Nineteen
Adelasia
With limited time to escape, I work quickly. I gather a spare change of clothes and most importantly, stop in the kitchen for food and a water satchel. The vampire servants have all fallen into a still sleep as Kaius has, leaving the palace empty of all life.
After I gather about a week’s worth of provisions, I run as quickly as I can to the prisons. Saddiq is hunched over in his cell, some blood dripping from a shallow claw mark in his stomach.
He looks shocked to see me, but I don’t have time to explain right now. With Dravon gone, the magic holding Saddiq in his cell has collapsed, allowing me to freely pass through the doorway. I kneel in front of my friend and hold out some bread and cheese for his angry stomach. He whimpers as the small amount of food slivers down his parched throat. I hold the water satchel to his mouth for him to sip.
“You’re alive!”
“Shhh,”
I coo with urgency. “Can you stand? We need to leave. Now.”
“Adelasia–”
“I’ll explain later. Please, please stand up.”
I use my strength to lift him to his feet. Once he steadies himself, I hand him another small piece of bread and a cleaver I stole from the kitchen.
We wordlessly escape the prison and without looking back, we run from the valley as quickly as Saddiq’s weak legs will carry him.
When his energy depletes just as we lose sight of the edge of the forest, it begins to rain. Saddiq and I take shelter under the roots of a large tree, sharing a single cloak and our body heat for warmth. Neither of us are brave enough to start a fire. The Blackwood is already a dangerous place for two humans. The unnecessary attention a fire would bring would only lessen our already abysmal odds of making it out of this forest alive.
Since I’ve become accustomed to the night, I allow him to rest on my shoulder while I keep watch.
Our survival is only attributed to the rain masking our scents. When the dawn comes, I wake up Saddiq and share a slice of bread with him. We have no way of knowing how deep into the forest we are, and neither of us are in a condition to hunt. Plants in the Blackwood are not edible, and water sources are scarce and guarded by beasts and demons.
Saddiq is clearly feeling stronger, and as we make our way through the forest, he leads us. Every branch snapping or insect buzzing heightens our anxiety, until it gets so bad that the sounds of our own breathing make us jump.
“Will you tell me what happened?”
Saddiq asks.
I’ve been avoiding this topic since we escaped; not because I have anything to hide, but because there is a large part of my heart that still aches when I think about Kaius. I thought I could trust him, and I thought that perhaps he saw something special between us. Something more than just…fate.
Every stolen glance, every caress of his lips, and every tender graze of his fingers were only a means to an end. I was a pawn in a game I didn’t even know we were playing.
What a fool I was.
I swallow, the action burning my sore, parched throat. “I didn’t listen to you,”
I admit. “About trusting the vampires. About…trusting Kaius.”
Tears gather in my eyes on their own accord but I blink them away, my voice quivering. “He was going to kill me all along.”
Saddiq comes to a stop and pulls me in for a gentle hug. He’s still so skinny. Hugging him back feels like I might break him in half. We are dirty and stale, but I let him hold me as I hug him back.
“Why did you come for me in the prisons? The ward was broken. I could have found my own way out.”
“Because you deserve a chance at freedom too, and I thought we’d have better odds together.”
Saddiq pulls away and smiles gently. “You’re right about that. Look.”
He gestures to a group of rocks behind me. They’re painted with fading runes I don’t recognize.
“When I was a demon hunter before I was captured, my men and I would leave these runes around the forest to remember which beasts lived in the area.”
He brings us closer to the rocks. “I recognize these stones.”
He looks up and around, then points to a darker part of the forest just ahead. “The edge of the forest is a two-day trip that way. There’s a spring of freshwater about ten miles from here. We should reach it before the next night falls. We have a small burrow covered by thick leaves and debris in the area–we would be safe there until morning, maybe even catch some game.”
I nod and then gesture in the direction of some bushes. Saddiq understands, and quietly turns his back to give me some privacy. I take a moment to relieve myself behind the foliage and then emerge.
When I come back out into the open, Saddiq and I both hear a branch snap in the distance. He and I take shelter behind trees at opposite ends of the clearing.
From the direction we just came from, a pack of three werewolves emerge from the trees. They sniff the ground, each inhale bringing them closer and closer to us.
Saddiq slowly and silently bends down to pick up a rock, throwing it as far as he can away from both of us.
The werewolves disappear back into the trees in the direction of the rock.
Saddiq and I make eye contact and sigh in relief, but something catches his eyes behind me, and he goes pale.
I shakily turn my head, but a large, wet snout touches the base of my neck.
Drool drips down my collarbone when the werewolf licks my skin.
A cold shiver snakes down my body at the feeling.
The beast growls.
I whimper.
Saddiq looks horrified.
He has a chance to escape while they’re preoccupied with me.
The smell of Kaius–of vampire–likely still lingers on my filthy skin.
The other three werewolves return, surrounding me as they take turns sniffing and nipping at my ankles.
They’re taunting me.
They want me to run so they can get the thrill of the hunt before killing me.
I give a sorrowful goodbye look to my friend before I jump and roll through the space between two of the wolves. I don’t look back as I run to the opposite end of the clearing, as far away from Saddiq as I can go. The wolves growl as they chase me. I reach a tree and begin climbing as fast as I can. My fingertips are bloody from digging so hard into the bark. Only three steps up the trunk, I lose my footing and slip. My back lands on the dirt and the wind exits my lungs from the impact.
I roll to my left just as a set of razor-sharp claws slice into the space where I was just lying, leaving three jagged lines in the dirt.
I push myself up, forcing my body to move despite the pain. I look to Saddiq, equally as desperate as I am for safety. He swings his cleaver with skill, but the wolves are so fast.
I lunge for him, hoping to offer him some help, but a wolf leaps into me, sending me flying in the opposite direction and knocking me into a tree.
When I fall back to the ground, my temple connects with the jagged edge of a rock, and I feel warmth rush down my face as I try to sit up, only to fall to the side once again. The world starts spinning, and everything starts fading to black.
I hear Saddiq yelling my name, but he seems so distant now. His voice fades in and out with the snarling of the wolves.
I watch a wolf raise its hackles at a silhouette in the distance, surrounded by a soft silver aura.
So pretty, I think to myself, before an unimaginable pain cuts through my stomach, and I let the darkness take me.
When I wake, the ground is cool.
No. Not the ground. My fingers. My body. I’m so cold. Cold and weak.
I open my eyes to find raindrops caught in my lashes and my clothing soaked through. My head aches as I lift it slightly. My neck feels far too heavy and lands back down with a crack on a rock below me.
“Saddiq?”
I croak, unable to bring my voice above a loud whisper.
My mind races as I try to remember the moments before everything went dark.
I remember Saddiq begging me to get up and run.
I remember him screaming when one of the werewolves ripped his arm clean off his body.
I remember blood.
So much blood.
His.
Mine.
The wolves’.
My body shudders with a sob as I look around the clearing only to see three dead wolves.
No fourth wolf.
No Saddiq.
He’s gone.
My only friend from my captive life has been killed because I dragged him into this forest with me.
He died trying to save me when he had every opportunity to run.
While my sobs grow louder, my fear keeps them partially suppressed.
Now I’m alone in this forest, lost and injured with the guilt of costing my friend his life weighing down on my shoulders.
I sniffle and use a tree trunk for balance as I stand.
The claw marks on the side of my stomach burn unnaturally.
I look down and move the tattered remains of my top to the side to find the injury oozing blood and a sticky black substance that smells foul.
I notice then, among the black ooze and my crimson blood, that packed into my wound there are small flower blossoms.
I recognize them instantly–Witchfoil–used to temporarily stave off the adverse effects of supernatural injuries.
It’s not a cure for the toxins that coat a werewolf’s claws, but it’s usually mixed with a sedative to ease the passing of one who has been injured.
The plant isn’t rare, but it requires entering the Blackwood to find it.
Most aren’t brave enough to do so themselves, and what stock human apothecaries have is exceedingly expensive, and so those of us who are unfortunate enough to find ourselves at the mercy of a werewolf scratch die an agonizingly painful death within hours.
I stumble across the clearing as the world spins and my body aches.
I don’t even know where I’m going, but I do not want to die here alone in the Blackwood Forest, and so I walk, hoping to find some end-of-life comforts in the soft trickle of a freshwater spring, or even the familiar beauty of a blooming rose.
My brain throbs and my blood pounds in my ears with every step until finally–finally–I reach a wide river.
My parched throat burns as I fall to my knees and lean over to sip the freshwater.
I sigh with relief at the feeling of the cool drink making its way down my throat.
I use one of my hands to scoop the water into my mouth, unable to quench my thirst fast enough.
As my hand reaches into the water for the third time, a thick vine shoots out from under the water, wraps around my waist, and pulls me under.
The water then shifts from crystal clear to pitch black.
An illusion. A trap.
I begin panicking as the vines pull me further under the water.
I can’t see or feel anything except the vines squeezing me painfully and the water running through my hair as I get pulled deeper and deeper into the river.
I scream.
I kick.
I thrash.
All of it is to no avail and my panic has stolen what precious breath I had left in my lungs.
I begin to convulse as my body searches for air that isn’t there–and suddenly, I feel lighter.
As the weight of the water crushes down on my breathless chest, I no longer feel fear or pain.
I no longer feel anger towards Kaius and I no longer miss my mother.
As I begin to drift into that eternal sleep…I feel the peaceful abyss of nothing.