Chapter 25
For the dozenth time, Lunara met Axanderus at the edge of the shield, cleaning his feathers as he waited for her to clear the shadows.
It was disorienting every time he blinked round eyes at her and she saw herself from his angle. Pale. Fuming. Looking as harried as she felt.
Even worse to see Brand calmly striding up behind her with long, slow steps. He’d stayed on her heels as they’d traveled, never letting her get too far ahead of him, no matter how quickly she forced her feet to move.
What could he mean by ‘lies do not become you?’ Lies keep you safe. It’s not a bleeding act, it’s survival!
She hardly recognized Brand in his greater form, never expected his frank honesty. The bald statements that left her naked and exposed.
How dare he be so direct? High-handed, overbearing... Ugh! He thinks he’s better than you, pointing out your secrets like it’s nothing.
Lunara was a hypocrite, but she didn’t care. She burned to know what he was thinking. What he planned to do with the information. Wanted answers, though she was unwilling to give them.
Is he going to tell Araxis? The Elders? Bare your deception to the world?
It was all assumption on his part, but his taunting conjectures had been right on the nose.
Just like Lyriat.
Damn him.
She bent and ran a hand down Ax’s back, her only true companion all these years. The voices didn’t count. And it didn’t matter that he was a figment of her imagination brought to life. He was loyal—and he couldn’t bleeding speak unless she willed it.
He also can’t judge, taunt, abandon, or betray you.
Indeed, he couldn’t even fly too far away from her without disappearing, else she’d have used him to scout the chasm and avoided this entire fucking mess.
“Are you well?” Brand’s low voice rumbled through the air, breaking the dense silence.
She wove her magic again, absorbing and condensing the tiniest slivers of light that the shadows carried before shoving everything away. Another chunk of the chasm revealed, as far as her eyes could see.
Another hour of walking while ignoring the gnawing in her gut, before she did it again.
“Luna.”
“I’m fine, Brand.”
With her split vision, half of the world whirred by her, a blur of dark and dust and nothing.
Her other eye focused on the dirt a few feet ahead, welling. A weight settled over her, and she was suddenly so very sad.
What in the realms?
“Why have we never seen your pet?”
“He is not my pet, he’s my friend. And I only bring him out when it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Explain?”
Him and that word. A two-syllable reminder of the thing she most feared doing. At least he’d asked this time, instead of demanded.
A few minutes ago, she might have fought him—just to be keep the boundary between them as armor—but the strange shroud of melancholy was stealing her energy.
“He scouts the forest to help me find herbs and mushrooms, and avoid its dangers. Not much opportunity for that in the Montrealm, ergo…”
Brand sidled up to her. “A shame. He is stunning, little moon.”
“Yes, he is.”
Damn it all, but she liked that endearment too much. Its use made her feel shy and warm, like melting.
Don’t even think about it. He’s too close as it is.
Silence again as they walked and walked, the time distorted. Had it been hours since they’d started? Days? It was impossible to tell, the fog and shadows like a constant drone, every mile revealed looking exactly the same as the stretch before it.
Except for the imprints they followed.
Far ahead, Axanderus encountered another dragging tear through the dusty ground with more of Faldir’s blood beside it, glinting in the hovering orbs of moonlight.
A twist of disquiet tightened her stomach. The droplets were becoming less and less, spaced further apart, while more and more she worried their quest was in vain, and they’d never find him alive. It had been a dreadfully long time since they’d heard him. Not since somewhere on the steps, in fact.
She said as much, struggling to utter the words out loud.
“It is what it is.” His whisper could hardly be called such. Not with the way his voice tumbled down, vibrating in her bones. “Regardless of whether he’s left for the Veil or not, this isn’t a waste of our efforts. Something is down here, and must be stopped for Bordoroth to be safe.”
Lunara would never admit it to him, but he’d been right—she was so used to running, hiding, that she let it cloud her judgement. Had stropped off to keep him at arm’s length, instead of remembering they were walking through a stars-damned Dread Chasm.
Shite.
Realization hit like a comet, a belated wave of cold terror breaking over her skin, goosebumps in its wake.
How was he so calm? Why had he listened to her? Let her—
“Don’t let the worry overcome you, Luna. We’re here. We can’t change what came before it.”
Lunara stumbled, heart pounding. “How did you—”
Ax’s cry was a distant, scarcely perceptible sound. What he showed her through their shared sight, though… “Sisters save us.”
She took off, Brand’s frustrated growl following behind her. He easily caught up, barely loping as she sprinted, but—to his credit—he didn’t try to scoop her up and stop her.
“Is it him?”
“No,” she gasped. “It’s…”
The body came into view, rendering the rest of her words unnecessary.
“Burning fucking Solyrian.”
Brand did reach down then, his hand on her front stopping her from getting any closer.
A male hovered above the ground just outside of her shield like a sagging puppet, her light bathing his wasted body. Steady streams of black shadow fell from the fog above and funneled into his gaping mouth, limbs dangling behind his bowed torso.
“What…” Lunara took a step back, bumping into Brand’s leg.
He loosed a snarl. “Now may I carry you?”
She suddenly wanted nothing more than to be in the relative safety of his arms. “I have to clear the shadows first. Then, yes.”
“Shadows only, Luna. Keep the shield tight to us.”
She nodded and forced her lungs to take in air, her feet to move and plant themselves down. Another wall, then, like the one on the steps, to hold the darkness at bay.
Power rose up and bubbled over, draining another few drops from the well as she pushed it out, revealing—
“No!”
Once again she was moving before her mind could warn her against it.
“Luna!”
Bodies. Bodies everywhere.
Hundreds. Thousands. On and on and on until they disappeared behind darkness and the welling of her tears.
Her hands landed on tiny shoulders, skimming over sage skin and tangling in twisted, ivory braids as she begged the Sisters to help her. A child—a child—hanging, eyes closed as if sleeping, drinking from the shadows just like the rest of them.
“Luna, please!”
Brand’s voice cut through her panic, the desperation in it demanding her attention.
She glanced back—only to find him swinging his greatsword and uselessly hacking at the barrier she’d left between them.
If Lunara had paused, even for a second, she would have felt the death. Would have noticed that there were no heartbeats, no breath, no hope. That the air was different.
Fucking moons, she’d run right through her shield.
The Fae twitched beneath her palms and she whipped around.
Once-closed eyes snapped open, glowing like burning embers and staring directly at her.
Lunara startled away, but only managed a single, shocked step backwards.
The child jerked, revealing fangs that dripped with black as a vein of fire left her mouth, flowing up through the funnel of shadow and into the dark fog, spreading outwards.
The tendril of flame shot down into the next closest cadaver and brought it to life.
Then the next.
And the next.
More and more, until countless fiery gazes were turned in her direction.
Lunara spun and reached for the shield, pulling it to herself.
Brand hacked again and again, trying to cut through the shield.
When she’d passed through, the scent of misery had wafted by and torn his focus from the first body. Next he knew, Luna’s wall of power was snapping closed, dividing them, before he could stop her.
“Bloody rash fool,” he growled.
He couldn’t allow his mind to dwell on what they’d found, the sheer amount of dead. All he could do was get to her and get them both the fuck out of there.
“Luna, please!”
She finally snapped out of her frenzy and noticed what she’d done, and he slumped with relief.
He was the fool.
For the rest of his life, Brand wouldn’t be able to say whether time had slowed to nothing so he could absorb every horrific detail, or if it had sped by so quickly that he couldn’t even blink before his dreams disintegrated to nothing.
The bodies awoke around her, their crimson power spreading.
That’s when he saw it.
A Forgotten.
Its gangling body was like the branches and bark of the white, bony trees in the Ghostwood, and nearly as tall.
Eyes like burning holes flared amidst the swirling smoke rising from its jagged skull and shoulders.
Razor sharp claws nearly as long as its arms hung from gnarled fingers, and multi-jointed legs ended in taloned feet that would tear through the earth beneath as it walked.
The bizarre, woody flesh that was pulled too tight across the rest of its features had been completely ripped away from its mouth, leaving festering, black blood to seep from the permanently open wounds and exposed rows of needlepoint teeth.
It tore its head away from the dark fog above like it was breathing for the first time, and he realized…
These lost souls were being transformed. Made into Forgotten.
They’d always thought the monsters sprang from the Ghostwood along the chasm border of the Forgotten Lands, appearing from among the trunks. Slow as they wandered their dense, lifeless forest like vacant specters, almost unthreatening.
A clever deception.