A Trial of Blood and Thorn #3
It squawked again.
No way I could trust a bird with life or death, but from textbooks and stories I’d heard growing up, I knew magical things could be painfully ironic. The antidote to the flower’s poisonous thorns being its petals would be fitting.
I made a split-second decision and lowered her to the ground.
I grasped the last bit of hope I had and pushed a petal into her mouth, and held her jaw closed, looking from her to the bird and back.
If this didn’t work, we were both done. Nella and I would go together. This was a pain I could not bear.
After what felt like a lifetime, Nella’s chest finally rose in an immense and wondrous breath. Her eyes fluttered open a moment later. I choked out a half-laugh, half-sob as I pulled her into my chest and held her while her breathing became steadier and even.
As I rocked her, I looked around at the bird that was still watching us. “Thank you. I owe you a debt,” I said with a watery smile.
“You’re talking to a bird, Naci. If I didn’t know better, I would think you were poisoned and delirious,” Nella said, her voice still weak.
I laughed through my tears as relief washed over me. Her voice shook, but color was coming back to her lips and face. The bumps that had erupted up her arm were disappearing too.
She opened her palm to reveal four small, red dots, the punctures now nothing more than healed pinpricks. I finally believed she would be okay.
The bird flew away, and I stared after it for a few moments before reality came crashing back down. I still needed to find, kill, and disembowel an animal, and then find the banshee’s house.
“Can you stand, Nella? We need to finish this task, and I can’t leave you here by yourself.”
She nodded, and with my help, stood on shaky knees. I ripped off my already-torn sleeve and gathered the thorny flower in it, then slipped an arm around her waist. She draped one of hers over my shoulders.
“Good?” I asked.
“Good,” she replied, leaning a considerable amount of weight on me. Gods, I was proud of her strength.
I had no idea how two girls, traipsing through the woods, while one was mildly incapacitated, would avoid alerting the entire forest that we were here. But another caw broke my thoughts. Was that bird going to help us again?
Another squawk. It sounded like it came from ahead to our right, so I lugged Nella that way and found the black bird on the ground some fifty paces from where I’d revived Nella.
It was pecking at something on the ground, which turned out to be a bleeding mouse.
This was the best I could have hoped for in catching an animal, but…
Nella knelt to the ground, still weak, and I asked the bird, “I assume you wouldn’t be kind enough to pluck out its eyes and heart for me?”
The bird stared at me and cocked its head. I didn’t know what went through avian brains, but I imagined this was its version of rolling its eyes.
I took a deep breath. “Fine.”
When I took the little brown mouse in my hands, it was still warm, causing a gag to creep up my throat. I swallowed and closed my eyes—I had to do this…somehow.
I think Nella said something, but I didn’t register it through the racing, gruesome thoughts running through my mind. “Don’t look,” was all I managed to say right before I took its head in one hand and its body in the other and pulled.
I turned my head and vomited when I felt and heard the separation.
“Naci!”
“No.” I gulped, wiping my mouth on my shoulder. “Nella, please don’t look. I’m”—I gagged—“fine.”
I opened my eyes and looked at the bloody mess. I heaved again, but my stomach was empty, nothing but bile rising in my throat.
With trembling hands, I opened its chest and scooped out its insides. I couldn’t tell what organ was what. The banshee would have to accept that there might be some extra parts.
As for the eyes… Tears streamed from mine as I did what I had to do. I knew the poor thing was already dead before I did my unforgivable deeds, but I still felt my soul had a permanent stain on it.
For Nella. I’d stain my soul as much as I needed to for her.
After several steadying breaths, I tore off a portion of the sleeve wrapped around the flower and gathered the mouse’s remnants.
From the ground, I looked at the bird watching me and asked, “Can you show me which way is west? Toward the banshee’s house?”
The bird blinked twice, then took off. I put my arm around Nella’s waist once more, and we followed our new friend until I could make out a small wooden cabin in the distance.
When we arrived, I knocked on the door, feeling much more confident after making it through the first parts of the task.
But that was fleeting as I remembered the rest of the task I would be required to complete once we stepped inside.
Had we survived the horrors of the forest just to be tortured by the banshee?
Would it kill us anyway once it got what it needed from me?
The banshee opened the door, and the smile that greeted us from the other side made my blood run cold, all but confirming my fears.