“Demon King?” Suspicion tightened Eli’s brows like storm clouds. He gripped the Holy Sword Tias, the cold tip leveled at Edlyn like a winter star.

Edlyn was all cuts and bruises, slumped against the wall like a fallen banner, her face still wearing that old chill and sarcasm. “Since you’ve found me out, kill me or carve me—whatever.”

Eli narrowed his eyes. He drew the blade back a hair, then drove it hard at her throat. Edlyn shut her eyes, despair flooding in like black tide.

Thias struck the spot just beside her neck.

No pain came for a long breath. Edlyn opened her eyes, stunned.

Eli’s smile cracked cruelly, twisted as a thorn vine. He swung sideways at her dazed head and took it clean off.

“Heh. Still gambling on luck? How many times do I have to kill you before it sticks?”

…

“Wuwa!” Edlyn shot up from her blankets, smacked her head on the carriage roof, then collapsed, clutching her skull. She curled into a tight ball. “Ow, ow, ow.”

The curtain snapped aside. Eli stuck his head in, panic sharp as a knife. “What’s wrong?”

Edlyn was draped over the seat in a full-on orz, hands to her head. She glanced up at Eli, bright eyes brimming with two tears. She grit her teeth and sprang from the seat with cat-fast grace.

“Haa!” She kept low, spun a clean one-eighty in the air, and her white-socked little foot lashed for Eli’s face.

Eli froze, too shocked to react. “Holy— a flying kick—!”

“Wait! Edlyn, you— what are you— uaaagh—!”

A moment later Eli lay face-down in the snow outside, playing dead. Edlyn stood over him, hands on her hips, steam-hot with anger.

Just remembering that cold voice and distracted gaze stoked the fire. She threw on her clothes, jumped down from the carriage, and started pounding the “corpse.” “Duel to the death, you creep! I’ll smash your mutt head!”

Eli scrambled up and ran. “Auntie, what did I even do?”

“Son of— you tried to cut me? Cut me? And behead me? I’ll bust your skull!” Edlyn vaulted, landed on his back, and chomped his face.

“Ah!”

Screams rolled over the whole caravan like a storm squall.

“Wow, kiddo, you got a condition or what? Every morning you wake up and whale on me.” Eli wiped the bite mark, drool and all, and grimaced. “Cut you? When did I ever cut you?”

“I… you—” Edlyn choked on it. She couldn’t exactly say “in a past life.”

Eli held up a mirror and kneaded his cheek, pitiful as a wet cat.

Edlyn turned away, a little sheepish. “Fine, fine— I’m sorry, okay?”

“Oh? You can apologize?”

“Hey, don’t push it.”

Roar!

A colossal roar split their bickering. Both of them looked up.

The mountains ahead moved, the earth heaved, and the quake tossed the caravan like leaves in a gale. Wolf mounts flattened, growling as if growls could shoulder back that crushing pressure.

Everyone scrambled down. A white bear as vast as the range itself stood in front of them, eyes unsettlingly human, grin steeped in scorn. “Humans. You still dare come here seeking death?”

Eli blinked and glanced at Tengger, who was standing there awkward as a pole. “Alright, terrific. Time to hear your Plan B, Einstein.”

Tengger shot him a glare, then bowed his head under the weight of everyone’s stare.

Hiri stepped up, amused, shook her head, and bowed. “Bear King, we’re only passing through. We beg your magnanimity. Please let us through.”

The Bear King shrank, sinew folding like drawn cord, and became the bearman who’d chased Eli and the other that day—a burly giant, seven-tenths alike. He laughed. “My offspring were hurt that badly, and you’ve got nothing to say? Don’t make excuses. My clan remembers the scent of those two over there.”

Liqianyu sidled up to Eli and whispered, “Hey, at that size just now, I don’t think one kick would’ve killed him.”

This lunatic.

Eli shook his head, half laughing, half crying. “You didn’t even kill the last one. This thing’s almost a size bigger. Don’t get any ideas.”