A Trial of Blood and Thorn
I was unsure whether this situation had gotten better or worse, whether we were closer to escaping unscathed or to an ill fate that would result in Nella’s brain imploding and me a plaything to a banshee.
But whatever this task was, I would give it my all, as if my life depended on it.
Because Nella’s life did depend on it, and I couldn’t live without her.
I waited with bated breath, fear tingling up my spine. Nella whimpered, motionless behind me on the ground.
“I require certain items from the forest. You will retrieve them for me and find me at my home west of here to assist me in creating an elixir. That is all.”
“That’s all?” I asked, skeptical of how easy this banshee made it sound. “What are these items? What’s the elixir for?” Which direction is west? I asked myself this last question. I swore, if directions thwarted me in this task…I could already hear my old schoolteacher scoffing at me.
“A plant, an animal, a truth, and a memory. The first two will come from the forest. The latter two will come from within you.”
I could still hear the slight wailing intermingled with its words, but the banshee seemed to contain it enough for Nella to remain sitting upright next to me, ears still covered with her hands.
“Which plant and which animal?”
“The plant is a blue-petaled, orange-thorned, and black-stemmed flower. The animal can be any animal. You must bring me only its heart and eyes. We shall discuss the truth and memory upon your return to my home if you can accomplish the rest. Be warned. Fail or flee, and I will hunt you both down and fulfill my promise of death and enslavement.”
Its final warning sent goosebumps across my skin and upped my heartbeat even more.
“Blue flower. Dead animal’s heart and eyes. Got it,” I said with way more confidence than I had. “Anything else?”
“You find yourself on the fae side of the barrier between our lands. Take caution, for the flowers are not what they seem, nor are the animals. You have one hour before I become impatient and consider your task as failed. Starting now.”
I turned to Nella. Shock and fear mixed in her eyes.
“Wait!” I yelled to the retreating banshee. “I can’t do this for you with pain and infection from these wounds. Surely you need me alive to give truths and memories to your elixir… Can you heal me first?”
The banshee stopped and turned its eyeless head back to me. I guessed it could see in some sense.
“I can block the pain until you finish this task and remove the infection so as not to taint your blood when it comes time to spill it. But I cannot heal a wound inflicted by magic.”
“Spill my blood? You said you needed truth and memory from me, not blood.” My stomach churned.
“The extraction process will have you spilling your own blood as surely as that infection will kill you if I don’t remove it. Do you wish me to or not?”
I had no other choice. I didn’t need the banshee’s words to know the infection would indeed spread without intervention and leave Nella alone in this world.
“Yes.” I realized my tone was more demanding than advisable to a fearsome creature offering to take my infection away, so I added more kindly, “Please. Thank you.”
The banshee headed our direction, seeming to glide more than walk, though its gnarled and dirty feet were moving, nonetheless.
It stopped in front of me and reached a hand toward me, drawing a sharp intake of breath from both Nella and me. I braced as its clammy palm collided with my forehead.
Before my concern could make me second-guess my choice, the banshee started speaking words I could not understand, laced with that awful wail again.
Its hair flew out around it as it tilted its head back and raised its other palm to the sky, revealing what I had guessed at while its black hair was draped over its chest—bare, full breasts.
They were at extreme odds with the rest of the thin body.
A thought made me shudder… Did it steal parts of its perished victims?
The hair and breasts seemed…new while the rest of its frail body seemed ancient.
Would it steal my eyes if I failed? It was almost humorous with my left eye in the state that it was.
Its palm on my forehead heated, and warmth spread from our point of contact to my neck and shoulders, through my core, and down my legs and arms, taking my mind away from the odd contrast of ancient and young, beautiful and weathered.
I felt the magic working through my arteries and spreading into my blood vessels, seeking the infection.
The heat in my veins subsided, and I felt as if a veil of fog had lifted from my brain, the leaden feeling in my limbs lightening. I even felt my heart relax, relieved of the effort of pumping infected blood through my body.
In the next moment, a cooling sensation enveloped my charred, lightning-tainted skin on my left side. That side of my face and neck felt as if it were encased in soothing balm, the web of pain not gone but placated, no longer angry and alive. My vision, however, did not return.
The banshee removed its hand from my forehead and turned to walk—float—away. This left me feeling better than I had since Aemilia’s attack.
I had one hour. So which to find first—the flower or the animal?
The thought of killing something for no other reason than because I was asked to retrieve its organs made me shudder.
I had never hunted, and unless I found something to make a weapon with, I would have to kill with my bare hands—if I could even catch something to kill. I was so far out of my league.
Flower first, then.
Nella pulled me from my thoughts. “Naci, where did it go?”
“Nella, your ears. Are you okay?” I grasped her head between my hands, inspecting both ears, searching for blood.
“I’m okay now, just lightheaded. Are you okay? What was it doing to you? Was it talking to you?” she asked, the never-ceasing concern for me still present.
I took a steadying breath, still trying to comprehend it all myself. “Yeah, it was. And I think the infection is gone, and the pain is, too, for now. But it said it couldn’t heal the wound, only block the pain. And I still can’t see from my left eye.”
“What?! Naci, that’s terrible!” Nella was panicking, and it wasn’t helping my own fears. I realized then I hadn’t told her I was half-blind.
“It’s okay, Nella. I’m sure it will come back in time if we can get Aemilia’s magic out of the wound. I plan on asking how to do that when we accomplish the banshee’s task.”
“That thing is an actual banshee?! And it will tell you that if you complete some…task? What is this task? Are you sure you’re okay?”
I realized then she couldn’t understand the banshee like I could, and she must have only heard my words to it, plus its wailing, and had to be confused.
The banshee had mentioned mortals shouldn’t be able to understand banshees, yet I could…
I’d have to ponder that later, for now the clock was ticking.
“I’ll tell you everything, but we need to move to find a certain flower. And fast.”
I filled her in on all the banshee had said and asked of me as we walked. A look of abject horror crossed her face when I got to the part about killing an animal for its eyes and heart and spilling my blood for the banshee’s elixir.
“So that flower could be anywhere in this forest,” Nella huffed as she voiced that unfortunate truth. “What if we encounter another creature like the banshee out here? Naci, what do we do?”
I contemplated her question and looked around us as if the answer might be written somewhere on a tree. A flutter of wings caught my attention.
A bird. The same bird? Had it been trying to help or lure us into the banshee’s grasp?
“You’ve been following us,” I bellowed up toward that black, beady-eyed bird I was now certain was the same bird from before our encounter with the banshee.
It didn’t flinch or fly away at my yell.
“What do you want? To lead us to our death?” But there was a tug at my soul that told me that wasn’t true and that the black bird could understand me.
It flew up and headed to our right, looking over at us as it went. I was unsure, but something told me to follow it. I looked at Nella, her eyes questioning but not disbelieving. “Is it crazy if I say I think we should follow the pesky bird?”
Nella considered for a moment, and the slightest semblance of a smile ticked one side of her lips upward. “I think that bird has a thing for you.”
It crowed from afar, so I made my decision and took Nella’s hand and headed right.
It flew straight ahead, not landing or slowing.
Nella and I had to jog below it to keep up.
We went on as a crew of three for a few minutes before the bird banked to our left and stopped on a branch several feet above us.
Nella and I stopped, and I looked around, wondering if the bird had led us anywhere significant or if we’d been on a wild goose chase.
Then I saw it. Just ahead, at the center of a beam of moonlight was a lone flower growing next to a fallen tree’s stump. The flower, with electric blue petals nearly glowing.
Still hand in hand, we crept toward it. Pausing a few feet from the flower, I glanced back at the bird to find it was still watching us.
Just as I was reaching to pluck the flower, I saw a shadow moving toward us from the corner of my eye to the right. I pulled Nella closer to me and watched as my heart raced.
The first thing that came into view was a pair of white eyes glowing in the swirling shadows. Slowly, a four-legged body formed, attached to a head supporting…antlers—a stag.
We backed up as what could only be described as a demon deer took a first step toward us.
It was massive, its shoulders level with my head.
While the pitch-black body seemed to solidify, its wide antlers remained as shadowy wisps dancing around, fading out and reforming, like a shadow made of dancing flame.