Kevin’s comforting arms wrapped around his sister’s sobbing shoulders. Kayla’s heart burst apart like a floodgate, releasing all the grief and sorrow she’d bottled up for months.

“Hey, don’t cry too hard, the bog will flood,” Kevin whispered. He gave Kayla’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“Sorry.” Kayla wiped at her cheeks. “I can’t believe it’s you. Y-you’re alive.”

“Of course,” Kevin said. “Did you expect something else?”

Kayla chuckled softly. Her ever-confident brother always found a way to spin scenarios in a positive way. “You’ve been gone five months. The journey to the Challenges from him should only have taken you a week.” The Challenges was a series of rigorous traps and perils designed to test one’s worth. If you could survive the Challenges, you were worthy enough to retrieve the Jewel of Laridal and find a way off world. Whatever that way happened to be.

Kevin sighed. “I haven’t even reached the Jewel of Laridal, Kayla. I’ve failed you.”

“No,” Kayla shook her head, “you haven’t failed me. We’ll do it together.”

“Kayla, it’s too dangerous. The first challenge nearly cost me my life.”

“The Challenges have never had a duo journey through them,” Kayla countered. “We could defeat this once and for all. For our people.”

Kevin shook his head, a few tears slipping down his cheek. “No, I can’t run the risk of losing you. I’ve seen the Challenges. It would take a weapon mastery beyond our capabilities to best them. We don’t stand a chance.”

Kayla could feel the agony rising up within her. She was so desperate to shake the evil red dust off this planet off her feet and be restored to the Upper Realm. To prove once and for all the king wasn’t wrong for choosing her as the prince’s bride. She would do anything to regain the approval and affection of the king. As for the prince…well, she couldn’t say much about him. She’d never met him, but if he was anything like his father, she didn’t want him. What kind of king would banish his people because of their increasing might and power? With no warning whatsoever? One moment, she saw the king as the loving father-figure, then the next moment, he authoritatively banished her along with her people.

These paradoxical emotions fizzled inside of her as she pondered the king. His actions were like those of a raptor once it caught the scent of blood. Kind and gentle until it turned savage. The louder half of her wanted nothing to do with the king. He had exiled her people here without a second thought. But deep down, the meeker half yearned and ached to just rest once more in the king’s palace of safety, where life was blissful and nobody had a care in the world. If only she hadn’t…

“Kayla!” Kevin said, shaking her. “Snap out of it! We have to move.”

Kayla’s mind jerked back to reality. Kevin had positioned himself on the branch between her and an eerie set of yellow eyes. An Onkron.

“Where did that come from?” Kayla muttered. The Onkron edged itself closer to them, daring to reach closer to Kevin’s outstretched blade.

“It had you under its spell.” Kevin growled. “But why you? Why not me?”

The Onkron creeped closer, its eerie hissing emanates from its shadowy form. This wasn’t Kayla’s first encounter with an Onkron, and she was certain it wouldn’t be her last. Like lightning, she whipped her bow off her shoulder and released an arrow over Kevin’s shoulder. The arrow sunk deep into the Onkron, and the Onkron vanished in a scream of frustration.

“Why me?” Kayla repeated. “Because I’m the most powerful common folk warrior ever to walk the face of Rarogan. I’ve slain over thirty Onkrons and have crept out of their spells three times on my own. I guarantee you we can pass the Challenges. And if we can reach the Jewel of Laridal, we can share with my people.”

“Reminiscing on the glory days?” Kevin said bitterly. “The days when you gave up our home in the Upper Realm?”

Her brother’s words stung bitterly, and she bit back angry tears. “We all made our own choice.”

“Yet, yours was the first.” Kevin nodded at the ground. “Wolf is still here, so we’ll climb from tree to tree until we leave the forest behind.”

“We’re going to the Challenges,” Kayla said, a glimmer of past authority ringing in her accented voice. “We will make it through together. I–”

“Don’t say it.”

“I promise I am defeating these Challenges. Whether you want to come or not is irrelevant, but I could use your help.”

Kevin dragged his hand along his face. He knew as well as Kayla that she kept all her promises. All except that one. The one that mattered most.

“Fine. But I’m coming with you.”