Chapter Thirty-Nine
W e work quickly, not wasting a single fleeting ray of sunlight.
After I told everyone my plan, Marcella took three long strides toward me, planted a sloppy kiss on my cheek, and declared me a genius.
I didn’t have the heart to say I don’t want to be a genius—I just want to be right.
Griff creeps into the center of our preparations, whistling merrily as he walks around with his hands clasped behind his back, observing what we’re doing.
Once he finishes, he strides to the other side of our work area and waves goodbye.
“Well, I’ll see you guys later,” he chirps.
“Good luck with your plan. I’m rather impressed by it, honestly. ”
“And where do you think you’re going?” Marcella demands, rising from the ground and wiping dirt on her pants, approaching him.
“Back to Bathara. Can’t help you guys, remember? And, no offense, but I don’t particularly want to watch from a bush just in case anything goes a little…off the rails.” Griff smirks at her and twirls the tip of her braid around his finger. “But don’t worry. I’ll still be watching you.”
She slaps his hand away. “Bite me.”
“Would love to,” he coos.
Marcella sneers at him, which makes Griff chuckle under his breath.
He turns around and opens a portal, the silver appearing to have an extra glint to it.
“I’ll be back to get everyone soon.” He flicks his gaze over his shoulder, and there is a completely different message resting within the creases of it—one that doesn’t match the carelessness of his tone.
None of you better die.
And then he disappears, swallowed by the swirling black and silver. The portal blinks out of existence shortly after.
“Prick,” Marcella mumbles under her breath after he’s gone.
I chuckle as I approach her. “Ready?” Using a makeshift bowl composed of mud and twigs, I dip my fingers into the sticky, smooth contents, and hold it up for Marcella to see.
She inhales deeply through her nose. “Smack it on me.”
I smear the mud across her face, covering her artistic display of freckles, and twine leaves and twigs into her braid. Once I’m finished, she raises her chin and waggles her brows— her bright cobalt eyes a stark contrast against the darkness of the mud.
“How do I look?”
My lips curve with a far-too amused grin given what’s about to happen. “Like shit.”
She snorts a laugh.
Gray and Nuri join us, their faces already smudged in mud and hair embedded with twigs and leaves.
“I think we look more frightening than the Adder,” Nuri comments, doing a sweep of everyone.
“Just think of us like the lost warrior tribe—fearsome, formidable, and focused.” Marcella puffs out her chest and lifts her chin.
“You left out forgotten,” Gray says with an arched brow.
Marcella clicks her tongue and wrinkles her nose at him. A gesture that has Gray shaking his head and laughing quietly as he watches her a moment longer.
Eventually, he reorients his focus to me. “Is the powder ready?”
I hold up the pouch containing our hopes and dreams, eyeing it before flicking my eyes back to him. “Crushed, dried, and ready to go.”
Gray nods, blowing out a weighted sigh. “Well, then,” he begins, locking eyes with each of us. “Shall we awaken the stars tonight?”
The moon spills silver across the land, its light fractured by the jagged rock formations and tangled limbs of towering trees.
Nuri and I crouch low behind a towering stone, the cold bite of the night seeping through my clothes.
Or perhaps the coldness comes from the dread working itself up my spine.
Gray is tucked in the shadows of a sprawling tree, and Marcella lingers somewhere in the darkness, waiting.
But she doesn’t have to wait much longer.
A low, wet-sounding hiss slithers through the night, and a spike of adrenaline rushes through me as my body goes into high alert. A rustling noise fills the air as leaves crunch and twigs snap under the weight of something massive moving through the underbrush.
I glance at Nuri. “How good of a healer are you, exactly?”
Her eyes remain locked on the cave ahead. “Good enough.”
Well that’s…comforting.
A shadow unfurls across the grass, vast and sinuous, moving with a grace no creature its size should possess. And then something terrifying emerges.
The Blue-Horned Adder.
Its forked tongue flicks into the night air, tasting it like a fine wine. Twin golden eyes gleam bright against the shadowy night, and its massive coils move like a wave, effortless as an ebbing tide.
Above our heads, a small comet streaks across the sky, its glittering tail soaring in an arc over the trees.
I exhale a loaded breath and glance at Nuri. “Well, that’s my cue.”
“You’ve got this,” she whispers. “May Saffi be with you.”
Saffi. The goddess of cunning. Not Algol, the god of trickery and deception.
Noted.
I dip my chin. Then, on silent feet, I climb the rock formation. Sweat beads across my forehead, slipping down my temple, melting the mud into falling trails against my heated skin. I swipe at it before any can fall into my eyes, and then reach for the pouch strapped to my thigh .
As soon as the plan was set, Gray and I gave Marcella a list of ingredients to forge from the land—we figured she was better suited to grow them in a pinch with magic.
Mandrake root, yohimbe bark, goat weed, sage—the basics.
Next, using the healer supplies Nuri brought, Nuri ground the ingredients and seeped them using the commoner’s wine.
Then, using sage paired with heat from a quick, makeshift fire provided by Gray, I dried the concoction into a brittle substance and ground it into a fine powder.
There was some debate about what to do from there. But ultimately, we decided to split half the powder in a pouch, and the other half would be used to mold an incense stick. Presently, that incense is lit at the cave’s entrance, burning off an intoxicating aroma.
So, in other words, we concocted a powerful aphrodisiac to use on a Blue-Horned Adder while in the peak of its mating season. If everything works correctly, it should force the creature into a frenzied state where its judgement is tainted by clouded senses, preventing it from thinking clearly.
And hopefully, in turn, diluting its ability to kill us.
A low vibration rumbles through the ground as the Adder shifts, its monstrous head rising, tongue flicking to taste the air once more.
I hold steady, willing my erratic pulse to slow.
I know Gray cast an illusion to cloak us—blending our bodies into the landscape—and that the mud and leaves help mask our scent.
But my heart won’t stop pounding with the uncertainty of how all of this is going to play out.
You can plan and plan, but it doesn’t mean shit the moment things fall apart.
And if I miss my chance—if I mess up or make a single mistake here—we all die.
Without thinking, I puff out my cheeks, exhaling a nervous breath. The powdered aphrodisiac stirs and swirls in the air, rising into my nostrils from the gust of wind, tickling my skin. It’s the fight of a lifetime as I battle against the forming sneeze, the powder rising higher into my nose.
Shit.
I stretch my arm away from my face, distancing myself from the powder, and rub aggressive circles against the tip of my nose.
But it’s too late.
I swallow the sneeze and immediately feel the effects of the aphrodisiac enter into my bloodstream, my body growing warm and tingly as heat floods through me.
Fuck.
Not good. Not. Good.
The Adder swivels its head in my direction, its small slits for nostrils fully exposed to me. I bite on my lip and shake my head.
Focus.
I lift the powder directly in front of my lips and—with a forceful bout of air that would make even Theora, the goddess of air, proud—I blow it into the Adder’s nose.
Its head jerks slightly as it flicks its tongue. The Adder’s scaled body starts to undulate, coiling into tight loops. Then, it jerks its yellow-glowing eyes to something in the distance.
A Red-Snout Adder.
Only, it’s not a Red-Snout Adder at all.
The Blue-Horn slithers toward the Red-Snout, keeping its head held high.
“Come on, come on,” I mutter under my breath. “Work.”
This next part was always going to be the real challenge. When Gray said he’s been working on evoking visceral responses with his illusionary magic, he informed us that it’s a far-cry from reliable yet.
“However,” he had said with a tinge of steady confidence, “I think I can make the Blue-Horn believe he’s scenting a Red-Snout for at least a few seconds.”
And, by the gods, I could shed tears of joy the moment The Blue-Horn’s body shudders and hums, rumbling the very ground beneath us with its intense vibrations.
It flicks its forked-tongue in a rapid pattern, and the Adder rears itself back, coiling tightly, before striking forward in a lunge toward the illusion of the Red-Snout.
Then, with an amount of force that has me wincing, the Blue-Horn slams into the trunk of a towering tree .
Which means onto phase two.
Leaping down from her hiding spot, Marcella screams a war cry into the night-wind, her sword raised over her copper braid. The moonlight glints off the blue-tipped hilt, and she looks like a warrior goddess as she soars toward the Adder with her blade in hand.
She thrusts the sword into the creature’s horn, the force of the collision echoing through the woods as the impenetrable scales of the Adder greet the steel.
For a heartbeat, the air stills as time’s strings are temporarily held in shaking hands.
Until a sharp, agonizing crack splits the air—splitting hope with it.
Marcella’s sword splinters under the pressure of the impact, and the blade shatters into fragments, shards of metal glinting like fallen stars as they scatter to the ground. She balances on a knee, gaping at the jagged stump in her hands.
“Shit,” I breathe.
The Adder—now in a state of frenzy and rage—lurches its head back, sending Marcella flying through the air and soaring through the trees once more. Only, they do not catch her.
She lands with a dull thud near the cave, her body twisted at strange angles.
My eyes bulge, and ice overtakes my skin, coating my body with a terrifying chill at the sight.
And there are a thousand thoughts racing through my mind as I glimpse Nuri creeping through the trees, trying to remain hidden within the shadows to reach her.
The Adder tilts its head, locking in on the moving shadows, and the movement is nothing short of predatory.
Its blue-scaled, colossal tail winds back, back, back, until it has nowhere else to go, and then slingshots forward, slamming directly into Nuri, sending her flying backwards through the woodlands.
I lose sight of her almost immediately.
A blur of movement catches my eye next. I whip my gaze toward it and find Gray sprinting toward the momentarily distracted Adder.
He charges forward, up its wide, scaly body, plunging daggers into the creature’s armor when the incline is too steep to run.
He does not stop until he reaches the very top of its head .
Gray digs his heels in, assuming a wide stance after he sheaths his daggers. Slowly, he pulls the long sword from his back scabbard, staring at the creature’s horn with a terrifying determination. And as the moon casts shadows across his face, I swear I glimpse another flicker of gold in his eyes.
Gray shouts, the cry coming from deep within his gut, and then he slams the sword down into the horn of the Adder.
A sharp noise splits the air, and the Adder shrieks, writhing under the impact of the blade. Its neck swings around with wild movements, and Gray quickly drops to his knees, clutching onto the hilt of the sword as it remains lodged deep into the Blue-Horn’s scales.
Still, the creature does not fall.
Which means we still have not won.
Suddenly, the Adder whips its head toward Marcella, its eyes dilating. I follow its line of sight, and find a rich pool of crimson blood seeping into the ground. My heart rate spikes in my chest before feeling like it dies altogether.
Without another thought, I leap from the rock and down to the ground, a jolt of electricity surging through my ankle from the impact. I grit my teeth against the pain, but I do not let myself feel it—process it. Instead, with a small limp, I sprint for Marcella.
“Lyra!” Gray’s voice echoes through the sky, imbues itself into the very fabrics composing this world. “Watch—”
Before he can finish the sentence, a razor-sharp fang slices into my shoulder and down the entire length of my arm.
The impact sends me rolling.
My face hits a twisted network of roots, and dirt stuffs its gritty contents into my mouth. But when I try to rise, my muscles don’t respond—don’t move.
A panic lances through my every nerve ending when I try again, shouting at myself, Get up! Get up! GET UP!
My body does no such thing.
And then realization clamors through me like a death sentence.
The Blue-Horned Adder’s bite is lethally venomous .
At this strange angle my neck is paralyzed into, I can still see Marcella. See her parted lips, looking as crimson as the blood pooling around her. In my mind, I am reaching a hand out to her, trying to touch her, even if just for a final time.
Someone so filled with life can not possibly look so dead.
Desolate thoughts destroy me.
Why am I so useless? Why can I never do anything to help? Why did I ever think I could do this; I can’t do this.
Why must people always leave me…
I hear Gray screaming. I hear the clattering sounds of steel against scales. I hear the Adder moving. I hear trees groaning, winds howling—lives fleeting.
My vision fogs over, and my chest suddenly feels lassoed by an invisible master, tugging for breath only when it decides it wants to.
And as this world fades away, a final thought lingers, clinging to this body a moment longer—
I have lost.