Chapter 25
The valleys opened up before me. I imagined I was living another’s story—a story of a maiden sworn to no gods, bound to no oaths, marked by no Shadows. My cloak caught the wind, and my hair was tangled and free. Beads of snowfall kissed my skin, and Skye’s vigor made me all the more alive.
Though I did not feel this carefree pleasure for long.
There was a godly weight in me. Nails tapped along my mind. Deceit’s magic was still frail—the roots and my head still ached. The clouds hung low, denying any glimpse of sunlight to this day. At the cusp of the laurel trees, the wood’s dark breath poured from the borders, sending shivers over my skin.
A neigh sounded nearby—Edith’s steed scampering along the edge of hills where snow cascaded down the slope, revealing fresh meadow and evergreen sage. Skye nudged us towards Edith, stirred by the challenge, but I kept us on flat terrain.
My strength was spent. Wearing masks was easy to come by, the magic of persuasion took its toll on me, but to make someone forget entirely—this was the most devastating magic I could practice. It was as though this magic did not belong to the god, always leaving me near ruin.
We rode for a time, giving me some moments to simply breathe and focus on Skye’s gallop. Edith began to slow pace when blades of grass traded for moss woven over flat rocks. I no longer recognized these lands. Besides pounding hooves, thrashing waves sounded in the distance.
A gleam set upon Edith’s lips as she came to my side.
“Do you see the wood?” She pointed far west, where greenery broke the flat of the land. Mountains speckled the outlying landscape.
“I do, though I do not know it.” I squinted towards the clouds that dissolved in the distance, where colors softly twined in the sky.
Edith retied her brown hair and said with a scrunched nose.
“That is the elvish land of Ethereum, where the king has been denied his reign. Young and old remain guarded by their protectors.”
“Who protects the elves?” I asked.
“The trees,” she said, and it sounded like folklore.
“The God of Sentient favors those who favor the balance of nature. The trees keep care of those who care for them.” She stroked her horse’s mane, contemplating the horizon.
“Do you know much of the elves?”
“I have seen elvish magic once, though, that was long ago.” I chewed my lip.
“They were crafted from Sentient and Light. The king wishes to see them end.”
Edith’s brow tensed, but the smooth curves of her face remained.
“Man and elves have been in strife since their creation. The gods saw the corruption of man, the greed that became irremovable. Elves were fashioned from soil and light to strengthen man, make right our wrongs, but we only became envious of their favor from the gods.” She pondered the western trees.
“Our king fears what he does not know.”
I sighed away from the color-lit sky, towards the clouds dampening the day. It was difficult living in the dark, but something about seeing a shred of untouchable light made my stomach upset and my chest tighten.
“Indeed,” I said.
“That is the way of man.”
“Do you fear what you do not understand, Rhoswen?”
I shrugged with a guilty grin.
“I am of man.”
Edith’s laughter filled the air, and her pink cheeks turned a shade brighter.
“I can see why my nephew keeps you in his company. You are not like most young women of this realm. You have a cleverness to you, not taking the lands as you see them, but considering what cannot be seen.”
My lungs felt heavy.
“In this age, I would live in fear if I took all at face value. What I cannot see, I do hope will bring Andrael into lighter days.”
That last part—I let that slip, but Edith gave me no sideways glance.
“Light is present, even in the darkest of shadows,” she said with a dear smile.
“And as I have come to see you in recent days, I dare assume you believe the same.”
I flickered a grin.
Edith’s steed tossed back its mane and trotted in place, hooves hammering the rocks.
She adjusted her reins for the ride.
“Come,” she said.
“We’re close.”
I followed the tide of her cloak.
The ancient wood set at our backs. Skye wove over jagged rocks, snow turned to grains of rain, and salt dispersed in the air, making my eyes water. Before me, the lands abruptly vanished.
I leaped from Skye and steadily, slowly, followed the path of stone that led me to the edge of the cliffs. I tilted my head downward, where the sea howled far below. Bedrock had been polished by centuries of waves, salty mist spraying my face. Closing my eyes, I breathed the aromas of salt and water. My gown waved like a banner in the wind, and loose hairs tickled my face.
For a moment, my heart was still, and my mind was quiet. Standing at the precipice, nature was telling me how small I was within the Andraelian lands, and I humbly listened, my lips stretching into a soft smile.
Edith neared, boots scuffing along the sharp rocks. With legs swinging outward, confident and daring, she sat at the edge and patted the stone beside her. I sat down, my stomach turning as the edge of the realm spun.
Breathing in the salt of the air, her teeth were brilliant—I recognized Alistair’s smile in hers.
“I used to bring Alistair here when he was young,” she said.
“This is often where we’d go when he needed a moment away from my brother.”
Severing my study of the mist and seas, I found Edith’s eyes.
“Can you tell me of the lord?” I asked.
“ Who he was in his younger days?”
A delight beamed in her eyes that was quickly snuffed out.
“He was a special child. Always running about, begging for duels and reading old texts of the elves.”
“I found a book in the library about the elves.” I paused for a moment, debating how at ease I should be in Edith’s company. She looked at me with kind eyes, and I knew I could relax.
“I had thought all the lords burned elvish texts when the king enacted the slavery laws.”
“Alistair was very fascinated by elves as a child. I imagine he smuggled some reads into his study without my brother knowing. Because, if Eadric had seen, they would have been destroyed.”
“I had served a similar house. The Calhourns. Lord Morrigan had burned the texts long before I had ever arrived at his estate.”
“Percival was different than his father,” she said.
“You knew Percy?”
“Oh, yes, I knew him. He and Ali tried running away to elvish lands together as children.” Edith giggled to herself, but her laughter was quick to die.
“Eadric never approved of Alistair’s interest, always encouraging him to keep those blades in hand and forget the scrolls. Ali never listened to his father, but I never listened to my brother either.” She looked beyond at the storms.
“But, everything changed one day.”
Deceit scored beneath my eyes with an arching spine.
“May I ask what happened?”
“It was a dark day, Rhoswen. The darkest I’d ever seen.” She wrapped her arms over her chest, bringing her knees in.
“Alistair had made a mistake—a horrible mistake—and my brother did something to ensure Alistair would never forget just how unforgiving of a father he could be.”
Watching her shiver, I laid down further questions.
“I had heard Eadric was unforgiving, but I did not know…” My words fell.
“I know what it’s like standing against a father’s hand.”
She gave a broken grin and bowed her head.
“As do I. And I have devoted myself to never recreating such days for my own children.” The salt stirred in her breath.
“I only hope Alistair will do the same.”
“Do you think he will?” I asked.
“Be a better man?”
“You see him far more than I do these days, Rhoswen. What do you believe?”
Averting my attention to the waves, I considered their strength. Storms, winds, the moon—they were all influences that caused these violent waters to crash against the cliffside. And I knew these same waters, miles down the coast, were smooth against white shores. The waters were not perilous on their own but within the culmination of influence.
“He is burdened,” I hushed.
“But he is not evil.”
“No,” I said.
“He is not.”
The god growled.
Our breaths were slow, the air rich in salt, and the realm quiet as I sat upon the cliff. We allowed the moments to pass, savoring the waves below and the seas beyond. When rains began to sprinkle our skin, Edith and I rose and walked towards our steeds.
Above Ethereum, the sun weakly shone over the elvish wood. A silvern ring encircled the trees, speckled with starlight. Mist flowed outward as a wall to divide the elves from the hands of man, and air was painted verdant shades, mingled with yellow before dissolving into the endless clouds, draping over me.
Stepping nearer to Skye, my eyes were caught halfway, captured by the ancient laurel wood. Peering into the dark, I was unable to discern the second row of trees, the wood, a murky void.
Iron clanked at my side as Edith prepared to ride. As I neared Skye, I did not look away from the wood. Shadows hummed, mist seeped from the cusp. The wood seemed to unfold, rising, widening. It was breathing. I felt it earlier, but now—
“What is it?” Edith asked, standing idle beside me.
All was quiet.
“Nothing,” I said, but I wasn’t sure.
“Did you see something?”
The god’s olden breath drifted beneath my skin. The dark magic is maturing, child. The corpses can smell you. Or rather, they can smell me.
What stirs in the wood, Deceit?
I cannot see the work of the Shadows beyond your sight. Only sense their presence. What you cannot see, so too am I blind.
You are a god, but you cannot—
Deceit’s voice was livened. Why do you believe the powers of the dark to be such a threat to the gods? Be wise, Rhoswen. Consider with reason. The gods do not see, do not know, the labors of the Shadows. They are not of our creation.
“Rhoswen, what do you see?”
“I-I don’t know.”
Tap, tap, tap, Deceit drummed his tune. Waiting.
“We should leave.”
Edith nodded and said with certainty.
“Let us not delay.”
We swung our legs over frigid saddles. I continued to watch the wood’s myriad of doorways fashioned from stalks and upturned roots. The mist drifted from the wood like air from dying lungs. Kicking Skye’s sides, she gained speed, and Edith and I fell in line with each other.
The sea waved in farewells, the winds strengthened, and rain fell.
This cold—it was unusual. Not biting and brisk, but heavy and difficult to breathe.
“Do you—?” I began to ask, but I did not know how to articulate what I felt.
“Yes. I can feel it too.”
The branches cracked and moaned in the breeze, the trees stirring. Mist thickened. Edith looked over her shoulder at me, but her focus was pulled to the wood at our sides, eyes widening. I twisted my neck to the laurels.
Deceit, I barely managed.
His hold tensed at the sight. Ride, Rhoswen, he uttered. Ride fast.
The ancient trees spat out corpses.
Near and far, I could not count the bodies borne of shadows. The corpses chased us, limbs flaying off decayed flesh, milky eyes in their sockets. Ribs protruded through timeworn skin, grinding against their hollow stomachs with each step. Veins hung like strings. Their mouths stretched open, unnaturally so, the corners torn apart.
Skye cried.
I tucked low at her neck, yelling at her to keep going. Her muscles flexed beneath my thighs, and I held onto her as tightly as I could. Skye did not let up, but still—the corpses were faster than in our last encounter. They were gaining.
“Rhoswen!” Edith bellowed.
“We need to lose them!”
“How?” I called.
Deceit and Edith demanded in unison.
“The wood.”
We cannot go to the wood, I said to the dark. More will find us.
If you stay, the creatures will bury you and drag you to the sands of Oldurem. The wood is not endless. The sands are.
“Rhoswen!” Edith’s attention was torn between the corpses and me.
“I will follow you!” I shouted.
“Stay close.” Edith led us towards the army of the dead.
We were surrounded. Surrounded by tongues that hissed and hands that reached. Souls had been ripped from life and torn apart, leaving behind these aged carcasses, pulsing with ungodly life. The steeds did not slow as we charted the clearing to the wood—the clearing that was closing with each passing breath.
The wood was so near that the scents of mildew filled my nose.
Edith fell into the trees but was immediately thrown back. Her steed reared, and Edith fell to the ground. With a cry, the mare stomped in place, trying to fight off the corpses gnawing at its legs. Like spiders, the bodies crawled over the horse.
Time did not slow.
My heart pounded.
“Edith!” I cried, reaching down for her.
She didn’t notice me. She was in shock, sitting before the onslaught.
Leave her, the god demanded in my mind, where I cursed his rotten commands.
Our opportunity to flee was becoming thin, the corpses charging at either side of us.
I cried her name again, and her face snapped to me, despairing neighs in the background. Edith twisted from the dirt and stood. Done with the horse, the corpses extended their bloodred hands to Edith, stalking at her back.
“Edith, take my hand!”
A corpse twitched, its reedy neck stretching with flexing nostrils, sniffing the air. Spine twisting, its milky eyes found me.
“Her,” it shrieked like a dagger scraping glass.
The corpses left Edith behind, all milky eyes on me, coming for me. For the god I housed.
Edith seized her chance, charging past corpses with high elbows, and took my hand. Leaping upon the saddle, she wrapped her arms around my waist.
“Skye, go!” I shouted, feet hard against her sides.
Corpses rushed towards me from both left and right.
Skye leaped into the wood. Everything became dark, the wood swallowing us whole. To my back, I watched the waves of corpses ram into each other only mere seconds after we’d fallen into the wood. They mounted atop each other, desperate to change direction and pour back into the wood from where they came.
Gnarled roots reached from the ground, but Skye’s stride was unbroken. Corpses scraped through the wood, faltering and falling—their home betraying them as distance was carved.
“Are you hurt?” I called to Edith.
Her breaths were humid on my back.
“No. And you?”
“I’m all right.”
But you are not safe. The god’s eyes pressed against mine.
The laurel wood seemed to welcome us, but I did not trust this wood. My vigilance remained high. Skye eventually slowed once we no longer heard the corpses fumbling through the roots and overgrowth. I continued to peer around us, silhouettes obscured by the dark of day.
“Is anything familiar to you?” My voice quickly died in the brambles.
“I do not know this place, but we are trailing east.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The winds,” she said.
“The winds of the seas press east. We follow the winds, we find the estate.”
Branches caught and snagged my hair as we wove through unpredictable twists and turns. Trees, strangled by moss, groaned at our coming as roots twitched like snakes. Before long, our journey resumed on the flattened path. According to the winds, we were venturing southeast.
A creak grinded in the air, and Edith whispered.
“Keep your caution close, Rhoswen. We do not know what else may be in this wood.”
I scanned our surroundings with narrowed eyes, attempting to see the unseen lurking within the dark.
“Can you tell what’s ahead?” I asked, my eyes catching something looming, hidden in shadow.
“No.” Edith tensed her hold around my waist, and I drove Skye from the path.
We neared a clearing where brambles and laurels had not taken root, though the dark found it all the same. Within, a silhouette hung suspended in the empty air like a wraith, and from it, the creaking persisted in tide with its sway. We tugged past the final bush before the clearing, the shrub snapping as Skye yanked through old vines. Once we emerged, gold glinted at my feet.
I peered down, and my eyes swelled at the sight of horror.
Scattered across the ground lay six plates of golden armor, stained with dirt and blood—the king’s men. The smell of blood fused with the sour air. This place was a gravesite, freshly created.
Heart pounding, mind reeling, I surveyed all I could, looking for anyone, anything, that may have struck down the royal soldiers. There was no one, the wood silent, apart from the sound of creaking hinges and dripping. Drip, drip, drip.
I dismounted Skye with shaking hands and followed the path of gilded armor.
Edith sternly hushed.
“Rhoswen, come back. We should not be here.”
I kept onward, my eyes sworn to the shapes and colors painting this place in death. As I stood in the center of the clearing, the strange creaking was now above me. With these armored bodies at my feet, I knew—I knew—what dangled above. And still, my eyes would not lift. I did not know if I could stomach the sight.
A cold wind tacked my skin. The dangling silhouette screeched. A drop of warmth fell upon my cheek, tempting my eyes. When another drop fell, I conceded, my stare dragging upward.
I saw it then, hanging above me. I couldn’t even gasp.
Blood dripped a deadman’s tune from the body overhead, falling into a puddle at my feet. Stumbling over a soldier of the king, I shifted around the body hung by rope to see the face. To see his face. To know without any doubts…
Lord Briarwood.
My thoughts locked up. I merely stood as though waiting. Waiting for Briarwood to blink, to breathe, to cut down the rope that tied his ankles and left him to become one with the wood. But he would not. Everything around me faded. All I saw was the corpse of Briarwood, surrendered in rest by the hand of death.
His eyes were open as though he could still see me. Those eyes that had witnessed the terrible acts he’d committed—torturing Gems in search of the guild. But now, they were washed of color. His limbs reached for the ground with hands that would never strike another servant or advisor again. With lips slacked open, he would never profess lies and desecration of the gods. Lips that would never chase the trail of my throat.
My breath was either of horror or relief—I did not know.
Blood seeped from his neck where a blade had sliced and left him to wring dry.
I stared into Briarwood’s eyes, and my lips pulled an odd curl. His fate had been marked, his days numbered. The gods had spoken, and the lord now walked in the eternal sands of Oldurem, accounting for his sins. But I did not smile in the gods’ victory that another lord had fallen. I smiled because Briarwood had fallen.
“By the gods.” Edith joined me, surveying the soldiers and following my gaze upward. An upsetting gasp stole her breath.
“Rhoswen, we need to get back to the estate.”
I tore my eyes from Briarwood, finding Edith, her tears reminding me of the place in which I stood. The souls that’d been taken. I was surrounded by the dead.
My blood trembled in my veins.
“Edith—” My breath cut me short. I was wheezing, the sights were too much. When will the death end.
“What do we do? Gods, who would do this?” I lost clarity, the gold blurring as my mind attempted to absorb this. All this.
“Rhoswen.” Edith reached out, holding me.
“Breathe, child. Breathe.”
I tried, but—
“See me, child,” she said.
“Do not speak of this to anyone. Do you understand?”
“What are you talking about? Men have died. The king’s men are dead. We must warn the estate. There is a killer out there.”
Edith held my face.
“Rhoswen, please, trust me.”
I yanked off her hand and set distance between us.
“Why would we not tell the others?” Edith’s lips remained closed, so I begged, “Why—?”
My body flew back in a whiplash, air clouting out my lungs.
Falling into rubble, I tried to scream without air. I looked out, trying to make sense of what had just happened. To my right, a corpse was writhing in the dirt, twisting on its back, failing to stand. More filled the wood’s void, rushing towards me, their hands reaching for me. To drag me down.
Oh gods. In a flurry of sheer adrenaline, I threw myself up and ran to the cusp of the clearing,
“Keep running!” Edith wail.
I stirred in the dark but could still see the corpses’ milky eyes glow without a source of light. The corpses hissed at my back, thirsting for me. Swatting away branches, I charged deeper into the wood, legs invisible beneath the place light could never touch.
My ankles twisted with the tide of roots. A hand scraped my back.
I prayed to the god it was Edith, but my prayers went unanswered.
A corpse grabbed my cloak. Twisting around, I hurled against it, its flesh snagging against mine, and its hands tight at my arms. It held me, mouth stretched out, skin snapping at the corners, a rotten tongue slithering out. The sour stench filled my nostrils. I wailed my forearms, the corpse staggering, and broke its hold.
I ran, weaving through trees.
I leaped over an entanglement of roots, but my foot—it snagged. The corpse smashed into my back, knocking me down, and a snap, burning and violent, shot agonizing pain up my leg. My cry echoed near and far, the wood distorting my cry and laughing at me.
Stomach to the dirt, I hit the ground with the laurel’s claws tight around my ankle. A hiss simmered at my side. I froze like a lamb before slaughter. The brambles crunched beneath the corpse’s feet. All hushed, and it sniffed the air, searching for me.
Tugging my ankle, I tried to stay quiet. I bit my lips, and tears poured down my cheeks. I kept yanking until I couldn’t, the pain unbearable. I was trapped, so I stilled. The corpse came nearer, its sniffs louder, my breath shaking. I silenced my breath with a palm over my mouth, but it knew where I was. It could smell me.
“God server.” The two words came from above, brittle and haunting.
I raised my eyes to see my impending death. And there it stood, a giant from the ground, white eyes on me. Puffs of air squeezed into the cavities of its face.
The vile body avowed.
“Your time has come.”
“Deceit?” I cried in the violent air.
At his name, the corpse grunted.
You cannot hide from their washed eyes.
If the god had anything more to say, his words found deaf ears.
The corpse fell over me, chaining my wrists, holding me down. Wrestling, fighting, I could not break free. In a final attempt, I jerked my ankle from the laurel roots. Another crack rang beside my screams, and my foot fell entirely limp.
Dirt began to open up around me, like a starved mouth, the soil covering my arms and legs—I was being dragged down. Down to Oldurem.
Dirt traded for sand.
Something crashed nearby, and the corpse fell over. A hand grabbed my arm.
“Stand up!” Edith cried, pulling me from the cavity.
On hands and knees, I wrestled against a tree to stand, falling against the bark. Edith lifted a branch, battering the corpse’s head until its skull concaved, secreting black liquids and an airy shriek.
My ankle was sheer fire.
More corpses came.
They were like a shattered pearl necklace—those hundred eyes floating in the dark. We were outnumbered, two to countless. I knew I needed to be more than I was, as I was. For as I was, I lacked the strength and brawn needed to survive. I needed the powers of the gods.
My skin began to burn, melting my flesh, bendable and obedient.
Deceit’s voice was desperate. Rhoswen, you are spent.
The god’s roots were still frail in my gut, and my mind still endured the scything ache—I could not ignore the god’s warning, but I had no options. My mind drifted from those around—the wood, the corpses, my ankle, and everything else became nothing as I sought hallowed magic.
Edith cried my name and yanked my arm.
I ignored her.
Deceit’s magic, my internal reflection, was our only chance of escape.
He stood at the end of the table, his fist mighty and strong. I remember how his arm extended, gesturing to us as warps of muscles wrapped around his bones. He stood taller than I—perhaps taller than my own father. Our father. My spine drew thin and long, my neck bowing like a brittle stem as my flesh tested its pliability.
Cracking, both my jaw and knuckles depicted another. The man’s build was broad and brutish, conditioned through years of gruesome training. My veins coiled like snakes around swelling muscles. Snapping into formation, my ankle gave into Deceit’s sway, but the wound still burned, shattered beneath the mask.
Edith hushed my name, but I was no longer her. Rhoswen, I had been, but I traded her for another. A prince, cruel and merciless. Someone in whose blood I shared.
Knox, I had pondered. Knox, I had become.
I opened my brother’s eyes, and the army of breathing dead stood before me.