Henry froze. He should do . . . what? His gaze found the rim of the ledge, inches ahead, and the floor beneath that was crawling with rats. His heart hammered—and not from adrenaline.

Only a few days ago, Henry would jump from such and far greater heights for fun. But suddenly, the thought of free-falling and depending on a flier to catch him made his throat lump with fear.

As soon as he processed this, he wanted to slap himself. What was he, a coward? He was Henry, the Prince of Regalia, and he was not afraid of falling. He loved falling as much as he loved flying.

Henry angrily wiped his hands on his shirt, fighting to steady his breathing. His gaze met Thanatos, then the rats, and he knew there was no other way. They had already spotted him, and he barely scrambled up to dodge the first claw.

Henry scooted to the side, finding a spot to stand, and pressed his back against the wall. He could barely make himself look down. How would he find the courage to jump? It was not about falling; it was about being caught, he told himself. And he would be caught by the flier who had caught him last time.

Henry refused to think of the many times Ares had caught him before he had let him fall and about how this flier was not his bond, not even his friend. He had no real obligation to catch him at all. And yet, he would have to risk it.

With one last glance in the flier's direction, Henry swallowed the vexing fear, clenched his fists tighter around the belt prongs, and leaped.

Even though Thanatos caught him as quickly as he could, taking into account that he also had to dodge all gnawers on the way, Henry's head spun with panic by the time he could cling to the flier's fur.

Henry let out an enraged string of curses, and Thanatos' ears twitched. "I greet you too," he said mockingly.

"Not you!" cried Henry, grateful for the distraction, almost missing the large, cream-colored gnawer that took a flying leap at them. He registered the wide-open mouth with the saber-like teeth, and he knew there wasn't enough time to draw his sling. Instead, he grabbed one of the stones and flung it directly into the rat's mouth. It shrieked and twisted, and Thanatos veered so sharply to dodge that Henry barely held on, cursing again.

"Not bad."

Only on the side did Henry realize that this had just been a compliment. Then a sudden jerk nearly knocked him off Thanatos' back again. He cried, almost dropping the sling, and caught a glimpse at the cream-colored rat he thought he'd put out of action; it had evidently spat out the rock and dug a claw into one of Thanatos' legs.

The flier cried in pain from both the claw in his leg and the following collision with the floor. Henry was flung off Thanatos' back, and sharp pain speared his shoulder when he landed on it. The impact dazed him; his vision blurred, and he remained lying still, suddenly convinced that he hadn't the strength to move anymore. Every inch of his body ached, and his head spun. All he wanted was to be home, in his bed, laughing at this odd, twisted nightmare. Henry closed his eyes. He wanted to wake up.

Instead, something yanked him up by the collar, and when Henry flung his eyes open, he stared into the face of the cream-colored gnawer. "You ruined our fun, human pup; now you die!"

The livid hatred in his voice made Henry flinch; he instinctively raised his hands to cover his face. That's when he remembered the belt prongs. With no hesitation, he balled his right hand into a fist and rammed the prong directly into the gnawer's yellow eye.

The rat shrieked in pain and released Henry, who, fueled by adrenaline and desperation, managed to land on his feet, duck, and dodge out of the way of all claws and tails, scanning the room for Thanatos.

When he finally spotted him, he weaved and bolted through the ensuing chaos toward the flier, who fought for himself ferociously with claws and teeth; only on the side did he register that something ripped through the silk of his sleeve, then sliced across his cheek. Hot wetness ran down his face and into his collar but the pounding adrenaline drowned out the pain. He had to get back to Thanatos, Henry thought, and numbly wiped his face. His hand came away stained with red. Then he'd be safe.

He scraped together every ounce of will he possessed and leaped, loading and shooting one of the last stones he had for his slingshot. "Fly!" he cried. "Fly!"

As soon as he spotted Henry, Thanatos let out a high-pitched, harrowing battle cry and spun, spreading his enormous wings. "You shoot, I fly," he hissed back.

Henry stuffed his last stone into his sling and leaped onto the flier's back, firing it directly over his head at a massive gray rat ready to assault them.

Then they were in the air. A wave of relief washed over Henry until it was replaced by confusion—Thanatos wasn't heading for any of the grounded exit tunnels. Instead, he aimed toward the spot from where Henry had fired his first two stones.

Before Henry had time to voice any concerns, Thanatos hissed, "Duck!" and dipped into the narrow shaft. In the blink of an eye, he pulled in his wings, using only the momentum he had previously gained to propel himself forward.

Henry barely managed to do as he had said, and the ceiling still grazed the tips of his hair. When they shot out of the tight opening, Thanatos crashed onto the floor, panting heavily. Henry saw well enough that the flier was in no condition to fly for much longer, but he also heard the battle cries of the gnawers, who seemed to have spread out in search of them.

"We must go," Henry urged while retrieving the belt he'd used to climb down and attempting to assess the severity of the flier's injuries. "They will find us if we stay. They will smell your blood."

"Yours too," Thanatos hissed.

"I am not the matter of concern here." Henry wiped at his bloodied face angrily and realized that his exposed silken sleeve was dripping with blood too.

The flier's jaw clenched in pain but he nonetheless signaled Henry to mount up again. As soon as he had, the flier flung himself in the air almost defiantly, darting into the other exit that led away from the cave.

On his back, Henry despaired. He racked his brain for a way to escape, but he knew they would not truly escape as long as they were bleeding. His own cuts were so shallow he thought they were negligible; Thanatos' injuries were far more severe and he needed to do something about that, or his rescue attempt would have been in vain.

Henry blew out a frustrated breath and dared shut his eyes for a moment. It was not over. Still not over.

***

Henry wagered they had flown for no longer than ten minutes when the tunnel crossed a different part of the river they had camped at earlier.

As soon as he spotted the water, Henry told Thanatos to land. "We must do something about your bleeding, or they will follow us to the ends of the earth."

Even the stubborn flier had no response to that. To Henry's surprise and joy, he obeyed, landing on the bank with little grace. Henry slid off his back, and when he assessed the flier's condition, he found it hard not to allow his spirits to plunge.

How did he even lift himself in the air like this? He thought, knowing they would not be able to proceed unless he did something about Thanatos' injuries—now.

Henry ignored the sting of his own cuts. He made an effort to not let his insecurity shine through as he approached the flier, who retreated and hissed as soon as he guessed what he meant to do. Stubborn pride gleamed in his eyes, but all Henry did was glare back.

But where should he even start? Where did one usually start with things like this? He eyed the flier and finally made his decision. "You must let me stitch that wing now." That had to come first. He eyed the huge rip. "You have no choice. If you are careless, you could damage it beyond repair. You will never fly again."

Henry hoped urgently that it wasn't too apparent that he was fishing in murky waters. He had no idea what happened when a rip in a flier's wing wasn't stitched. But he needed to convince him somehow, and if anything, Henry liked to rely on the one power he was familiar with—that of horror stories.

Henry had no idea if it had been his claim or the flier's own common sense, but somehow, something must have gotten through to him. "Do it," he hissed, still sounding offish and proud, but his eyes were misted with pain.

Henry blew out a relieved breath and rinsed his bloodied hands in the river, then fetched his sewing kit. He turned his head in anticipation of the rats, knowing that he had to hurry. Their headstart hadn't been that great. He tried not to let his hands shake as he readied a needle with a thread, desperately trying to remember how to best do this.

"Have you ever even done this before?" Thanatos asked, likely having sensed his uncertainty.

"I . . . well, I think so . . . Maybe once," Henry mumbled without looking at him. He faintly remembered Solovet having him practice on a cloth dummy when he had been around fourteen.

Thanatos gave an offended hiss and Henry rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm not so eager to do this either, but we have no choice."

The flier didn't argue with the truth. He accepted his fate and reluctantly allowed Henry to sit close by his injured wing.

Henry swallowed, trying to steady his hand. An image of Solovet flashed before his inner eye—her doing it many times in front of him and Luxa, and it was only then that he remembered that one should clean the injury first.

He scooted over to the water and ripped another unsullied piece of his shirt. The thin silk tore easily and he eyed it with concern. He wouldn't be able to keep doing this whenever he needed fabric for much longer.

"I have no painkillers, you know that," he warned the flier, who threw him a look that said "Obviously" before he proceeded to clean the rip, then finally readied his needle. Henry took a deep breath and recalled Solovet, the dummy, and the stitch pattern she had had him practice.

For however much Henry imagined it hurt, the flier held remarkably still as the needle went in and out of his wing. After the first few stitches, Henry became more confident and faster. It took him less than a minute to sew up the torn wing and when he then inspected his work, he was even proud of it. It wasn't the most beautiful needlework but it would hold, and that was the point.

"See," he grinned and stood, "I told you that I could wing it."

It took Thanatos a few seconds to react, then he snorted, shaking his head. "Making jokes while someone else is helpless and in pain, are we?"

"You're clearly not helpless!" Henry waved and grinned about his own joke before he went to wash the bloodied cloth. "And if I don't make jokes, I will scream at the top of my lungs until I pass out. Would you prefer that?"

Thanatos didn't protest anymore. He remained surprisingly quiet all while Henry haphazardly cleaned and bandaged up the flier's other injuries, and then finally his own cuts. All in all, it had taken him around five minutes to finish patching them up, which was really all the time they had.

As he worked, Henry found himself regretting how little attention he had usually paid in any classes related to medicine or first aid for the first time. So far, he was doing fine—so he thought—but for how long would that be?

"Should we cross the river, hoping the water will cover our tracks?" Henry asked instead of dwelling on the scary thought and attempted to remove all traces of blood on the floor.

"Take one of the bloodied fabrics and mark the entries of all tunnels with the scent of blood first," Thanatos replied. "It will confuse their noses."

Henry stopped. "That is brilliant." He made a mental note of the strategy . . . and also of the fact that he desperately needed to find his backpack with all the fabrics. Maybe they could go look for that and his weapons soon.

Henry did as Thanatos said with the blood-stained piece of fabric; luckily, there were as many as six tunnels leading away from this cave. He wagered that this trick would buy them the time they needed to escape for good.

When he returned to Thanatos, he caught a glimpse of a fishtail disappearing in his mouth and remembered the painful emptiness of his own stomach. As if he'd read his mind, Thanatos caught a second fish with astonishing ease and flung it at Henry. "There. You can eat on the fly." He finished his own meal and rose. "The furious growling of your stomach could hardly be overheard," he added in response to Henry's bewildered expression.

As soon as they had quenched their thirst, Thanatos readied himself for liftoff. "I can already make out the screams of the gnawers," he said. "They will be here in a few minutes. Let us not let them see where we go with their eyes."

Henry nodded and registered that he could not hear anything yet. They must still be too far away for a human to hear, he thought, and picked up the fish Thanatos had caught for him. Longingly, he glanced at the water, wishing he had a water bag of some sort to take some with him for later. But of course, that, too, was in his lost backpack.

Henry sighed and climbed on Thanatos' back, who flung himself in the air at once—with noticeably less difficulty this time. There was little to do other than stare into the darkness as they flew. Henry registered that Thanatos was constantly shifting from tunnel to tunnel, probably to even further confuse any possible pursuers, so he didn't even try to memorize the lay of the land, especially with how utterly blind he was in the dark.

Instead, he played with the fish Thanatos had caught for him, and, for the first time, he asked himself how he was supposed to eat it "on the fly". It wasn't cooked, and he had no means of lighting a fire.

When he finally asked Thanatos, some five minutes into the trip, the flier broke into laughter. "We are in the rat's land. Be glad there is consumable food in your hand at all."

"You mean to eat it raw?" Henry poked the cold, dead fish in his hand with disgust.

"Unless the food is not meeting the standards of our fine Prince? I shall, of course, relay his complaints to the chef at once."

Henry froze, forgoing even to respond to the mockery. "You know that I'm—"

"Prince Henry of Regalia?" Thanatos cut him off. "It was an educated guess based on the rumors those gnawers told about a Prince Henry and my own assumption that it is unlikely to meet two humans out here with the same name and at the same time."

Henry's mouth snapped shut. He swallowed repeatedly, fighting the sudden surge of anxiety. "What other rumors did they tell?" he eventually asked. "How much do you know about . . . why I'm out here?" He had to find out if there was any point in trying to keep secrets from the flier.

"The essentials, I believe?" Thanatos said. "They claimed that King Gorger persuaded Prince Henry of Regalia to lead the Overland warrior from Sandwich's Prophecy of Gray into his hands in exchange for some promises."

"Hey, there is a little more to it than that!" Henry hissed.

"I figured," Thanatos replied. "It may interest you that Gorger planned to double-cross and kill you, had your plan succeeded. He meant to reign supreme over both territories."

Henry swallowed. And there is the last bit of evidence that I was a naive fool, he thought bitterly. So they promised you a throne, did they? Ripred's words rang in his mind. Really, Henry, you are not fool enough to believe they will deliver it.

His insides writhed with defiant anger. He didn't want Ripred to have been right; he was an asshole. Henry dug his nails into the fish so hard that he almost destroyed it. This was the rat who had mocked him, belittled him, and finally pushed him at Gorger until he had stepped on his tail. Go, go, go, go. Stand with your friends.

Henry didn't know why Ripred's mockery had bothered him so much—more than anyone else's. Three-point arc, and this is no time to test my authority, pups! I'm not a pup, he thought, and I'll test the authority of anyone I want any time I see fit. "Ripred can go to hell."

Henry didn't realize that he had spoken the last part aloud until Thanatos' ears twitched. "Did you just say "Ripred"?"

"He was with us on the quest, the one with the Overland warrior." Henry paused. "He told me I was a fool to believe Gorger would—" Then he cut himself off. "Wait, how do you know Ripred?"

"We outcasts know about each other most of the time," Thanatos replied. "Especially if it is one so formidable as the Raging Rat. We worked together a few years ago but then parted ways. Neither of us is eager for too much company. Still, he was one of the most reliable allies I ever had since living in the Dead Land."

"He's an asshole, is what he is," Henry mumbled. He made a dismissive face, but before his inner eye, he saw the huge gnawer with the scar on his face flinging the sword out of his hand with a flicker of his tail. As much as it shamed Henry to admit it, a part of him was glad he had never truly had to face Ripred in battle.

"Well, I can't really say you're wrong." Thanatos laughed. "He has his own charm. He went on a quest with you, you say? So he is still friendly with Regalia, then?"

"Apparently." Henry knew that Ripred was friendly with Vikus and Solovet. "Only with a few humans, as far as I know."

To his relief, Thanatos didn't ask him to elaborate and Henry forced his thoughts away from Ripred. Why was he even thinking of the rat now? With some luck, he would never see him again.

"Oh, this reminds me," Henry spoke up again, laughing nervously. "We should avoid crossing paths with him. He may not be so happy to see me."

"Is that so?"

"Well." Henry hesitated, then confessed: "I was working with Gorger, and I knew that he wanted Ripred dead." Henry recalled the one conversation about Gorger's enemies . . . They had warned him about traitor gnawers. Ripred had been at the top of that list. He hadn't expected to ever see him in person—or any of them—but . . . "See, I kind of . . . maybe tried to kill him in his sleep once?"

Henry didn't know what he had expected, but certainly not laughter. "Oho!" Thanatos exclaimed. "And you are still breathing, even standing? Well, that is what I call destiny being certain about whether you should live or die."

Henry barely listened. He was already pondering whether this reveal had any effect on Thanatos' opinion of him or his chances of getting the flier to team up, as he had decided. "So, you know why I cannot return to Regalia now?" he started.

Before he could finish, Thanatos cut him off: "What am I going to do with that information?" The flier seemed to have a curious talent for guessing his thoughts. "Nothing."

"What?"

"Well . . ." Thanatos paused as if carefully considering his words. "As you already said, all the information I currently have is a handful of scattered rumors spread by gnawers. It would not be fair to judge you solely based on those. Whatever it is that you have done, I will assume that you had your reasons. You do not seem like a villain for villainy's sake."

Henry had no reply. He wasn't rendered speechless easily, but then, he had no words. He was not a villain? If he was not a villain, what was he?

"And besides," Thanatos resumed. "It is not really my place to judge anyone who ends up stranded out here. Not if I expect the same courtesy from them."

So that was his price. Henry made a face. As glad as he was about the flier's promise not to judge . . . this meant that he wouldn't share anything about himself—where he had come from or why he was an outcast. The flier had pried into Henry's past without asking, and now he had no grounds upon which to return the favor. How was that fair?

"And besides," Thanatos spoke into his thoughts, "your punishment for your treason is that you are here now. I don't think there is any need for me to add anything to this sentence."

Henry swallowed. Sentenced to . . . death by exile. He could envision this as one of the punishments he might face, had he been brought back to Regalia. All his supposed death had done was allow him to skip the trial. Sentenced to death . . . No, Henry suddenly thought. Sentenced to exile. Before he had actually ended up here, he had thought of the two as synonymous. But what if they weren't?

The essence of his challenge flared in his mind: survive. And what if he did?

Henry attempted to remember if he had ever heard of anyone surviving in exile and couldn't, off the top of his head. Well, actually, there was Thanatos now. And even if there would not be anyone . . . he shrugged. That nobody had ever done it didn't mean he couldn't do it. There was nobody to tell him otherwise.