Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
I’d taken shelter in houses and an old tavern, never staying more than one night so that I could keep moving.
I was hunting her more than the spirits now.
Death was dripping from me like a plague of locusts come to feast upon the earth, every tree, bush and flower I had passed wilting in the wake of me.
And all the while, I was consumed by thoughts of Ferris almost as deeply as the darkness shrouding my mind.
The Hollows remained close, waiting in the shadows, hounding my footsteps, more and more joining their ranks.
I despised their presence, their ever-watching eyes.
They never spoke to me. Not these. Not like some.
And I preferred it that way. These were not freshly dead, they were the starved husks of former humans and Fae alike, following the eternal power that always drew them back to my side.
The longer it had been since their demise, the less their souls remained intact, but I only needed to grasp a whisp of it to root on this side of death.
That was all I required to add them to my army.
I had found no sign of Ferris apart from a single feather that had been heading north, confirming she had kept to that path.
So north I walked, every day, as far as I could from the moment dawn came to the very cusp of sundown while the forest surrounding me withered and the trees groaned their demise.
I never stopped moving unless I had to.
My frustration only deepened at the knowledge that I could move far swifter than this in the world beyond the cursed forest. When Death was close, I could take hold of her cloak and she could pull me through the crevice between this life and the afterworld, transporting me to wherever I wished to go on Rathian in the blink of an eye.
But here, between these damned trees, The Great Elm refused my passage whenever I tried.
So now that night had forced me to take shelter once more, I waited for dawn to come, wide awake and staring at the door of the old tavern I’d slept in, snared in haunting visions of the past.
I tried to remember something good, only to be called back to a day when I had taken Amelda down to a graveyard on the edge of a winding stream on the border of Mithelnore.
She’d been so young. Still a child and so curious about life.
She’d been so very happy in her youngest days.
A girl who always smiled, always looked for reasons to laugh.
She’d been so fearless too when she’d watched me use the Art of speaking with the dead to catch whispers from our fallen ancestors among the gravestones.
There weren’t many graves in the whole of Rivenspire, but we were a family of warriors, and so death had found more of our family than most. Perhaps that was why the spirits had blessed me with such an Art.
Our great, great grandfather had asked if we could pay a visit to a friend who had stolen his favourite hat and return it to him, and Amelda had promised she would do so and leave a cat’s turd on his doorstep as punishment.
I’d nearly pushed her in the stream for being such a rogue.
But she had been my rogue. Wild as the wind and as impatient as a sea storm.
My brother Kashton was different, more brooding in his ways, but family had always brought smiles to his lips like no other thing had.
He took after Father where Amelda had always been more like Mother with her recklessness.
Together we’d found a balance that had created a haven in Rivenspire.
The Coterie hadn’t drawn our attention much beyond the odd comment made my Father because of his required attendance to the monthly gatherings.
Once I became old enough to join, I’d quickly realised the mirage we’d painted for ourselves, blinded by ignorance.
For the Coterie were a taint who had willingly spread evil into our lands without my notice.
But once I had seen it, there was no unseeing it.
I wished to protect Amelda and Kashton from the fate of a world ruled by them and a corrupt king whose reign never ceased.
I hadn’t meant for the cards to fall how they did.
Father had hated them too of course, but he’d tried more peaceful methods of changing the ways of the Coterie.
He had not wished for a violent answer but there had been no choice in my opinion.
My gaze fell to one of the Hollows as she stepped up to the window outside, pressing a palm to the glass and watching, always fucking watching.
Her mouth was parted, revealing rotten teeth and those unblinking eyes were shot through with dark veins.
She was a stark reminder of my curse, and I could have sworn those eyes were full of blame.
I grabbed an old oil lamp from the table beside my seat and hurled it at the window, the thing slamming into it and sending a crack splintering out across the glass. The Hollow blinked but didn’t move.
“Be gone,” I barked, but she remained.
I carved a hand down my face, shutting my eyes to hide from her condemnation, needing to think. Where might Ferris go? Which spirit would she seek next?
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember the images on that map. Was the Unicorn to the north or was it the west? Had she sought any others? Had she succeeded?
I missed her bitterly. That was the crux of it. I wanted to hate her as she hated me, it would make this all the easier, but I knew what awaited me when we found each other. Nothing but ire would ever be offered from her to me now, and that was such a bitter fucking pill to swallow.
Spirits be, I had come here as a lone creature hellbent on seeking the boon.
I did not mean to find a distraction such as her.
No male as cursed as I would ever suspect a gift like that.
Punishments were my expectation of the world.
I was responsible for the deaths of so many, for every Hollow that walked upon Rathian.
I could not control them in full, only will them here and there, and even that power was not ironclad.
But I was still their king. They answered to me, and the violence they delivered was very much my sin to bear.
Once upon a time, death had been but a gift I could wield in small doses.
I could catch whispers from the beyond, but when I’d watched my family die, that magic had festered into a ruinous calamity in my veins.
I shuddered at the memory, dropping my hand and blinking out at the door, forcing it from my mind. No, I could not go there again. Too many times had I replayed that day. Now was a time for the present, not the past.
I pushed out of my seat as the light of dawn haloed the Hollow at the window and knew it was time to move once more. She was calling to me again, as perhaps she had been calling to me all along, drawing me to this forest. And now that I’d found her, I refused to let her go.
“I’m coming for you, Ferris,” I whispered to no one but myself, stepping outside to find the mass of Hollows had grown in the night.
Thirty or more lingered here, the dead standing like statues between the trees, waiting for me.
Every tree around them stood dead, their leaves pooling on the ground and their bark as dry as ash.
“Follow me then,” I commanded them. “We will be death in plain sight, a walking nightmare for all who scurry between these trees. Let them find us. Let them try their hand at killing the king of death, then let them join you among your bloodied ranks and fall in line for good. Every one of you will assist me in my task. We march until we find her!”