TWENTY-THREE
brYNDIS ASHGLO
Faeries bleed just as easily as humans do, with a few small differences. Faerie blood runs thicker, like fresh cream compared to milk.
The Legends of The Forgotten, by Tibor Harper
The sky is dark when I crawl from my hiding place. Sloan had walked past, heading back to the home I’d escaped from. He was talking to himself as if he were stating a case in the town square. As if he’d decided on a suitable sentencing without any chance of dispute.
That was hours ago, and now I’m freezing.
My elbows dig into the soft, rotted bark beneath me as I propel myself forward, struggling for space alongside my bag dragging at my side.
My stomach burns from hunger, my mouth as dry as the leaves beneath my chest. Argh!
I groan, straining through the narrow opening I’d burrowed into like an animal. Like prey.
Cool, damp soil pushes under my nails. The night air is crisp against my skin, and the mist wets my face. I should have brought my cloak. I should have planned this better. I should have… should have…
Sitting on my knees, I throw my head back, breathing in the fresh air for the first time in hours.
Hours that feel like days. My head hurts, aching from where I’d knocked it when I fell.
My scalp is wet when I touch it, my fingertips glistening a dark red when I hold them under the miniscule specks of moonlight.
The world around me tilts at the sight. Shit!
Leaves rustle behind me, to my right. Heat leaches from my skin as I snap my gaze to the dark forest, searching for where the rustling came from.
I see only trees, ferns, mist, and the dark.
It’s nothing. Probably an innocent little animal minding its business. The sickening tightness in my chest doesn’t ease. Nor does the tension in my muscles. I’m so cold. A capped-sleeve tunic is far from adequate to keep me warm at night.
I stand slowly, making my way to the path.
With my back to the forest behind me, my skin crawls, my muscles twitching with a desire to run.
My childish fear of the dark sinks its teeth back into me now, threatening to eat me alive.
I walk sideways, searching the trees one by one, looking for movement I pray I won’t find.
Crack. Snap. This time it comes from my left.
My feet are moving before my mind fully functions to form a plan.
Leaves rustle all around me at once, surrounding me.
Disorientating me. My head spins, and I’m not convinced it’s from my injury.
Gruesome images flood my mind from tales brought before my father by families of those lost in the woods. FUCK!
Turn back, Aed had warned. But he was the one who wanted me to escape. He wanted me to free him, too. This is me escaping, I hope.
Reaching the gravel path, I run.
I run farther and faster than I’ve ever run before.
Weakness spreads through my legs as they work harder to propel me along the path, but I push myself to run even faster until I’m completely out of breath.
I continue pushing myself to my limit, enduring the pain until it feels like my lungs have been violently ripped out and shredded. Until I can’t endure anymore.
The forest is dead quiet when I stop to catch my breath.
Not so much as a breeze blows in the canopy of leaves above.
The only light is sparse patches gifted by the moon.
The world around me is painted in black and blue as I scan the trees, my eyes darting between them without pattern or sense, aimlessly searching.
Senselessly praying. I try to swallow, but I can’t, not so much as a drop of saliva wets my tongue.
Carefully, I straighten and turn. Nothing. There is nobody and nothing in sight. Only an empty path and the woods that surround it. I must have imagined it. I dust the caked-on dirt from my pants. I’m being an idiot.
Like stones in a metal drum, a deafening roar surrounds me, booming through the forest. My palms flatten against my ears.
There’s no defined direction to the noise, nothing but its quickly-increasing volume signifying an approach.
My insides turn to liquid, but my feet remain rooted to the path. What do I do?
From nothing to near gale force, a wind picks up, pushing me off the path and into the foliage beside it, smelling of decaying flesh.
I stumble, fighting against it, but it’s no use, not even as I lean my entire weight against the wind gusting toward me.
Kicking into the dirt, I feel my hands tremble as I claw into the invisible wall of air.
“Push back!” Aed roars.
“I am!”
“No, you are not! Fight!”
Clattering stones turn to hissing, the sound sharp in my ears. “It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted human.”
The wind dies down without warning, and I fall face first in the dirt.
Oef! With soil between my teeth, I scramble toward the path on my hands and knees, but something grabs hold of my ankles. I kick against its grip, clawing my way toward the patch of moonlight a few strides from my reach. My fingers find purchase on a rock, jagged and sharp-edged.
Long, unrelenting claws grip my legs, piercing my skin and pulling me into the dark-green vegetation. I turn onto my back, bracing myself.
“Fight damn it!” Aed’s roar is deafening, fuelling my anger.
Pale arms with bony protrusions like broken branches lead to an emaciated torso as hollow as the trunk I’d taken refuge in.
The creature’s face is withered, its skin pulled so tight it almost splits open against sharp symmetrical cheekbones.
It has no eyes, only holes as dark as the depths of the forest. The creature climbs up my body.
Its breath is death. Every inch of my skin crawls, every muscle in my body straining to run, run, run.
But I can’t. I’m trapped. Caught. I’m every bit the prey I thought myself to be, successfully ensnared by a monstrous predator.
The creature opens its mouth, releasing a deafening screech, displaying teeth as sharp as razors dripping with blackened saliva.
My fingers numbly whiten as I tighten my grip around the rock I’d freed clawing my way forward without success. With one smooth swing, I strike harder than I ever thought I could. Black splatter sprays onto my face, and for a moment, its grip on my body weakens.
It stumbles to the side, but I don’t let it recover.
I strike and strike again, fighting back as Aed commanded me to.
Its wailing grows desperate until it’s nothing more than a whimper.
Scrambling to my knees, I release the bloodied rock and run, the last remnants of heat leaching from my skin.
My steps are uncoordinated with horror. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Looking over my shoulder, I watch it scramble onto the path behind me, lunging forward on its hands and feet. Oh gods. Oh mother. Oh fuck! I’m going to die. I have no weapons. There are no rocks in sight, only dirt and gravel. Shit!
“Use your gift!”
“I don’t have a gift! Help me!” I practically cry out, scared.
I step into a shallow hole and nearly lose my balance. The sound of ripping material accompanies a crippling burn in my heel. No, no, no, no, no! The creature closes in on me as I slowly lose momentum, each step becoming more halting, more agonising.
My body refuses to comply.
Shadows drown out the moonlight behind me, and I stop breathing altogether.
They solidify into the shape of a man. A tall, broad-shouldered man with silver-tipped hair.
Odhran. He lowers into a crouch as the beast closes the distance.
Without hesitation, he launches himself at the creature, tackling it to the ground.
A blood-curdling crack echoes through the woods.
It’s dark, but I don’t miss the sharp claws that slash across Odhran’s chest, tearing his leather armour to ribbons. He turns, wielding his shadows like swords, a sharp black blade in each hand, separating the creature’s arm from its torso in one swift swoop.
A cry sends birds to the sky, leaving their roosts in favour of safety.
Odhran turns his head, looking at me as shadows ensnare the creature at his feet.
His chest rises and falls rapidly, his eyes narrowing into a glare.
I realise that I’d stopped running. Out of shock, perhaps.
Odhran’s eyes are as black as the ink spilling down his cheeks in countless rivers of pitch.
“Come here,” he orders. His voice is rough. Virile. Dangerous. “Come here and finish what you started.”
My eyes grow two sizes as I stare back at him.
The creature bucks against its constraints, rooted to the path in cords of black. When I’m closer, I can see the sharp black tips of Odhran’s fingers. He can end my life, right here, right now, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. No one could.
He reaches to the row of black daggers sheathed against his ribs and gives one to me.
The blade isn’t much longer than my hand when I accept it.
Odhran looks every bit the violent monster, twin to the one at his feet.
For a moment, I forget where I am. I forget what brought me here. It’s all lost in a haze.
“Don’t try to stab him in the chest. You aren’t strong enough to break through his ribcage.
The blade will only get lodged there, and you’ll lose your weapon.
” His eyes slowly turn their familiar light grey.
“Here.” His hand closes around mine, positioning the tip of my blade below his ribs.
“You enter here and thrust upward as hard as you can. Don’t stop until he does. ” He.
I nod hesitantly, feeling nothing like the predator he’s instructing me to become.
It’s been a long time since I tasted human, it had said.
Tasted and longed to taste again. I allow my hatred to seep into my bones, my anger becoming my strength.
Kneeling over the creature, I thrust the blade into its flesh beneath its ribs.
It struggles, kicking me and knocking me sideways onto the gravel path.
This time I push harder. Further. Its movements still. Its cry is diminished to no more than a strangled wheeze. Its face. Its face… It loses its horrific mask, its features becoming more… more human.
“Not human. Faerie,” Aed rumbles beneath my skin, bristling with raw rage.
“This is what they become without the taste of human blood. This is why they reap humans. The gods have cursed them for abandoning their beliefs. For being unappreciative of the gifts bestowed upon them as superior beings. Now they are doomed to feed on mortals for survival, and so too, mortals find the same benefits in consuming faerie blood. It is healing and immortalizing if consumed regularly.”
I scramble back. It’s blood—a faerie man’s blood—is warm against my skin.
“What will it take for you to realise that I’m not the one you need to be running from?”
I don’t focus on where Odhran is, not realising he’s right next to me, lowering onto his haunches.
My hands open, and the blade falls. What have I done?
“Run, and you’ll most likely die,” he tells me. “Stay with me. Help me… and I’ll keep you safe.” He touches my heel and pain ensues. “We need to treat this.”
This is probably the ideal moment to respond in some or other way.
But I don’t think I do. I should, but I don’t know if I can.
I’m too numb. Too lost within myself. All I can see are my hands coated in deep crimson.
That same crimson pooling on the gravel at my feet.
The scene replays in my mind, over and over again, until I’m not sure it was me at all.