Chapter 13
ISI
Ifelt like prey fleeing a predator’s den, my boots pounding the vegetation-strewn path as I ran with my new friends.
My lungs burned with each ragged breath, panic clawing at my throat from the carnage I’d seen.
Around me, the others gasped and stumbled, their faces pale with the same horror that twisted my stomach into knots.
No one spoke. We couldn’t. Not when the memory of screams and the wet sound of fangs crunching through bone still echoed in our ears.
The jungle pressed in around us, nothing like the manicured gardens of home or even the plains I’d traveled through to reach Syllavar.
This was something primordial, alive in ways that made my skin crawl.
Enormous trees stretched toward a canopy so dense that only scattered beams of sickly green light filtered through, coating everything in an underwater glow.
Roots as thick as my waist burst from the earth, forcing us to leap and scramble over their gnarled surfaces.
Ferns the size of castle tapestries whipped my face as I ran, their fronds leaving stinging welts on my cheeks.
The weight of my quickly gathered supplies in the bag on my back was a constant reminder of how little I truly knew about what I’d gotten myself into. My leather outfit moved like a second skin, its perfect fit a comfort and an unwelcome reminder of where I knew it came from.
At least it didn’t exacerbate the pain from the lashes.
Behind me, someone stumbled. I glanced back to see Jaxon catching himself on a twisted root, his sandy hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. His nervous laugh had been silenced by what we’d witnessed, replaced by the kind of brittle concentration that came from knowing death stalked us.
The path we followed seemed too convenient for natural growth. Smooth stones had been placed at irregular intervals, creating stepping points across muddy patches. The evidence made my nerves sing with tension. Was the trail meant to guide us toward safety or something worse?
A blossom the size of a chair unfurled from a vine hanging directly over the path, its petals the color of fresh blood, shot through with veins of gold that thumped like a heartbeat. The flower tracked our movement, and I sensed it was patiently waiting for one of us to make a mistake.
I shifted over to the far side of the path, herding the others with me as we passed beneath it. The blossom turned, following our progress, rotating on its stem with a wet sound that reminded me of the carnivorous plants in the meadow we’d barely escaped.
“Don’t look at it,” I whispered, though I couldn’t tear my own gaze away from its hypnotic beauty. “Keep going.”
Sweat ran down my spine, mixing with the humid air that clung to me like something alive. The temperature had climbed as we moved deeper into the jungle, until breathing felt like drowning in warm honey. Steam rose from patches of dark soil, and the air shimmered with heat.
More flowers began to appear, their colors as vibrant as the others.
Crystalline blue petals that chimed like bells when the wind touched them just right.
Violet blossoms with centers that glowed like captured starlight.
Each was beautiful enough to stop the heart, and each one watched us with the same predatory awareness.
Vines dropped from the canopy, brushing across our shoulders and hair.
The first time one touched Derren, he nearly leaped out of his skin, spinning with his fists raised before realizing it was just a plant.
The next time, Lexie started to punch the vine before tucking her fist against her chest. But after being touched—tasted?
—by so many of the vines, we all only flinched and kept jogging, our nerves stretched to the point we’d soon break.
A plant shaped like a massive spider tracked our passage, its white petals opening and closing in a rhythm that matched our footsteps. Another the size of a small tree thrust thorny tendrils toward us as we passed.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my travels.” Bryson’s voice barely broke over the sound of our labored breathing. “Plants don’t behave like this. They’re not supposed to—”
His words cut off as a tendril draped itself across his shoulder. We all froze, watching as the plant explored the texture of his tunic before withdrawing. Bryson’s face paled, but when the plant retracted back, he resumed jogging without saying a word.
Kerralyn’s breathing had grown increasingly labored. Her violet eyes darted between the watching plants and the path, and I could see her mind working, trying to catalog and understand what surrounded us. But understanding required energy she clearly didn’t possess.
She stumbled, catching herself on a moss-covered boulder. When she straightened, her face had lost all its color, and her hands shook where she gripped her journal.
“Keep up,” Maddox snarled from ahead, not bothering to look back. “We can’t slow down for every—”
“Don’t,” I snapped.
Slowing, he turned, his brown eyes blazing with the kind of frustrated anger that came from fear. “She’s slowing us down. Look at her. She can barely stand, let alone keep pace. If we keep making concessions for the weak ones, we’ll all end up plant food.”
I moved closer to Kerralyn without breaking eye contact with him. “We’re not leaving anyone behind.”
Tremors ran through her slight frame as I wrapped my arm around the back of her waist.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cratered with exhaustion and shame. “I know I’m holding everyone back. I can keep up. I’ll—”
“You’re fine. We’re doing this together.”
Fara waited for us to catch up before moving around to Kerralyn’s other side, helping support our friend. Her warm brown eyes met mine, and I was grateful she was nothing like Maddox.
“Thank you,” Kerralyn whispered, tears mixing with the sweat on her cheeks. “Both of you. I promise I won’t slow us down anymore.”
Our pace did slow, though not by much. With Fara and me supporting her when the terrain became treacherous, we managed to keep moving deeper through the humid jungle.
The plants continued their silent observation, but something had changed in their behavior.
They still watched, still tracked our movement with those unnaturally intelligent gazes, but they no longer reached toward us.
Maybe our lack of weapons had marked us as non-threatening.
Or maybe they were waiting for us to collapse before making their move.
Hours passed in a blur of heat, humidity, and the constant fear that every step might be my last. I’d nearly emptied my first water flask, and the food in my pack seemed inadequate for whatever lay ahead. But we were alive. We were moving forward. And for now, that had to be enough.
The jungle began to thin as we climbed steadily upward, the canopy giving way to scattered trees and rocky outcroppings. Finally, we spilled out of the jungle and stopped, all of us staring at a massive cliff face rising from the earth in a stone wall on the other side of a narrow strip of grass.
“It’s open out here.” Maddox looked back at the dense jungle. “In there, we can hide. Out here, we’re bait.”
“Out here, we can see what’s coming.” Bryson tightened his grip on the stick he’d picked up the moment we entered the forest. “Which, tactically, makes more sense. For now.”
“Out in the open,” I said, remembering some of the wisdom Commander Thorne had shared during our training. “We’ve got distance between us and threats. Better than being ambushed at close range in the jungle.”
“Exactly.” Bryson shot me a pleased smile.
Maddox scowled. He toed a rock with the tip of his boot. “I still think—”
“With the cliff behind us, we only need to guard three sides, not four.” I lifted my eyebrows, waiting to see what he’d say to that.
“Ignore him.” Jaxon grinned at his older brother. “He’s grumpy because he knows cliffs don’t have anything to hide behind when he starts sulking.”
Maddox tackled him, wrangling him to the ground, and they tussled like children in the deep grass.
“Enough,” Bryson barked with all the authority of a military commander. “Stop or I’ll make you.”
Maddox rolled off Jaxon, who sat up and straightened his clothing, smoothing his hair. He shot his brother a glare. “Fucking don’t do that again.”
“It was just a joke,” Maddox said in a mocking, high-pitched voice. “Thought you loved jokes.”
“I mean it.” Jaxon rose to his feet.
“Yeah, I heard you,” Maddox grumbled, getting up himself.
We hurried across the open area and stopped beside the cliff that stretched upward until it disappeared into low-hanging clouds, its surface scarred and weathered by countless years of wind and rain.
I didn’t see any obvious handholds and no visible path leading upward.
Only smooth, unforgiving stone that might as well have been a prison wall.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and fat raindrops began to fall. Within minutes, the drops turned into a torrent that drizzled down my leathers and soaked through those wearing simple tunics and pants. We started moving, slowly descending a long slope beside the cliff with the jungle still on our right.
“There,” Derren shouted over the noise of the rain smacking the ground, pointing to a dark opening in the stone not far ahead. “We need to get out of the storm.”
We stumbled toward it, slipping on wet rocks and clutching at each other to keep from falling, reaching the cave that was shallow but deep enough to shelter all eight of us. For now, the dirt floor was dry. We collapsed on the ground with the wall to our backs.
I shucked my pack and pulled out a small cloth bag of nuts I’d grabbed from the table, eating a few. We didn’t know how long the Rite of Bonds would last, and I suspected that what we’d grabbed from the table would not be enough.