Chapter 2 #2
The forest’s warnings had been recorded at every Great Hunt since they began, and they never changed.
It was the one thing about the cursed trees that every person in this crowd knew well.
The rules of the Hunt. Don’t be caught out at night.
Don’t kill another Champion for their amulets or the spirits they hold won’t bond to you.
Complete the Hunt in forty days or you’re all fucked.
As the voice fell silent once more, the Champions started walking again, led by Colton who continued forward with a certainty to his gait which I couldn’t help but envy.
My muscles coiled in anticipation. The timing had to be right. I couldn’t screw this up.
I took a single step before a hand caught mine, jarring me to a halt, and I flinched as though captured doing something I shouldn’t.
“Axel?” I questioned with a frown, glancing between him and the Champions who were now halfway to the forest.
“Don’t do this, Ferris,” he said in a low voice. “I understand why you feel you need to, but Rissa wouldn’t want-”
“Don’t speak about her like you know her,” I hissed, trying to yank my hand from his, but he only tightened his hold.
“You know I can’t let you-”
I punched him square in the nose, pain splintering through my fist at the contact with his hard face and a curse escaping me as I tried to yank my arm free, but he still held on. I wasn’t a fighter and my strike hadn’t so much as bloodied his nose, much less freed me from his grasp.
“What the fuck, Ferris?” he growled, tugging on my arm, hauling me away from the Champions who were just approaching the edge of the trees.
My time was running out. Panic flared through me. He was going to cost me my only chance.
“Axel, let go of me,” I snarled, shoving his chest and trying in vain to wrench my arm away but he held me tighter.
“I know I’m not the fate you wanted, but I’m more than just the man they think me to be,” he ground out, snatching my other wrist as I tried to strike him again. “I will protect you, Ferris. Even if it has to be from yourself. I-”
The ground bucked beneath us and we stumbled back, my side slamming into the wall of the town hall as something beneath the dirt almost knocked me from my feet.
Screams came from the crowd, my mother’s voice rising above them all, calling my name with a note of pure terror.
Pain splintered through me at that sound, my choice haunting me even though I knew I couldn’t un-make it.
Axel cursed, his grip on me slackening as the ground bucked beneath our feet once more, almost knocking us over.
I spun to try and see what was happening, adrenaline coursing through my veins as if we were under attack. I caught a glimpse of green before something coiled around my ankle and yanked so hard that I was flung onto my back.
Axel fell with me, his hold on me unyielding as I was dragged across the ground at an alarming pace, a scream spilling from my lips, my cloak and pack snagging and tearing while they cushioned me from below.
Mud and dirt billowed up in a great cloud, coating us in a layer of dirt and concealing us within it.
I screamed louder as I was hoisted downhill, my throat ripping raw at the sound, and all the world screamed with me, my mother’s voice the loudest of them all.
I thrashed against the hold on my ankle, my arm colliding with the body of someone else who was being dragged across the dirt too, but nothing I did came close to freeing me from the vice-like grip on my leg.
I tipped my head back to the sky, clouds whipping past overhead at a furious speed, the sun blazing so brightly that it burned my retinas and then, so suddenly that it was akin to thrusting my head beneath water, darkness snatched me.
The forest closed in around me. The people closest to me were screaming differently now, their voices filled with anguish in place of fear.
Something wet splattered across my face. Axel’s grip on my wrist grew bruising as he cried out in pain.
The thing around my ankle stopped dragging me along and I cursed wildly, fighting my way to my feet through the torn fabric of my dress, my ruined cloak falling off of me as I made it upright at last.
Horror tore chunks out of me and I stumbled back, shaking my head at the sight before me.
Axel lay unmoving on the ground, his glassy expression taking my attention captive for endless seconds before I could process the unnatural twist to his neck.
“No,” I breathed, backing away, shaking my head. He shouldn’t have been here. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. I was…he was…
I whirled around, the deep green of the trees pressing in on me from every direction, my scream rebounding off of them as I stumbled towards the one, shrinking patch of sunlight with desperate need, panic bleeding into every piece of my soul.
I reached for that scrap of light where the towns folk watched on, breaking into a run, my pack falling from my back, my boot slipping off my foot along with the tangled green vine which had hauled me into these cursed trees.
With every sprinted step, the space between the trees shrank, the trunks closing together like an ancient gateway, vines tangling between them to block out every speck of the world beyond until only one tiny path of light remained, my mother’s frantic face framed within it, devastation crumpling her features as her eyes met mine and the forest slammed closed between us.
Before I could hurl myself against the trees, strong arms banded around my body, a hand slapping down over my mouth to stifle the endless scream which had broken from my lips.
Blood dripped into my eyes as Colton Evast held me tighter, his words a rough growl against the shell of my ear, his arms a bind I couldn’t free myself from even as tears burned pathways down my cheeks and I shook my head in denial of what had just happened.
“It’s too late to turn back now, Ferris Creed,” he said roughly. “Welcome to the Great Hunt.”