22
I hit the ground with a sickening crack, and there’s no time to run. Those saberwolf fangs are in my face a half second later, ready to rip me apart, rancid breath hot against my mouth, drool sputtering everywhere.
My mind is still spinning from the drop. I can’t think. But I don’t need to.
The movement is instinct. I force my blade up, an echo of the memory of
Raker’s training.
Right through the wolf’s neck.
Then the other wolves are on me. Shredding, ripping, feasting. Blood spraying, puddling, staining the woods. The smell of it pierces even the mists.
But it’s not mine. They are eating their own, even as it’s still taking its last breaths. Right atop me.
Are they that hungry? That quick to turn on one another when given the opportunity?
Arms shaking, face covered in blood, it takes everything in me to rip my sword from the saberwolf’s throat and roll from beneath its corpse, before it crushes me.
I keep rolling. Keep crawling. My leg is wholly numb. I desperately drag it along. And hope to all the gods that the wolves are too distracted with their current meal to follow. The sound of those massive fangs tearing through flesh echoes through the forest, and my skin prickles with fear, anticipating the weight on my spine as they push me to the ground, as they gut me just like they did their pack member.
Blood roaring in my ears, dirt under my nails, I make it far enough away that their snarls of satisfaction are muted, and then I get to my feet and run.
It’s more of a stumble. To make up for my leg, I push the rest of my body forward with all my might. I don’t look back. I just keep staggering, hoping to find the end of this mist, hoping I get lucky and just fall out of it— Silence. The sounds of thrashing teeth fade away completely. But I’m not
that far, no. They’re just done.
But not with me.
Those heavy steps are at my back in seconds. Shit.
I force my numb leg forward, gasping, clawing at the trees, using them to fling me ahead, but it’s no use. I know that. Still, I can’t just give up.
My limbs burn as I force myself forward. My neck prickles with awareness. A feral growl rumbles behind me.
I turn my head—and am met with razor-sharp teeth, nearly at my height.
They’re on my heels. A couple more strides, and they’ll be on me. This is it.
I stumble with a final push of desperation.
They leap.
The woods slope beneath my boots, the world spins, and I’m suddenly tumbling down a hill, gasping as my arms hit stumps of bone, as my vision turns to flashes of mist and soil, before I finally hit a tree with crushing force and stop.
I can’t take a full breath. Everything hurts.
Cheek against the bone roots, I can’t summon the strength to get up, even when those wolves crest the hill I just fell down. Even when their eyes lock on me. One of them snaps its powerful jaw, head falling back, emitting a satisfied howl.
It sits back on its haunches, preparing to bound down the hill in one massive jump. But before it can, it turns its head. Snarls. Lunges forward.
Toward nothing short of a swarm of winged, leathery bats the size of people. There are dozens flying in a wall. They open their mouths and emit high-pitched screams.
The two packs crash together, and it is carnage. Blood spurts. Flesh and fur paint the white bone forest, pieces getting stuck in its branches. Their shrieks and growls echo.
And it’s like a call, awakening every monster in the mists. I can feel the forest rousing, almost rippling, like a stone being thrown into a lake, casting
waves.
The fog goes still.
A sky-splitting screech has it scattering. What can shift even these mists?
I have a sinking feeling I’m about to find out. For even though this pack and swarm are battling, more are joining in and they will all eventually turn their attention to me.
I cling to the trunk for purchase and push myself up, inch by inch.
Stumble through the forest as more creatures barrel toward this stretch of woods, cries and screams and hisses turning the mists into a nightmare symphony.
Shredding. The unmistakable sound of ripping flesh fills the forest— something with rows and rows of teeth has joined the fight, and razed countless creatures. I need to get out of here. My breathing is too loud, my steps are too clumsy. My arm is hanging at an odd angle, and that’s when I realize I must have dislocated my shoulder in the fall down the hill. Fuck.
It’s my sword-wielding arm.
I should give up. I’m lost, and defenseless, and in a hungry beast-riddled mist. It’s useless to fight this hard, with so much stacked against me. And maybe that’s what makes me a fool—refusing to stay down, even when the world tries to keep me there. Fighting, even when fighting seems useless.
Always rising, just like Stellan taught me.
Those roars are growing louder. Closer. As if the battle has spilled down that slope. As if it’s coming right in my direction.
I turn to look back— And a growl sounds right in front of me. I barely get my head back around, but I’m still rushing toward the monster, not able to stop myself
before I crash right into it.
My scream is smothered.
By a hand.
I look up, eyes wide, heart battering my ribs, only to see a familiar hood.
A whimper of relief spills from my lips, and I don’t even try to hold back the tears that streak through the blood and dirt.
“What are you doing here?” I try to say, but his hand only tightens over my mouth, choking the words.
It’s no use. They’ve found me. I hear them, tearing through the forest.
The swarms, the packs, whatever ancient creature made the mists shudder.
All coming right toward us. Raker hears them too.
“Fuck, Aris,” Raker growls, and I can feel the rage coming off him in waves. I deserve it. But if he’s here …
He came through the mist to find me.
It’s for the map. I’m sure of it. But the fact … the fact that he is here, means I will not die alone. I feel just the slightest bit of regret that I’ve dragged Raker into sure death with me.
Because the beasts are here now. The mist has scattered, as if even it is afraid. There’s no time to run. No trees near enough to climb. None of it would make any difference anyway.
I reach back for the hilt of my sword with my non-wielding arm, still not willing to die without a fight. My shoulder is out of its socket. My leg is numb. I really don’t stand a chance.
Raker seems to know that, because as I try to scramble from his grip, to face the beasts, he curls his arm around my waist and pins me to his chest.
“You’ll only get in the way,” he spits down into my face, as that same world-shattering scream sounds right behind my spine, sending all the hairs on my neck rising. As those trees tremble with the force of the creatures about to crash through them.
He curses me again. Then, with me still pinned against him, his other
hand reaches back for his sword— And he lunges forward.
I can’t see anything, pressed to his front like this. But I am nearly deafened by the roar of shrieks and howls behind me, louder than anything I’ve heard in my life, a wave of death crashing into us both. I manage to squirm enough to turn my head, cheek pressed against his chest, and all I see from this angle is his blade swinging as he fights the entire throng of beasts with just one arm. He moves so quickly, so expertly, it makes my mouth go dry.
Then I only see blood. Sheets of dark blood all around us as Raker cuts through the horde, his strength never wavering. The creatures never even
getting close.
No marks on his armor.
If the rumors are true, then being pressed right against Raker’s chest is the safest place for me to be. I pray his reputation isn’t just rumor, and that he doesn’t just have dozens of breastplates that he switches out, given that I am currently crushed against his. I cling to him, lifting my legs, wrapping around him like a tree, so that I don’t get in his way. His arm remains unyielding as stone across my back. I tremble against his body, with cold, and relief, and pain, and fear.
One claw gets through him, and I’ll be gutted. One bite from those massive fangs, or those shredding teeth, and my spine will be ripped from my body. I’ll just be tatters strewn across this forest.
But absolutely nothing gets past Raker’s sword. He keeps slashing and steadily moving forward, not yielding any ground. He advances like a warrior on the front line of battle. His blade sings as it hits its mark again and again. As Raker wields it with an arm that never seems to tire.
Until the woods go quiet.
I’m panting against his chest. My arms are wrapped around his neck as I cling to him, my ankles locked behind his back.
Then Raker unceremoniously shoves me off him. I manage to land on one leg, but the other gives, and I fall right on my ass.
I look up, baring my teeth—but the words die in my throat.
Raker is dripping blood. It rains from his hood. From his sword. Down every inch of armor. The only part of him that is clean is his front, where he held me, and now that I’m not frozen in terror, I can feel the thick layer of gore on the back of my body.
I can’t see his face, but by his posture … by the way he grips his sword so tightly still, like he’s considering plunging it through my chest and
traveling alone— “You’re angry.”
His growl in response has me swallowing.
I scuttle back on my hands and feet. “The warriors at the inn. They—they followed me, I didn’t—”
“I know,” he says, his tattooed knuckles whiter than usual as he grips his blade tighter.
Right. Of course. He must have seen them. My voice is just a ragged whisper. “You … you went in after me.”
“I went through the mist for that sword,” he snarls. My sword, he means.
The one on my back, its blade still covered in saberwolf blood.
So, there it is. The reason he hasn’t already abandoned me. Does he even need the map? Probably not. He wants my sword. Like everyone else.
I keep crawling back, on shaking hands. They almost slip in—blood. It’s blood. Everywhere. It’s creatures, shredded to ribbons, cut with such precise motions that the flesh doesn’t hang off in jagged layers—no, the pieces are all clean and uniform. Like those leaves cleaved in half.
I don’t turn to look at the extent of the carnage of the forest, but I can smell it. I can imagine that the white Bone Woods are now red with gore.
My knees nearly buckle as I rise to my feet. As I lift my sword with spent arms, the pain of my shoulder nearly blinding me.
I won’t let him have it without a duel. Though, after seeing this carnage, I know more than ever that I don’t have a chance.
“Why not kill me, then?” I demand.
“I don’t need two swords on this journey,” he spits, his voice pure fury.
“I’d rather someone like you has it than someone else.”
Someone like you.
So, I’m no more than a harmless mule, carrying a sword for him until he needs it.
That’s why he’s training me. Not so I can be protected … but so I have any chance of protecting this weapon.
He will betray me the first chance he gets. He will claim my sword the moment it pleases him. I knew that from the beginning, but … I thought … after so much time together … Foolish of me to think he would feel any type of loyalty to me. The merciless warrior. The monster.
Everything I already thought about him has been confirmed.
“Demon,” I say, voice shaking.
“Worse,” he says. And that’s when he prowls toward me. He keeps getting closer, and I stumble back. He’s dripping blood. His hood and armor
are soaked with it.
None of it is his.
He is the embodiment of a deadly warrior. He doesn’t stop, and neither do I, until I trip over something and land on my ass again. A head. I tripped over the fang sticking out of a lifeless head that Raker single-handedly— literally—severed with his blade while I clung to his body.
And it’s not the only one. Every single creature that hunted me in this forest is now in ribbons.
I look from the beast’s eyes, up into the darkness of Raker’s hood. He’s standing right over me, like I’m cornered prey. I swallow. The blood dripping from his hood falls on my cheek, and I flinch. He leans in close, voice hard as the steel in my shaking hands as he says, “Don’t raise your sword at me again, Aris, unless you truly want to lose it.”
With that, he turns his back on me.
Monster. I should be terrified. I should be shocked into submission; I should follow his words and orders like they are law.
But instead of trailing him through the mist, I turn toward the head.
Using my non-dominant arm, I begin to saw off the beast’s fangs. They hit the ground with a thud. I reach for the vials next. Somehow, they didn’t shatter in my pockets, even after that fall.
I poke a hole in the wolf’s neck and begin to drip the little remaining blood into a vial.
“What are you doing?” Raker demands from across the clearing.
“I’m getting an antidote,” I say, remembering the book. Often things are both their poison and their cure. The beast must be immune to its own venom, which means its blood is full of the medicine I need.
I pour half the vial on the cut in my calf then shudder. The blood steams, as if it’s burning through my skin. Close to the same sensation as when it entered my leg. I squeeze my eyes closed.
Slowly, though, I start to feel my toes again. My calf.
And it fucking hurts.
The cut might not be bone-deep, but it’s long. If only I had true healing liquid … but that comes from another creature completely. It takes a few moments before I can stand or walk without wincing. My stride isn’t
completely straight.
Raker waits for me to get close to him.
“Your shoulder,” he says flatly.
“I know,” I say, stumbling past him.
His voice is a frustrated growl. “You need to have it snapped back into place.”
“No, thank you,” I say, continuing forward, ignoring the pang of pain with every movement.
It takes three of his long strides to be in front of me. Then, there he is, blocking my path, the monster that cut down nearly all the beasts in the Bone Woods. His hands are in fists. It really must be so hard for him not to kill me. “You threw yourself headfirst into this fucking place, yet you’re afraid of popping your shoulder back in?” he demands, seething.
I know why he’s upset. With my dislocated shoulder, I can’t protect his precious sword. I can’t be the perfect mule.
“No,” I say, in a sickly sweet tone I know he hates. “I’m afraid of you doing it, with your big fucking beast-destroying hands that don’t care at all
about my comfort or pain levels and hurting me even more.” It’s true. With strength like that, I wouldn’t be shocked if my bones just snapped beneath his hold. I’d rather wait for a healer.
I must be imagining it, but I swear … I swear he almost flinches. Like finally I’ve nicked him in this ongoing duel of ours. I’m too tired and in too much pain to dig in further. I just step to the side, to keep going.
He steps in front of me again.
His voice isn’t soft. I don’t know if it’s even capable of that. But it’s as gentle as I have ever heard it when he says, “I won’t hurt you, Aris.”
My look is punishing. “Not yet, you mean?”
I don’t trust him. Not at all. Even after he jumped through these mists and saved me. Because it’s not really about me, is it? It’s about the things I have that he wants. The map. My sword. He’s practically told me he will kill me to claim it.
But right now, my shoulder really fucking hurts. And I don’t stand a chance if I can’t even hold my sword.
“Fine,” I say through my teeth. I close my eyes.
He doesn’t walk around me. No, his massive hands curl around my waist, and he turns me in a flash. His rough, callused fingers are surprisingly gentle around my wrist and my arm. Just like they were when he was training me in the cave. His head leans low.
“Please don’t scream,” he says, right into my ear.
Then he twists my arm to the side. He pulls it up. And I try. I really try not to scream. I grit my teeth.
As my shoulder slides back into its socket, though, my lips part—and those long fingers are on my mouth again. Smothering. He makes a tutting sound.
But it’s done. And … he didn’t shatter bone.
“Thank you,” I say, when his hand finally releases my mouth, biting out the words. Thank you for fixing my shoulder. Thank you for coming through the mists for me, even if it was for something I have, because without you, I would be dead.
Raker takes a step back, but he’s still close enough that I can hear his sharp exhale of incredulity. “Gratitude. From you. I didn’t think you were capable of it.”
Then he turns and stalks off through the mist.
And I follow.
For hours, there is nothing. Just soul-rotting silence. I keep the fangs clutched in my palms, instead of my sword. They’re lighter, easier to use, and though my shoulder has been righted, pain still shoots down my arm every time I move it.
For an entire day, nothing emerges. I wonder if the mists whispered about Raker’s fighting skills. Perhaps even these creatures leave a monster like him alone, after that.
We’re both covered in blood. It hardens and reeks, searing the inside of my nostrils. I search for water, but there is none, and when darkness falls,
we are unprotected.
But even the demons avoid the mists.
I left my canteen back at the inn, but Raker opens his pack the next morning and throws me a new one, with a little too much force. It seems he got provisions in the village while I was finding trouble.
The canteen is full. My throat works as I drink most of the water, then wash my hands and face. He seems to have known I would nearly drain it all, or lose it, because he snatches it back before I’m done, and puts it back with the rest of his things.
The creatures continue to leave us alone. We walk through the maze of moon-white trees in near silence.
Every once in a while, I hear them. The whispers at the fringes.
Beckoning us off the trail. Creatures that don’t slither or leave tracks behind. Beasts that are formless.
Every instinct within me tells me not to look into the trees. Not to search the distance. I just stare at Raker’s back, his spine straight and his armor mirroring my reflection. I just follow him, like he’s a guiding star.
Until I see someone join me in the mirror. I whirl around, fangs up.
Nothing.
I see it, though, next to me. In the reflection.
A woman with long dark hair and deep green skin. Some sort of forest wraith. A blink—and she falls away, into a small puddle of water dark as night. I frown, about to open my mouth and say something, but just then the puddle ripples, and someone else comes rising out of it. An immortal in a fine dress, ready for a ball, her golden hair tied up into an intricate style.
Her outfit is ornate, dazzling. The fabrics are like water turned to silk, stitched through with rare metals and diamonds. I blink, trying to get a closer look. What is this? An illusion? I step closer to Raker, lips parting to
tell him, to say something, when suddenly, the puddle ripples again, and the woman turns into a warrior. In full armor. He lifts a sword.
Raker turns in a flash and throws his sword through the illusion. To my surprise, his blade pierces something real. The warrior. Whereas the illusion was invisible just seconds before, now it’s solid.
It melts away, back into the dark puddle, and Raker’s sword falls with it.
In a flash, Raker’s blade is in his hand again, and he’s stabbing through the puddle. It seizes—then slithers into the ground. Disappears.
“What—”
“It’s a lusk.”
“A … what? How … how do you know?”
He looks over at me. “Do you really think I came into the Questral as unprepared as you?”
Right. He knew about the pixie too. He must have sought access to one of those traveling storytellers, or maybe some of the king’s own orators. Of course. I remember their conversation, in the castle, and think about what he told me later, about wanting revenge. Is it revenge for the king?
Or … revenge against him?
I swallow down my irritation, knowing details could help me in the future. As if Raker can anticipate my next question, he sighs, and says, “It has a faint sound, if you listen. A shimmering rattle.”
I didn’t even hear it. I was too distracted by the beauty of the illusions.
Which, I suppose, is the point.
“If you look at it, it becomes real. It feeds off your focus, your energy. It
gets stronger.”
Right.
He starts to say something else but seems to think better of it and stops.
He just shakes his head and keeps moving.
I keep following.
We walk for a few more hours, only encountering a handful of other creatures, each of which Raker quickly cuts to shreds.
Then, all at once, the mist is ripped away, and my jaw goes slack.