21. Bastian
Bastian
H orrors had been confined to their territory for a thousand years.
Or so we thought.
In scouting ahead, my other half had discovered their markings near the road, beyond their borders.
One side of me answered Kat’s questions, reassuring her that what I’d seen was hours away, as the other stalked through the darkness.
The thing that was hard to explain—not that I spoke of my ability often—was that both halves were equal. Both were still me—had my memories, my experiences, was aware of the other and everything he sensed. I only referred to “my double” in order to help others understand.
With one of us largely resting on the stag, the other, unburdened by supplies, had made faster time. Out there, magic still pulsed around me. They hadn’t yet sucked the place dry.
Meanwhile, inside the cave, Kat and I dried off, but we didn’t make camp until I was sure the marking was the only sign of Horror activity this side of the border.
One must’ve broken past the wardstones. Somehow.
I would have words with the patrol that was meant to maintain the stones, but it seemed safe enough to sleep—for now.
When we set off the next morning, we—my double and I—watched the road, and Kat shifted in her saddle, unease clear in the way she twitched at every sound, though we were still a few hours from the markings.
“What were these signs your other self saw?” Kat scanned every rock and shrub we passed, as though a monster might jump out from behind it.
“They leave markings. Strange symbols they scratch into rocks and trees or ruined buildings. No one knows what they mean, if anything.” I shook my head. “The official story is that the Horrors were created by magic blasting out of control, which is true in a sense, but…”
No fae outside a very small circle was meant to know the rest of that sentence. But Kat wasn’t fae.
“You can’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”
She turned from the tree she’d been eyeing with suspicion and raised an eyebrow at me. “Is the Serpent about to spill one of his secrets?”
“I’m serious, Kat. This is for the stability of Elfhame.”
“I won’t breathe a word.”
“The truth is that the side who lost the Wars of Succession used them as weapons.” It made me nauseous to even think about it. Weapons of fear and destruction. Weapons used against civilians.
Something sour coated my tongue.
“If this is too painful, you don’t need to tell me.” She gathered the reins into one hand, the other clenching and unclenching like she might reach across to me.
The dismay had to be written on my face. At least it was in front of her and not someone who’d use it against me. “It’s fine. We suppressed the information to enable the other side to still be part of society and reintegrate. If people knew the truth…” I shook my head.
They wouldn’t have allowed a single one to survive. There would have been no truce, only mass execution.
“Wait, ‘the other side’—was that the side your father fought on? You told me he was an enemy general and then defected to the Night Queen.”
I’d told her that in order to push her away, but as she looked at me from atop her stag, I wasn’t sure if she’d ever felt so close. Like I could reach out and hold her.
But this fresh start between us was young and delicate, and I owed her much more than the apology I’d given last night. Actions over words. If I could get her queen to grant her a divorce…
I should just ride back to Albion and kill her husband. It would save us all a lot of trouble.
It would set her free.
And it might lessen the guilt gnawing on me.
But would it cost Kat the estate? I didn’t know how their inheritance laws worked. If they were as foolish as their marriage laws, they would probably leave the estate to the nearest human male rather than Kat, just because he had a cock.
I couldn’t ask her about it. Not directly. If she got wind of what I wished to do to her husband—well, she already made me swear not to kill her uncle. I wasn’t going to let her force me into the same promise about that prick.
“Bastian?”
I cleared my throat and shook off amorphous plans and foolish hopes. “That’s right. Both my fathers started on that side. The Horrors were the main reason they turned.”
The things they’d made us do. Civilians, children included.
A sea of faces stare back at me, wide-eyed and afraid. A little girl clutches her mother’s hand, and I hear her whisper, “Where are we going?”
The way the mother looks at me, hollow-eyed and rigid—she knows. But she pats her daughter’s head. “Just a walk, sweetling. Just a walk.”
Every hair on my body stood on end, bringing me back to myself.
I took a shaky breath. “The town is just inside Horror territory, but the markings…” I rubbed my head. “Sorry, yes, the markings, I was meant to be telling you about those, wasn’t I?”
A deep line was etched between Kat’s eyebrows as she watched me struggle to explain something that should’ve been so simple.
Just facts and ideas. That was all. I straightened in the saddle.
“One theory is that they weren’t so much created as brought through from somewhere else.
A sentient species, perhaps, or almost one, sent mad by the magic used to control them.
The markings could be the remnants of some kind of language, but no one’s ever heard them speak or managed to communicate with them.
Rumours say the ones who conjured them could control them…
but if you saw them now, you’d see how ridiculous that idea is. They have no control.”
That was the worst thing about them. Mindless destruction incarnate.
I’d seen Horrors twice before—sent on patrol as part of my training. Twice was more than enough.
“Others think the marks are nothing more than shapes they’ve seen in the flow of magic but don’t actually understand.
” I tried to give Kat a reassuring smile.
“We’re still a couple of hours away. Keep your bow ready, but if we are spotted by one, our best bet is to run.
I’ll use my other self as a decoy so we can escape. ”
Nodding, she squeezed the weapon mounted on her saddle. “Will my arrows harm them as they’d harm fae?”
My hand went to my Shadowblade. I’d traded illegally to get my hands on an unseelie weapon. It had taken years to pay back some of the favours. It was worth it.
“Probably not, but if you hit a weak point, that should slow them down or at least deter them. Their bodies are covered in hard carapaces. The only gaps are the eyes and armpits. I wouldn’t bother to tell most people, but I think you could actually hit the mark.”
The flush of pleasure that darkened her cheeks warmed the worst of the chill that had lingered in my bones since seeing the name of our destination. She turned away, but I caught the edge of the smile she tried to hide.
We rode on, that warmth growing more and more distant as dread ate it up.
I couldn’t shake the feeling something awful was going to happen in that town. Despite eating lunch, my stomach remained a pit, threatening to swallow me up.
Not long before midday, the birdsong stopped. I kept my shadows bound close. There was little magic to draw upon here, and if I let them spread, the Horrors would scent them. A little while later, I pointed out the marking on a boulder a few feet back from the road.
Kat swallowed, gaze tracing over the long upright line criss-crossed with short diagonals, a circle, and a triangle. “Is there anything else I should know about them?”
“Horrors can smell magic—it’s what they feed on.” I could barely smell it here, only really noticing its constant presence now it had faded. Kat’s was fresh and vibrant, like the first flowers of the year. “Can you sense it around you?”
Frowning, she stroked her arm. “Normally I can. A slight buzz on my skin, but…” She cocked her head as though listening. “It’s so faint now.”
“They’ve been feeding. Together with their carapaces, that’s what makes them so hard to kill.
You can’t use magic on them directly. If I tried to attack with my shadows, they’d consume them.
Only powerfully enchanted weapons work—something the magic is fixed in.
Even then, if they got hold of it for a period of time, they would suck it dry. ”
She grimaced, squeezing her bow.
The scent of its magic, green growth and leaf mulch, strengthened in response.
I nodded towards it. “Your bow is powerful—it might work, but you’d need arrows with a more potent enchantment to be sure.”
Her eyes narrowed, and I could practically hear her making a mental note to get better arrows. My billing account winced in response.
Still, knowledge was also power, so I continued feeding it to her in the hopes she wouldn’t ever need to rely on it.
“The fact there’s any magic left tells us they don’t come here frequently, but as we go further, you’ll feel it less and less.
At the centre of their territory, there’s none.
” I shifted in the saddle, the thought of it not just wrong, but terrifying.
Unlike most fae, I drew from the world around me—evidence along with my eyes that my unseelie blood wasn’t just a rumour.
In a true dead zone, I would be powerless.
But that wasn’t the only reason my shoulders grew tighter the further we rode. Something else ate at me. Something wrong. Something ahead.
Half a mile on, we found another marking.
It made my teeth grind. “The patrol who’s meant to mind this area is going to get a personal visit when they next report to Tenebris. These things are running wild.”
“How do they keep them back?” Kat shot me another look, chewing her lip.
“Wards. They’re kept stocked with powerful wardstones. They should fucking use them. We embedded them in the wall between here and Albion,” I added. “It’s to keep our monsters in as much as to keep humans out.”
“Why not just kill them all?”
“We tried that at first. It didn’t go well. For each one of them we took down, at least two of us died, and with our numbers depleted after the wars…” I shook my head, suppressing a shudder. “Better to sacrifice this area of land rather than more lives.”
Then I saw myself in the disorientating double vision that always came when both parts of me reunited. One riding. One walking from an outcrop of rock.
It was like looking in a mirror—his tight movements echoed my own agitation, and when I shifted my attention to his view, I could see how rigidly I sat on my stag. This feeling of dread wasn’t just about bringing Kat out of the city or taking her into Horror territory.
It was something else. Something older. Something deeper.
I merged back with my other self, not feeling any stronger for it.
When we reached a copse outside Innesol, that something else hollowed out my insides and I understood.
A ruined tower rose at the centre of the town, but I knew what it had once looked like before its mortar had crumbled and its roof had caved in.
I had been here before.