“All my friends are safe—far away from you,” I snapped. “Be gone!”

And with a cackle, the abiku obliged, bursting into a cloud of flies and vanishing in a swarm down the opposite corridor.

Once the creature was gone, I collapsed against the damp cavern wall, trembling with relief and anger. Had this been what Old Mongwe’s warning was about? Before vanishing into the sky, she had said not to trust something—or someone. Perhaps the false Zuri had been the obstacle she feared.

I charged on down the correct path, steps buoyed by my victory over the Underworld spirit. This time, I stopped for nothing, not even a distant voice that sounded strangely like Ye Eun, or a shriek of a water phoenix, echoing through the caverns behind me.

After another round of day-long hours, I emerged from the tunnels and found myself standing on the ledge of a vast canyon. To my surprise, there seemed to be a sky here—or something like it. A deep emerald zenith twinkled overhead in either direction, as far as the eye could see. The smell of sulfur remained, but it combined with something organic—pungent and sweet, like decaying leaves on a forest floor. The canyon was so deep, I could not see the bottom. A stone bridge stretched across the chasm. It was wide—hundreds of yards across—but purposely unfinished: a formidable gap yawning in its center.

I clenched my fists. Ye Eun had prepared me for this. All I had to do was walk across—and to fill the gap, I need only answer a question.

My sandal touched the smooth, bone-white stone of the bridge—and I gulped. Every single step echoed through the canyon. Hurriedly, I made my way to the gap, muttering the names of my Anointed Ones like an incantation. “Ji Huan. Beatrix. Min Ja, Kwasi, Danai . . .”

I peered over the edge of the gap . . . and voices roared up from the deep. Husky, ancient voices shook the stone beneath me, rattling the drums in my ears.

“WELCOME, WURAOLA.”

I wet myself.

Dozens of beasts, each the size of a small house, emerged from the darkness in a cloud of wings, fur, and claws. They landed with a whoomp on the bridge, surrounding me in a semicircle. Woo In had been right.

There were far more Deaths than thirteen.

“Well, girl,” they rumbled as one. “What have you to ask the beasts of Warlord Fire?”

The sight of them awoke something primal in me: the pure, manic revulsion that every living thing held for death before its time. My nerves demanded that I run, and I heartily agreed with them. But still I stood firm, summoning my training from Ye Eun.

Remember that you need not die.

“Th-Thank you,” I bleated after regaining control of my voice. “I . . . I need to pass. P-Please, kind beasts.”

The beasts roared again, shaking, and I realized after a stunned moment that they were laughing.

“She calls us kind,” rasped a beast with hair like bristles. Its scaly tongue smoldered, a dying coal, and flicked the creature’s eyes as it spoke. “Death is often kind, to those exhausted by the boon of living. Are you exhausted, Wuraola?”