Chapter 22 Esme #2
Bones litter the earth as far as the eye can see, some scattered randomly by wind and time, others still arranged in the rough approximation of the bodies they once were.
Entire skeletal warriors lie sprawled across the gray soil, their armor and weapons still clinging to them as if they might rise at any moment to continue fighting a war that ended millennia ago.
Locke guides his horse back until he’s beside me, close enough that I can see the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes keep scanning the horizon for threats. “This is the Plains of the Dead,” he says quietly.
There’s an eeriness to this cursed ground that goes beyond the visual, something that seeps into your bones and whispers of despair. Even the air tastes wrong, thick with grief and ancient rage that never had the chance to properly die.
Sam shifts back to human form without warning, his transformation more violent and desperate than usual.
He’s panting and shaking as he makes his way to where his horse is tethered to mine, grabbing his pack with hands that tremble as he pulls on clothes and boots with jerky, urgent movements.
“My wolf doesn’t want to be here,” he says, and I can hear the distress in his voice.
“Every instinct I have is telling me to run.”
“None of us want to be here,” Locke murmurs, and for once his stoic mask slips enough to show his unease beneath.
“But alas, our dear Esme isn’t going to make it easy for us, is she?
” Rue snorts, though the usual bite in his teasing is muted by genuine apprehension.
Even as he speaks, he hasn’t taken his eyes off the Plains below, as if expecting something to come crawling up out of that cursed ground to drag us down into it.
I’ve seen enough. Whatever trial awaits me down there, whatever test I’m meant to face, putting it off will only make it worse.
The sooner I can get this over with, whatever ‘this’ turns out to be, the better.
I’m the one who urges my mare forward first, down the steep slope toward that wasteland of memory and death, and I can feel the others reluctantly following behind me.
We ride down into the Plains as the sun begins its slow descent toward the mountain peaks.
The sky bleeds deep crimson and gold across the horizon, beautiful in a way that seems almost obscene given our surroundings.
The silence deepens with every step our horses take, muffling sound in a way that makes even our breathing seem unnaturally loud.
It’s as if the very air is thick with the weight of the dead, pressing down on us like a physical thing.
When we finally reach the edge of the trees where all life ceases to exist, none of us are in any hurry to dismount.
There’s something about this place that makes every survival instinct scream warning, some invisible force that seems to be pushing back against our presence here.
I’m about to voice this feeling, when something lands on my shoulder with a soft thud.
I flinch, nearly crying out, but the sound dies in my throat when I see what’s perched there.
It’s one of those twisted carrion birds from above.
Up close it’s even more disturbing than I’d imagined.
Its feathers are black as midnight but shot through with an oily iridescence that shifts and moves in ways that hurt to look at directly.
It doesn’t peck at me or scream, it simply stares with those horrible milky eyes, three of them arranged in a triangle around a beak that looks sharp enough to pierce bone.
Then its voice enters my mind without warning, bypassing my ears entirely to speak directly into my thoughts.
Part the veil. Enter the trial. Walk forward, daughter of death and dreams.
I dismount without a word, my body moving before my mind can process the command.
By now, I’m familiar enough with the way magic works in these trials to recognize compulsion when it hits me, but this doesn’t feel forced.
It feels inevitable, like gravity or the tide, something I could no more resist than I could stop my own heart from beating.
“Esme—” Sam starts, alarm clear in his voice as he moves to follow me.
I shake my head, holding up a hand to stop him without taking my eyes off the cursed ground ahead. “I know,” I whisper, my voice barely carrying over the oppressive silence. “I know what this is.”
“We’ll be here, Esme,” Locke says in a rush, and I can hear the worry he’s trying so hard to hide, the way his usual stoic control is fraying at the edges. “Right here when you come back.”
I walk forward, the mutated crow still perched on my shoulder like some macabre familiar, its claws digging through my cloak but not quite breaking the skin.
Fog swirls around my boots with each step, and I can hear the crunch of bones beneath my feet, some small, like finger bones or ribs, others larger and more substantial.
The veil between worlds shimmers before me like heat waves rising from summer stone, then parts like smoke at my approach.
The world shifts and changes around me with a sensation like falling upward, and suddenly the Plains of the Dead has vanished completely.
I’m standing in a warm, sunlit foyer that belongs to a massive home, the kind of place that speaks of comfort and love and all the domestic happiness I’ve never dared to dream of.
A sweeping staircase curves upward to a second floor I can’t quite see, and the air is thick with the scents of cinnamon and cedar and something sweet baking somewhere deeper in the house.
The walls are painted in warm creams and golds, and sunlight streams through tall windows to paint everything in honey-colored brightness.
I can hear laughter echoing from somewhere nearby, Ty’s loud, infectious whoop, Trys’s dry deadpan voice making some cutting observation, Rodyn’s sarcastic chuckle, and to my relief and joy, Micah’s voice threading through it all with familiar warmth.
There are other voices too, familiar ones that make my heart clench with longing.
Sam and Locke are there, and I can tell they’re all bickering over what sounds like a card game, their voices carrying that easy camaraderie that comes from people who’ve known each other long enough to argue without heat.
I smile despite myself, because this feels right in a way that nothing has for so long. This feels real and warm, like the kind of future I might actually deserve if I’m brave enough to reach for it.
I’m about to move toward the sound of their voices when something tugs insistently at my sleeve.
I look down and my heart stops completely.
A little boy stands there, no more than two or three years old, with the most perfect cherubic face I’ve ever seen.
His eyes are bright green, Sam’s eyes, set in smooth brown skin that glows with health and happiness.
Tufts of curly white hair crown his head, so much like my own that there’s no question whose child this is.
His fingers are sticky with what looks like honey or jam, and he lifts his arms in that universal gesture every parent recognizes.
“Up, Mama, up,” he says with a smile that could power the sun itself, and my heart splits clean in two.
Grief threatens to bring me to my knees right there in that beautiful foyer.
This is my son, the child I’ll never have, the future that was stolen from me before I even knew I wanted it.
Every maternal instinct I didn’t know I possessed surges to life at once, and I have to fight back tears that feel like they might drown me if I let them start.
I don’t let my grief win. Instead, I lift him and, oh god, the weight of him in my arms is so perfect, so real.
He smells like wildflowers and woodsmoke and that indefinable sweetness that belongs only to children.
My arms wrap around him instinctively, protectively, and I press my lips to his soft cheek, tasting innocence and love and everything I’ve been fighting for without even knowing it.
“Gods,” I whisper against his hair, my voice thick with tears I refuse to shed. “Hi, baby boy. You’re mine, aren’t you? You’re really mine.”
I carry him through an open doorway into a grand living room that looks like something out of a fairy tale.
Everyone I love is there, gathered around a massive stone fireplace where flames dance merrily, casting warm light on faces that are alive and whole and happy.
They’re laughing and talking over each other, the kind of comfortable chaos that speaks of family, real family, the kind you choose rather than the kind you’re born into.
Micah gets up from where she’s been sitting cross-legged on a thick rug, her dark hair loose around her shoulders and her eyes bright with joy. She moves to us with that familiar grace, brushing a gentle kiss across the child’s brow with lips that curve in the softest smile.
“Auren,” she says fondly, her voice carrying gentle reproach. “Did you run away from Mommy again?”
My mouth forms the name before my mind can catch up. “Auren.” Just saying it aloud brings a fresh wave of tears to my eyes, because somehow I know, I know in my bones that this is his name, that this is who he would have been if the world had been kinder, if things had been different.
“Of course he did,” Sam says with warm laughter in his voice, and I turn to see him sitting beside Locke on a massive couch, both of them looking relaxed and content in a way I’ve never seen before.
Sam pats the cushion between them invitingly.
“You’re a crafty little pup, aren’t you? Just like your mama.”