Faceless No More #2
The window explodes outward as she hurls herself through it, more glass raining down like ice shards to the ground behind her.
By the time we reach the opening, she’s already gone—bare feet pounding earth, her shape, her pale nightgown whipping in the wind, vanishing into the living forest as if it parts, making way for her escape from us.
For a single stunned heartbeat, there is only silence.
Then Orán is moving. “We need to find her,” he shouts, already running.
We tear down the hallway together and through the house. We enter the light of the red moon as two new gods chasing a creature reborn, knowing with conviction that this will most likely end in more bloodshed.
The glow in Orán’s hands climbs his arms, gathering in his chest before spilling outward, until his entire body radiates with the same supernatural brilliance.
It isn’t blinding, but it is absolute—golden light etched with something older, deeper.
Leaves lift from the forest floor, spiraling upward as if caught in an unseen current, and then Orán rises with them, boots clearing the ground by inches.
Only then do I truly see what my brother has become.
The forest bends to him.
Trees whisper and lean. Branches grow and intertwine, roots shifting beneath the soil as though the earth itself is listening.
Wind answers his call, rushing past us in a sudden surge that carries the scent of sap and smoke and living magic.
Orán’s hands close slowly, deliberately, shaping the air between his palms the way he once shaped magic as a Druid—patient, practiced, reverent.
Nature obeys without question.
A tight cyclone forms between his fingers, and sparks of light spiral within it. With a sharp thrust of his hands, he sends it flying. The spiral dives into the forest, weaving between trunks and branches with unerring precision.
Within moments, Eridessa cries out.
“She hasn’t reached the perimeter,” Orán says, tension threading his voice. “She’s caught, but it won’t hold her for long. She’s cutting through the branches. Tearing them apart.”
“Where?” I demand.
He lifts a hand to point, then stops. His gaze locks with mine, steady and unflinching. “Pollock, when you find her, fight the beast. The animal inside her, not the woman. Push it back as much as you can. She needs the Horseman now, the one who can quiet the storm in her mind.”
I nod once. “I’ll try.”
Orán closes his eyes and points. “There. That way.”
I take off at a run, letting the animal surface just enough to lend me speed and deftness. My stride lengthens, feet barely touching the ground as I cut through the dense woods, following her trail. Her scent is unmistakable—wild, scorched, intoxicating—and it doesn’t take long to find her.
I slow as I near the place where she’s trapped, tangled in a nest of twisted roots and living branches.
Before she senses me, I stop behind the thick trunk of an ancient tree and gather myself. I do as Orán asked. I close my eyes. Quiet my thoughts. Breathe.
Inside my own mind, I turn first to the beast, speaking to him directly. You’ll have your moment, I tell him. But not now. I need her mind, not her fear, and I cannot reach it as something half feral and ruled by instinct.
If he wants her alive—if he wants her at all—he must yield.
For now.
Judging by the snarls tearing from her chest, she’s more riled than ever. The branches creak and strain under the force of her thrashing, bark splintering where her claws rake again and again. If I don’t reach her now—if I hesitate—she’ll tear herself free and vanish into the forest once more.
I steady myself.
When I trust my control enough to hold, I step out from behind the tree and move toward her openly, my pace unhurried. No sudden movements. No challenge.
She stills the instant she sees me emerge from the shadows. Her head snaps up, and her eyes lock on me, ones that blaze with unnatural light. The growl that follows is redundant. I already know she’s displeased to see me once again.
“Shh,” I murmur, lifting my hands slowly, palms open. “None of that. I’m not here to hurt you.”
I push the wolf down, not banishing him, but leashing him just enough. I let calm bleed outward instead—peace, steadiness, grounding—threaded carefully through the space between us.
She answers with chaos.
Her body jerks and twists as she fights the living branches, arms wrenching against the vines that bind her to the trunk. Her legs kick wildly, heels striking bark and root, the forest groaning in protest as it tightens its hold.
“Do you remember the day you stole my horse?” I ask gently. “When I chased you down?”
There is the slightest pause, barely a hitch in her movement, but I see it.
“It was a test, wasn’t it?” I continue, voice calm and steady. “Your skill against one of my kind.”
She doesn’t answer, but her struggle slows, just a fraction.
“You fought me then, do you remember? I thought at first you were giving it your all and that you meant to kill me. Only later, after you kicked my ass off my own bloody balcony, did I realize you had more skill than you let on. You were feeling me out, weren’t you?
Seeing how you measured up to an immortal. ”
Her lips peel back in another feral sneer, but it lacks its earlier fury.
“You’ve been training for a long time to kill us, yes? But how would you know you were capable of it until you actually tried to do just that?”
Her movements falter again.
I press gently, weaving my power deeper, slipping between the cracks in her defenses. Think, little one, I murmur into her mind. Breathe. Remember what you hoped to prove that day.
Why did you steal Calixis?
To best you.
Her believed truth.
I shake my head.
“No,” I say softly. “I don’t believe that.”
As I quiet the storm inside her, I keep speaking, anchoring her with memory and familiarity. “I showed you my true form that day. Something I hadn’t done for anyone in a very long time. Do you know why?”
Her breathing begins to slow. Her eyes flutter shut for a heartbeat, her head tipping back, then shaking as if she’s fighting something inside herself.
“Soul Serpent,” she breathes.
“Yes.”
She’s coming back to herself.
“Do you know why I appeared to you that way?” I ask. “In my true form?”
She shakes her head weakly.
“Because I sensed something in you,” I tell her. “Something I didn’t understand then. Something I didn’t say.”
Her eyes snap open, glowing white fire rimmed with darkness, and they steady and hold on me.
“Every time you entered my city,” I continue, stepping closer, slower now, “every time your soul brushed against mine, it felt familiar. As though I’d known it before. Possibly in another lifetime.”
Much closer now, I slow in my progress toward her.
“Do you believe that’s possible?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, but the thought that flickers through her mind betrays her. A road. Wheat. A woman in a frock and a familiar portal.
I stop only a few paces from her.
Ah, but you forget I can read your mind, and that memory, the one that just surfaced, says you’re not being completely truthful. Tell me about the road and the wheatfield.
The Blood Moon washes her in crimson light as she curls inward, a sharp cry tearing from her throat. Pain ripples through her—not from the bindings, but from the memory. From guilt. From recognition.
She turns her face away, gasping, as though struck through the heart.
“White one…tell me. When was the first time we met?”
“Stop.”
The word almost reaches me. Almost makes me pull back.
Then I hear Orán’s steps on the forest floor.
He emerges from the trees moments later, soot and moonlight clinging to him, and leans against a nearby trunk. His presence steadies the air, grounds it. His gaze settles on her with something dangerously close to reverence.
“I’ve felt it too,” he says quietly. “The same familiarity. As though her life is one I’ve brushed against before—one I was meant to take and chose not to.”
Her breath hitches.
“Is that true, little one?” I ask gently.
A quiet sob slips free of her before she can stop it. She turns her face away and buries it in the crook of her shoulder, shaking.
Mind to mind, Orán reaches for me.
Keep going, he urges. It’s working. She’s recoiling from the truth, but it’s also what’s drawing her back. The animal is receding.
“Orán,” she pleads aloud, her voice breaking. “Tell him to stop.”
Conflict crosses his face, but after a beat, he nods to me.
I soften my voice, but not my resolve.
Think, Eridessa.
Show me the wheatfield.
The sunlight.
The tied bundles of stacked wheat you worked on that day. When your small hands were red and near blistering. I’ve seen fragments. I press gently. But show me why that day is so hard to face.
I push—not cruelly, not violently, but with purpose. I shape the edges of her thoughts, guiding her back to the place she’s buried deepest.
She lifts her face to the bloodred moon, and she screams.