his head, fully open.

“Now!” he bellows at me, every muscle in his wiry body beating out against his paper skin.

I’m not Fione. I can’t make a shot with any accuracy, especially not at a target that’s writhing in incredible pain, and Malachite knows that. He holds open the valkerax’s mouth, the soft pink throat lining ripe just beyond him, below him. But if I miss—

He’s counting on me not to miss.

He’s trusting me.

Evlorasin’s five white eyes flicker to me, the lower left one bloodied and burst, and in that moment it’s never been clearer to me that we are chained by the same thing.

Hunger.