Chapter Fifteen
The moment we stepped past the treeline, the world changed around us.
I felt it before I saw it. The air went thick, cold in a way that had nothing to do with the season, and the ordinary sounds of the forest cut off all at once — no rustling leaves, no birds, nothing. Like the woods themselves had gone still on purpose, holding their breath around the three of us.
Amber's hand found mine almost immediately, fingers laced through mine tight enough that I could feel her pulse hammering against my palm. Rowan walked a half step ahead of us both, silent, eyes scanning the treeline the way he always did when something felt wrong, which lately was constantly.
The trees loomed taller than they had any right to, black branches twisting into a canopy dense enough to swallow the last of the evening light whole. Every step sank soft into damp ground, leaves and soil giving under our boots, the only sound in a forest that had otherwise gone completely silent.
The whispers started faint. Barely a murmur, threaded through the wind, impossible to make out clearly. But they were there. Growing. Pulling.
"Do you hear them?" Amber breathed, barely audible over the low hum building around us.
"Yeah." I kept my eyes moving, scanning the dark between the trunks. "Feels like they're pulling us somewhere."
She didn't answer, just tightened her grip on my hand. I could feel the tension running through her fingers, the small hitch in her breath every few steps. She was scared. She was also still walking forward, which told me more about her than any conversation could have.
We kept moving, the dark thickening with every step, trees pressing closer together like they were narrowing on purpose, funneling us somewhere specific.
The whispers climbed louder, though they still weren't words exactly — more like pressure, a pull behind the ribs that had nothing to do with sound and everything to do with something ancient recognizing exactly what it wanted.
Rowan stopped first, arm shooting out to block Amber before either of us fully registered why.
"Something's wrong," he said, low.
The temperature dropped another few degrees, sharp enough that I felt it settle into my bones. That specific, familiar wrongness. Being watched by something that didn't blink.
I saw them before I could name them. Shapes at first, too far to make out clearly, shifting between the trunks like oil sliding across water. Then closer. Then close enough that the shapes resolved into something with too many joints and eyes that glowed without any real light behind them.
Shadow-things. The exact kind I'd been killing one at a time outside her window.
Except there'd only ever been one at a time before. Tonight there were at least six, and something about the way they moved — coordinated, patient, spreading out to flank rather than just charging straight at us — told me these weren't scouts anymore.
"Run," I said, already stepping in front of Amber, shadow gathering thick and cold around both my hands.
The first one lunged before the word had fully left my mouth.
I met it head-on, dark meeting dark, my hand closing around something that thrashed and tried to bite through fingers that weren't entirely solid anymore.
I fed it exactly what I'd fed the last four I'd killed — the specific, absolute silence right before something that didn't belong in this world stopped existing in it — and it came apart in my grip like ash caught in wind.
Two more came from the left immediately after.
I turned into them, letting the shadow spread wide around me, using the dark itself as both weapon and shield, ducking a swipe from claws that would've opened my throat if I'd been a half second slower.
One went down hard, torn apart between one blink and the next.
The second got a hit in, four thin lines opening across my forearm, cold-burning and useless against how little it actually slowed me down.
Rowan had his own fight going a few feet over, wind roaring around him in a controlled, violent spiral, throwing two of the things clean off their feet and into the trunks hard enough to hear something crack on impact.
He was efficient about it, brutal in the specific, economical way he'd always fought even as a kid.
"Amber, stay back!" I shouted, catching a fourth thing by what passed for its throat and choking the shape out of it entirely.
She hadn't moved from the spot Rowan had planted her in, eyes wide, hands raised like she wasn't sure what to do with them, magic she barely understood yet clearly straining under her skin without any outlet for it.
Sparks of something pale and unformed flickered around her fingers, gone before they could do anything useful.
That hesitation nearly cost her.
A fifth thing came from behind her, and I saw it a half second too late to close the distance myself.
"Amber!" I threw everything I had into the shadow between us, a wave of dark crashing into the thing hard enough to knock it sideways before it fully reached her, but it wasn't a clean kill, just a delay, and it recovered fast, snarling low, already turning back toward her with murder in whatever passed for its eyes.
Rowan reached her first. One brutal gust of wind slammed the creature into the nearest trunk hard enough that it simply stopped existing, dissolving into nothing more than a cold smear against the bark.
"We need to move," Rowan said, breathing hard, eyes scanning the dark for more of them. "There's too many. We can't hold a line here."
"Go," I said, already turning back toward the two still circling at the edge of the clearing. "I'll cover you. Get her out of the open."
"Orias—"
"I've got this. Go."
Amber's eyes met mine for half a second, fear and fury tangled together in her expression, like she hated the idea of leaving me behind nearly as much as she hated standing still.
Then Rowan's hand closed around her arm, and they were moving, sprinting deeper into the trees, away from the worst of it.
I turned back to what was left. Two more, circling, patient in the way that meant they'd learned something from watching the first four die. I let the shadow pour off me thicker than before, drawing on more than I usually let myself use outside of true emergencies, and met them both at once.
It wasn't clean. One got close enough to rake claws across my ribs before I got a proper grip on it, and I felt the cold burn settle in deep, worse than anything I'd taken from the wraith at Amber's window weeks ago.
But I finished it anyway, dark folding it into nothing, and turned on the last one with blood already soaking through my shirt.
It didn't wait around to find out if I had anything left. It bolted, dissolving into the treeline before I could close the distance, and I stood there a second, chest heaving, listening for any sign of the other two.
"Orias!" Amber's voice, distant, sharp with fear, edged with something that made my whole chest go tight.
I didn't wait to catch my breath properly. I pressed a hand hard against my side, felt the wet warmth already soaking through my sleeve, and ran toward the sound of her voice, ignoring how much every step cost me to take.