9. Briar
Killian’s broad shoulders tense. He stops short so quickly that if it weren’t for the equipment slung on his back I’d have crashed right into him. “What’s happening?”
“The vines.”
“What about them?”
I can’t see much beyond the stinking skin hoisted overhead, so I close my eyes and listen. Leaves rustle on a light breeze that flutters the hem of my dress. Scratching. Scrapes. A low groan like trees bending in a strong storm.
“They’re moving.”
The barely-detectable note of alarm in his voice causes an upwell of panic. I refuse to give in and let it control me. Better to die with my eyes wide open than cowering beneath a creepy dead monster’s hide.
“I’ll look.”
Lifting the flap, I duck out before either man can stop me and fill my lungs with cool evening air. The reek of basilisk abates, and so does my fear. This has always been my favorite time of day. When night is ascendant and the creatures that thrive in darkness come alive. Crickets and fireflies. Owls. Mice rustling in the undergrowth.
“It’s safe. You can come out.”
Nothing appears out of the ordinary, except…
A low groan beckons me. Tiptoeing closer, I tilt my head, trying to figure out what could be making that awful, agonized sound. Whatever it is doesn’t appear dangerous.
“Get back.”
Alistair’s the first one to drop his half of the basilisk skin, leaving Killian to struggle with the rest.
“I think it’s the queen.” Gently, I prod the pile of broken flesh and rags with my foot. “I thought she was supposed to be dead?”
“Mmmf. Jaaa.”
“What’s she trying to say?” Alistair’s brows knit over the bridge of his nose. He is an arrestingly handsome man. Everything would be so much easier if I felt the barest hint of attraction, but when I look at him, all I feel is a knot of cold resentment drawing tighter around me like a noose.
But when Killian’s shadow lengthens over me, I feel protected. Safe.
Too bad he looks at me like there’s a scarlet letter sewn to my bodice.
“I think she wants her jaw.”
Scanning the stone pathway, I find a splash of blood and gore spraying out from her landing place, in the center of which lays her curved mandible. I never knew bodies could explode on impact. Perhaps it’s because her body is so brittle, having lived long past her expected lifetime. If one could call this “living.”
Isadora may have poisoned me but look at how her actions ricocheted back on her. Magic seeks balance. Perhaps that’s why the monsters are drawn to me—as punishment for my looks. I didn’t exactly have a say in how I was born. The punishment feels extreme. Unfair. But magic follows its own logic.
Killian waves me off. Bending, he retrieves the mandible and offers it to Isadora. One trembling hand is still whole. She takes the offering and clicks it into place. There’s a sickening squelch like flesh knitting together.
“Why didn’t I die,” the queen wails. “The curse is broken. The maiden no longer sleeps. Yet I live.”
“Tragic,” Alistair drawls, nudging a few more bits of her bones closer to her broken body. “Afraid we must be going, however. Toodles.”
Toodles? What kind of idiot am I engaged to—and how do I get out of this predicament?
Catching my expression, he hoists one end of the skin and motions for me to get under it.
“We should take her with us,” Killian says, ignoring the skin.
A frown tugs at me. He’s favoring one arm. That gash from the harpy’s talon is bothering him more than he wants to admit.
“If you can think of a way to carry both her and the skin that’s going to get us out of here with our own hides intact, then by all means have at it, Kill.”
The knight’s features turn hard. The old woman can’t walk in her current condition. Can’t protect herself from the monsters that haunt this place. To leave her is to consign her to a fate worse than death.
We have no choice.
Gripping the strap to the pack, I tuck myself under the canopy redolent of basilisk musk.
“Don’t go. Please don’t leave,” the queen begs our backs.
The thorn forest closes behind us, swallowing us whole.