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Ibai wasn’t sure if he should say anything now. There were plenty of questions running around his head, but he probably wasn’t the one who should ask them, considering Gohvis could still snap his neck at any moment. It’d be best to let Emiliana and Chergoa handle things. There was no reason to gamble with his life here.

Could be fun, though.

He decided to risk it.

“So what do you want with her, anyway?” he said, having to choke through some of the words.

Gohvis deigned not to answer.

He supposed he should’ve seen that coming. It was fine, though. He’d gotten plenty of practice with people like this recently. “Want to play a game? I spy with my little eye--”

The Monster’s grip tightened back up, and the words stopped coming out again.

Emiliana decided to speak up again. “You obviously do not want me dead,” she said. “For now, at least. So what do you want from me?”

Gohvis’ tail snaked around her and scooped her up off her feet, but the giant lizard man did not answer her question. Instead, he simply crouched down low and stayed there for a moment.

Ibai wondered what he was doing, but the inability to breathe was becoming distracting. Thankfully, Gohvis loosened his hold again, this time deciding to roll Ibai up under his arm like a newspaper. Ibai didn’t get another chance to speak, though, because he saw the Monster’s huge legs become suddenly even more so. In one beating pulse, they grew by maybe a third of their previous size.

And then Gohvis jumped.

The ground flew away from Ibai’s vision at rocket speed, and he very nearly lost consciousness, even with his muddy shadow protecting him. Still, he did catch sight of the mushrooming cloud of sand that Gohvis had left behind.