Henry wiped his face on his sticky sleeve. He had done it, he thought. He had overcome the fear. And the only one who had been holding him back had been he himself.

There, in the sand, he could, for the first time since the leap into the waterway, think rationally again. And even though his irrational fear was gone . . . As he surveyed his environment, his common sense told him that his current situation absolutely warranted fear: he was alone on an unknown island, with nothing to eat, limited water, and no means to get back to the mainland that loomed as a shadowy cliff in the distance.

But no, Henry eyed the horizon; he wasn't stuck. He had swum here earlier, and he could swim back. Except, what would he do then? Look for Thanatos? Was that not a hopeless venture? Because—where would he start?

Those spinners had acted like professionals; they would not have wasted any time. Wherever they had taken the flier, Henry thought he stood no chance of ever tracing them. That and . . . it was likely that whatever fate they had intended for Thanatos, he had already met it. And . . . Henry stared anxiously at the looming mainland in the distance. If he didn't find Thanatos again, what would he even do?

The moment Henry processed what he had just thought, he wished to slap himself. What would he do? Henry scoffed. He would be fine.

Sure, his situation was pretty dire, but the only thing he could do that was certain to not improve it was sit around and pity himself. Henry got to his feet, dusting sand off his pants. His situation was one thing, but he wasn't the unprepared prince who had rarely set foot outside his city that he had been four months ago anymore. He was Henry, who had studied under Teslas for months to prepare for a situation exactly like this. He had worked hard to acquire skills and knowledge that would aid him. He had his equipment and his notes. He would be fine . . . Because he didn't need the protection of others to survive anymore.

As the thought sank in, it overwhelmed him with a rush of confidence. He had worked hard to feel self-sufficient; it was about time to put that new knowledge to good use. He was as ready as he'd ever be. And when the moment came, you hid your cowardly ass in a cave, like a weakling, he scolded himself. At least nobody had seen him back in there.

Henry straightened out his back and tugged his coat into place. No more pointless panic or overthinking. When had he turned into an overthinker? He wouldn't be afraid. He would get off this stupid island, and he would survive—all on his own, just as he had been meaning to. It was time to turn theory into practice and gain the only thing he still lacked—experience.

He shoved the numb anxiety that had formed a lump at the bottom of his stomach cavity down . . . just as he always had before exile. He hadn't let it impact him before, and he wouldn't start now. What he needed was to focus on the present and on what he could do. On his confidence.

Henry forced himself to linger on the thought that he actually felt confident in his ability to survive now, instead of the anxiety. He had his challenge, and he would not lose. I won't just survive; I will be successful, he thought. Just as he had promised to Thanatos.

Henry didn't let himself dwell on the fact that he would have to find the flier again to tell him about his success. Instead, he slowly started making his way along the coastline. He decided to do a circumvention of the island to get an idea of what he was dealing with. The dim glow of the water sufficed to guide him. And if a monster came out to attack him now—Henry dared a peek at the mountain—he would fight. Except he wouldn't have enough time to light his sword.

He hadn't given Teslas' goodbye promise much thought, but having a quicker way to dispense the Ignifer suddenly appeared incredibly tempting. Its big disadvantage was that he had to apply it preemptively before any kind of attack.

Henry stopped, pondering whether he should do so now, but then decided against it. His Ignifer supply was limited, and his common sense won over his fear; the chance of needing it was so much slimmer than that of not needing it. There was nothing he could do about that.

***

The odds betrayed Henry after he had already made it to the other side of the island. He heard the unmistakable screech before he saw the source. In the split second before the bared talons of the gnawer would have beheaded him, he dropped to the ground.

"A human?! Here? And all alone?!" exclaimed the rat, somewhere to his left.

"A snack!" replied another. "I'm feeling peckish anyway!"

A string of mocking slanders followed, and Henry's mindless panic instantly returned. He barely scrambled up; he would have internally complained about the traitorous odds, but there was no time. Among all the monsters his imagination had conjured up earlier, the one kind he hadn't expected to encounter on this no-man's island were the gnawers.

Something dull struck his head and catapulted him fifteen feet forward. He saw stars and gasped when the fall pressed all air out of his chipped lungs. From the corner of his eye, Henry caught two silhouettes sprinting toward him.

"Just what I was thinking," one snarled. "He is but a pup. He won't put up much of a fight!"

Henry rolled off, scrambled to his feet in the last moment, and drew his sword in the same breath. He drew it, knowing perfectly well that he stood not even the slightest chance against not only one but two gnawers—on foot. Like most humans, Henry had never even fought a single gnawer by himself. But in order to live—to win his challenge—he would have to try anyway, and he would have to win. Because now it was either kill them both or die.

The realization plunged into him, and only with utmost self-control did he prevent panic from overtaking him. Henry let out a string of curses and sliced in the direction of the gnawers at random, knowing that the only chance he had was some kind of trick or strategy.

Henry combed his blank mind desperately and almost ran into the stone wall that bordered the beach. Distant laughs and taunts rang behind him. "Hassel, would you look at that? He thinks he can run!"

"Come out, pup, come out, and we might even make your death quick!"

Henry knew perfectly well that he could not outrun the gnawers. Their overconfidence, or maybe the fact that they simply enjoyed toying with him, was the only reason he was still alive.

But Henry ran anyway, for the lack of more sensible options. He kept his hand on the wall, so as not to lose it, and stumbled forward into the darkness. The laughter behind him swelled. Henry blocked it out and focused on running. Moments later, he shrieked as the wall gave way, revealing a narrow crack barely wide enough to squeeze through. He didn't think; he dove in . . . at the last second.

Behind him, the gnawers' claws hit the stone with a horrible scrape. Their cries as they realized the crevice was too tight for them to follow nearly deafened him.

"You can't stay in there forever!" one cried, working the rock with his talons. "Come out before we come in and get you!"

"Get you! Get you!" Their voices echoed from the walls, distorting until Henry was barely able to make out the words. He knew they would be right . . . if he were anyone but the one with a substance that allowed him to light his sword on fire.

A grin spread on his face as he shook off his backpack and pulled out the Ignifer. Within less than a minute, he was ready to ignite his sword, but the gnawers still blocked the exit. They were constantly pushing each other out of the way to peek inside and reach in with bared talons.

For a moment, Henry was stumped, but then his free hand grasped a loose rock. "Hey, you fleabags out there!" He raised the stone. "He's putting up a fight!"

He tossed the stone through the crack in the wall, directly in between the two. Their shocked cries were followed by more curses, but they darted back . . . and Henry ignited his sword.

The gnawers had no time to process what was going on when Henry leaped out into the open, flaming sword raised above his head. A long, shrill battle cry ripped out of his throat, and he twisted his blade sideways, slashing at them over and over, and finally beginning to spin in a circle.

The gnawers were so confused that they began reeling sporadically . . . vulnerable. Henry didn't hesitate. He ended his circle and seamlessly veered to slit the neck of the gnawer he thought was called Hassel. He went down with a high-pitched screech.

The death of his companion brought the other rat to his senses. He let out a terrifying scream and leaped in Henry's direction, teeth and claws bared, but instinctively twisted away in mid-air when Henry swung the blazing sword.

"You wield fire!"

"Yes, I wield fire!" Henry raised the blade theatrically. "I'd ask you to warn your fellow fleabag friends, but we have no time for that."

Taking advantage of the gnawer's confusion and struggle to decide how to defend against the unusual weapon, Henry quickly found his opening. The gnawer couldn't even scream before the sword pierced his neck, and he dropped at Henry's feet—dead.

He stood over the two bodies, his burning sword still in hand, panting from the fight. Only then did he realize that he had just taken out two gnawers—on foot and on his own.

A wave of fresh pride and confidence hit Henry, and he grinned ear-to-ear, finally breaking into hysteric laughter. He only stopped laughing when his mind had caught up so much that he began wondering where the gnawers had come from . . . and if there were more around.

He quickly scanned his surroundings and decided they couldn't have lived here, or there would be more providing backup. But what had they been doing here? And . . . would more follow soon?

Henry was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't notice the numerous shadows gathering around him. They appeared out of every crevice and from behind every rock until he was surrounded. When he finally caught onto the feeling of being watched and raised his head, Henry froze in surprise.

Around him and the bodies, keeping a safe distance, cowered half a dozen crawlers. They stared at him motionlessly, as if too intimidated to approach, until a single individual left the crowd and raised its voice: "Save us, the Wielder of Light will? Save us?"

***

The only sound since Henry had extinguished his sword was the quiet breaking of waves on the beach, only a few yards from the corpses. Maybe five minutes had passed, and he was sitting on a rock close to the water, surrounded by the flock of crawlers who still reverently stared at him.

Utterly mortified, he had understood the shadows he had been scared of earlier had been these very same crawlers, as there was nobody else on the island who wouldn't have instantly tried to kill him on sight—or so they claimed.

Well, at least nobody had been there to see him, and Henry had quickly decided to bury that whole night in the furthest depths of his memory. Should anyone ever find out he'd had a panic attack over some crawlers, he'd be done in . . . utterly and completely.

"So—from the top." He eyed who appeared to be the spokesman of the crawlers crossly. "From what in the what now did you expect me to save you?"

"Gnawers are coming, they are," said the crawler. "To seize the island, they are coming. We live here in peace, now gnawers want to take the island, they want."

"More gnawers," repeated Henry, unable to suppress the rising unease. "Who mean to . . . wait what? What would the gnawers do with this pile of dirt?"

The crawler twitched his antennas. "Conquer the island, they mean to, conquer it. Because . . . Goldfang told them, she did. Goldfang united the gnawers in region, united. Has taken the light from many, she has, now she wants ours too, she wants."

"Goldfang." Henry frowned; he could have sworn he had heard that name before, yet he couldn't for the life of him recall when or where. "So, this Goldfang is the one who seeks to acquire this island?"

He wondered if she was one of the new rival leaders who had emerged after Gorger's death. No successor had taken his crown, so much even he and Thanatos had noticed during Henry's first month in exile. The gnawers seemed to have split between themselves, following whoever had enough guts and charisma to lead.

Henry presumed Goldfang was their local ringleader, but the more he thought about it, he realized that her name seemed familiar to him from before exile. Perhaps she had been someone important even prior to Gorger's death?

Either way—he decided, it mattered little. All that mattered now was that she, for whatever reason, had her eyes set on this island. Henry suspected that not even the crawlers knew why. Maybe she wanted it for political influence or demonstration of power, maybe she thought it would make a nice and easy-to-defend base camp, or maybe she just wanted it for fun. Who could ever strive to understand the mind of a gnawer?

Henry tore his eyes away from the flame and stared at the two corpses. "And those two . . . were they some kind of scouts, then?"

"That is most likely them, most likely."

Well, this was just great. Henry dug his hand into the sand. If they had been scouts and didn't return to Goldfang, she would likely soon send more in their stead. He had to get a move on.

"Well, that is unfortunate news for the lot of you," said Henry, standing up and dusting the sand off his coat. "Many thanks for the warning. I shall get out of here before more of them appear." It looked like swimming back it was.

The crawlers around him began murmuring quietly, apparently surprised. Henry paid them no mind; he had already taken a step toward his backpack when one of them suddenly stood in his way.

"You are Wielder of Light," said the crawler. "You have saved citadel from cutters, have you not?"

"Oh . . . that. Yes, well—" Henry rolled his eyes. How had news of that even traveled so fast? "That is what your friends called me, yes."

"So, will the Wielder of Light not save us too, will not save us?"

Henry's mouth snapped shut. However you may call it, Cevian spoke in his head, you are their savior now. And, for the rest of your life, you will be the boy with the flaming sword who led the crawlers into victory against an army of cutters. Whether you like it, or not. He hadn't expected she had meant it this literally. Or, more specifically, he had hoped.

"Fine, I suppose I did save your friends over there," Henry said. "That I did it once, and that you gave me a fancy name for it, does not mean I am obligated to go out of my way and save every last crawler in the Underland."

The crawlers exchanged glances. When they did not respond immediately, Henry rolled his eyes again. He fumbled with the handle of Mys. "Look," he said eventually. "Even if I wanted, what could I do by myself against an entire gnawer invasion? I am an excellent warrior, but not a miracle worker."

"You worked miracles at the citadel, you did."

"I—" Henry broke off. He had no response to that. What he had pulled off at the citadel had bordered on a miracle, if he was being honest.

Still, from the way they looked, Henry thought the crawlers understood that he wouldn't do them a favor out of the goodness of his heart. They whispered between themselves for a while, then the leader addressed him again: "If you help us, we give you something back, we give you."

Only then did Henry perk up. "Give . . . Like what?"

"You are human, you are," said the crawler. "We trade much with humans. We can give you that. We can give grain, and fuel, and medicine, we can."

Grain. Fuel. Medicine. Medicine! Although he didn't need it while living in the colony, Henry had neglected to realize the importance of obtaining real medicine before departing—actual disinfectants, painkillers . . . and who knew what else these crawlers could offer him?

He stared at the crawler for a few moments and suddenly knew that his decision had been made. For what they offered, he would do far crazier things than take on a mere gnawer invasion . . . for the sake of crawlers, yet again.

"Fine." Henry sighed. Despite his best hopes, risking his life on their behalf, even if only indirectly, was actually becoming a thing now. "So . . . what exactly am I up against, and where do I begin?"

***

Today was as good a day as any to die. Henry recalled the rules he'd made all the way back, shortly after his exile. At the colony, he'd felt so safe that he hadn't needed them, but now he found it appropriate to bring them back.

His challenge to survive—to live—still weighed heavier. But should he die today, he'd die fighting, not hiding like a coward. That was, at this point, the only requirement he had for death.

Two days had passed since Henry had agreed to help the crawlers, and since then he had done anything but sit idle. He stood on the beach, staring at the blanket of mist that crawled over the still surface of the water, so thick that he couldn't make out the coastline anymore.

He thought back to his little camp in a cave on the side of the mountain that faced away from the mainland and the two tally marks he had drawn on the wall—for two more days he had survived. The cave was spacious, well-concealed, and even had an opening that sufficed as a flue. It had taken a lot of courage to sleep without anyone to keep watch, but he had been so exhausted that his body had eventually shut down. And, for what he was going up against, Henry needed to be in top shape. And he was going up against something, indeed.

He still sometimes heard the nagging voice of Thanatos, calling him crazy for even attempting this, but . . . crazier things had been done for what the crawlers had promised him.

After some toing and froing, Henry had gotten out of the crawlers that the key to stopping this invasion was to kill Goldfang. She was apparently the sole force driving the gnawers here in a uniform direction; were she to die, their group would fall apart. This made his mission easier . . . but not much. He was not actually going up against them all; instead, he was taking out a singular target. A target that he thought would be well-protected and difficult to reach, but . . . who was he to complain?

Henry snorted. That's how far it had come: he was now taking requests to kill for monetary rewards. But the more he considered it, the more he thought that taking mercenary jobs was perhaps not such a bad way to earn a living in the Dead Land. If this first job went well, of course.

And he had wanted a damn adventure, right? Henry shook his head. He had to stop regretting his own wishes every time they were fulfilled. Taking out a gnawer leader for a promised reward—now that was an adventure, if he had ever heard of one! He would cease complaining and be grateful that he wasn't sitting around idly somewhere instead.

Despite his best intentions to get the job done quickly, he had found himself stuck on only the first step for the past two days—finding a way off the island that didn't require swimming. At first, he had contemplated whether he could even afford to be so picky, but soon decided he could, for the simple reason that he would most likely return here in the future—if only to collect his reward. And he couldn't just keep swimming every time.

And so, his gaze trailed over the beach and past the bodies of the gnawers—if they could even be called bodies anymore—and fixed on the result of his hard work over the last two days: his means to get off the island.

It had taken Henry some willpower to properly loot the corpses, but in the end, he'd had little choice. No other materials were available, and he knew he'd be foolish to refuse only because he was grossed out.

Being elbow-deep in the guts of a formerly living creature had been a new experience—one that he had by no means enjoyed and that, at the same time, had made him considerably more resistant to anything of the sort. Gut was gut and flesh was flesh, whether it was still attached to the body it belonged to or not.

However, without Mys, he would have never accomplished it. His hand flew to the hilt of the dagger at the back of his hip. He did not remember how many times he had praised Teslas for making it and himself for cutting it off in what little time had passed. All Henry knew was that he had grown incredibly fond of the dagger over the last couple of days. So much that he had begun to regard it as his most treasured possession—and not because of the gold it held.

Its three blades made it more versatile than any conventional dagger; the metal-coated side blades were perfect for heavy cutting and presumably fighting, although he hadn't done that yet. The middle blade was tailored to be more precise than weighty.

The dagger had served him better than either he or Teslas could have fathomed, Henry thought. He looked over at what had formerly been gnawers—they had been reduced to unrecognizable piles of flesh that he had left on the side, where he didn't have to look at them too much.

His head swiveled back forward after only a few moments. Using the bones as a structure, he had carefully draped the parched skin over them, binding it with both rope and tendons to craft a fine little boat.

Henry gazed at it in front of him, then at the paddle that he had made out of a skull and some thigh bones, and found that the boat was silently taunting him for hesitating. He had tested it earlier, and it worked like a charm. It was very modest in size, but that was probably for the best. The smaller he was, the harder he would be detected, no?

With a silent sigh, Henry tugged at his backpack and sheathed the sword he had sharpened this morning, trying to fire himself up. He had decided to leave only the pot and some of his fabrics behind on the island.

Now he had packed, slept, eaten—the rat meat, for lack of other food, which he had found to be not any worse than raw fish, at least when cooked—and finished his work. He scrutinized the boat one last time, and it occurred to him that he should use the mist to his advantage, to hide in it.

However, there was one last thing he needed to do before embarking on this hunt—a hunt for a rat. If he did not take care, he would be smelled out seconds after he'd entered their land.

Henry approached the corpses and sat his backpack down, gazing at the second water bag he had made from the spare skin; it was filled to the brim with rat blood. It's one of the best ways to mask one's scent when traveling in the gnawers' land. This had been the first thing Thanatos had ever taught him . . . and it had been the hard way.

Henry swallowed his disgust and took up the bag. After a last moment of hesitation, he raised it and spilled its contents over his head. A wave of nausea hit him along with the liquid, and the overwhelming reek of blood seeped into his every pore. Just like he had intended, it drenched his hair and clothes, and Henry gagged anyway, fighting to keep his last meal down.

He instinctively shook his head, and the blood sprayed from his hair, dotting the surrounding rocks and sand red. He quickly fetched a clean cloth to at least wipe his stinging eyes and found the experience taking him back to his very first night as an outcast and the horrors he had faced at the bottom of the cliff.

He froze with the cloth in hand. Hadn't he had this same idea back then but lacked the guts to do it? Well, now he did. He wiped his eyes and determinedly swallowed his disgust. There was something to be proud of, no? Thanatos' words, that he was inventive and cunning, surfaced in his mind, and he smiled. Did it take inventiveness to make himself stink like a corpse? Either way—if anything, he was picking up guts. Figuratively and literally.

"I am departing!" Henry stood and called toward the crawlers, who he knew kept a watchful eye on him, despite their efforts to hide behind a rock.

A few had always been there over the last few days, watching him work, and while Henry didn't really understand why they always attempted to be out of sight, he cared too little to ask. As long as they didn't watch him while he slept or bathed, they could do whatever they wanted.

When the blood had finally dried, Henry pulled his hood over his head and thought if he used one of the fabrics he carried as a face covering, he'd be a faceless shadow—unrecognizable, intimidating, and a lot more befitting the image of an outcast mercenary than the narrow-faced, sunken-eyed, no-longer-as-handsome-as-he-had-once-been teenage boy who had stared at him out of a waterfall.

As a final act of goodbye, Henry tossed what had remained of the rats into the water. He didn't care much for their friends finding them like this, covered in his scent. Then he finally took his backpack back up, shouldered the paddle, and kicked the boat into the water, shooting a last glance back at the mountain and the entrance to his cave.

"I shall be back in a few days!" he called in the direction of the crawlers, who had now come out of hiding. He thought their incessant antenna-wiggling was supposed to be them waving him goodbye. "And remember to let the second patrol pass when it comes. I need them!"

With that, he jumped into the boat and propelled himself forward. The last glimpse Henry caught of the island was at the mountain—its peek invisible in the clouds of fog that had formed around it. Then he faced forward and rowed out toward the mainland—to hunt.