“I hope the giant crushes him,” Ayla said. “Does the giant crush him?”

“Yes,” said Crier. “The giant crushes him. He dies with his pockets full of gold. And at the next sunset, when the giant awakens and steps out of her crater, she sees the man’s body. She realizes what happened. And she mourns him.”

“I like that story,” said Ayla. “It’s very—” She cut off with a yelp when Crier grabbed her wrist, yanking both of them backward. “Crier, what—?”

“Dinara!” Crier screamed, her voice tearing through the silence of the clearing. “Dinara, look out!”

The warning came just in time. Half a second later, something burst out from behind one of the rocks, a dark blur of movement so quick Ayla couldn’t immediately tell what it was. But then it made contact with Dinara—or rather, her sword—and Ayla saw it was . . .

To be honest, she still wasn’t quite sure. An Automa? But wrong. Its skin was grayish and bloodless, somehow leached of color, yet its veins were clearly visible even from thirty feet away, snaking black lines all over its naked body. Its head was covered in bald patches, like clumps of hair had been violently ripped out. This had to be one of the monsters Storme had seen. One of the monsters Ayla had been sent away to investigate, what seemed a million years ago, before she’d been reunited with Crier and started off on the search for the Heart. A Shade.

Dinara’s sword had pierced clean through the Shade’s torso, tip poking out the other side. Even an Automa should have been incapacitated by such a wound. But as Ayla watched, horrified, the monster started wriggling from side to side like a fish on a hook, hands coming up to grip the sides of the sword. Black blood ran down its wrists, down its front, and still it kept moving. Dragging itself backward off the sword.

The rebels seemed paralyzed by shock. But then Dinara, wrestling her weapon out of the monster’s bleeding hands, yelled, “Ready your weapons, you fools!” and they sprang into action, just as another monster leaped down from an overhang of rock far above their heads, landing hard. If it were human, a landing like that would’ve shattered both its legs. But the Shade didn’t even pause before surging to its feet, lunging at the nearest rebel.

“Crier!” Dinara yelled. She ran for them, circling the fight, and the second she was close enough she hurled something through the air: something small and metallic, flashing in the sunlight. The Iron Compass. It landed a few paces from Crier’s feet. “Take it!” said Dinara, even as she rounded on the second Shade. “Take it and run!”

Crier didn’t hesitate. She snatched the compass off the ground and turned back to Ayla. “Come on!”

“But the others—”

“If you try to fight them, you will get yourself killed!” Crier said. “A dagger can’t stop them. The only thing that can kill them is fire, a lot of it. Enough to completely destroy their bodies. We can’t help, we need to run, we can’t lose the compass!”