11. Karus
Chapter 11
Karus
I counted the minutes passing.
Five. Fifteen. Thirty-three.
I hated what I had done, and even more, I hated that I had chosen to do it. In all my years of living, I had made some terrible choices and this was one of them.
If the Blightress really wanted to speak with me, she could have done so from that hole. I could have gotten help for the lumens, and we all could’ve…
My head pounded with the choices I could have made. Revich’s scream of my name replayed over and over as I flipped onto my back, shivering on the wet ground.
I closed my eyes and imagined his heat pressed to mine, his soft lips grazing my neck as he trailed his hands to my legs, lifting them to wrap around his waist.
I decided I didn’t deserve him.
Our companion ceremony was only weeks away and I would be bound to a man I could not live without who deserved a woman with more sense than me.
I struck the palm of my hand into the soggy earth in anger and ripped the grass from its weak roots. What was the use of all my magic if I could not simply create my own portal and travel back into his arms?
I finally sat up and looked around. My memories of his warm breath on my skin forced blood to pump steadily through my stiff limbs.
I was in a murky forest. Tall trees loomed and puddles of still water, dark and foul-smelling, encompassed the landscape for as far as I could see. Rocks and jagged boulders sliced from the earth like bones exposed from skin.
I hated this place.
I hated the consequences of the decision I’d made, and as I dug the dirt out of my longer fingernails, I admitted that I hated the Blightress, too.
I was weak, stumbling through a forest that was not mine. There were trees, and moss, and small creatures darting throughout, but it was not Felgren. This place had a dark aura, a desolate embodiment of what I assumed was the Blightress’s presence.
I wondered in my haze, my stomach growling endlessly, where she was now, convinced if I saw her again, I’d do what I could to force her to send me back.
Realizing my stupidity and waste of time, I called for Parvus. If he and Rauca were still here, I could try to weave my power into the call as I had seen Figuerah do with her Iumenta magic before.
I brought my fingers to my mouth, disgusting as they were, and whistled. My power swirled and seemed to dissipate through the emaciated growth of trees.
At the sound that disturbed the deathly stillness of the wood, I heard the groan of roots and branches ahead. My blood chilled as an impossible creature of legs and limbs began to take shape. Its features formed from what was once a sickly-looking tree covered in moss and fungus.
It rose from bended limbs, its tangle of branches at the top of its canopy forming into eye sockets, a jaw, and then a long, ragged neck. The sound of its transformation stilled my body and I watched in the deepest fear as it lifted a leg from the roots of the earth and took a step in my direction.
I missed the pounding of heavy feet as Parvus bounded to my side and nudged under my legs to lift me onto his back, hardly slowing his gait. I barely caught his fur as the creature formed from the forest opened its jaws in a sickening snap of twigs and vines, revealing an imitation of sharp teeth that I knew could break bones. It roared in a thundering wave of ancient fury that resounded through the forest and was returned somewhere nearby.
Parvus ran faster than I had ever seen, darting over rocks and splashing through the rumbling puddles of clouded water. I clung to the fur at his neck, yelling all the spell enhancements I could remember in an attempt to stop the creature.
“ Fulgyren! ” I shouted, lightning striking its wood exterior, doing little more than angering it as the roar came again. More of the forest began to move in the same haunting way. More hideous limbs stretched out over the earth, and more snapping of jaws echoed through the trees as two more creatures began to take chase.
“Parvus! They’re gaining!” His howl erupted as he picked up even more speed and I sent my power out in an attempt to set the monsters aflame.
A ragged branch swiped out, its rough bark slicing my cheek as fire crackled through the forest and the creatures roared again, this time in pain.
We raced toward a dark cliff, the other side an impossible leap.
“Parvus!” I screamed, my grip tightening on his gray fur, urging him to stop before we toppled into oblivion and a sure death.
He leapt without hesitation and we flew through the air with a raging river a few hundred feet below us. I pushed my face into his neck, bracing for an impact that did not come.
We pounded onto the other side of the ravine and Parvus turned to watch the creatures shrieking, their bark skin blackened from my fire, but no longer burning.
The leap was impossible. Parvus had jumped over fifty feet, and I did not understand how we still lived.
I slid off his back, hitting the ground hard, rolling my ankle in the sticky mud and looked up at the giant wolf. He panted with his usual grin, tongue lolling to one side. He closed his mouth and watched the creatures turn and leave on the other side of the ravine.
I had fallen quite far and immediately realized why. Parvus stood twice his usual height with long legs grown into muddy fur and dark branches which looked eerily like the thorny limbs of the Blight.
“Parvus?” I gasped, my lip trembling in fear of what had been done to my friend.
His legs began to sink into the ground, the black limbs fading to the shape and length of what was normal for a lumen.
I shook my head in disbelief.
It was wrong.
It was all wrong since I had lowered myself into that hole in the field of clover.
“What has she done to you?” I whispered, righting myself and pulling his face to my chest, holding onto the lumen who had been my partner since arriving in Felgren over seven years ago.
He licked my bleeding cheek and whined—his usual way of telling me he was concerned for me, as if I was the one who just sprouted black, woody legs and leapt an impossible distance.
“Parvus, where is Rauca? We need to leave. We need to get back to Felgren.”
He licked me again and turned his body in a motion to hop back onto his back. I did so and scratched his ears, thanking him for saving me.
My ankle was sore, but I decided to save my strength and not heal it or the gash on my face. I was weaker now and knew I might need what magic I had left to make it through whatever came next.