Chapter 34
Seda
It took a few more days, but the scenery eventually changed.
They didn’t run into any more Hailecs since Cahir had taken out the last one at the pond.
She noticed how he had been with her since the Camp.
He appeared even more unwavering in his protection and affection for her than before, almost as if, perhaps, he saw her as more.
A faint glimmer of hope began to melt the hardened ice surrounding her heart.
She couldn’t shake the memory of how his stomach muscles tensed as he drove the sword into the creature’s head with a powerful thrust, and she also couldn’t stop thinking about the way his penis, the same one she’d seen the other night, had pressed into her when they woke up together in their apartment.
She had no idea it looked like that. No wonder the bulge in his towel looked the way it did.
She wanted to see it again.
She felt her cheeks and ears immediately start to flush and turn red.
His muscular form reminded her of a character from her favorite book from her teenage years. Not that the book got into those kinds of details… at least not that her parents were aware of.
“What’s the name of this place?” she asked, trying to distract herself from her racing thoughts as they drifted up to the tallest trees she had ever seen.
Pines and redwoods towered overhead, filtering the sun in waterfalls of light.
The forest floor was dim and faintly shimmering with a misty haze that moved as they walked through it.
Even in the morning light, the mist seemed to draw them further into the woods.
The soft ground was a relief to her sore feet, with patches of ferns and moss that were oddly more slippery than in the Heath Forest. She stepped over a fallen pinecone and was glad she could see it through the haze.
“Don’t know if this place has a name. I’ve always just called it the redwoods,” Seren said from her side.
“Are there Hailec’s here?” she asked him, now and then looking around, in case she spotted something.
“Not this far north, thankfully. But there are other things we need to watch for,” he replied. She shivered and glanced around nervously in the dim light. Fearing that she was sensing someone watching, whispering, and tracking her every move.
They wove their way through the trees as the wind picked up, billowing her dress around her knees, and the mist thinned out like a stream flowing away.
Something wet and prickly wrapped around her leg, and she tried to jump back, but the thing tightened its grip, pulling her onto her back and dragging her across the ground.
She screamed.
Roya swiftly jumped down and caught her hand, attempting to pull her back. “The Gnashing Flora has her!” she yelled.
Seda looked down at her leg and saw a thick vine wrapped around it. It yanked her again, violently dragging her and Roya along the forest floor, Seda’s dress riding up her back to reveal her bare legs.
Fear shot through her spine like shards of glass. Her body rushed through ferns and random pinecones that scraped against her back. Plants the size of her snapped at her, trying to bite as she blew past.
“I have you!” Roya shouted as she firmly held onto Seda’s hand.
The vine was pulling them faster than the others could keep up, and they lost them in the distance.
A loud screech pierced through the thicket, and Seda looked in the direction the plant pulled her. A massive yellow flower emerged, its menacing thorns dripping clear liquid as it opened its mouth.
A bloodcurdling scream tore from her lips.
She survived the Camp, experienced horrible creatures, and survived the palm of a Jotnar throwing a tantrum. How had it all come to this? She didn’t want to die by a plant.
Another vine lashed out and wrapped around Roya, yanking them apart. They were both lifted off the ground and into the air. Ferona and Feich dived down and clawed at the Gnashing Flora, scratching at the plant’s thick vines.
The Gnashing Flora let out a deafening screech that pierced their ears and slightly loosened its grip on both of them.
Roya immediately shifted and took to the sky to join her siblings in their defensive attack.
It tightened its grip on Seda once more and began forming massive bubbles from its opening.
They slowly floated toward her.
“Avoid the globules!” Ferona shouted as she flew past Seda and clawed at the vine attached to her.
The plant shrieked and flung its vine around while still wrapped tightly around her, leaving Seda disoriented. The globules floated past an arm’s length away.
Her mind was overwhelmed with panic, clouding all her thoughts, making it impossible to think clearly.
The pearlescent bubbles floated through the air in varying sizes, some popping early and splattering juices that singed the nearby plant life, sending up small tufts of smoke where they landed.
The flower forced its petals together and pulled her inward toward its large center opening. She looked down and saw the razor-sharp spines fluttering within the opening, dripping with the clear liquid used to create the bubbles.
A loud, echoing snarl tore through the air as Elco appeared, soaring high and circling the plant.
He dove down and spewed a stream of red fire from his mouth directly onto the vine wrapped around Seda, causing it to wither into dust.
She hit the ground with a thud, and pain surged from her healing ankle. The Gnashing Flora writhed and screeched, flinging its vines into the air as it tried to reach Elco and the Corvids.
It released another massive stream of bubbles into the sky.
The others ran into the clearing, and Seda looked back at them quickly. Cahir ran forward and grabbed her into his arms.
Seren ran past with his sword held high and sliced off a vine reaching for Seda again. The vine shriveled back quickly, and the plant squealed in pain. Kalon, Ojore, Askold, and Benny began stabbing its leaves.
Out of nowhere, a vine snaked out and wrapped around Seren, lifting him and sending a blast of bubbles straight into his face.
The sound of sizzling flesh and screams echoed through the area.
Elco flew down again, preparing another attack when the Gnashing Flora immediately retreated into itself, yowling in pain.
It closed into a large, pulsating pod, dropping Seren’s unmoving body to the ground.
What happened? No one had hurt it enough to provoke that reaction. It writhed in pain and screeched into the forest, pulsating with agony.
Seda looked around in confusion and saw Elco land near Seren’s body. He blasted fire onto the screaming plant, causing it to erupt in flames.
It smoldered into a pile of ash.
Ojore ran toward Seren, and Roya quickly shifted her form to block him, preventing him from going further. “No! Do not touch him! The poison is all over his body.”
“I have to see!” Ojore yelled in her face and pushed Roya roughly to the side. He lunged forward onto his knees and bent down toward Seren’s lifeless, blistered body, avoiding contact.
Ojore let out a guttural roar that echoed through the surrounding trees.
Seda scrambled out of Cahir’s arms and ran next to Ojore, ignoring the pain that tore through her ankle. She stared down at Seren’s unrecognizable body and softly placed her palm on Ojore’s back.
He stiffened, leapt to his feet, and shouted, “This is YOUR fault! You are so weak, so fucking helpless. We’re all out here trying to help YOU. And so far we have lost two of our friends, two of my friends.” His voice caught on the last words.
“Do not speak to her like that,” Cahir seethed as he stepped in front of Seda, blocking her from Ojore.
“Or what, Cahir? What will the big, bad Fae do to me that they already haven’t?
My people have suffered because of your kind…
Because of you. And now here I am, pretending to get along with scum like you, to save…
To save this thing.” He pointed at Seda.
“Some magical creature she is. She can’t even protect herself when a fucking flower attacks her!
We should be out there searching for what the Rising is supposed to be doing!
We need to find the Darkened instead of helping this thing get to the Wisps and dying in the process! ”
Elco stalked behind him, letting out a menacing growl at Ojore as smoke billowed from his nostrils.
“Oh, shut the fuck up, you overgrown, disfigured cat! Why didn’t you blow that fucking flame where it was needed sooner? Whatever it was scared of, it wasn’t you!” He stomped off into the distance, leaving everyone else behind.
Seda dropped to her knees beside Seren.
She looked down at him and watched in horror as his bubbling skin rippled.
He was gone. He was dead because of her. Why didn’t she tap into her power? All she felt was fear. It hadn’t even crossed her mind to use her power to protect herself or others. All she thought was that she was going to die.
I only thought about myself.
She let out a cry as tears started streaming down her face.
How useless and selfish she was. Her mind flashed back to the night when the Jotnar attacked the dome, and she was alone, feeling so hopeless that she curled up into a ball on the shower floor and did nothing. She would have let the monsters eat her back then, just like she would have today.
She was a fraud, powerless, and weak when she had the power not to be.
She cried for Seren, who would still be alive if she had just acted and not halted in the face of danger. His gentle nature and kindness were ripped away from this world, all because of her, all because he was trying to protect her.
Elco stepped forward and wrapped himself around both her and Seren’s bodies, making sure not to touch the poison.
He blocked everyone else’s view so she could cry without anyone watching.
She buried her face in his mane and screamed as loud as she could, her throat throbbing from the strain, but she didn’t care.
She deserved the pain.
Another agonizing scream tore from her lips as she unleashed her anger, sorrow, self-loathing, and outrage at the unfairness of this cruel world.
Dark clouds formed over the clearing, casting a shadow over the area.
It started pouring rain with such intensity that Seda gazed up at the darkened sky, letting the rain mix with the tears on her cheeks.
How fucking perfect, her first time experiencing the rain was in misery, so ideal for her awful, fucking life.
She held out her palm and watched the drops patter against her skin.
She clenched her fingers into a tight fist.
Purple lightning snaked across the sky as thunder shook the ground. Seda pressed her face back into Elco and screamed. Filled with anger over Seren’s death at her weak hands and her lack of courage, she screamed again and again and again.
A giant bolt of purple lightning tore through the area, bursting into hundreds of fragments and scorching the nearby carnivorous plants.
Exhaustion enveloped her, and thunder shook the ground as Elco pulled her closer, allowing her sorrow to pierce him with a sharpened sword he didn’t resist.