Chapter 53
FIFTY-THREE
ELAINA
The crisp night air unwound the claustrophobic pressure inside her. She stretched her legs, taking long strides toward the low wooden fence that demarcated the forest from the property. It felt good to be out alone—there was a freedom to no one knowing where you were except for you, and a possibility. Elaina could go anywhere. She could go everywhere.
She sat on the boulder on which she’d dissected the twig with Daniel days before, curling her knees up toward her chest. She peered into the darkness of the forest, imagining what Gaian creatures slept there in the night, in their burrows and their trees. The moon was full and fat up ahead, bathing the ground in light. The dew on the grass and sleeping wildflowers underfoot sparkled off its glow, the light almost iridescent closer to the tree line. Elaina squinted at the strange effect.
She hadn’t realized at first that her fingers had drifted to her chest, massaging a familiar spot. It warmed beneath her touch, but not from it. Elaina glanced back toward the anchor of the house. She should go back, get into bed with Cyan, where she belonged. She had her time and her space here, and the fresh air she’d wanted.
Elaina stretched her legs from the boulder, flexing her boots in the dewy heather underfoot. She had meant to turn around, but her feet carried her instead toward the tree line. She tried to find the better judgement in herself and hold on to all the good reasons not to go into those woods. Instead, her eyes locked onto the iridescence that was always just a few steps ahead—a little out of reach.
Just a little farther and then Elaina would turn back.
The forest had eyes. Silent watchers hidden among thick trunks and tangled undergrowth. The moon’s bright light flooded through the canopy. Each step Elaina took pressed into fallen leaves, the ground giving way beneath her boots. She moved without a clear path, following her curiosity.
Her heart lurched at a heavy sound behind her, and she whirled around.
“Priad!” she gasped, clutching her chest as the warg stepped into view. She searched the shadows, but Cyan wasn’t with him. “How did you get out?”
The beast huffed out a snort.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “It could be dangerous.”
But Priad stood firm.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Just a small walk.”
The warg glared at her with disapproval that would surely have matched that of his master, but came to stand beside her. They walked ahead, Priad padding along, massive paws crunching against the ground, watchful eyes always scanning .
A few minutes later he froze, and Elaina halted beside him, heeding the warg’s caution. A low rustling drifted through the air, like wind stirring leaves. Only there was no wind. Elaina scanned the darkness, her gaze sweeping through the trees.
Something caught her attention—a strange growth behind the bushes. She walked toward it, pushing through the undergrowth until she exited into a clearing. There stood a mass of trees of a sort she hadn’t yet encountered. Their trunks were gnarled and twisted, all growing tightly together from a single mound in the earth. Spiky burs resembling armor hung in clusters from the overhanging branches. Some of the spiny things had fallen and cracked, revealing brown inner orbs that carpeted the ground.
At the edge of the clearing lay the remains of some sort of stone construction, crumbling and overtaken by nature. Vines crept over the weathered walls, roots twisted through gaps in the rock.
The ruin called to her.
Priad let out a low whine but followed as Elaina moved toward it. With each step her excitement grew.
Elaina crossed into the ruin, her eyes drawn to a spiral of stones in the center. Crude but deliberate, the spiral coiled inward. She followed it.
A chill ran through her as the thing inside her stirred, but the pull of discovery was stronger. She pressed her hand to her breast, the beat thrumming like an echo. As she got closer to the center, Elaina’s breath came out in a plume of steam. Priad whimpered, clawing scars into the foliage at the edge of the circle.
As Elaina stepped to the center stones, the moonlight around her fractured. The clearing cleaved into multiple versions of itself, layered over each other—one overgrown with flowers, one covered in black oil, one completely barren. The versions flickered and merged like corrupted data before snapping back to a single reality. She understood now. How had it taken her so long?
Elaina got on her knees in the spiral’s center, pressing her fingertips to the cool stone. Her vision blurred at the edges, narrowing to this singular point.
Then, the stone began to bleed.