Chapter 13
Cal
There was a good chance Miles was asleep on the horse next to me. Petra told him he could either make the ride to Taitha with her or with me. When Miles refused both options, Petra surprisingly accepted his refusal. But that was only because she had a better idea.
One terrifying glare from Petra later and Miles was slumped against Whit’s back as their horse traversed the plains outside Eserene. Whit was, of course, thrilled with Petra’s idea. I swore his face was locked in a permanent smile since we’d left camp.
The entrance to the Onyx Pass had come and gone without much fanfare.
Nothing in the forest could be as terrifying as the darkness we’d already faced.
My muscles ached. My eyes were heavy. I just wanted to get to Taitha.
Everyone did. The single day of rest did little to quell the exhaustion we all felt deep in our bones .
Dusk had darkened the forest into deep shades of blue and violet.
We’d be stopping soon, setting up camp and spending a night serenaded by screeches and snarls.
But my posture snapped straight and my eyes flew wide when I heard it — the sound of nothing.
The eerie quiet of a forest that was completely still.
The Onyx Pass was silent.
“Petra,” I whispered, just loud enough that she could hear me over the clopping of our horse’s hooves on the dirt path. Her eyes were weary when they found mine, dark shadows beneath them. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Exactly,” I answered. “There’s nothing.”
She blinked, and I watched as her awareness heightened and weariness turned to wariness. She looked around, her lips parting as she scanned the trees. “Commander Summercut,” she called over her shoulder to where the commander was riding a few paces behind us. “Let’s stop here for the night.”
With a nod, he pulled his horse to a stop and began giving out orders. Petra and I continued on, moving just far enough away that the crowd behind us was nothing but a low buzz. The horses were calm. It felt unnatural.
Where there should’ve been shrieks and roars, growls and hisses, there was silence. Where there should’ve been snapping twigs and huffing breaths, there was nothing. No ruffling feathers. No shadows in the corner of my vision. The forest should be alive with beasts of death right now.
There was just nothing.
“What the fuck?” she breathed, blinking rapidly, her brows upturned. “I don’t understand.”
“They’re gone,” I murmured. “How?”
Nell and Whit approached on foot from behind us. Miles must’ve been exhausted, because Whit had managed to stop the horse and shimmy off without him waking. The joy had been wiped from Whit’s face, replaced by the hard lines of suspicion, and Nell’s expression matched.
“What’s going on?” Nell asked. “Why is the forest so quiet?”
Petra’s head shook. “We have no idea.”
Could the beasts of the Onyx Pass sense the evil that had found its way into our realm? Did they retreat because they felt it coming? The Onyx Pass was synonymous with the monsters that roamed it, and the monsters were gone.
Petra dismounted, handing her mare’s reins to Nell. She circled slowly, her hands flexing at her sides as a line formed between her brows. “I don’t like this. But we can’t push through the night and we can’t turn back.”
I met her on the ground, and Nell retreated with Whit to feed and water the horses.
My first instinct was to tell it would be fine, but I couldn’t lie to her.
Never again would I tell her another lie for as long as I lived.
I opened my mouth, hoping I’d find the words, but then something caught my eye in the forest.
For a long moment, I stared at the spaces between the trees, at the shadows they cast. But there was nothing there, not even a breeze to rustle through the leaves.
“What is it?” Petra asked, her voice low.
A fire sparked to life behind us, the first of many that would be built throughout the camp. Shadows flickered and danced as the flames grew larger, illuminating the forest and showing me that there truly was nothing there.
“I thought I saw something.” I kept staring, my eyes on the same spot.
In a forest this still and silent, you’d be able to hear even the slightest movement.
So why wasn’t I convinced it was nothing?
“Let me just check,” I said, taking a tentative step forward and motioning for Petra to stay in place.
“What?” she whispered, glancing back over at the camp that was being erected as we spoke. “No, Cal!”
I drew my sword, glancing down to see the rubies in the hilt looked just as ordinary as they always had. No glow. Not here. I crept forward, nearing the edge of the path then taking one step over the boundary, then another, deeper into the darkness of the forest.
“Cal! Don’t make me use your real name, Belin !
” she hissed. She stomped after me, ignoring my hand urging her to stop, and a spark danced over her palm.
“You’re not going out there alone.” She gasped quietly at the sight of something moving.
A tree branch, most likely. Maybe the beasts of the Onyx Pass were still here, just…
quiet, for some reason. But there was something there, and it was…
It was charging in our direction.
A shriek sounded from Petra as I raised my sword, ready to bring it down through whatever was coming our way. But before I could, the beast toppled to the ground, something thudding on the dirt beside it, before it stilled completely.
The camp was a flurry of activity, a wave of gasps and shouts making its way throughout. The few dozen people at the front of the party were the only ones close enough to see what had happened.
“Remain calm!” I heard Nell command over the noise.
“Why the fuck do you keep doing the most idiotic things?” Petra shouted, a finger jabbing into my chest.
Was it shitty that I thought it was endearing when she was angry like this? Terrifying, yes — I’m not a stupid man. But she was disarmingly sweet. “What’s idiotic about protecting you?” I asked, ignoring the dead animal on the ground and the bustling around us for one more moment.
“I can protect myself, Cal,” she answered, her brows tilted up, her expression pleading.
“I know you can.” I leaned down to place a chaste kiss against her lips. “Doesn’t mean you have to.” I crossed the few steps to where the animal lay to see it wasn’t an animal at all, but a human, and… “You ripped out its spine?”
Petra winced slightly. “I thought it would be a better idea than throwing a ball of fire into the forest. ”
Summercut appeared at my side, his face grim. “An Onyte,” he remarked, staring at the discarded spine. “Malosym must’ve taken the mountain clans. This one probably escaped.”
I stared down at the body, at the club still in his grip. His skin looked sickly gray in the firelight, his cheeks hollow. Unseeing eyes stared up at me from where he lay, blood pooling beneath him where his spine had been wrenched away from his ribcage.
“Shit,” I breathed, my heart rate slowing.
“How did he–” But my words stopped when I noticed movement over his face.
It was smoke, pouring from his nose and mouth, thick and inky black.
Horror filled me, and I stepped in front of Petra as the smoke continued to slither forth like a serpent, gathering on the forest floor like liquid in a pool.
We watched in shocked silence as all at once, the small mass of smoke moved, disappearing into the darkness of the forest, like it had been summoned away.
I craned my neck to where Nell had gained control of the crowd. It didn’t seem like anyone had seen, thank the fucking Saints. We didn’t need any more panic or hysteria.
“That looked like the smoke that was clinging to the rubble of the castle after it fell,” I murmured. “Before Malosym appeared.”
“Alright,” Petra sighed with exasperation, her lips a thin line. “Stick to the plan. I want guards everywhere. Eyes on the forest at all times.”
“Yes, your Majesty,” Summercut answered.
“And make sure everyone gets some sleep,” she added. “Keep the guards’ shifts short.” As Summercut retreated, Petra let out a painful sigh and sank to the ground. “What the fuck was that? An errant Occulti?”
I joined her on the ground. “I don’t know.”
Her humorless laugh was raspy, her chest falling as she exhaled hard. “I can’t do this, Cal.”
“Of course you can. You’re the Daughter of Katia. But more importantly, you’re you . ”
She cradled her face in her hands, and a part of me broke at the sight. “I’m me? What does that mean?”
“You know right from wrong. You have a good heart, a sound head on your shoulders. You’re strong, Petra.”
“I… How am I supposed to know what to do?”
I pulled her closer to me. “I don’t have much experience with being the child of a Saint,” I started, closing my hand over hers. “But I have some experience with being royalty. And a lot of days, you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”
She sniffed, looking up at me. “Really?”
“Really. I didn’t have a guidebook. I had a general idea of what I was supposed to be doing, sure, and I had advisors.
You don’t have a guidebook, either, but you have a general idea of what you’re supposed to be doing.
And you may not have advisors, but you have…
” I looked over to where Nell was screaming something at Whit, who’d thrown his arm over Miles’ shoulder only for it to be immediately batted away. “Well, you have us. Your Penumbra.”
Her eyes glistened, staring off into the vast darkness of the woods. “Sometimes I feel like I’m on top of the world, like triumph is possible. And other times it’s this bottomless sense of hopelessness and helplessness and confusion.”
I nodded. “Do you know why it feels like that?”
“Because I’m out of my depth.”