Chapter Twenty-nine
Stepping off the path feels wrong. Dangerous, almost.
As though we’re surrendering ourselves to the jungle, allowing it to consume us completely, with no promise it’ll spit us out again.
Taron and I wade through the unruly branches and vines. The ground is slippery with mud and mossy stones, making it difficult to advance quickly in the dark. Roots snake through the soil, perched to trip me up, while pesky insects buzz around my ears.
I shiver at the feeling of leaves brushing against my skin, some smooth, others sticky or spiked. Where Taron relies on the sound of rushing water as his guide, I instead follow the intensifying glow of lumen flowers.
It’s a delicate trail of pinkish luminescence that looks entirely out of place in this dark, mossy jungle.
I do what I always do – rub one of the petals between my fingers.
But instead of making me smile, the glow left on my skin forms a painful ache in my heart.
Gone are the memories of two sisters writing secret messages at the bottom of their beds.
Now all I think about is that night. When I followed a trail of lumen flowers to a pool of water, on my way to the Night Market to pawn the jewels that would get me into this mess.
The sound of the river grows louder. Taron ducks under a low-hanging branch. He waits for me, holding back a cluster of broad leaves until I emerge after him.
“Thanks,” I breathe, but he’s off again, following the hum of the river.
Finally, it comes into view – a shimmering ribbon of water, winding like a serpent through the heart of the jungle. Moonlight dances on its surface, painting silver streaks that reflect the restless trees lining the bank.
We stick close to the treeline, careful to blend into the dark, using the twisted vines and leaves as shields against any eyes that might be watching.
The coolness near the river is a refreshing change from the suffocating humidity of the jungle. My cheeks burn, and I can’t tell if it’s from physical exertion or the memory that simmers in my mind.
Two slick bodies entwined in a shower cubicle, lips hovering inches apart.
I try to shake it off, but the image refuses to fade. Instead, I try to focus on the underbrush, the delicate twists of negative energy that’s begun to gather in between the trees like fog, curling gently off the ground.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I notice them.
Figures. Shadowy, nearly human forms flickering in and out of existence.
Their eyes gleam, limbs barely more than a blur as they ripple between the trees.
Their malicious energy scares me. I see it coming off them in thick, oozing plumes. My heart skips.
“Can you see them?” I ask.
Taron’s focus shifts to where I’m staring at the trees on the opposite riverbank. “No,” he replies. “What are they?”
“Figures … shadows. Soul Wraiths,” I murmur, stepping carefully over a coiled root that reaches for my ankle. “I can feel death radiating from them. Malice. Selfishness. They also feel old. Some more than others.”
“Are they getting closer?”
“No. They’re just … watching us.” My senses prickle with an uncertainty I struggle to place.
Taron suddenly halts, and I nearly walk into him. His arm is outstretched, a barrier between me and whatever he’s sensed.
“Wait here,” he commands.
“Where are you going?” I hiss, but my words barely escape before he peels away from the treeline and leaves me rooted in place. “Did you see another team? Did you—”
I clench my jaw, and my breath quickens. The answer is no, he hasn’t seen another team.
Because there, skulking among the trees on the far side of the river, is another shadowy figure.
The Soul Wraith has revealed itself to Taron by taking on a female form. She feels familiar, but I can’t make out her features in the shadows.
She beckons him closer, whispering to him in a voice I can’t hear. But I know what she’s doing. She’s wheedling her way into his mind, drawing him towards possession.
A chill needles at the base of my spine. I’m confused. A Soul Wraith only resorts to possession when its surroundings have been corrupted beyond repair.
Then I realize. The acrid stench that permeated the jungle before. The suffocating sensation, like a hand squeezing tightly around my heart. Every inch of this place is blotched with a Soul Wraith’s touch.
And Taron … I cleansed him of his inner demons not long ago. He’s the perfect blank canvas.
The Soul Wraith’s eyes lock on to him. A predatory gleam dances in the hollow of her gaze, a yearning to consume. Her long, sinuous tongue darts quickly in and out of her mouth, lashing at the air around it as though she’s trying to taste Taron from afar.
When she moves into the moonlight, I gasp. Those warm almond eyes. A green-streaked fringe that curls across her forehead. The demon is wearing Mei’s face.
It makes sense now why some of these Soul Wraiths, still hovering beyond the nearest trees and ogling us with hunger, feel old. They’re every competitor who has ever died on this island – demons spawned from their cruel and brutal deaths.
“Wren,” I whisper, barely able to find my voice, “don’t listen to her…”
He doesn’t seem to hear me.
“Taron,” I try his real name.
Still, nothing. Mei’s arm extends, her movements slow, deliberate, as if savouring the moment.
My knees quiver, fists balling at my sides until my knuckles hurt. I have to do something.
I run. My feet pound against the soft earth, the river glistening ahead of me. My heart is lodged in my throat. This is the final trial. We need to win this thing, and every second we linger in this twisted space is a second closer to failure – or worse.
The cool night air whips across my face, chilling the sweat on my skin as I reach out to Taron. I touch his shoulder and he spins round.
I flinch. The face I know is gone, replaced by a mask – his features slack, drained of every emotion, like he’s trapped in some silent scream.
Before I can blink, his hand is clamped around my throat. I’m lifted off the ground, my body weightless in the face of his strength. The world spins, and my lungs scream for air.
I claw at his wrist, panic roaring through me like wildfire.
“Taron … stop…” I croak, but my voice is a strangled whisper. The pressure around my neck compresses. His grip is like iron, unrelenting.
My feet kick uselessly beneath me, my strength no match for his talents.
He doesn’t respond, eyes glazed over, far away.
They’re still fixated on Mei, beckoning him closer across the river.
Taron’s lips move, muttering things I can barely make out.
Words about strength and freedom. A path that the Soul Wraith is offering him.
“Please … it’s lying to you…” The words come out in a rasp.
My vision blurs, and the jungle around me becomes a swirl of dark shapes. The looming Soul Wraith gets closer. Its presence is a sharp freeze that crawls through my veins and burrows into the marrow of my bones.
Taron is struggling. His control wavers as the whispers seem to pull at him, his body rigid with resistance.
She holds your leash now, Taron, but I can turn you into the wolf.
He can’t hear my pleas.
You were never meant to kneel. Let me show you how to rise.
His grip tightens around my throat, and my vision starts to tunnel.
With the last dregs of energy I can summon, I reach out, tapping into the pool of negative energy revolving around him.
It’s thick, intoxicating, growing stronger the closer he gets to the demon.
I can feel its malevolence coursing through him, feeding on his doubts, twisting his thoughts.
It has a cloying taste, sickly sweet like honey that coats the tongue, but with an undertone of something rancid, like burnt coals.
I draw his energy into me, and it feels like a craving that gnaws at the pit of my stomach, never to be satisfied, no matter how much is consumed.
Fighting the black spots dancing at the edge of my vision, I mould the energy into a thin chain. I drop it at Taron’s feet, and it coils around his ankles, drawing taut until he’s pulled off balance.
He stumbles and releases me. I hit the dirt, quickly scrambling to my feet.
Taron is still out of it, on his knees, dazed. I throw myself at him, wrestling him to the ground and straddling him, arms pinned over his head.
His chest rises and falls with ragged breaths, but his eyes – those frosty, vacant irises – are still fixed on Mei’s figure looming across the river.
I raise my hand and slap him hard across the face. “Taron!” I scream, panic making my voice raw. “Are you in there? Wake up!”
No response.
He doesn’t even flinch.
I grit my teeth. There’s only one option left. One that I dread, mostly because I’m afraid. Of what else I might see. Of the way Taron would look at me, knowing I’ve been inside his head. But I know it’s the only way.
I take a deep breath, ignoring the trembling in my hands, and close my eyes. Then I let myself sink into Taron’s energy – his fear, his doubt, his pain – and I pull it into me.
It floods my senses, an overwhelming wave of raw, violent emotion. Fear that squeezes inward on my chest, anger that burns like acid, guilt that weighs me down until I’m drowning in it, gasping for air.
It’s everything he’s been bottling up, all of it pouring into me, threatening to suffocate me. But I hold on, drawing it in, absorbing the worst of it, until I can’t take any more.
The vision overtakes me with the force of a gale, sweeping me into a whirl of memories. Taron’s memories. They flash before me, fragmented yet vivid, each moment bleeding into the next.
Moonlight pours into a long corridor, casting eerie pale beams on the cold stone walls of what looks like a mansion.
Taron is younger here, leaner, a teenage boy.
His heart thunders, his breath short and ragged.
He steals down a staircase, one careful footstep after another, each creak of the wood seeming louder than it should be.