Chapter 12 A Snake in the Grass #2
Was that the echo of my own voice, or was someone mocking me, mimicking my voice perfectly?
Once the thought had entered my mind, it was difficult to shake off.
Surely there was nothing dangerous in these woods; the instructors would have warned us and would never have let us ride here alone.
Hadn't I heard that Lucent Academy was one of the best-protected places in the Empire?
It would have to be, wouldn't it, seeing as we were the Empire's future army?
These arguments did little to reassure me as I nervously scanned the trees.
My body ran cold when I heard a slithering noise.
This time, I could see the tall grass shake.
Something was coming. Something low to the ground but large enough to be noticeable was emerging from between the grass, detaching itself from the shadows.
It looked like sentient oil as it pushed forward on its belly, breaking away from its covering to finally reveal itself.
I felt a moment of disgust so deep and so primal that it blotted out my internal sun.
From somewhere deep inside, I recalled a memory from my childhood.
I'd been playing outside in the garden. The next moment, something cold and unbearably alive had slithered over my foot.
I had let out an earth-shattering scream, and my parents had come running.
They had panicked and had asked me what had happened.
I must have been very young because I could distinctly recall being so lost for words that explaining what had touched me, what had moved over my bare and innocent foot, had been so horrible that I hadn't even had a name for it.
It had, of course, been a snake. I had a deep-seated fear of them that I couldn't really explain to anyone.
Now, the thing I saw moving toward my horse slithered as if from the bowels of my every nightmare. It was black and glistened in what sunlight there was in this section of the woods.
I was completely frozen in fear and ice cold, as if I had died and was just a stunned corpse. As my eyes grew more round until they felt like they were going to pop right out of my head, I tried to open my mouth to scream, but my lips felt like they'd been welded shut.
I heard something moan pitifully and realized it was me, sounding like an animal caught in a snare.
The snake, with its jewel-like scales and slitted yellow eyes, seemed to regard me with otherworldly intent.
It opened its mouth and hissed. I saw its fangs.
They seemed enormous, and I swear I could see them dripping venom.
Then the creature, still approaching, seemed to change.
It grew larger by the second. When the first legs started sprouting out of its body, I finally managed to kick Chance in the ribs, to let him know we were getting away from here.
Either I kicked too hard, or Chance had seen the monstrosity crawling out of the woods as well, because he took off like a bolt. I clung on for dear life, hoping against hope that I wouldn't fall off, that he wouldn't leave me to fend for myself if I did.
I looked behind me to see if the thing was following.
Now, it was enormous, and it no longer resembled just any old snake.
I felt the world shift as a feeling of unreality washed over me.
The thing standing on the road behind us, the thing watching us coldly, was a Kigyo Hydrus, a lizard-like reptilian monster with six legs and two heads.
It was huge. It was a mythical creature I would've sworn only existed in legends.
I was terrified beyond all reason, past the point of knowing or caring where Chance was carrying me off to. We were riding off-trail, and trees flashed past us, branches zoomed dangerously close to my head, and some of them scraped across my face and arms.
Up ahead was a clearing. I could see a break in the trees. Panting, desperate, still in the grips of the worst terror I had ever felt, I sent a prayer up to the gods that it was the castle grounds.
Just as we broke through the edge of the clearing, something leaped into our path, blocking it.
"No! It can't..." I screamed because it was impossible.
It was the Kigyo Hydrus. Was it that fast, or was this another one, maybe its mate?
Did they hunt in packs? Surely, this couldn't be the same one, but two of them existing when one was an impossibility seemed like a spectacular coincidence.
I didn't think about it, I just acted. Without knowing what I was about to do, I drew from the power inside me and released.
It was almost instantaneous. A perfectly round ball of pure fire popped into existence, and I pushed it at the creature.
My magic hit it squarely in the face, and the thing seemed to shimmer, then it disappeared.
There was no smoke, no burning corpse, no awful smell.
It just popped out of existence like a soap bubble.
Chance may have been more frightened by my sudden burst of magic than he had been by the monster, because he reared back and made a sound that was like a scream.
It surprised me, and I couldn't grab the reins in time.
My hands moved sluggishly, as if they'd been dipped in treacle.
The world was growing fuzzy around the edges, and I could feel my heart hammering away as the world grew dimmer and narrower.
I was losing consciousness. But why?
I slipped back and fell from the horse onto the ground.
The passive protection my mates gave me made me feel like I was falling back onto a bed of soft feathers.
Before I had even a moment to think about what all this meant, a darkness so complete it may have been a facsimile of death swallowed me whole, and I was drowning in nothingness.