Chapter 35
I trudged out of the water in slow, careful movements. My already-aching feet were now searing in pain from my sprint to safety. Using so much power had left me bone-tired, but I needed to press on.
My grazed hands stung, but at least they were cleansed of the blood and dirt that had marred them. Everything hurt, but I would heal quickly. My heart was pounding, and my entire body was trembling, but at least I had survived.
I had killed. I was a killer. I was capable of ending lives.
No. I had saved myself, saved Filip. Those creatures wouldn’t have stopped until we were dead, it was promised in their eyes. I couldn’t regret my actions. Not when death had been snapping at my heels.
My waterlogged clothing weighed me down like chainmail, and my teeth chattered against the cold that twilight had invited into the forest. At least the rain had stopped.
After I emptied my boots of water, I began to retrace my steps. The sound of my name echoed out from the distant trees.
“Filip?” I shouted back.
I heard my name again, then, “Stay where you are, I’m coming.”
Hugging myself tightly, I took a seat on a fallen branch and waited, praying there weren’t any more creatures prowling the forest.
It took several agonizing minutes for Filip to reach me.
Finally, his sprinting figure emerged through towering pines.
He was breathless and disheveled and had torn his tunic to make a tourniquet for his injured arm.
His weapons were drawn, ready to strike.
His eyes widened when he caught sight of me. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head, words failing me.
With steely-eyed determination, he scanned the surrounding trees, swords still raised, assessing for a threat.
“The beast is dead,” I said, my voice flat.
He looked stunned, but lowered his weapons. “What happened?”
“Let’s get out of here, I’m freezing,” I said, rising to my feet. “I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
He handed me his cloak, which I gratefully accepted. As we made our way back through the tenebrous forest, I recounted a partly-true version of events. I told him that the creature had hit its head when it tackled me, then drowned in the stream.
He appeared to accept my story. If he didn’t, I had no doubt he would have let me know. Filip was nothing if not direct.
By the time I had finished my account, his brow was wrinkled. “I want to know what those… things were. In all my life coming into these woods, I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“And yet here they were, in the woods, ready to send us to Yvora,” I said. An impossible thought came into my head. “You don’t think they’re somehow connected to the murderer, do you?”
The creases in his forehead deepened. “Possibly,” he said, sounding doubtful.
Was it a fluke that the same day we went searching for answers about the murderer, we got stalked and attacked by monsters that seemingly materialized out of nowhere? I somehow didn’t think so.
“Think about it,” I said, unwilling to let it go. “A pair of bloodthirsty monsters you’ve never seen before happen to show up around the same time someone in the castle starts killing and attacking people. Isn’t that strange?”
“It is,” he agreed. “But maybe it’s just that—a strange coincidence.”
“It’s not.” I was right. I only needed to figure out how they were linked.
He looked at me sideways, one eyebrow raised slightly higher than the other. “Either way, there might be more of them out there. We need to warn people.”
I hummed my agreement and we continued through the dark forest in contemplative silence.
For a while, all that could be heard was the sound of our footsteps under the muddied ground and the rustle of nocturnal creatures in the bushes.
We both tensed at the noises, expecting more monsters to appear at any moment, but they never did.
I was fantasizing about a nice, hot bath when Filip murmured, “I never got to thank you, by the way.” He sounded uncomfortable.
“For what?” I asked, wringing out strands of my still-wet hair.
“For helping me back there. You could have run and saved yourself, but you didn’t. You stayed and it was incredibly stupid of you, but, if you hadn’t intervened with that beast…” He trailed off.
“You’re welcome?” I said, admittedly taken aback.
Our gazes met, and I glimpsed something like approval in his hazel eyes. “You weren’t lying—you are a fast runner.”
I came to a standstill, unable to hide my smirk. “Does this mean you owe me another life debt?”
He rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t push your luck.” Still, he couldn’t hide the ghost of a smile on his face. “Come on, we’ve still got a long way to go.”
***
By the time we arrived, deflated and muddy, at what was left of the campsite, it was in a tailspin. Our absence had been noticed and, as a result, a party of guards had been sent into the forest to search for us.
We agreed that no one needed to know the real reason for our excursion.
Filip had directly disobeyed orders and, with no solid evidence to come back with, he didn’t want to risk losing his position with the Royal Guard.
I wholeheartedly agreed. The last thing I needed was the likes of Captain Hansen getting wind of my activities.
I could only imagine how he’d react if he knew I was trying to solve the murder.
He’d be like sea lice on salmon—a complete nuisance.
I had no doubt he would try to stop me from getting involved.
It was an extra headache I could do without.
For the few concerned guards and servants who had remained at the campsite to wait for us, we concocted a lie that I had gotten lost while out searching for birds, and Filip had happened upon me deep in the forest. As expected, people had questions about Filip’s injured arm.
We decided to be truthful about that. We recounted the tale of how we’d been attacked by dog-like monsters and were met with mixed responses of both horror and skepticism.
Still, at our insistence, heavily-armed guards ventured back into the forest to recover their bodies. Only then did we agree to return to the castle so that Filip could be seen by a healer.
The goddesses were merciful: we were both excused from attending that evening’s feast. I was starving, but I wouldn’t hesitate to drown anyone who kept me from my bed.
At the castle, we went our separate ways.
When I peeled off my saturated layers of clothing, something hard fell out of my pocket. The notebook. I had completely forgotten about it in the chaotic hours following our visit to Basia’s cottage.
I scooped it up and examined it closely. Once again, I felt an inexplicable jolt of intrinsic magic. Even more remarkable than that, it was completely untouched by water—its magic must have protected it from damage.
I studied the book while I soaked in the bath, hoping it would reveal its mysteries to me.
If only I could discern the meaning behind the engravings.
Would Doran know? He’d come across witches in his travels so I’d wager he could recognize them or, at the very least, make an educated guess as to what they meant.
If only I had a magical bone that could summon him.
When I finally lay cradled in the warmth and safety of my bed, I continued to puzzle over the notebook.
Even though it had been discarded in the disarray of the cottage, something about it called to me.
And, as I teetered on the brink of a sleep that promised nightmares, I wondered how to answer it.
***
As I traced my fingers along the scroll motifs of the cream-and-gold settee where I lounged, I tried not to think about the engraved notebook that was safely hidden in the bottom of my armoire.
It only led to an endless stream of questions I had no answers to, and served as a bleak reminder of my situation.
I had woken that morning to bad news. Despite scouring the forest for hours, the guards had failed to locate the bodies of the beasts. As a result, most people believed we had mistaken the creatures for wolves.
It wasn’t people’s opinions that bothered me, it was the fact that the creatures’ substantial bodies had just vanished, seemingly without a trace.
I was convinced, more than ever, that the murderer had summoned them, then used their power to disappear their corpses before they could be discovered.
The murderer was toying with us—they’d sent those beasts to kill us, and now they were making us look like we were crazy.
The thought of it made my throat tighten.
Maddeningly, I had no way to prove this theory, and, with Basia dead and Hugo in a coma, there was no way of learning the murderer’s identity or motives. For now, all I had to go by were my hunches. It seemed as though I had reached a dead end, and this put me in the shittiest of moods.
At least my spirits were somewhat lifted when I received a note from Livia inviting me to tea.
After a morning spent skirting around Runa’s questions about my time in the woods, I sat in the exquisitely furnished sitting room of Livia’s quarters, patiently awaiting my host’s arrival.
Searching for a distraction, I scanned the bright, flower-filled space.
My eyes traced the collection of paintings on the wall until they stopped on a portrait of a young Livia.
The portrait captured her likeness but there was no hint of the sparkle in her eyes.
Come to think of it, it might be an accurate depiction of how she appeared these days.
“I never did like that one.” I jumped at the sound of Livia’s voice. “I begged Ivar to take it down, but of course he insisted that he wanted to have his pride and joy on full display for all to admire.” She rolled her eyes affectionately as she strolled towards me.
She looked slightly thinner than the last time I had seen her, and her complexion was paler than usual, but, despite those telltale signs of a woman in mourning, she was as breathtaking as always.