Chapter 22 #2
So, there it is. The reason he hasn’t already abandoned me. Does he even need the map? Probably not. He wants my sword. Like everyone else.
I keep crawling back, on shaking hands. They almost slip in—blood. It’s blood. Everywhere. It’s creatures, shredded to ribbons, cut with such precise motions that the flesh doesn’t hang off in jagged layers—no, the pieces are all clean and uniform. Like those leaves cleaved in half.
I don’t turn to look at the extent of the carnage of the forest, but I can smell it. I can imagine that the white Bone Woods are now red with gore.
My knees nearly buckle as I rise to my feet. As I lift my sword with spent arms, the pain of my shoulder nearly blinding me.
I won’t let him have it without a duel. Though, after seeing this carnage, I know more than ever that I don’t have a chance.
“Why not kill me, then?” I demand.
“I don’t need two swords on this journey,” he spits, his voice pure fury. “I’d rather someone like you has it than someone else.”
Someone like you.
So, I’m no more than a harmless mule, carrying a sword for him until he needs it.
That’s why he’s training me. Not so I can be protected … but so I have any chance of protecting this weapon.
He will betray me the first chance he gets. He will claim my sword the moment it pleases him. I knew that from the beginning, but … I thought … after so much time together …
Foolish of me to think he would feel any type of loyalty to me. The merciless warrior. The monster.
Everything I already thought about him has been confirmed.
“Demon,” I say, voice shaking.
“Worse,” he says. And that’s when he prowls toward me. He keeps getting closer, and I stumble back. He’s dripping blood. His hood and armor are soaked with it.
None of it is his.
He is the embodiment of a deadly warrior. He doesn’t stop, and neither do I, until I trip over something and land on my ass again. A head. I tripped over the fang sticking out of a lifeless head that Raker single-handedly—literally—severed with his blade while I clung to his body.
And it’s not the only one. Every single creature that hunted me in this forest is now in ribbons.
I look from the beast’s eyes, up into the darkness of Raker’s hood.
He’s standing right over me, like I’m cornered prey.
I swallow. The blood dripping from his hood falls on my cheek, and I flinch.
He leans in close, voice hard as the steel in my shaking hands as he says, “Don’t raise your sword at me again, Aris, unless you truly want to lose it. ”
With that, he turns his back on me.
Monster. I should be terrified. I should be shocked into submission; I should follow his words and orders like they are law.
But instead of trailing him through the mist, I turn toward the head. Using my non-dominant arm, I begin to saw off the beast’s fangs. They hit the ground with a thud. I reach for the vials next. Somehow, they didn’t shatter in my pockets, even after that fall.
I poke a hole in the wolf’s neck and begin to drip the little remaining blood into a vial.
“What are you doing?” Raker demands from across the clearing.
“I’m getting an antidote,” I say, remembering the book. Often things are both their poison and their cure. The beast must be immune to its own venom, which means its blood is full of the medicine I need.
I pour half the vial on the cut in my calf then shudder. The blood steams, as if it’s burning through my skin. Close to the same sensation as when it entered my leg. I squeeze my eyes closed.
Slowly, though, I start to feel my toes again. My calf.
And it fucking hurts.
The cut might not be bone-deep, but it’s long. If only I had true healing liquid … but that comes from another creature completely. It takes a few moments before I can stand or walk without wincing. My stride isn’t completely straight.
Raker waits for me to get close to him.
“Your shoulder,” he says flatly.
“I know,” I say, stumbling past him.
His voice is a frustrated growl. “You need to have it snapped back into place.”
“No, thank you,” I say, continuing forward, ignoring the pang of pain with every movement.
It takes three of his long strides to be in front of me.
Then, there he is, blocking my path, the monster that cut down nearly all the beasts in the Bone Woods.
His hands are in fists. It really must be so hard for him not to kill me.
“You threw yourself headfirst into this fucking place, yet you’re afraid of popping your shoulder back in? ” he demands, seething.
I know why he’s upset. With my dislocated shoulder, I can’t protect his precious sword. I can’t be the perfect mule.
“No,” I say, in a sickly sweet tone I know he hates.
“I’m afraid of you doing it, with your big fucking beast-destroying hands that don’t care at all about my comfort or pain levels and hurting me even more.
” It’s true. With strength like that, I wouldn’t be shocked if my bones just snapped beneath his hold. I’d rather wait for a healer.
I must be imagining it, but I swear … I swear he almost flinches. Like finally I’ve nicked him in this ongoing duel of ours. I’m too tired and in too much pain to dig in further. I just step to the side, to keep going.
He steps in front of me again.
His voice isn’t soft. I don’t know if it’s even capable of that. But it’s as gentle as I have ever heard it when he says, “I won’t hurt you, Aris.”
My look is punishing. “Not yet, you mean?”
I don’t trust him. Not at all. Even after he jumped through these mists and saved me. Because it’s not really about me, is it? It’s about the things I have that he wants. The map. My sword. He’s practically told me he will kill me to claim it.
But right now, my shoulder really fucking hurts. And I don’t stand a chance if I can’t even hold my sword.
“Fine,” I say through my teeth. I close my eyes.
He doesn’t walk around me. No, his massive hands curl around my waist, and he turns me in a flash. His rough, callused fingers are surprisingly gentle around my wrist and my arm. Just like they were when he was training me in the cave. His head leans low.
“Please don’t scream,” he says, right into my ear.
Then he twists my arm to the side. He pulls it up. And I try. I really try not to scream. I grit my teeth.
As my shoulder slides back into its socket, though, my lips part—and those long fingers are on my mouth again. Smothering. He makes a tutting sound.
But it’s done. And … he didn’t shatter bone.
“Thank you,” I say, when his hand finally releases my mouth, biting out the words. Thank you for fixing my shoulder. Thank you for coming through the mists for me, even if it was for something I have, because without you, I would be dead.
Raker takes a step back, but he’s still close enough that I can hear his sharp exhale of incredulity. “Gratitude. From you. I didn’t think you were capable of it.”
Then he turns and stalks off through the mist.
And I follow.
For hours, there is nothing. Just soul-rotting silence. I keep the fangs clutched in my palms, instead of my sword. They’re lighter, easier to use, and though my shoulder has been righted, pain still shoots down my arm every time I move it.
For an entire day, nothing emerges. I wonder if the mists whispered about Raker’s fighting skills. Perhaps even these creatures leave a monster like him alone, after that.
We’re both covered in blood. It hardens and reeks, searing the inside of my nostrils. I search for water, but there is none, and when darkness falls, we are unprotected.
But even the demons avoid the mists.
I left my canteen back at the inn, but Raker opens his pack the next morning and throws me a new one, with a little too much force. It seems he got provisions in the village while I was finding trouble.
The canteen is full. My throat works as I drink most of the water, then wash my hands and face. He seems to have known I would nearly drain it all, or lose it, because he snatches it back before I’m done, and puts it back with the rest of his things.
The creatures continue to leave us alone. We walk through the maze of moon-white trees in near silence.
Every once in a while, I hear them. The whispers at the fringes. Beckoning us off the trail. Creatures that don’t slither or leave tracks behind. Beasts that are formless.
Every instinct within me tells me not to look into the trees. Not to search the distance. I just stare at Raker’s back, his spine straight and his armor mirroring my reflection. I just follow him, like he’s a guiding star.
Until I see someone join me in the mirror. I whirl around, fangs up.
Nothing.
I see it, though, next to me. In the reflection.
A woman with long dark hair and deep green skin.
Some sort of forest wraith. A blink—and she falls away, into a small puddle of water dark as night.
I frown, about to open my mouth and say something, but just then the puddle ripples, and someone else comes rising out of it.
An immortal in a fine dress, ready for a ball, her golden hair tied up into an intricate style.
Her outfit is ornate, dazzling. The fabrics are like water turned to silk, stitched through with rare metals and diamonds.
I blink, trying to get a closer look. What is this?
An illusion? I step closer to Raker, lips parting to tell him, to say something, when suddenly, the puddle ripples again, and the woman turns into a warrior. In full armor. He lifts a sword.
Raker turns in a flash and throws his sword through the illusion. To my surprise, his blade pierces something real. The warrior. Whereas the illusion was invisible just seconds before, now it’s solid.
It melts away, back into the dark puddle, and Raker’s sword falls with it.
In a flash, Raker’s blade is in his hand again, and he’s stabbing through the puddle. It seizes—then slithers into the ground. Disappears.
“What—”
“It’s a lusk.”
“A … what? How … how do you know?”
He looks over at me. “Do you really think I came into the Questral as unprepared as you?”
Right. He knew about the pixie too. He must have sought access to one of those traveling storytellers, or maybe some of the king’s own orators. Of course. I remember their conversation, in the castle, and think about what he told me later, about wanting revenge. Is it revenge for the king?
Or … revenge against him?
I swallow down my irritation, knowing details could help me in the future. As if Raker can anticipate my next question, he sighs, and says, “It has a faint sound, if you listen. A shimmering rattle.”
I didn’t even hear it. I was too distracted by the beauty of the illusions. Which, I suppose, is the point.
“If you look at it, it becomes real. It feeds off your focus, your energy. It gets stronger.”
Right.
He starts to say something else but seems to think better of it and stops. He just shakes his head and keeps moving.
I keep following.
We walk for a few more hours, only encountering a handful of other creatures, each of which Raker quickly cuts to shreds.
Then, all at once, the mist is ripped away, and my jaw goes slack.