Without warning, she stepped from the mouth of the tunnel and plunged into the vast subterranean chamber of the archon. She skated the festooned root down to the lagoon below and evaded the thorns with almost imperceptible maneuvers of her feet. When she reached the bottom, she pushed off and landed atop a gnarled bramble nearby. A few wraiths ascended from the mire painted black by the liquid, but Winnipeg decapitated them with a single whirlwind strike of her sword, which she performed as though by rote as she she surveyed the surroundings from the new vantage.

(Chapter 10)