Sunborn Rising by Aaron Safronoff Page A

table, she slipped through an obscured hole into the next den. She wove in and out of the overgrown rooms, from den to den, as fast as she could. Her arms ached, and her legs burned, but she was a needle sewing a unique pattern into the fabric of the treescape. The Kudmoths didn’t know the pattern, and she lost them.
    Confident she was out of view, Barra reversed and jumped toward a high space over a doorway. Above the doorway was a collapsed portion of wall just large enough to hold her, and she reached for it in desperation. Barely clinging to the top of the frame, she pedaled her legs in the empty air. Fear dumped one last flood of adrenaline into her veins, and she hauled herself up.
    Heart pounding in her ears, she tried to focus. Slowing and deepening her breathing, she tested her stealth muscles. There was tightness in the action, but she gritted her teeth against it, and bore down. The Kudmoths were coming.
    They entered the room in a flurry of clicks, red eyes flashing on and off. Out of the cloud, one pair of floating red points flew toward her, and as terrified as she was, Barra forced her eyes closed. She listened as the creature flew around her face. It came close enough that she could feel the breath from its small wings disturb her whiskers. Time stretched and her heart slowed. She didn’t breathe. The Kudmoth hovered even closer.
    She thought she was spotted for sure, and prepared to make another run for it. But the curious insect delayed only a moment longer, and then returned to the cloud. Barra listened. The entire cloud was moving away. She opened her eyes to slits and watched as the smoky insects were exhausted from the room.
    Barra waited, and when no Kudmoths appeared, she waited some more. She was terrified of giving herself away by moving out too soon. Only when she’d waited much longer than her patience normally would have allowed did she crane her neck out to take a better look.
    Maybe two measures passed, she wasn’t sure. She hoped she was rested enough to make a run straight for the Loft. Sampling the air with a burst of quick inhalations, she detected nothing of the wet, fungal smell the dark bugs exuded. She swung down from her perch gingerly, but didn’t let go. There was a sudden loud noise through the wall, and she retreated to her hiding place and stealthed again. Barra wasn’t sure how much more tension she could take. The urge to run was almost irrepressible. A shadow appeared across the doorway—
    —and Plicks entered the room.
    “Barra!” he exclaimed in an excited whisper.
    Tory ran in when he heard, and then followed Plicks’ gaze up to Barra. “Well, that was an adventure,” Tory said. His posture was nonchalant, but he couldn’t hide his relief.
    Barra let the tension fall out of her body as she jumped down. “I’m so glad to see you! What happened to the Kudmoths? They’re gone?”
    “Not entirely,” said Plicks as he stepped forward, holding up a bellflower. Inside the container there were several swirling, agitated insects.
    Barra inspected the contents. “You caught some!?”
    Inside, the amorphous group of bugs congealed in a way, and became a simulacrum of a vicious animal that sneered at Barra. She peered closer, mesmerized. With her nose almost touching the container, the imitation bit at her and she fell back, startled.
    Plicks said wryly, “We’ll probably need to transfer them to something stronger.”
    “How’d you get ‘em?” Barra asked, astonished as the insects returned to their shapeless, swirling flight.
    “As soon as we realized they were following you, we went back to the trap,” Tory said, beaming. “We knew you’d come back that way.” He added, teasing, “Nice jump by the way.” He reached out and touched one of the numerous strands that still clung to Barra’s fur. He tugged at it, and Barra flinched away.
    “Hey! Don’t do that!” she said, wrinkling up her nose at him. “It’ll take days to remove this stuff.” She