Chapter 7
I lurched upright, coughing like my lungs had forgotten how to breathe. My hands tore through dead leaves, scraping against the hard, unforgiving earth. Sweat clung to my skin. My chest strained. My heart thrashed like it was trying to escape the cage of my ribs.
Wait …
There was light above me.
It was filtering through the trees, casting long, wavering shadows across the forest floor. Not firelight, but sunlight washing the waking world.
Blinking up at it, I tried to catch my breath. A breeze stirred the branches, dry and restless. Dust rose in lazy curls where my movements had disturbed the forest floor.
I whipped around, scanning the clearing—searching for slithering vines or blood dripping from the trees.
Monsters?
There weren’t any.
Just dew-slick bark and rustling underbrush, the morning air cool and biting in my lungs. Relief crashed into me, sudden and staggering. It was just a dream. One of Grigorios’s stories cruelly clawing its way into my sleep, twisted by fear. That’s all. A nightmare.
I exhaled shakily and dropped back onto my elbows, letting the tension leak from my body like steam from a cracked pot.
But then—
My brow furrowed.
No firelight flickered nearby. No scent of ash or smoke clung to my clothes. No sign of the okhèma. No sleeping forms tucked beneath cloaks.
Where was the camp?
I shot to my feet, legs trembling beneath me. I twisted, scanning the trees—nothing. Just forest. Endless rust-colored trunks and gnarled roots sprawling in every direction. My throat tightened. Had I sleepwalked? Had I wandered off in the night without realizing?
I reached up to wipe the sweat from my face—and froze.
My hand was stained red. Dried and cracked, flaking in the creases of my palm like old paint or rusted blood.
Exactly how it had looked after I touched the bleeding tree.
My breath hitched as I scrambled back a step, then another, hands held out like they didn’t belong to me.
I wiped at it, frantically, scraping my fingers against my cloak, against bark, against anything. It wouldn’t come off.
My body moved before my thoughts could catch up, stumbling backward through brush and crackling leaves.
The forest blurred around me, every rust-colored trunk the same.
Sharp twigs jabbed between the leather straps of my sandals, biting into my skin.
I tripped again, nearly crashing into a tree, then veered left, branches clawing at my arms as I forced my way through.
I kept glancing back, expecting—no, praying—to hear someone call my name.
But the woods stayed silent.
Squeak.
I froze, one foot suspended mid-step. The sound came again, small and high-pitched. I turned toward it, scanning the undergrowth.
Squeak.
My gaze swept the tangled roots and brush.
Squeak.
I jolted, whirling around, ready for a beast or a threat or …
Certainly not what appeared.
Nestled in the red-dappled moss sat a creature barely bigger than my hand.
Mouse-shaped—but not quite. Its fur shimmered faintly in the slanted morning light, a soft blur of grays tinged with something unnamable, something …
other. A long, delicate tail trailed behind it like a ribbon, the end dipped in blood.
Its eyes were a pale blue, too pale, almost glowing. They caught the light and held it.
The creature sat on its haunches, staring up at me with unnerving focus. Like it had been waiting.
It wasn’t a monster.
That realization landed soft and startling, a rush of breath in my lungs. My pulse was still wild, still pounding from everything else, but the fear that had seized my chest loosened, just a little. The creature wasn’t lunging. It wasn’t snarling. It was … small. Quiet. Almost delicate.
Relief swept through me, dizzying and unexpected. After everything—after blood and trees that bled and hands stained in dreams that didn’t feel like dreams—this was a welcome relief.
I almost laughed. Not because it was funny. Because I didn’t know what else to do.
It blinked once, as if it knew what I was thinking. As if it understood.
Squeak. Squeak.
“Hello,” I murmured, the word scraping out of me. The sound was too loud in the hush of the woods. I winced, pressing a hand to my throat.
It hurt—like I’d been screaming.
I didn’t want to think about why.
The creature didn’t flinch at the sound of my voice. It just … kept watching me. Eyes round and almost knowing. I told myself I was imagining it, that wild things didn’t hold gazes like that. But it didn’t run or twitch. It sat there, its tail swishing gently in the moss behind it.
The fear that had gripped me only minutes ago continued to slip away, like warmth returning to numb fingers. I didn’t understand it. I should’ve still been panicking, heart in my throat, mind racing. I was lost, alone, stained with something I didn’t want to name.
And yet … something about this creature was making me feel not so alone anymore.
Squeak.
It tilted its head.
I crouched, slow and careful. One wrong move, and it would vanish—I was sure of it.
My hand shook as I extended it, fingers open, palm up.
The creature blinked once … then moved. A blur of softness and sinew, it darted forward, tiny claws whispering across moss and stone as it scampered straight into my hand, as if it had been waiting for the invitation.
Squeak.
Warm fur pressed into my skin. It nuzzled into my palm like it belonged there.
Like it had found me.
This close, I could see that its fur wasn’t gray at all, not really. It was the color of dusk, the space between the last gasp of sunlight and the first breath of night. Its tail curled over the edge of my hand, that red tip pulsing faintly like a wick just snuffed out.
“What are you?” I murmured, cocking my head as I examined it. There were plenty of mice and rats around the village, but this little beast was clearly not one of those.
The creature tilted its head in perfect mimicry, as if to say, Isn’t that the question?
I blinked. It blinked back.
Another one of those strange, startled laughs threatened my throat, but I swallowed it down.
“Helena!”
I jumped, heart jerking in my chest, and my small, whiskered companion let out an indignant squeak.
I leaned down instinctively, intending to set it gently back on the ground.
But before I could, it scampered up the sleeve of my cloak with astonishing speed and latched itself to the fabric, perched like it belonged there, its tiny paws gripping tight, as if daring me to try again.
“Helena!” Again, closer. Urgent.
Branches snapped behind me. I turned just as the underbrush rustled—and my mother burst through the trees.
Her hair, usually coiled tight and precise, flew around her face in a tangle of curls. Her cloak had slipped from one shoulder, her dress was torn at the hem, and her green eyes—
They were wild.
Grigorios stumbled to a halt, his blade dropping a fraction. Filippos exhaled sharply, like he hadn’t believed I’d be there at all. Dorian pressed his fingers to his lips, then toward the sky—a prayer to the gods.
“There you are!” my mother cried.
Not cold. Not calm.
She cried.
The sound of her voice—cracked and thick with something dangerously close to feeling—shook me more than the red on my hands had.
I took a step toward her. Then another.
“Mama?” My voice caught. The last time I’d said that word, I’d been a child. Before everything broke.
Her face crumpled, not with disappointment, but with grief. And something else too, something I didn’t recognize from her. She ran to me.
Arms wrapped around me, tighter than I could’ve imagined, and suddenly I was being crushed to her chest. She smelled like lavender and the sweat of panic, and her hands trembled where they clutched my back.
She was shaking. My mother, who had stood frozen since the day my father’s heart stopped, untouched by seemingly anything, was trembling like the world had shifted under her feet.
“I thought …” she whispered into my hair. “Gods, Helena. I thought—”
Her voice broke.
I was frozen against her. I didn’t know how to respond.
We didn’t do this, we didn’t hold or cling or weep.
She’d embraced me exactly one time since my father had died, and that had seemed more out of duty than anything else.
But here she was, broken open like something cracked from the inside, clutching me like she meant to stitch me back into herself.
“I’m alright,” I murmured, the words tasting strange in my mouth … because I honestly didn’t know if they were true.
“I’m alright, I’m here.” The creature shifted under my cloak, just a small weight stirring against my side, and I moved, making sure my mother couldn’t feel it as she held on to me.
Grigorios sheathed his sword, his gaze still sweeping the trees as if expecting something monstrous to step out and drag me back into the dark. When he looked at me, he gave a small, grim nod, his eyes filled with relief.
“You wandered off?” she asked, her voice tight and cracking around the edges.
I opened my mouth … then shut it again. The words tangled, useless.
How was I supposed to explain that I’d been taken? Drawn in. Swallowed whole by dream and forest and things with too many teeth, who fed on sorrow like it was meat.
Mother’s hands roamed my arms, checking for wounds. She turned my hand over, staring at the dried red still clinging to my skin. The blood that wasn’t mine.
“What is this?” she demanded, her voice pitched with panic.
“I didn’t wander,” I said, the words rasping out. “I—I woke up. I don’t know how I got here.”
Her fingers clenched around my wrist.
“There were monsters … and a tree,” I continued, heart hammering. “It was bleeding. I touched it. I thought—I thought it was a dream.”
My mother stared at me like I was speaking a language she’d never learned.
“You touched—what?”
“A tree,” I whispered. “And then … there were creatures everywhere, and I ran, and—” I broke off, chest heaving. “I know how it sounds.”
Grigorios stepped closer, but I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. Not with my mother still holding my hand like she was afraid I’d vanish again.
“I didn’t wander,” I said once more, quietly. “Something brought me.”
“You were gone,” she snapped, the words breaking like ice. Her eyes burned into mine. “I woke and you weren’t there. No trail. Nothing.”
“I—I’m alright,” I said again, though it sounded thinner now, less true.
She stared at me. “Gods,” she breathed, the fury draining from her voice, leaving only fear behind.
I didn’t know what to do with the look in her eyes. I didn’t know what to do with the fact that all of that worry was meant for me.
“We should go,” Grigorios announced, his gaze still darting around.
Mother pulled back, dragging her hands down my shoulders once.
She gave a hard nod, the kind that snapped like a warning made visible, and turned away.
I watched her gather herself, watched the effort it took to smooth trembling fingers through her black hair.
But even then, she didn’t let go of me completely.
Her palm stayed at my back, guiding, grounding. Still shaking.
We moved, and step by step, the forest loosened its hold. The red trees thinned as we neared the road, shadows retreating, and the familiar shapes of the camp emerged.
It felt wrong to see it all the same. Like nothing had changed. As if I could crawl back beside my mother and pretend none of it had happened. But the blood crusting my fingers said otherwise. So did the tiny trembling thing tucked against me.
I pressed a hand to the lump in my cloak, steadying the small weight as I stepped over the threshold of where I’d fallen asleep last night.
Like crossing into another life.
Grigorios reached the injured jergin first. He knelt by its front leg and gently untied the strip of cloth he’d used to bind the wound. The creature shifted but didn’t shy away as he peeled back the bloodstained linen, revealing the deep, clean slice across the pad of its foot.
He pressed around it with careful fingers, checking for heat, infection, swelling.
“It’ll walk,” he said at last, rewrapping it with a firmer knot. “Slowly. But it’ll hold.”
Relief fluttered in my chest. And just as quickly, it was replaced by a different feeling—one I couldn’t quite name. Not fear. Not hope. Just a strange, terse knowing that everything was moving again. And I had to move with it.
I unslung the lambskin pouch from the back of the okhèma and tipped a trickle of water into my palm. My fingers shook as I rubbed it over my skin, scrubbing at the blood dried beneath my nails until the crust softened, lifted, and ran red down my wrist.
The blood that wasn’t mine.
When my hands were clean, at least on the outside, I climbed in.
My mother followed, her silence louder than any outburst. She didn’t touch me again, not physically. But her eyes stayed fixed on me, like if she looked away, I’d slip between the seams of the world once more.
I could still feel the dream clinging to my insides, could still hear the forest breathing if I listened too hard. But I couldn’t take that with me, so I folded the memory away.
I looked toward the road ahead, and left the monsters behind me. Bit by bit. Like shedding old skin.
I pressed a hand to the steady weight beneath my cloak, drew a breath that tasted like ash and leaves, and braced myself—for the monsters that lay ahead.