Chapter Nineteen #2
Her face was obscured by her mask. But I knew her eyes, her voice. When Jespyr offered her hand, I took it, the bedlam around us as loud as war drums.
Jespyr and I dashed headfirst into the mist.
I was immediately lost. Still, I ran. Jespyr’s breath came in steady huffs, and she might have kept going—
Had a Destrier not come out of the mist and knocked her full force onto the ground.
She fell with a slam onto the forest floor, taking me down with her. I smothered a scream, the Nightmare flooding my mind. Hush, child , he warned. They will hear you.
Jespyr was on her feet in a moment, blocking me with her body, squared off with the Destrier.
When he lunged she parried, matching his strength, Black Horse against Black Horse.
Their swords collided, a piercing knell that echoed through the mist. Jespyr’s elbow collided with the Destrier’s jaw and he faltered, stepping back, slashing wildly.
The edge of his sword tore through her black tunic, cutting into her shoulder.
She hissed but did not falter. Pivoting with speed so immense I could hardly measure it, Jespyr came up beside the Destrier, dodging the second slash of his blade. He swore, pulling a wickedly curved dagger from his belt.
But before his dagger could find its mark, Jespyr slammed the pommel of her hilt into the side of the Destrier’s head. He teetered a moment, eyes wide and unfocused, before crashing to the ground at my feet. He lay still, eyes shut.
I stared down at him. “Is he…?”
Jespyr knelt beside him, her shoulder bleeding where he’d cut it. She put two fingers to the Destrier’s neck, just under his jaw. “Unconscious,” she murmured. She glanced up at me, pausing on my eyes. “Are you all right?”
I felt as if I’d been carved out of wood—stiff, splintering. “I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Where are the others?”
“I don’t know.” She reached into her breast pocket. “I got turned around.” Her face grew drawn—her hand more urgent. She unturned her pockets, then her cloak, searching for something. “Shit,” she breathed.
“What?”
“It’s not here,” she cried. “My charm. I must have dropped it when he knocked into me.”
Somewhere behind us, a branch snapped.
“What was that?” Jespyr said, her eyes wide.
“We shouldn’t linger,” I managed, my neck strained as I looked around. “The other Destriers can’t be far.”
But Jespyr merely shook her head, her eyes glassy with fear. “I—I…” She coughed, as if she’d swallowed too much water. “Can you smell it?” she said. “Can you smell the salt?”
I stared at her, my breath turning cold. “Jespyr?”
Fingers shaking, she rubbed her eyes. “I—I—I—can’t—see.” Her eyelids fluttered wildly. “No, no, no!” she choked.
What’s happening to her? I said, a chill crawling up my spine.
Don’t you know? Can’t you smell it?
Salt filled my nose. Magic. Dark, uncontrolled magic. The Spirit of the Wood, come to exact balance.
Come to steal Jespyr into the mist.
I dove into my jerkin, my fingers trembling. But my pockets were empty. I’d left my charm neatly folded in my dress back at Castle Yew.
A fox screamed in the distance, making us jump.
“Jespyr, we’ve got to get out of the mist.”
“Can’t,” she managed. “The road—n-not safe.” She turned west, called by something I could not hear. “We’ve got to go deeper into the wood.”
“No,” I said. “You’re confused. We’ve got to get—”
She did not hear me. She was lost, her brown eyes glazed over. A moment later she was running, diving deeper into the trees, swallowed by the mist.
I forced my tired limbs after her, my heartbeat so loud it shook me.
I reached my hands out ahead of me, the path so dark it swaddled my eyes, but I was hollowed out from the Nightmare’s strength and didn’t dare ask for it again.
Tree limbs snagged my hair, and the soil beneath my feet was tangled in roots, every step a snare.
Ahead, an animal scream ripped through the trees. The Nightmare laughed, his voice trickling through my mind. The Spirit has no forgiveness, no pardon to lend. She calls out our names, neither kin, foe, nor friend. She watches the mist like a shepherd its sheep…
The animal screamed again, only this time, I discerned two words in the frantic notes of its wail.
“Help me!”
It was not an animal screaming. It was Jespyr.
And pays those she snares with the great, final sleep.
Her cries echoed in the mist, fearful and wretched. I rushed toward the din and found Jespyr tangled in vines beneath an old poplar tree, her ankle twisted in roots.
Her eyes were unfocused, lost on something far away. “Limbs of the land, come to bring me home,” she laughed through clenched teeth. “Don’t be afraid, Elspeth. The roots and the animals of the wood are servants to the Spirit, just like you and I.”
Nausea rolled through my stomach as I stared down at her unnaturally turned ankle. I took my knife and freed her of vines. “Jespyr,” I said. “Does your brother have a charm?”
She didn’t seem to hear me. “I tarry—I tarry in darkness, never in light.”
“Jespyr!”
She blinked, her hands digging into the dirt around her. “Yes,” she managed. “Ravyn—charm. Hurry.”
I tore through the wood, my eyes wide, frantic to catch a glimpse of the Captain of the Destriers’ telltale burgundy and purple lights.
But I was immediately lost, swallowed by mist.
I searched the darkness for any hint of color, my arms stretched out against vicious brambles that snagged at my face and hair. Animals scurried in my wake and I hurried my step, certain something horrible would befall Jespyr if I did not find her a charm.
I stumbled down a ravine, branches cutting at the cloth still covering my face.
Where is he? I cried. Which way do I go?
Wait , the Nightmare cautioned. Listen.
I perked an ear to the wind. At first, all I heard was the beat of my own heart. But then—footsteps. Something was coming my way. Something, or someone.
I peered out from behind a boxwood, searching for color. Another animal scream sliced through the wood, and I muffled a cry. I wanted to call out, but the Nightmare hushed me and I remained quiet, waiting.
More footsteps sounded, branches snapping under heavy footfall.
Beyond the boxwood, difficult to discern in the dark, I saw Black Horses and a Scythe.
They came from the other side of the ravine, slow, wary, swords drawn.
Destriers, three of them, approaching a fourth Black Horse that lay motionless upon the ground.
Lost, I’d run back the very direction we’d fled.
Don’t move , the Nightmare said.
My hands shook. I placed one over my mouth and the other on the hilt of the knife Ravyn had given me. They could not see me from behind the boxwood; the mist was too thick. But they were close enough to hear me.
I held my breath.
The men picked up their fallen Destrier, draping his arms over their shoulders.
One of them swore as a screech owl tore through the trees, and the others retreated behind him.
Whatever their resolve, they did not intend to be long off the road.
Only one of them hesitated, searching the mist a mere stone’s throw from my boxwood.
His face was illuminated by the menacing black and red lights of his Cards. The High Prince of Blunder, Ione’s betrothed.
Hauth Rowan.
He stepped closer, ears perked in my direction. “Who’s there?”
He was the hunter, and I the prey. A single cold tear slid down my cheek. But when I peered around my shoulder, the High Prince was gone.
I blinked, testing my eyes. He hadn’t used a Mirror Card—I’d have seen the purple color. After a tense moment’s silence, I slid out from behind the brush. My hands shook and the boxwood trembled.
But Hauth Rowan, along with the other Destriers, had disappeared.
I let out a shaky sigh and turned back to the ravine. If I could find my way back to the horses, I could find the others. More importantly, I could find Ravyn and his spare charm.
Jespyr was running out of time.
But before I could take a step, something shifted behind me, dark and unearthly fast. I turned, the hair on the back of my neck bristling.
He darted out of the mist with brutal speed and caught my wrist. I tried to flee, but he twisted me back, his Black Horse and Scythe casting sinister color across my vision.
“Who are you?” Hauth said, shaking me.
He twisted my arm. I felt a strange, unnatural snap, and suddenly my wrist was swimming in vicious agony. I cried out, the pain visceral as it tore up my arm.
The Nightmare’s hiss became a roar. He flooded my mind with a sudden, venomous fury. Prince of brutes , he snarled.
Hauth shook my wrist, squinting, as if trying to peer through my mask. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have the chance to. I struck the High Prince, my hand a blur in the mist. The sound of ripping fabric caught the air. My eyes widened as I looked down, my hand slick with blood.
And it wasn’t mine.
Hauth’s screams filled the wood. “Who are you?” he shouted again, stepping away from me, ferocious lacerations clawed across his shoulder all the way up to his jaw.
I did not answer. I was already running—full force—into the wood, his blood still on my fingers.
What did you do? I cried, too afraid to look back.
The Nightmare’s voice was like hot iron. The berry of rowans is red, always red. The earth at its trunk is dark with blood shed. But a Prince is a man, and a man may be bled. He came for the girl…
And got the monster instead.
Hauth’s cries echoed in the wood, guttural as the fox’s screams. I tore through the trees, my muscles strained, desperate to get away. I didn’t know if I was going north or south, only that I had to put as much distance between the High Prince and myself as I could.
Tears stung my eyes, and my wrist, hot and swelling, sang in pain. When I heard leaves rustling behind me, I veered right, slashing through a daphne shrub. Weeds caught my legs and I fell hard, unable to brace myself.
I groaned, my vision blurring.