With her left arm paralysed and sending what felt like electric shocks through the rest of her body, Lira did the only thing she could to save Arden's oblivious behind.

"Behind you!" she yelled, pointing with her good arm.

Arden spun around, bow raised with the charging spirit barely ten metres from him, but the spirit was massive--a wolf almost three times Shari's size, with dark teal fur and a mouth that could swallow any of them whole. One arrow wasn't going to stop it from tearing him apart.

In the split second that he had, Arden seemed to come to the same conclusion. As the wolf lunged, Arden dropped his bow and rolled forward, right under its legs.

By some miracle, it worked. The wolf's charge carried it past him, paws the size of Arden's torso scrabbling on the stone as it dug in its claws and forced itself to a stop. It lifted its head and turned with teeth bared, ready for the second attack when it hesitated. It shook its head, retreating several steps as its tail thrashed behind it, slamming into a nearby tree hard enough to make it shake.

Lira watched it, right hand on the hilt of her hunting knife as her brow creased in a frown.

"I know what happened last night!" Arden called to the wolf, bow once more in hand as he retreated back towards the treeline. The spirit mages had finally realised they were under attack and were running through the undergrowth towards Arden, though the map guy was nowhere to be seen. "I know people tried to trap you, but we're not with them--we're here to destroy the traps and close the Rupture! We're on your side!"

The wolf circled, sharp teeth snapping at empty air until it stepped where the trap Lira had dismantled earlier lay. A high pitched clang rang out over the clearing as two pieces of spiritsteel struck each other.

The change was instant. The feral glint in its gaze sharpened as it lunged, jaw closing around piece after piece of the trap as it sent them flying across the clearing with an agonised howl.

Something was off. Primal spirits could be vicious. They were savage and they were wild, but they weren't just beasts. They were rational in their own way. They didn't go from attacking a threat, to retreating, to thrashing around in a fit of rage with no apparent reason.

The Rupture could wait. Lira needed to find Shari--now.

With the wolf tearing apart what remained of the trap, Lira took her chance and sprinted for the same part of the treeline that the wolf had originally come from, bow slung across her back.

She barely made it halfway when a piece of the spiritsteel trap landed in front of her. She stopped dead and dropped into a crouch, hoping it'd been a coincidence. She wasn't so lucky. The wolf's attention was firmly fixed on her, its lip curled up into a snarl as it took its first step towards her.

It was then that she saw them--pale blue lines etched across the wolf's forehead that looked almost like a broken blood seal, but that was impossible. Blood magic didn't affect spirits, at least not directly, there was no way someone would be stupid enough to--

She shoved the thought out of her head and focused on the wolf, running through her options. If it charged, she wouldn't make it to the treeline. Arden's suicidal roll trick wasn't going to work twice. Her bow was worthless with her left arm still paralyzed at her side.

Paralyzed--not gone, she had to keep telling herself. It was regaining movement--she could twitch her fingers now, but far too slowly to matter.

Two steps. Three.

An arrow buried itself in the side of the wolf's neck. It growled--a low, dangerous rumble that Lira felt echo through her chest--and snapped its feral gaze back to Arden.

"I'm your problem right now!" called Arden, taking a few steps out from the trees, a second arrow knocked and aimed. "Focus on me!"

The wolf lowered its head, its eyes narrowed as if to say, fine, I'll kill you first.

Lira's first few steps towards the trees were slow, cautious, but the wolf was firmly set on Arden. Streaks of lighter, luminescent fur began to glow along its sides. The faint glimmer in its mouth was getting brighter and pointed directly at Arden, who didn't seem to realise what that meant.

"It can spirit blast!" Lira yelled, hoping Arden had heard her as she crashed into the undergrowth.

He had backup. He could survive a few minutes.

Hopefully.

"Shari?" Lira called as she ran through the forest, slashing at anything that got in her way with her hunting knife. Another blast of lightning shot through her arm as blue light flashed from the clearing behind her. She staggered, cursed, and forced herself to keep running. "Shari!"

Arin found her first. The hawk dove out of a nearby tree and hovered in front of her with furious flaps of his wings. With a squawk and the turn of his head, Lira got the message.

"Help Arden," she told him, dashing further into the trees the way he'd indicated. "Make sure he doesn't get himself killed before I get back!"

Shari wasn't much further in. The big spirit cat was dragging something, or rather, someone--one of the fighters--in her mouth by his pack. Even with the added weight, Shari moved through the undergrowth far easier than the other fighter trailing along behind.

"Tell your dumb cat to put him down!" yelled the other fighter--the annoying one who might conveniently go missing at any time in Lira's presence. "She's choking him!"

Lira placed her bare right hand on Shari's side, breathing a sigh of relief as Shari roughly dropped the second fighter down beside her. He barely looked conscious, eyes rolling up into the back of his head. Bright, cyan veins pulsed beneath his skin as his mouth gaped open, lips purple and skin turning blue.

Spirit shock. For it to set in this quickly, he'd either taken a spirit blast directly to his face, or this wolf was a whole lot more powerful than she'd anticipated.

"Idiots," muttered Lira, reaching into her pack for the flask of healing water she'd filled earlier. "What did you two do to upset the spirit?"

"We didn't do anything," growled the fighter. "Damn thing just came out and attacked us. It's a beast, what else did you expect?"

"It's a primal spirit," said Lira. After she fumbled around one handed for a few precious seconds, Shari pressed her nose to Lira's cheek. Almost immediately, her left arm regained some movement, and though it still wasn't perfect, Lira got the flask open and shoved a few mouthfuls of water down the semi-conscious fighter's throat. It wasn't an instant cure, but he'd live. "Unless they're provoked, they don't care that we exist. If it was territorial, it'd have attacked as soon as we entered the Wilds, so I'll ask again. What did you idiots do?"

The fighter folded his arms. "Nothing. Maybe it was your cat that annoyed it."

Lira rolled her eyes, but she didn't have time to sit here and argue. The traps on his vest were gone--she could guess what he'd been doing to anger the wolf.

Before she screwed the lid of her flask back on, she reluctantly glanced over the annoying fighter.

He didn't look much better off, despite the scowl he was trying to hide it behind. His light hair was streaked with blood. Silvery spirit-smoke curled off one of his shoulders. His breaths were ragged, like he'd run several miles without stopping, and beneath his chin, the same cyan veins were beginning to spread.

Lira almost put the healing water back in her pack, but instead, she stood up and shoved it into his hands. "One mouthful."

"What is it?" he said, narrowing his eyes at her as his hand closed around the flask. "Why should I--"

"Fine, die then," said Lira, pulling it away. "I don't have time to--"

The fighter snatched it back and drank. Not one mouthful but three, keeping eye contact with her the entire time.

Idiot. She should have let him slowly choke to death.

Lira tested her arm, finding its movement almost back to normal. When lightning shot through it a third time a few moments later, it still stung like hell and left her gritting her teeth, but this close to Shari, she at least didn't lose control of it.

"Let's go, Shari," Lira said as she unslung her bow, taking her first step back towards the clearing.

"You're just going to leave him--"

"He's your responsibility," said Lira, climbing onto Shari's back. "Give him more water if he seizes."

As soon as Lira was on, Shari bolted, heading straight back towards the clearing.

Lira couldn't stop thinking about the marks on the wolf's head, whether it had anything to do with its strange behaviour. It looked like blood magic, but that wasn't supposed to affect spirits. It'd make her job infinitely easier if it did.

It was possible that the wolf was enraged because it'd been trapped and hurt. Such a powerful primal spirit wouldn't be used to being confined. Maybe it'd come through the Rupture and found itself in the physical world by accident. Maybe it'd been disoriented, had panicked when a bunch of poachers tried to leash it, not realising what they were dealing with before it got loose and killed them.

Lira could see that happening. Had seen it happen--yet she'd never seen an enraged spirit back down after a charge without a very clear reason.

Something was wrong, and she could only think of one insane, suicidal idea to figure out what that something might be.

Perfect.

*+*+*+*

A/N - hello i'd like to throw this chapter into the sun pls ty 

WHY DID I NEED TO REWRITE IT THREE TIMES W H Y