Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
We’d given up on the Stag after four more days of tireless hunting, walking in circles hour after hour in case we came across it. Eventually we’d had to agree that either some other Champion had found the spirit or that we were not looking in the right place for it.
I could feel time slipping by in this forest like water down a hill, and I still only had two amulets to my name.
It wasn’t enough.
I needed more if I was going to get a chance at earning the boon.
And despite my alliance with Ferris, there was no part of me that would turn from that goal.
But she would no sooner turn from hers either, leaving us at a stalemate.
And the truth was, I really did care about her losing out on the boon if I stole the chance from her.
The forest had called to me so many times, and yet this was the first Great Hunt I’d chosen to attend.
It was no coincidence that I’d found Ferris here.
We were meant to cross paths, I had no doubt, because ever since I’d set eyes on her, I had been drawn to her inexplicably.
And now all I wished to do was protect her, but if we managed to get a chance at the boon, then I would be forced to break her heart and seize it from her.
How could I make any other choice? How could I turn from my chance to claim the next spirit we came across when so much was riding on me collecting more amulets?
The wind stirred around my shoulders and dread rooted itself in my soul.
Death felt closer again today, her hand brushing mine, reminding me all too starkly of why I had come here, and the weighted oppression of her company was taking a toll on me.
“It can’t be far now,” Ferris muttered to herself, checking the map in the diary once more.
We were hunting for the Wolf now, our failure with the Stag hanging over us like a dark cloud, only adding to the sombre mood that had gotten its claws into me.
“These boulders are mentioned in one of the diary entries.” Ferris gestured to the giant rocks around us that were caked in jade moss, and I grunted in affirmation.
The rain was setting in again, growing to a persistent downpour. The droplets were collecting in Ferris’s hair, and as a shiver tracked through her, I silently commanded the Bear from the amulet and ordered it to part the downpour for us.
A sunlit path opened up, relieving us of one blight at least.
“Come on, this way,” Ferris urged, walking side by side with my Bear and even offering it a stroke on the flank as if it was some pet to be coddled.
I shook my head, but my eyes trailed over her and I found myself drawn into the gentle aura around her.
She was never going to gain full control over the Dragon if she continued to treat the spirits like sweet animals, yet there was something to the assured way she urged my Bear along that was clearly effective.
It had me looking at her too long, my eyes travelling over the sheen in her hair, the curve of her lips as she smiled at the spirit beside her, and I found it all too hard to look away.
My footsteps felt leaden as they tracked Ferris’s, thoughts of the past rolling in on me like an unstoppable tide and drowning the lightness of her presence in darkness.
I heard too many terrors spinning through my mind; my sister Amelda’s gasped cry just before her death; my mother’s silenced scream when that blade had slit her throat; the roar of desperation that had left my father as he fought for freedom, and as always, my brother’s final words to me.
Words I could never escape. ‘I’ll see you wherever our love guides us in the afterworld, brother. ’”
They were waiting for me to join them one day soon. Death would take my hand as it had taken theirs. Perhaps all this inner turmoil over my wants and Ferris’s wouldn’t matter in the end, but right now, it was all I could think of between the haunting ghosts of my past.
“You’re very quiet today,” Ferris commented, and I grunted.
She glanced back at me with a frown. “What is it?”
“The past, the present, the future. All of it,” I muttered darkly, lifting a hand to rub the mark which had been inked along my temple.
“We just have to keep going,” Ferris urged. “Don’t dwell on what’s done, dwell on what’s possible.”
I nodded mutely, trying to drag my mind from the dark place it had descended to, but the depression had its grip on me.
Countless days I’d spent in the bleakness of these torturous feelings, caught in the reality of what my life had become.
I knew what had to be done now, but sometimes it was so hard not to occupy the land of regret or fester in the guilt over what would happen if I took away Ferris’s chance at the boon.
Where I stepped, the moss began to wither, darkness spreading up from the roots to devour it, and I gritted my teeth, trying to stop the power that was spilling from me.
It would unmask me to Ferris if she looked too closely, if she saw how the lush undergrowth was starting to wilt around me.
This was what I was, a plague on the land, and I so often lost control of it.
If only she knew. Perhaps it might be best if she saw it now, but that thought made me recoil inside.
“Hendrix?” Ferris questioned softly, and I met her gaze, a crease between her brows and true concern in her eyes.
The way she said my name broke the spell of horrors rolling through me and the darkness lifted a little from my soul.
So few things had ever cracked through the bleak cloud that hung over me.
There were sometimes weeks that slipped by in a haze of gloom, but if she had been there, perhaps I would never have fallen into it at all.
Ferris walked this world with passion and desires blooming from her like daises awakening to the sun.
And I was started to crave the way the world bloomed around her.
Or perhaps I was just starting to crave her.
“I’m fine,” I assured her. “I’m focused.”
She opened her mouth to say more but a piercing howl carried our attention to the path.
“The Wolf,” Ferris gasped, then she broke into a run.
I chased after her, urging the Bear to lead the way on with a bark of a command, my hope awakening once more, latching onto the first sign of a spirit we’d had in days.
Ferris sprinted ahead of me, asking the forest to part for us and making our journey easier. The Bear led the way in front of her, the sheeting rain flanking us on either side as we tore along in its stead.
Darkness shifted between the trees ahead of us, the swish of a black tail and another piercing howl. The Wolf was close but it was a creature of shadow, so we would easily lose sight of it if it escaped to the darkest regions of the forest.
“Cut it off!” I bellowed at the Bear, and the beastly spirit of water veered to the left while I charged off the dry path and into the pouring rain, unsheathing my sword.
The Bear drove the Wolf back my way, the spirit turning to run, a patch of deepest darkness enveloping its form. But I was there waiting.
The gloom was thick, but there it was among it, its beautiful pelt a thing of pure shadow.
The Wolf brought shade to the forest floor, kept it cool and damp and offered shelter from the beating sun.
It was a creature of purest darkness, its fur a swirling mass of ebony tendrils. And it would soon be mine.
I swung for its head, my sword cutting through the air, but the rain abruptly stopped and the Wolf was bathed in sunlight instead. It flinched away from the brightness, diving for the shadows and avoiding the swing of my sword.
Ferris was there, leading my fucking spirit, my Bear right after her, guiding the sunlit path through the rain to direct the Wolf away from me.
“Ferris!” I roared as she drove the creature into a small cave, my footfalls chasing my human’s.
Ferris was ahead of me, running into the cave, the rain parting either side of it so there was nowhere for the Wolf to run unless it wanted to step into the light – and it clearly feared such a thing.
Ferris closed in on it, lowering down and offering her hand to the spirit hiding in the shadows. Two bright blue eyes peered from the gloom and the Wolf’s nose met with Ferris’s hand.
I stalled, watching her with enraptured fascination while battling with the chaotic need to seize the spirit for myself.
But several seconds passed and all I did was stare because Ferris looked so utterly fitting before the spirit, a curtain of silver hair around her shoulders, her eyes glinting at the Wolf in offering.
A resounding clash of warring emotions tore through my chest. Because for one eternal moment, I was considering giving up my chance at the spirit. To step back and let her take it. She’d made better moves than I had in this plight. She deserved it true enough.
But as I considered the loss of the boon and the promise I’d made to my family being shattered into a thousand fragments, my soul was forced to harden against those thoughts. I couldn’t let them down. I had to fulfil my vow to them.
“Pin her down,” I barked at the Bear, and my spirit obeyed, slamming into Ferris and weighing its mighty paws on her chest.
“No!” Ferris screamed in horror at what I’d done. “Don’t hurt it!”
I didn’t listen, running past her into the cave and swinging my sword through the dark. The Wolf tried to run and Ferris’s screams cleaved the air in two, making a riot of twisted emotions rip through my chest. But I couldn’t betray my family. I owed them my complete commitment to capturing it.
Ferris cried my name, a tone of anguished betrayal making me despise myself for the act. But she had no idea what I had at stake. If she’d waited hundreds of years for an answer to her desperation, she would understand.
The Wolf released a yelp that told of my victory and it swirled away in a whoosh of twirling darkness, a final mournful howl echoing out into the forest, marking its submission to me. An amulet lay shining on the cave floor in its wake, the gleaming mark of the Wolf engraved upon its surface.
I stared at it mutely, a weight of guilt pressing in as Ferris’s cold stare burned into me.
“I had to,” I breathed, though I wasn’t sure she heard me.
I picked up my prize, fixing it around my neck and jerking my chin at the Bear to command its retreat. Ferris glared up at me, soaking wet, with all the wrath of the spirits in her eyes.
“It’s nearly dusk,” I said, offering her my hand.
“Fuck you.” She kicked dirt at me, then shoved to her feet. “I’m done with your bullshit.”
“I need the boon,” I offered in a low voice, hating the way she was looking at me. She saw me as a cheat. And honestly, I was one. I knew what I’d done. I knew what it meant to her.
“And I need it too,” she said, her voice cracking with desperation, her hand going to her heart to show how deeply it hurt her. And it fucking hurt me too to know I’d caused it.
“You’d take them from me, given the chance,” I shot back at her, falling on anger to hide the turmoil I felt over what I’d done.
“That’s a lie. All of them should have been mine and you know it – you’re the one who’s playing this game dirty. But I’ve got the message at last, you bastard, and I’ll be ready for your bullshit next time.” She stalked away into the trees.
I followed quietly at her back, my skin prickling at her ire.
I tried to smother the guilt I felt and pushed it deep down inside me.
Because I may have vowed to protect Ferris, but I had still come here to succeed in one task and one task alone.
I despised being this way with her, but it was my only choice.
I couldn’t let anything turn me from my path.
Not even the human girl who had her claws in my heart.