Chapter 27
Elorie
Greer runs beside me, aiming for the trees at the edge of the forest.
“Don’t go too deep,” she warns, shoving me against a tree as another wave of magic bursts through the tree cover. “The last thing we need is to wake the whispers.”
My eyes meet the darkness, and I swear something twitches in the branches above.
I’ve read about the bone spiders that inhabit the Ley Forest. The Fae they’ve trapped in their webs and fed on until they become a husk of their immortal self.
No mind, only magic. By the time they break free, they are but a whisper of who they were, desperate for a drink of anything.
My back stiffens, and I don’t dare move. What lurks in that forest is nothing short of nightmares.
Gripping Greer’s dagger in my hand, I realize how reckless it was to come here unprepared. To leave the palace grounds without properly fitted clothes. No weapon. No plan. What was I thinking?
This dagger is larger than the ones I use at practice. It’s bulky in my small fingers, and the sweat on my palm makes the handle slick.
Greer’s eyes shine silver in the night, cutting through the darkness as something surges in her aura.
White light with the brightness of the full moon surrounds her as she stays in place, listening to the footsteps crunching fallen leaves on the forest floor.
I thought we were trying to hide, but she’s a bright beacon, calling the ravagers to her.
Drawing them from the darkness.
Hushed voices travel on the breeze, and I smell them, even with my paled human senses. Something rotten and ripe. Death and decay. It’s overwhelming.
My grip tightens around the dagger, and I hold my breath, knowing they can smell me and that it’s only a matter of time before they slip through the gap in the trees, and this turns into a battle.
I start to shift, and Greer shakes her head.
Not yet.
She wants them to get closer. Wants them right on top of us.
Something brushes the bark on the other side of the tree I’m hiding behind. It ripples through the rings. I hold my breath when the pressure of this dark void begins to remind me of Hazel’s touch.
Shadows cast over the forest, deeper and darker than any nighttime. Than any overhang of branches. Even with Greer glowing in the night, the shadows close in. Sneaking up my legs and between the laces in my top. Stringing around my ribs so I’m fighting to pull in a breath.
Greer shakes her head again, even as shadowy fingers scratch at the flesh of my arm and neck. Surrounding me like a cast of darkness that can’t be seen, but I feel it there. Climbing. Ready to wrap its fingers around my throat and drink my magic from my bones.
Leaves crunch, and critters scatter. Birds take flight.
I wonder if even the bone spiders hide deeper in the forest with the approach of whatever is on the other side.
A breeze wafts between the trees. Warm and stale like an exhale from the seventh stratum of Sarrow as it clings to my tongue. I hold my breath and try not to vomit.
Something sings at a distance. A siren song of magic that has no words. No voice. It is simply a sound that urges me to leave my hiding place.
The dagger heats in my hand, and I use that as my grounding point. My toes are warm in my boots. The ground is uneven beneath my feet, but steady and firm. I am not drifting with those shadows, even as I watch them twist and twine in a dance that begs for me to seek it.
Greer’s silver eyes brighten, and she is the light in the night sky. While a kingdom looks to me for salvation, I look to her. Until the final snap of a twig is too close and fear lances my chest.
Only then does Greer nod her head a single time. One moment, she’s standing with her sword, and the next, she is everywhere.
She is the dance in the night. The warrior of a thousand paintings and stories.
Shadows wrap around us, and their nails are so long they rip through the leather as they scratch at me.
I shove off the tree while Greer cuts like a star through the night sky.
A barreling ball of light, driving back the shadows.
There’s nothing physically there to fight.
Ravagers only take form when forced to. But when Greer drops to a knee and drives her sword upward, a body solidifies around the blade.
The ravager barely looks Fae, with dark, stringy hair and white eyes. His fangs are out as blood spurts from the large gash in his chest.
It rains over Greer, but she doesn’t flinch. If anything, it fuels her fury. She shoves the ravager from her blade and spins, striking another one at the throat. Her head comes cleanly off, rolling to a stop at my feet.
I jump back, but something catches me from behind. It wraps me completely as if there is no end to its arms or body. It is the shadow that casts from the trees, and it is the absence of light.
When I was a child, Father told me the tales of ravagers.
The taste of magic was not enough. What was in their veins was not enough.
So they opened an artery in another, and one drink became a faucet of need.
More and more, they fed the surge of magic that filled them until they were desperate.
Until they drained their own families dry. Then their villages.
Father always ended his stories with a reassurance that they were lost in the lore, no longer real. But as these fingers of death grip me, I know his comfort was a lie. Like the ones told in the kingdom about the human girl who will save them.
Hope in a dying land.
It’s almost laughable. But as long as I have fight left, I will continue trying.
Lifting the dagger with both hands, I drive it behind me, nearly nicking myself in the side as I thrust it into something solid. The ravager forms. No longer a breath of darkness but an actual being I can fight.
I might be human, but I can fight. For Greer and for Lune.
For Callum.
For Letia, who I want to believe is still on the other side of the tumultuous sea.
I will even fight for the king, who is cold and merciless and using me.
Blood drips down my dagger as I pull it free and spin around. Up close, the stench of the ravager is nearly unbearable. It’s worse than any funeral pyre. Worse than the dungeon of corpses at the palace.
The ravager rolls his white eyes until they turn red. No iris, no pupil. No glow like I’m used to from the Fae. Flat and empty.
His eyes can barely be considered eyes at all. They are pits that widen and seep. Tar tears trickle down his face as he stares at me, clicking his sharp teeth.
I take a step back, faintly hearing Greer to my right, battling two others. But I don’t dare take my eyes off the ravager. The second I do, he might slip back into his shadowy form, making him impossible to fight.
Staring into his heartless eyes, I cling to his gaze and force him to still. Refusing to let him become a murmur on the wind.
The ravager smiles, and it is the most alarming sight. Blood gushes from where I stabbed him, but he feels no pain.
“The girl,” he whispers. “I’ve heard rumors of you. I bet you taste like the Well.”
I’ve never thought of the Well tasting like anything at all. It’s a void that drinks from both realms. But I have heard rumors that it has its own magic, seeping from somewhere other than here.
Do the ravagers feed on it?
The ravager lunges, and I’m ready. I dodge his teeth and claws, dragging my blade through the rotted flesh on his arm. He screams, but not in pain. It’s a wild, merciless laugh.
When he comes for me again, I don’t falter. I duck and weave, dancing as I do in the training ring. My blade gets one slice after another. Bit by bit, I wear him down, circling and fighting. Until my breath heaves from my lungs.
The ravager pounces forward, no more tired than when it started, cornering me against a tree. The bark scratches at the back of my head as the ravager comes in, teeth first. I duck, and just as I do, Greer’s sword cuts through the ravager’s neck.
I barely manage to roll out of the way in time to not get showered in blood.
Greer spins around. “Are you okay?”
“I’m still standing.” I brush the leaves from my sleeve, still gripping my dagger.
“I’ve trained you well.” She smirks, praising herself.
And it’s enough to make me smile.
“Unfortunately…” Her smile falls as shouts continue from the beach. “This isn’t over.”
Whispers mutter through the forest, and I can tell she senses them too. The ravagers drove us too deep. We shouldn’t be this far.
“We need to go.” She starts running, and I’m at her side.
Behind us, the forest begs us to return.
Ahead is nothing but a bloodbath. Guards battle ravagers. Some formed, some not. It’s a mess of clashing metal and destruction. A growing cloud of an incoming wave of them stews at a distance, and when we break the cover of the forest, I finally get a good look at the size of it.
“How many are there?” I ask, out of breath.
“Too many to fight. We need to get to the others.” Greer starts in one direction, but a spit of shadow separates us, veering me toward the beach.
“Run, Elorie!” she yells. “Don’t stop.”
So I don’t.
I run.
Sand kicks up with every step. Shadows swirl in, quickly drinking the light from the moon.
The nasty bite of shadows claws the back of my neck. It stings like something venomous crawling through me, even if it’s just my imagination. They’re catching up; I can’t run fast enough.
The breath of the army of death is at my neck when the shadows start to close in. Pushing me to the sea, until my feet sink into the water. Water that is freezing cold like it is back home.
I suppose this is fitting. To be washed away by the brutal waves that surrounded me my entire life.
Shadows surge from the edge of the forest, and right as I’m about to close my eyes and accept the peace of Sarrow, a crack of lightning slices through the sky, splitting through to the core of the realm as a familiar figure steps through a cloud of dust and smoke.
Golden eyes glow as Wilder strides to a stop in front of me, wicked delight in his gaze.
“Sneaking out in the middle of the night?” His eyes brighten as he leans in to whisper in my ear while water laps at our feet. “Gods, the trouble you stir, Starfire.”