Chapter 30
Prism
The sand on the beach of Night Gale warmed my toes. The very place my matri told us stories about how she’d build castles and contort shapes from the sand using her magic.
I’d swam in the waters my matri swam in. Did the sirens know her? Is that why they’d helped me?
Which further befuddled my mind…
Night Gale was in the Underworld?
My matri was from the Underworld?
I’d never known.
I’d assumed it was simply… far from the mountains of Willowspire. I’d just never known how far… like another realm far. Like… the Underworld far.
Why hadn’t Matri told us that?
Why did my mother keep this from us?
What did it mean that my matri was from the Underworld?
How did she get out from the Underworld?
Question after question sprang to mind as the hot sun warmed my skin.
Fuzz splashed in the shallow lapping of waves.
Viceroy hadn’t been here when we woke up, so I stayed put, watching the fallope play, letting the thoughts and questions spin through my head.
I looked out over the ocean knowing I was staring at the same ocean as my matri had. I’d swam in its very waters.
The sun warmed my cheeks and skin, igniting my bones as if it were thawing me out from decades of ice. A part of my matri, I supposed, was my love of warmth. Now that I’d visited the sea, I’d found I quite liked the sea, too. Perhaps some sea witchery lived within me, after all.
White birds with black-tipped wings cawed overhead as waves beat against the shore. Fuzz pranced over. I covered my mouth in a laugh. “With all that wet fur, you look like a drenched house cat.”
Fuzz shook himself, and I giggled as the beads of water flicked against my skin. Though it were as hot as the brightest summer day, something chilled the back of my neck.
I turned to look over my shoulder.
Nothing except a thick line of tall, leafy trees and foliage. In Willowspire, we were told never to stare into the woods because we might very well find something staring back at us. Rumor and I would have competitions to see who could gaze into the forest longest before turning away in fear.
Surprisingly, more often than not, I was the victor. Not because Rumor became afraid, but because she got bored and moved on to something else. I think Rumor would have preferred to find a monster staring back at her, if anything just for the excitement of it all.
Unlike my sister, I didn’t seek trouble when I stared into the unknown and forbidden. My mind wandered with curiosity. It almost felt as if the darkness called me forward sometimes, though I didn’t grow up magical like Rumor did.
Why was that, by the way? Why did my witch gifts appear so late? Were there earlier signs I’d missed? Did my parents know?
Fuzz perched on the sand next to my elbow. I rubbed his ear. “Viceroy is taking a very long time doing whatever it is he’s doing, isn’t he?”
Birds screeched and flapped away from the trees in a frenzy, pulling my attention back to the strange beachy forest. “Maybe it’s Viceroy?” I asked the white fallope.
A thud sounded.
Standing up, I scooped Fuzz into my arms. “It’s okay,” I told him.
It felt like a lie as the hair on my arms stood and the chill of winter slithered down my spine.
I glanced to either side of me. Only wide-open beach, which could very well just be endless, stretched out to the left and right.
With the ocean behind me—I had no hope of running.
The thud sounded again, and this time, trees shook, rattling from the force of something large.
“Viceroy?” I called out foolishly. I knew it wasn’t him.
Something roared, and Fuzz squeaked before jumping from my hold. With nothing left to do, I did what I did as a child.
I stared into the forest.
My heart pounded in my chest.
My limbs trembled.
Another thunderous roar shook the large leaves, closer this time. My gaze held steady on the tree line.
Staring into the darkness.
When suddenly… the darkness stared back.
With a final roar, it leapt forward.
A scream fled my throat as it grabbed me.
Then, through my terror, the creature growled, and it dawned on me that I knew its sound.
A wither.
I beat against the wither’s chest, and he loosened his grip, allowing me to get a better look at him. I gasped as I took him in.
As red as blood.
Horned and fierce.
Wraith was the darkness staring back at me.