Chapter 5
Belle
We reached the fork Marcel had mentioned on the second day after leaving camp and took the eastern branch toward Abervine, as planned. The raw wool and heavy garments from the Bloodvale would fetch a good price in the northern reaches before we ultimately turned east to Eradessa.
I rode in the rear, with Ardyn plodding along on horseback behind me, close enough that I could almost hear the bloodsucker cursing my name beneath his breath.
Shouts rose from ahead, and both wagons lurched to a halt. Silas’s sharp whistle split the air. Ardyn galloped ahead, and I urged my mare to follow.
Three giant oaks had been uprooted and were downed across the road, their limbs twisted and shattered, barricading our progress.
“By the fucking Fates,” Marcel grumbled. “This is the last thing we need. We’re making poor time as it is.”
Silas dismounted, heavy crossbow raised, its tip sweeping the tree line. “Keep alert. It could be an ambush.”
I unslung my bow as both guards dismounted and drew their blades. Silas motioned them forward. “You two, sweep the tree line. If there are bandits, butcher them.”
The bloodsuckers rushed forward in a blur, disappearing into the trees.
Marcel scoffed. “Do you see the size of those trees? Men didn’t do this. They were uprooted. It had to be a windstorm.”
“Men could use it all the same,” Silas said, his tone sharper and more clipped than usual.
As the men argued, I dismounted and approached one of the massive fallen trunks. The earth around the trees had been churned, and chunks of bark had been ripped away.
My eyes swept from the oaks to the road ahead. It was completely clear. A storm powerful enough to fell ancient oaks would’ve toppled dozens of others along the road and littered the ground with branches.
“This was no storm,” I said, though the arguing men paid me no heed.
I scanned the tree line, the hair on my neck rising and my skin prickling. Something was wrong. The unmistakable feeling of being watched pressed into me—and it wasn’t the first time. I turned around, but no one was there.
I was about to tell Silas when the immortal guards shouted the all clear from each side of the road.
“See,” Marcel said. “Not an ambush.”
“There are worse things than men in these woods,” Silas muttered. “We need to get the wagons under way.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Frustration lined Marcel’s jaw, and he gestured toward the trees. “Can’t you cut a path through?”
Silas leveled him with a dead gaze. “These oaks are hundreds of years old. It would take hours and far more men and axes than we have. We turn around.”
Marcel pulled out his map. “I don’t like the idea of spending another night camping—especially if your instincts about bandits are right.
The fork we passed an hour ago leads west to a town called Harrowick.
If we push hard, we might make it before dark.
The road north of the town eventually rejoins this one. ”
Silas glared as he mounted his horse. “West takes us deeper into the cursed woods.”
“I’m well aware, and I’m not saying I like it, but it’s Harrowick or backtrack three days for another route east,” Marcel said. “If there’s a town, the road will be safe enough.”
I barely heard the exchange. My attention was locked on the deep, angular scours carved into the trunk before me.
Sap wept from the wounds, sharp and green in the air. I’d thought it was just damage from the fall, but now that I looked closer…
Claw marks.
I backed away. It couldn’t be possible. Each groove was inches deep and wider than my palm. A beast would have to be the size of a barn to leave marks like those. Turning, I swept my gaze along the tree line again. The woods were still and utterly silent. Not even a bird called from the canopy.
“Belle!” Marcel shouted, yanking me back to the present. “Mount up. We’ve got to make Harrowick before dark.”
I took one last look, then ran for my horse.
Marcel pushed a hard pace, driving the mules until they were frothing at the mouth.
The woods closed in as the sun set, the leaves seeming to lose their vibrant fall color in favor of muted gray and brown.
We shouldn’t have been able to hear anything above the drumming hoofbeats and grinding wheels of the wagons, but I could swear I heard the trees moaning and creaking in the still air.
We didn’t reach Harrowick until well after sundown. The cheery lights of houses glinted through the dark, and the tension loosened from my shoulders. Then my breath stilled. Lights meant no walls.
I spurred my mare and caught up with Silas and Marcel at the head of the column. “There’s no palisade. Didn’t this fork take us closer to the cursed woods?”
“It did,” Marcel said, furrowing his brow. “Maybe these are just the outskirts of town. The palisade could be farther on.”
The houses grew closer together, and when the peaked roof of the town’s shrine came into view, no doubt remained: there were no walls.
Could these people have found a solution to the beasts? It was the first time since leaving the Bloodvale that the question felt like more than wishful thinking.
The absent palisade wasn’t the only strange thing about the town.
Colorful ribbons adorned the houses, but they only made the buildings seem drab and almost melancholy.
Peddlers with bright wagons lined the edges of the square, a thriving night market.
They smiled in greeting and held up glistening sticky buns and trinkets, but as soon as we passed, their smiles faded.
We secured lodging and fodder for our animals at an old inn that seemed to sag under the weight of rotting wood and long-held misery.
Marcel and Gregoire headed inside, while I helped the driver and porters tend to the horses and secure our kit in the wagons.
Unwilling to set foot in a lowly human establishment, the immortals kept watch over the wagons.
As with many of the towns along the border, there’d be places catering to their kind—blood and flesh, offered up without question.
I tried not to think about where it came from.
The tavern was filled with roaring firelight, and the sound of raucous laughter and singing greeted me at the door, but when the porters and I entered, the patrons eyed us with suspicion and turned their backs.
Those who kept going beat their cups aggressively against the tables in time and seemed to be singing to none but themselves.
When laughter eventually returned, it sounded forced and hollow, as if to make up for the strange gloom that hung over the place.
The people here weren’t celebrating. They were trying to remember how to.
Gregoire had already cornered a pair of barmaids and was drinking deeply, while Marcel was huddled close in conversation with a barrel-chested man with dark, curly hair and a beard to match.
For a second, my eyes landed on a man sitting alone in the corner of the tavern, wearing a heavy coat and muddied boots.
Rather than singing or talking, he was staring straight at me—though the moment I met his gaze, he turned back to his mug of ale.
My fingers drifted to my absent bow.
Marcel shouted and waved me over.
“We’re not the only merchants here,” he said, pushing a small glass of ruby wine in my direction. “This is Erasmus, a local who imports silk from Eradessa.”
The man wore an embroidered woolen jacket that would’ve been garish if not for the company in the tavern. “And who are you?” he asked, his gaze sweeping over me.
“Belle.” I raised a glass to him and took a sip. It was sweet and deeply fragrant, like dried cherries, almost cloying.
“My niece,” Marcel lied. “She wanted to see the world.”
“The world, is it?” Erasmus bowed his head and grinned, flashing a pair of golden teeth. “And what do you think of Harrowick, my lady?”
“A welcome relief after a long journey,” I said, forcing a smile. “Why doesn’t this town have walls? Are there no beasts here?”
The line around the merchant’s mouth drew tight as if his sweet wine had just turned bitter. “The beasts prowl the forest here, just like everywhere else this deep in the cursed woods.”
“Then how do you stay safe? Have you—”
“The people here paid a price,” he said sharply. “That’s how. Let’s speak of more pleasant things.”
Paid a price. To whom?
The disingenuous mirth he’d displayed when I arrived vanished, replaced by a brooding countenance and resentful eyes that said, No more questions.
But I couldn’t let it go. I leaned forward. “We’re desperate. The beasts are attacking our kingdom. We need a solution.”
“This isn’t your answer.”
I glanced over my shoulder. The man I’d spotted earlier was still there, lurking behind his beer, gaze on my back.
Creep.
I turned to the merchant. “The beasts are ravaging our kingdom. There’ve been thirteen attacks since midsummer, with dozens dead. There will be more if we don’t find a way to stop them.”
Erasmus sighed and slowly scanned the tavern before leaning in. “The beasts leave the village alone because they’re under the control of the King of the Cursed Woods. We pay a heavy price to be spared.”
I exchanged a look with Marcel. “We’ve never heard of him.”
“And it’s best you haven’t,” Erasmus said in a low voice barely audible above the music and voices.
“He’s a reclusive monster with only half a face—a cruel bloodsucker with no regard for human life.
As long as we give him what he wants, the beasts stay away.
And if we fail to deliver, well—I’ll leave that to your imagination. ”
The sweet wine curdled in my mouth. Of course, the king was a bloodsucker. Immortals probably ruled the whole world. “What payment does he require?”
The lines at the edges of his mouth hardened with well-trained bitterness. “Young men and women from every village that has accepted his devil’s bargain.”
I met Marcel’s eyes, certain both of us were thinking the same thing. His children.