I'd read about the sun before, an orb that burned brighter than a thousand Incinerators. It was the reason things grew on earth. But I didn't know such a thing could exist on the Beast.

We stepped into a room with a light above so bright my eyes ached to look at it, so that it almost seemed there were no ceiling. Thick rope-like plants climbed the walls behind us, and there, standing so thick and tall they seemed never to end, was something I'd only ever read of in books.

Trees.

I'd always thought their size was an exaggeration. But here they were, silent and looming, defying everything I knew of gravity, stretching up to a massive ceiling. Yaneli wouldn't have believed it. And Xyla... it hurt to the very fiber of my being that I was here to see this and she wasn't.

"Move!" The Kaptain shouted. Our group lurched forward, onto a small path woven through the trees.The rattle of the chain sounded in the silence beneath the branches, and it took me a moment to realize what sound was missing. There was no clunk of the guards' boots on metal.

The marvel of the lights and trees had drawn my eyes up, but now I saw, beneath us, forming a twisting path between the trees, lay a brown and solid material. Earth. This is earth. My throat caught thick and heavy, raw emotion choking me. We were walking on earth. The substance that birthed plants, and had once covered Old Earth. A substance of miracles. I wanted to crouch down and touch it, or better yet, pocket a handful to give to Xyla. Instead the line pulled me forward, deeper into the trees.

As we walked, I finally made sense of the blazing glow between the tree branches. High above, thousands of bulbs burned with the light of a fractured sun. My eyes ached to look at them, but within the trees, the light filtered down a greenish gold, peaceful and beautiful... Yet the Room of the Parted Seas had been beautiful too. I took a slow, deep breath, enjoying the sweet, ripe scent, but also watching everything with caution. Scary stories told to children at night weren't about the Puckers—they were about the Jackals. And each step took us deeper into thier lare.

The other prisoners in line stayed silent as we walked deeper into the home of The Jackals. Either the room ellicited a simliar awe, or they also remembered the same terrifying stories about devil-red eyes and sharpened teeth. A soft noise called through the trees and the entire line froze when a tiny beast flitted between the branches. We had plenty of rodents in the Belly, but this creature was the opposite of a beady-eyed, scurrying rat. It moved like a piece of air itself, with a covering of deep blue and a burnished red chest that wasn't fur, but still looked soft and slick. Feathers.

"What the hell is that thing?" Skull leaned away, as if it might be dangerous.

"I think it's a bird," I whispered, afraid it would fly away. "I saw a picture of one once... in a book." They were Xyla's favorite to read about—we'd spent many afternoons discussing how they flew. Yaneli always said it was impossible, but Xyla insisted there had been creatures capable of flight on Old Earth. The bird hopped off the branch, and my breath caught, but its wings flicked out and it wove through the air as if it weighed nothing at all. You were right Xyla.

At the back the Kaptain called out, "Hands out. Hold the line!"

I searched for any other sign of animals in the trees, making notes of everything I wanted to tell Xyla about. The K-guards shuffled down the line and I barely noticed the other men being uncuffed.

So wrapped up in thoughts of Xyla, and the bird, it wasn't until the shackles fell free from my own hands that I realized something was wrong.

The chain lay still on the ground, but the guards made no move to retrieve it. Instead, they passed by our group. As Kovu passed he gave a quick, almost imperceptible nod towards the trees before he and the rest of the guards were gone, swallowed by the trees. What the hell did that mean?

Then it was only the group of prisoners, unchained, and the Kaptain.

Skull was the first to voice his confusion. "Why'd you take the chain off?" He glanced over his shoulder, his nervousness mirrored in the other men who shifted and glanced up at the trees, like they expected red-eyed, bloody-mouthed Jackals to burst out and devour them whole.

I took a hesitant step to the left, away from the chain, and towards the trees, where Kovu had nodded. The sound of a burrowing whip powering on made me freeze. The Kaptain's eyes met mine, something wicked in his smile when he said, "The Jackals do things a bit differently. The next Letter Trial doesn't start for a week."

It took a moment for this revelation to wash over the group. Again, Skull spoke first: "So we're just... free to go till then?"

"That's right. You're free to roam." The way he said it, with a slight, menacing smile, felt like I'd missed something.

At the front of the line, Dagger stared at me, like he was trying to convey some sort of message. But I was distracted by the hulking forms of the men unchained, nothing between them and me.

"So, we can do whatever we want till then?" Skull lifted his massive hands and cracked his knuckles. I took another slow step to the side.

The Kaptain kept his eyes fixed on me. "Anything." His burrowing whip crackled. "You're forbidden to hurt any Jackal, or a K-guard, but other than that..."

"You know," Skull said, turning his smile to me. "Seems like one person in particular created this problem."

Every eye turned to me. Skull took a step forward, and I needed no other warning: I ran.