Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dawn arrived in shimmers of colour that spilled through the stained-glass window at the far end of the dining hall while I ate my breakfast. I took my time over my food, pondering my next moves in this forest and all that was to come, then I headed outside and walked the perimeter in case my human had decided to attempt escape again.
She was nowhere to be found though, and one sweep of her room inside told me she had scurried away to her favourite place in the castle again.
So I headed for the conservatory that was lush with plant life and predictably, there I found her, laid on some cushions strewn on the stone floor as she poured over the diary she’d discovered.
She hadn’t noticed my arrival yet and I decided I didn’t want her to. I prowled a little closer in the shadows, noting the crease on her brow and the way her finger tracked delicately over certain words or images.
She studied every page meticulously before she moved on to the next, and something about the persistence of her soul captivated me.
Her best chance at surviving this forest was assisting someone like me in the pursuit of the spirits, but instead, she still harboured a fascinating desire to do it herself.
Did she really think she would be the one to earn the boon of the forest? It was laughable. A human wouldn’t survive the brutality of this place and it wasn’t just the cursed trees she had to fear.
Even I, the outcast prince, had doubts over who I might meet among the Champions.
There had been whispers that Islasees Bellatorn was going to enter this Hunt in hopes to end the curse – and no doubt seek the boon for his own devices.
A Fae who had built a ferocious army in the name of King Arthrun over six hundred years ago.
Islasees had used his warriors to conquer a rebel faction of Fae who had made the darkest brand of deals with the Hags.
If he had deigned it worth his time to take on the forest and we encountered him here, we may not even make it to the Great Elm.
His hatred of me ran as thick as oil in his veins – and I was inclined to feel the same. I had been the one to kill his precious king after all, and he had been the one to run me out of Rivenspire.
There was one other thing that Ferris had no idea about in this game.
Before we made it to the Great Elm, we had to pass through the labyrinth, and as far as I knew, I was the only person who had discovered what was required to gain entry to it.
The Hag I had bargained with for information had not just told me of the boon’s capabilities but of a secret none besides I was privy to.
The labyrinth was locked. And the key? Well, that was in my possession.
I stepped up behind Ferris, tilting my head as I took in the map she was poring over.
My brows lifted as I noted the location of the Dragon marked so clearly upon it.
North of a winding cave system – its only access through that twisting passage.
But it seemed the dead man who had drawn this map had charted a path through it.
Or at least, he had obtained the knowledge from someone who had.
It was a gamble. We could end up stuck in those caves following the meandering trails of a human who had lost his mind during his time in the forest. Or…
“Up,” I barked, and Ferris nearly jumped out of her skin as she leapt to her feet. I snatched the diary from her hands and she cursed me as I took a closer look at the map.
“Give that back.” She clawed at my fingers, trying to get it free, but she was as much a bother to me as a mosquito. When I’d had my fill of looking, I tossed it back to her and she caught it, hugging it to her chest and glaring at me.
“You said you weren’t interested in it,” she growled.
“Feisty little thing this morning, aren’t you?” I drawled. “I have decided to put some stock in your dead human’s diary. So come, lightwing, let’s go see if we can find ourselves a Dragon.”
With that, I turned and left her to decide her fate – though it was obvious she would join me. Her foolish ways would lead her to continue her plight in seeking the spirits and that suited me well. At least I didn’t have to keep rounding up my bait when it walked so willingly after me into danger.
I marched through the castle, exiting into the wilderness where the cicadas pulsed with a rhythmic, high-pitched droll that came from every direction. Small critters and birds chattered this morning too, telling of no magic disturbing them. No spirits close to seize.
My pet human didn’t appear right away, taking her sweet time to follow, and finally arriving with a pack fit to bursting with supplies.
I could go days without food if necessary, but of course, the human could not.
Such delicate things. She never went anywhere without those precious books of hers either.
If they held the potential usefulness of the one I’d just caught her studying, I might just have to take more of an interest in the others.
But I’d wait to see if the Dragon was where the map indicated before I put any true stock in her human scribblings.
I made a fast march for the north of the forest and Ferris stayed beside me, jaw set.
We walked for over three hours in silence, nothing but the company of the wildlife breaking the quiet between us.
She never once asked to stop, not a single complaint passing her lips even when I led her up a sheer hill.
And still nothing when we began down the other side, heading into a treacherous valley lined with jagged rocks.
Those violet eyes never missed a beat though, drinking in her surroundings, studying every tree and vine we passed.
What went on behind them was a mystery she wouldn’t share with me and it irked me that I was curious enough to care.
We were close now. Our cave was just on the other side of this valley. The Dragon potentially within my grasp.
“Wait,” Ferris hissed, finally breaching the wall of quiet between us.
I looked to her with a bored expression, expecting her to complain of her aching feet and demand I let her rest.
“Hollows,” she breathed, an edge of fear slicing her voice apart.
My head whipped around in the direction she was staring and I spotted them at the base of the hill, their grey pallor and worn clothes blending them into the landscape.
But I should have noticed them first. My mind was sharper than most Fae’s, let alone a human’s, especially when it came to damn Hollows.
But she and her maddening eyes had drawn my focus once again.
Fuck.
It was a large group of the dead, fifteen of them at least, and there were certainly more lurking in the surrounding forest.
“They’re blocking the entrance to the cave,” Ferris hissed, lowering down to a crouch to remain concealed from them.
I gazed beyond the Hollows who roamed the rocky terrain, finding she was right again. Our passage lay there, and between us and it were the Hollows.
“Get down,” Ferris insisted, and I lazily lowered to a crouch beside her, taking in the fear in her eyes. The terror that ran so deeply in her and every other being across the lands because of these monsters.
“We have to distract them somehow, lure them away from that cave,” Ferris said, her hand closing on a rock as she weighed it in her palm, her brow creasing with thought.
“Yes, indeed,” I said darkly, still drinking in her terror. “Have you met with them before, lightwing?”
Her eyes locked on mine, her throat rising and falling. “Yes. They hunt the human realm just as they do yours.”
“They hunt nothing,” I said, my voice a cold, malicious thing. “They kill blindly, without thought or feeling. The hungry ones do anyway, once they have truly lost themselves. Keep them fed and they stay a little sharper.”
“Well these look ravenous,” she said, her eyes darting back to our minor problem in the valley while her fingers painted an X in the dirt.
“Have they ever come for you, Ferris? Have you felt their nails on your skin? Smelled their rancid breath? Seen the manic nothingness in their eyes?”
She turned to me again, recoiling at my words. “Yes,” she whispered. “And you?”
I looked to the Hollows, saying nothing. Oh Ferris, if only you knew what I had been through. The twisted fate this world has handed me. Spirits be, how you will tremble in my presence once you learn the truth.
Ferris gained her feet, creeping up to a large boulder and positioning herself behind it as she took out her slingshot. I watched in amused interest as she placed the rock in it and readied her shot.
With a whoosh, the rock was released, pelting away over the heads of the Hollows and crashing into the trees beyond.
But that would hardly be enough to draw them away.
I got to my feet, ready to deal with them myself, but a second rock flew from her sling and surprise gripped me when it hit a bees’ nest hanging up in the same tree her first rock had fallen close to before.
The nest fell and smashed in an explosion of bees, the sound drawing the attention of the Hollows who ran clumsily and desperately toward it, clearing a path to the cave.
Ferris said nothing as she took off down the hill, traversing the jagged rocks faster and faster as she ran for the cave. I had no choice but to follow in her stead, a wild laugh escaping my chest as I raced to catch her. Clever thing, there she went again, surprising me after all.
We made it to the cave together, sprinting into the dark side by side and leaving the Hollows to seek sustenance elsewhere. My laughter was echoed by hers and we shared a look as we slowed our pace, our faces lit by the shimmering bioluminescent glowworms lining the cave roof.
Our laughter fell away and I stepped closer to her, drawn to her inexplicably as magic pulsed around us in the air.
A spirit was close, its power so thick and so omnipotent that it made the hairs raise along the back of my neck. But nothing called my attention more than the human right then. Her dark hair was wild about her shoulders, her eyes full of unspent life, so bright they almost burned.
I moved closer, close enough that her back pressed to the cave wall.
I had her cornered but she didn’t try to run, and maybe I was deranged by all the years I had spent alone, but I could have sworn she was looking at me the same way I was looking at her, drunk on the energy in this place, and perhaps on each other in some confounding way.
“Pretty thing, if only you knew…” I captured her chin between my finger and thumb.
“Knew what?” she asked, her voice a rasp, a plea and a demand.
“What a monster I can be.”
“I’m still not afraid of you, Hendrix.”
“Then you are a fool.”
“I fear things that will hurt me. And I know you won’t do that.
You need me too much.” She caught my wrist as if to remove my hand from her face, but instead her fingers flexed against my skin and she frowned like she didn’t have an answer as to why she lingered there. I certainly didn’t have one for her.
“And what happens when I stop needing you?” I growled, the truth of what was coming far too stark.
“You’ll let me go,” she said assuredly, her chin lifting.
“I wish to never let you go,” I admitted, the truth a sin that marked her as my captive.
One which I had a mind to keep. As I closed the space between us, mouths hovering an inch apart, she didn’t recoil like she should have.
She made no move at all as those violet eyes connected with mine, seeing into the depths of my soul, finding the rot within and yet still not shrinking from me.
“I’ll escape you one day,” she whispered.
I coiled a lock of her dark hair around one finger, revelling in how the silken strand glided over my skin. “Maybe you will not wish to.”
Her throat bobbed, jaw ticking and a heated hatred mixing with the sultry look in her eyes. But she didn’t run away.
Her breath was as sweet as honey on my mouth, a temptation so blinding I couldn’t recall where we were or why we had come. I only had a mind for the presence of her.
She tugged my hand away from her face, but my body still caged her against the wall. Energy buzzed between us, a push and pull of power that thrashed inside my chest and demanded an answer.
I was suddenly very aware of what was coming. Only death awaited her in this forest. Be it at my hand or another’s. She would perish, as most of them would. Because this game only ended one way. Just as all games I entered into concluded. I was not going to get my wish of keeping her.
“Move,” she commanded, the moment fracturing as her softened eyes hardened in an instant.
My jaw gritted and my thoughts jarred. What was I thinking? Had I really intended to seduce the human? Was her temptation so great that I was going to be distracted from the task at hand time and again?
Rage blossomed through me and I gestured for her to go ahead of me with a grunt of irritation. “Hurry up and chart the way, lightwing. You’re wasting my time.”
“I’m wasting your time?” she scoffed. “You’re the one who-”
“Who what?” I sneered, daring her to say it, but she only pursed her lips at me. I took the opportunity to shove her further into the tunnel. “Move then. The caves await us. And you are the only one with a map.”