…and Sau’ipsu drank. It was a savory experience to swim in the prince’s inner turmoil. The heated desperation was like a honey-like succor – intoxicating to whatever “organs” allowed him to “taste”. He could feel the savagery of each hit as he sat within the invisible confines of the Black Arboretum. It was like a twisting maze, a vortex of sorts, shifting like pages in a book. In one instant it was as expansive as a quartz cave, in others it was a cold inferno of logic.

  ‘Oh what an experience to travel the hallucinatory folds of REALITY – places mere mortals confused with alternate realms. Such an intoxicating ignorance was enough to feed the pulses of the young,’ the thoros thought to itself.

  At least when there were many. Now there were few. Shivers ran through his incorporeal form as he flowed through “the branches” searching for the insight his current feast was tethered to.

  Anvara. For a Fenriri, the name held an uncanny resonance.

  Shadows twisted through the hallways as shifting figures – the Arnd’thuul – demons given shape – crawled through the cracks allowed by the space’s former master, Sau’ipsu’s “father”. Drawn by the still fresh echoes of his many victims’ anguished ruminations. Those demonic strays wouldn’t have him or his prey. He slithered through the “walls” skipping through the Eilonhir realms until he crossed into Palka’s “library”. Sauipsu would find the ledger. And from the ledger, he’d be able to grab the piece of information that would sate his curiosity. And from the satisfaction, he would finish his feast before spreading his “hooks” into the web of food waiting at the periphery of his meal unaware of his contagion. Sau’ipsu leaned in and witnessed from within the memory he was feeding on…

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  …as Ronjah “unspooled” the bundle of Rhas fibers he'd spun into his wrist. These weren't literal bundles of fiber or some special organ, but a concept of the flow of Everessence he was harnessing. The Jathka could see his assailant tense as if expecting a telekinetic push, but the grin widening on Ronjah's face informed him too late about the prince’s maneuver. Jumping up to an impossible height he tumbled, barely able to shrug off his fatigue. He bought himself at least a few seconds.

  15 minutes. The lift wouldn't be available for at least 9. Nine more Godforsaken minutes. And Ronjah was still winded from arresting and repairing that cable.

  Almost as if he had given too much. Had saving those bystanders been worth it? After all, not all of them were D’varoan. This island wasn't his yet–

  The thought froze as a heat blossomed as if from his core.

  ‘This was unusual,’ Sau’ipsu thought to himself. Usually this was the perfect gateway to probe. He'd have to jump to a new memory to feed.

  ‘But what fun would life be if he didn't at least challenge himself. Excellence was achieved at the edge,” Ronjah unspooled another bundle, this time iron-calling a familiar club- carved from the ironwoods of Tch’laikhaan’hif, deep in the tree cities of the Root Province.

  Sau'ipsu felt something he hadn't felt in millennia: the feeling of weightlessness before a long and often agonizing fall.

  This wasn't a thought – it was pure sensation bared naked to a chilling stillness.

  Breath was impossible for such an incorporeal being.

  And still, if he had had lungs, they'd be frozen rags.