Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Ican’t lose this job.
My leg bounces under the dining table, silently counting the seconds until Cedrik disappears into his room for the night and I can enact the world’s worst plan: escape Grim’s Keep, enter the Forest of Lost Souls alone, and retrieve my rooster nemesis before my boss returns and notices him missing.
Do I want to sneak into a magical forest in the dark? Absolutely not. Would I much rather do it in broad daylight with a hulking mountain of a man next to me? You bet. Am I going to do it anyway? Without question.
The second my plate is clear and Cedrik has left the dining hall, I’m gone. I rush out of the main keep, lucky chicken in tow. I didn’t even stay long enough to finish my bread roll and currently have it politely stuffed into my mouth.
Hennifer clucks once and shakes her tiny head.
"Don’t judge me," I mumble around my food. "You’re complicit in this too."
Brushing off her disapproval of my manners, I head for the dwarf-made tunnels that run below the keep grounds like veins. It’s, unfortunately, where my bedroom is, along with most of the non-royal family.
Back when Grim’s Keep was converted into a farming district, space got tight.
Suddenly, we needed more creatures to run the keep grounds than the main castle could house.
Instead of expanding outward and exposing people to danger outside the warded walls surrounding the keep, or sacrificing farmland to build homes, the Lord made the decision to go down.
Now, the surface is for food, and the only structures above ground consist of the original keep, a couple of greenhouses, and things that couldn’t be built below, like Cedrik’s forge.
I pause as we reach the ladder leading down.
“Ready, Hennifer?” I flip around and face her.
She tuts like a tiny soldier with a bok-bok.
"Beak up. Wings tucked. Tail feathers in."
I demonstrate with full-body gestures, cloak flaring dramatically. Hennifer mimics me with unsettling accuracy. Once she’s in formation, I scoop her up and slide down the metal ladder, using my sleeve to keep from branding my palms on the cold rungs.
We land in a puff of dust and one shrill chicken scream.
As soon as she registers that we’re on solid ground she wiggles until I put her down. Hennifer plants her tiny claws, then glares up at me like she’s plotting my downfall.
“You’ll get used to it,” I say, waving her off. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”
She snuffles under her breath but follows, nails clicking against stone the entire way to my room.
It isn’t far from the entrance. The first set of rooms are the healers, strategically placed there in case of emergency.
It allows us to get out to help, or others to reach us quickly if something happens.
Except, all the healer’s rooms are unoccupied but mine, since my boss lives in the main keep above ground with the Lord and Lady.
Not many with healing magic wanted to be sent to a farming district in the middle of a war. Most wanted to be assigned to a royal guard unit or the King and Queen’s castle. They wanted to go somewhere they could mend bones and be useful.
I, on the other hand, was willing to take any apprenticeship that would accept me.
All I cared about was being a healer, like my mother was.
I’d give anything to prove to my family that I can do this, to repent for my screw up.
Sure, I didn’t learn how to read growing up.
And yes, being incapable of reading spells or grimoires makes learning magic incredibly hard, but it doesn’t mean I can’t.
Who knows, maybe my boss would teach me if I ever worked up the nerve to tell him that I can’t read…
I’m just worried he’d drop me and take on someone else.
As is, he’s already stopped teaching me and essentially made me his errand runner and chicken guard, instead of a healer apprentice.
I’m afraid I’m one inconvenience away from being sent home.
I push open the door to reveal a rather plain cot, a shelf with a handful of sketch books, an herb encyclopedia that I use for the pictures when my boss sends me to gather his ingredients, and a display of brightly colored bottles of various sizes.
Meanwhile, Hennifer starts to gather scraps of herbs from the shelves to attempt building a nest.
“Don’t get comfy. We’re not staying.”
Her head snaps up.
“I told you… We’re going after Eggory.”
I grab my satchel and start stuffing it with leftover bread and muffins I crammed into my dress pockets during dinner, a water flask, spare socks, a thin nightdress to conserve space, Cedrik’s dagger, two healing salves, some herbs, and a couple defensive potions, just in case.
Then, as I start to close up the satchel, I think twice and add a map. Definitely will need a map.
Wrapping a cloak around my shoulders, I secure it at the base of my throat with a brooch, then look at my chicken. “Right,” I mutter, setting the bag down again. “I almost forgot.”
With a spare strip of soft leather from my shelf, a few quick loops, some thread from my sewing kit, and a buckle, I piece together a makeshift harness. Hennifer looks between me and the contraption and I quickly tuck it behind my back.
“Look,” I say, kneeling beside her, “I know you haven’t left my side yet. But if Eggory has a way of controlling his flock, I’m not about to be chasing two chickens through the woods."
She blinks slowly, then bows her head, allowing me to place the harness on. Still, she makes sure I know how she feels about it with the most offended bok I’ve ever heard.
“Noted,” I whisper.
With some spare fabric, I create a leash and secure it to the harness, and with my satchel on, we’re ready to go.
“All right, let’s go find a rooster and save my future.”
We slip out through the back tunnel. I wrap Hennifer in my cloak like contraband as we approach the wall. The gate guards would never let me leave without Cedrik, who is likely sharpening a sword and muttering about irresponsible women and poultry-induced trauma, at this very moment.
So we skirt the perimeter, clinging to the wall and diving into shadows whenever torchlight sweeps too close.
Eventually, I find the rock. The one I discovered over a year ago while pruning hedgeberries.
A massive stone that looked oddly loose, with a few gouges along its edge, like someone had tried to carve it free with a dagger.
Curious, I’d tugged on it and it came out.
Needless to say, I spent the next hour wrestling it back into place.
I never told anyone. Not even Cedrik.
Because a part of me—a small, scared part—always feared I wouldn’t be good enough to stay. That my boss would tire of me tripping over my words and spells and one day send me back home to the bean farm. So I kept the boulder a secret.
But tonight, it isn’t my escape. It’s my salvation.
I heave it free with a grunt, heart pounding as the hidden tunnel through the wall yawns open.
Hennifer goes through first, naturally. She boks once, turns to wait, and gives me a look like, ‘Well? Hurry up.’
I crawl through after her, brush dirt off my knees, and squint at the woods beyond the wall.
“Any ideas?” I whisper.
She sniffs the grass, turning in a tight spiral, then abruptly halts. Her head swings wildly, then she straightens, lifts one leg, and points her entire body like an arrow.
I blink. “So... that way?”
Hennifer boks to confirm.
And we’re off.
Glitter puffs from the hem of my cloak as I march.
Perfect. I’m leaving a sparkling breadcrumb trail through the forest.
If anyone wants to find me, all they have to do is follow the path of fairy vomit and questionable life choices.
We’re about ten paces in when Hennifer stops dead.
She lowers her body, hunkers down, and presses her beak to the mossy ground.
For a second, she’s absolutely motionless—a feathered statue, all focus and no nonsense.
Then she starts making a noise. Not a cluck, not a bok.
More like a snuffling, the kind you’d expect from a truffle pig.
“Uh.” I crouch down next to her. “You okay, girl?”
She ignores me. Her head whips side to side, beak scraping over roots and stones, until she makes a strangled, triumphant chitter. In one abrupt motion, she rockets forward, almost yanking her own feet out from under her.
“Wait!” I scurry after her, satchel bumping my hip and boots squelching in last week’s rain.
She’s locked onto something, and by the way her tail is sticking straight up, I know it’s not just a rogue worm.
Maybe Eggory left a trail only his most elite cult followers can decipher… or his chicken mate.
Do chickens even have mates?
The forest hushes around us. The deeper we go, the stranger it feels.
Colossal tree trunks curve and twist like they grew in agony.
Moss carpets the ground, thick and wet, swallowing our steps in eerie silence.
Pale mushrooms glow faintly near tangled roots, and overhead, the canopy knits so tightly that the triplet moons above can barely poke through.
Hennifer leads me on a zigzag through the trees, never once slowing, except to jam her beak into the ground and make that snuffling noise again.
Sometimes she circles the same patch of moss three times, then bolts off in a direction that makes no sense.
I almost lose her at one point, when a bush snags my cloak and holds it hostage, but I power through.
The trail isn’t just mud and leaves. Every so often I see a feather, with a black, glossy texture.
Eggory’s feather. I’ve seen him fluff them at me enough times to know that for a fact.
There’s even a little spot where something has been scratched into a tree trunk.
The marking looks suspiciously like a demonic symbol with some sort of scribbling around it.
I don’t stop to take a closer look.
A branch snaps nearby. My heart launches into my throat, and I whip around, knife in hand.
The leash pulls taut, and Hennifer yelps when she hits the end of her tether.
I search the trees, holding my breath. My chicken waddles back to peck my calf before resuming her snuffling and finding the trail again.
Nothing. Just bushes and moonlight. Probably one of those angry naked squirrels.
Probably.