Ashyn looked back to see Ronan standing above Gregor’s still body. He stepped aside and plunged his blade into the sand to clean it.

He killed Gregor.

No, he ended Gregor’s suffering. Would you have him leave the man to die a slow, tortured “natural” death?

Ronan looked over. He saw her watching. He hesitated. Then he motioned that he’d gather their belongings when a shape reared up behind him.

“Ronan!” she shouted.

He turned sharply. Too sharply, slipping in the sand, one foot shooting out. She dropped Wenda and raced toward him. Ronan was on one knee, frozen in place. The worm was poised in front of him, swaying back and forth, as if it somehow couldn’t see him.

She heard her sister’s voice, telling her tale to the children.

“Death worms have no eyes. They spend so long in the dark that they have little need of them. Instead, they sense the vibrations of the earth and the currents in the air. So, if you ever meet a death worm—”

“Don’t move!” Ashyn shouted. “It can’t see you if you don’t move.”

She raised her dagger as the distance between them closed. She’d stab it behind the head so it couldn’t whip around and spray her. Use a downward stroke, driving its head down, so it wouldn’t spray Ronan.

Yes, see? I can do this. I just need to think it through—

The worm whipped in her direction.

Think it through . . . and forget the fact that I’m thundering toward a creature that can feel me coming.

The worm shot straight at her. She threw the dagger—a move that would have been so much smarter if she’d accepted any of those dagger-throwing lessons Moria had tried to foist on her.

The dagger sailed harmlessly off to the side as the worm sailed toward her. She froze then. Went completely still and sent up a prayer to the spirits—

The worm seemed to rear up suddenly. Then its head flew, hewed from its body, with Ronan standing behind it, still swinging his blade.

Ashyn watched as the two pieces of the worm twitched on the sand. When they went still, she took a deep shuddering breath as Ronan cleaned his blade.

“We need to go,” she said. “Quickly. Before another comes.”

“That was the same one,” he said, gesturing at the worm.

“What? No. You killed . . .”

She moved forward, being careful not to step in whatever was seeping from the worm’s torso. That torso had both ends cut clean.

She heard Moria whisper, “Beware if you chop off a death worm’s head. It has another in its tail, teeth and all, and it’ll come back. And then you’ll have an even bigger problem, because the part you chopped off? It will—”

Across the campsite, she could see the first head segment twitching. Regenerating.