Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There was an energy to these caves which made the hairs along my arms stand on end, my skin prickling like static was striking every part of me. The dark walls smelled of iron and petrichor, and despite us being beneath the ground, I felt as though a storm might break out at any moment.
The glow from the blue worms which pulsed softly across the ceiling and walls was eerie, and no matter how carefully we stepped, our boots echoed loudly in the silence.
My skin prickled with electricity as though it danced in the air all around us. I felt flushed to the point of dizziness, and there was an ache in my flesh which was present right down to the air I inhaled.
My body was responding to the heavy power here, nothing more. It certainly wasn’t a reaction to the proximity of the Fae who had just looked at me as though he was thinking of devouring me whole.
Every instinct in my body was warning me to beware for more reasons than one, and perhaps a less foolish woman might have turned back. But despite the warnings hanging in every part of this place, I felt only the desire to keep going, to seek its end and what might lay there.
The ground rose steadily beneath our feet and a rush of cool wind brushed over us, whispering of an opening up ahead.
Hendrix shouldered past me, drawing his sword and falling into a warrior’s stance which only made him appear more lethal than ever.
I eyed him warily, knowing he had plans for me once we arrived at our destination and trying to figure out what they were.
He was so certain that he could trick the spirits by using me as bait, and I supposed with his strength he would only need a moment of distraction on their part to claim the upper hand.
Still, the two amulets he wore should have been mine.
I refused to accept that he had rightfully earned either of them.
The Bear had been won by Colton and in his death, he would have wished it to go to another human Champion, not a Fae.
I may not have been a Champion by design but I had become one upon my entry to these woods and had been the only human with him when he was ripped from this world.
I was sure he would have expected me to take up his prize.
Instead it had been stolen by the Fae bastard just as so many other things had been taken from us by his kind.
The Fox was a sting that cut deeper. Hendrix had blundered that catch, racing after the spirit like a charging bull and quickly losing sight of it.
I’d been the one who had figured out how to lure it back to us with fire.
I’d been the one sitting before it when it had returned and I’d been mere moments from striking and seizing it for myself when he’d strode up and stolen it.
But like a fool, I’d hesitated. I’d had my shot right there before me but I’d found myself staring into the flaming eyes of my quarry and had been lost in the pain I’d discovered there.
I wasn’t certain how I’d known it, but I’d felt a weight of grief clinging to the spirit which mirrored the pain in my own heart so keenly that I’d been rendered still by it, shocked to find anything in a creature born of magic which might resonate so deeply within me.
Yes it had been terrifying, its teeth bared over flaming lips, the heat of its fiery body wrapping around me so tightly that the air in my lungs had seared its way through my chest. But the Fox had been so sad.
And then Hendrix had thrown his blade at it like a damn beast and my chance had been lost just like that.
I was determined not to hesitate again. I had no idea how I might hope to claim the most terrifying spirit of them all, but I was set on trying. The Dragon was ancient, all lore about it cloaked in myth, but some strands of its history aligned time and again in the books I’d studied so desperately.
The Dragon’s task had been to protect the forest from all ill and herd the trees back together if ever they began to wander at will. It was strong and fierce, wild and wary. And it would rain down terror upon any it saw as a threat to its charge.
We turned a corner and light finally spilled into the caves, a shimmering silver glow which spoke of thick clouds beyond the canopy of the forest outside.
I took a steadying breath and crept towards the cave’s exit, the static only growing heavier in the air, a few strands of my dark hair lifting around my face.
Hendrix led the way as we crept out into a clearing beyond the caves, the grey sky just visible between the outstretched branches which leaned over to hide this place from view.
A great wall of braided sticks and branches blocked our way on, the side of it extending up just above our heads. I stared at the structure, trying to understand what it was and spying a glimmering silvery-white feather threaded within the twisted sticks.
I edged forward and took hold of the end of the feather, a small shock sparking against my fingers and making my hand jerk back again.
Hendrix turned a withering look on me, arching a brow. “Scared, human?”
I scowled at him, not bothering to dignify his question with an answer because only a fool wouldn’t be frightened in this place.
Wherever we were, it was thick with magic, the feel of it humming between the branches of the ancient trees and whispering its way through every twisted vine, every blade of grass.
We were being watched. I felt it in my bones, though I couldn’t see anything in the surrounding glade to prove it.
I gritted my teeth and grasped the feather again, ignoring the zap of electricity that bit at my fingers as I tugged it free of the twisted branches.
I gasped as I held it aloft. The feather was almost as long as my arm with trails of zigzagging silver light slipping across its pearly white surface.
It was soft but also strong, the silken strands which surrounded its shaft only bending slightly under the pressure of my thumb before springing back into place.
“Hendrix,” I breathed, holding my prize out to show him. “I think it’s really here somewhere. This feather could only be from a creature born of pure magic, one who-”
My words cut off as Hendrix grabbed me, an ‘oof’ escaping my lips as I found myself flipped upside down and tossed over his shoulder.
“That’s all very fascinating, lightwing, but I’m ready to get to the punchline.”
I kicked him in the stomach as hard as I could but he only grunted once, then clapped his arm over my legs to still them before starting to climb the wall of braided wood.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, punching him in the kidney to no avail.
“What we came here for,” he replied darkly, no hint of hesitation in his voice.
I continued to strike him while he climbed but he ignored me, vaulting over the top of the braided wall and dropping down on the other side of it.
Hendrix dumped me onto a pile of the twisted branches, and I sucked in a sharp breath as I took in the bowl I found myself in, moss and more of those beautiful feathers woven between the sticks and making it clear what this was.
“It’s a nest,” I breathed, looking around at the beautiful structure we’d climbed into.
“Yeah. A nest where a Dragon lives. You’re up, lightwing. Time to play your part,” Hendrix grunted, taking a coil of rope from his pack and moving to loom over me.
“You’re not seriously going to-” I shrieked as he lunged for me, kicking out and managing to strike him in the jaw hard enough to make him stagger back a step.
I scrambled away, trying to escape him, scrabbling to get up, but he caught my ankle as I flipped around and dragged me back beneath him again.
Hendrix hauled my arms behind my back and the rope cinched tight around my wrists a moment later. He flipped me onto my back once more and grinned down at me like a maniac.
“Are you going to scream for me, pretty human, or will I have to make you?”
“Fuck you.”
“The hard route it is then.” He took a dagger from his belt and knelt over my waist as he brought it down towards me.
“What the hell are you doing?” I gasped before his blade cut into the flesh of my shoulder and a cry of pain escaped me.
I bucked and fought beneath him but he ignored me, pinning me down with a hand on my chest, his eyes moving to the trees above.
“Again,” he growled before slapping his hand down on the cut he’d given me when I refused to comply.
The bite of pain tore another cry from my lips and a crack of thunder boomed through the sky.
In less than a heartbeat, Hendrix was gone, racing away and leaping from the nest before disappearing into the trees.
My heart pounded violently as I fought against the bonds which tied my hands at the base of my spine.
There was no way I was climbing out of this giant nest without them, and as thunder crashed through the sky once more, I couldn’t help but cower against the oncoming presence I could feel between the trees.
The Dragon had heard us. It was here.
Rain crashed from the sky and pounded a path through the canopy, drenching me within minutes, plastering my clothes to my frame, the downpour turning torrential so that even the trunks of the trees became hazy and undefined.
A low growl rumbled through the forest.
I stilled, my head whipping back and forth as I fought to spot what approached, my muscles straining as I tried and tried to break free of my bonds.
Lightning split the world in two, forcing my eyes to snap shut, a shimmer of electricity sparking across my body as the power of the strike resounded through everything in the clearing.
My eyes flew wide and I screamed as I found the Dragon bursting from the trees, lunging right for me, its luminescent, serpentine body a mixture of white and silver with trails of teal-coloured electricity scoring paths between its scales.