Chapter Twenty #2
Ahead of her a glade appeared like a mirage—one moment she was surrounded by trees, the next, she was in open space.
Mist clung to the clearing like a veil, low and ghost-pale, rising from the ground as if the earth itself was exhaling.
It was beautiful in a way that made her feel anxious. Something about it was too quiet.
Cassara stepped into the mist, Spireglass held low, and then she saw it.
A flicker just beyond the shimmer of fog. It was small and quick, affording the barest glimpse of mirror-sheen fur which caught the light like polished silver. It was gone before she could blink or question if it had even been real.
She moved toward where it had disappeared when her eyes caught claw marks on the nearby trunk, deep and fresh. Below them more impressions in the moss, large, spread wide, the spacing of a predator with serious weight behind it.
Cassara knelt, brushing away debris.
Beast prints. The wrong shape for a drake, too small for a leviacat. But the rear pressure, she leaned closer, gauging the depth, suggested a leaper. Possibly a glider.
High rank, she thought. Maybe S-class.
Yes.
This was what she had trained for.
She barely glanced back toward the glade. The silver-furred creature, whatever it had been, was forgotten.
The tracks led her up into rockier terrain, the lush forest thinning into clusters of jagged stone and narrow ledges. The moss here was slippery, the incline steep. Mud clung to her boots, sucking at every step. She slipped once, catching herself with a hiss as her knee slammed against stone.
Thunder rumbled overhead, the only warning she received before the rain began.
Not a soft drizzle, but a sudden, lashing curtain that blurred the world to shadow and water.
Within minutes, her hair was soaked, loose curls flattened against her neck, rivulets trailing down her spine.
Her ACS flickered erratically, trying to recalibrate.
Her pack grew heavier with each step, her coat saturated and clinging.
Still, she climbed.
She couldn’t stop now. The tracks curved toward a narrow ledge that hugged the side of a cliff before it opened into a hollow with enough dry space to pitch a temporary camp.
By the time she reached it, her fingers were numb, her clothes were plastered to her skin, and her legs sore from navigating the mud-slick incline. An overhang kept the worst of the rain at bay, and for the first time in hours, she could breathe.
Cassara stripped off her outer layer and wrung it out, teeth chattering, before unpacking a single firestarter crystal from her kit.
She cracked it against the stone, and a low, steady flame sprang to life in the center of the little alcove.
The light was warm, golden, and she crouched beside it, rubbing her hands together.
Steam rose from her skin as the heat slowly soaked in.
Her body ached and her pride simmered. She needed this, to prove that she didn’t need a team, and didn’t need anyone’s help. She would come back with something exceptional, something worthy, no matter what it took.
Hunching closer to the fire, she drew her knees up and lay Spireglass across her lap. The heat licked her skin as she stared into the flame and whispered to herself that tomorrow, tomorrow, would be the day she proved them all wrong.
Cassara woke to silence.
Not the eerie kind, or the kind laced with whispers or distant cries, but the heavy, waiting kind.
The fire had burned down to faint embers. The overhang had kept her dry, but the air was different now, hot, wet, and clinging. Her clothes, still damp from the day before, clung to her skin as she sat up and stretched aching limbs.
Outside the alcove, the forest stirred. Birds she couldn’t name trilled high in the canopy, their songs sharp and strange. A glimmer of light filtered through the leaves, dull, colorless. The sun hadn’t broken the horizon yet, but it was coming.
So was something else.
Cassara stilled when she saw tracks just beyond the edge of her camp.
Large pawprints, deep-set in the softened earth, leading away from the alcove and into the dense underbrush.
They were fresh.
And Cassara?
She was already moving.
No time for food. No time to second-guess. This could be the same beast she had been tracking the day before, or something new. Either way, she wouldn’t let it get away.
Every step through the underbrush soaked her boots anew. Insects whined in her ears. The ACS rig on her bracer buzzed occasionally, reacting to flickers of ambient magic or fauna movement she couldn’t see.
Once, a nest of vine-limbed creepers stirred beneath her feet, sharp-limbed and snatching, but she spun Spireglass into a wide arc, severing the writhing roots before they could wrap around her leg.
She didn’t stop.
Hours passed and the sun climbed above the trees and the tracks seemed to keep shifting directions. Once, they disappeared entirely, until she spotted a broken fern and a splash of mud against a stone.
Cassara pressed on even as the forest seemed to close in around her, every shadow a threat, every flicker of movement a possibility.
The humidity had turned suffocating, curling her damp hair tighter around her temples.
Her shirt clung to her back, slick with sweat, and her legs ached from hours of trudging through uneven terrain.
Her stomach gave a low, bitter twist of protest, but she ignored it.
She had half a ration bar in her pack and no intention of stopping.
Not until she found it.
A rustle up ahead indicated something large cutting through the underbrush. She held her breath and crouched low, easing past a gnarled root to peer through the curtain of leaves.
There, just beyond a break in the trees, a massive form moved like shadow and smoke. Four-legged, broad-shouldered, with muscles that rippled beneath thick, dark fur. The beast didn’t lumber, it flowed.
That’s it.
Her fingers tightened on the haft of Spireglass and she surged forward without a second thought, pushing branches aside, boots slamming into moss and stone. The world narrowed to the shimmer of that fur, to the pounding of her heart in her throat.
The ledge came out of nowhere—a jagged, half-concealed break in the forest floor, shrouded in vines and shaded by overgrown brush. One moment her foot hit packed earth, the next, there was none.
The world tilted and Cassara fell.
Air rushed past her ears and the breath whooshed from her lungs, stolen by gravity and shock.
She had just enough time to twist, arms flailing. Her hand caught the thick, gnarled curve of a root jutting from the cliff wall. The impact wrenched her shoulder with a violent jolt, a cry of pain ripping from her throat. Her grip nearly failed.
She dangled, her boot tips scraping open air, her breath ragged.
For a second, she thought she might lose it. That her fingers would slip and she’d plummet into whatever waited below.
But she didn’t.
Her other hand scrabbled wildly, catching a tangle of moss-slick stone. Dirt crumbled beneath her nails. Her muscles screamed as she fought gravity, arms trembling with effort, shoulder burning with every inch of movement.
Come on. Don’t let go.
With a growl that came from somewhere low and guttural inside her, Cassara hauled herself up. Every inch felt like war. Her arms shook. Her core ached. But she didn’t stop.
She would not stop.
The edge of the cliff rose beneath her and she scrambled over it, elbows and knees hitting the ground in a graceless heap, breath punching from her lungs as she collapsed in a sprawl.
For a long moment, all she could do was lie there, her cheek pressed to the wet earth, chest heaving, her heartbeat roaring in her ears.
Spireglass glinted just a foot away, half-buried in the moss. She reached for it, fingers curling around the haft like it might anchor her to the world again.
Around her, the forest was still. The beast, whatever it had been, was gone. No sound, no shimmer of movement, just the whisper of wind through the high canopy and the thrum of blood still pounding in her veins.
Cassara shut her eyes.
You're not beaten, she told herself, breath shallow. Not yet.
She forced herself to sit up, every muscle protesting. Her hands were scraped raw, dirt caked beneath her fingernails. A bruise was already blooming across her ribs where she'd slammed into the cliff face. She tested her ankle, rolling it slowly—tender, but functional.
Good enough.
She pushed to her feet, swaying slightly before her balance returned. Spireglass felt heavier than it should in her grip, or maybe she was just that tired. Either way, it didn't matter. She'd come too far to turn back now.
The tracks she'd been following weren't hard to find again—disturbed earth, broken ferns, claw marks gouged deep into bark. Whatever she'd been chasing hadn't gone far.
Cassara wiped her palm along her thigh, trying to ignore the ache in her calves and the pulse that throbbed in her temple like a warning.
She had just picked up the trail again when she realized she wasn’t alone.
“You’re relentless,” came Julian’s voice from above, sounding amused. “I’ll give you that.”
Cassara turned her head slowly, already bristling.
He stood on the slope ahead, framed by a tangle of leaves and slanting light.
He looked infuriatingly untouched by the Wildes, no mud, no torn fabric, no sign of effort made to survive.
Just cool elegance and that faintly mocking curve to his mouth.
At his throat, his Aether Shard pulsed with life which meant he’d already caught his beast.
Damn it.
Cassara gritted her teeth and kept on moving. “Go away.”
He fell in beside her anyway, his steps silent. “I thought you’d be happy to see me. I’m certainly happy to see you.”
She didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed on the trail ahead. The earth was disturbed. The tracks were real.
“I saw the look on your face,” Julian continued, quieter now. “At the ruins. Right before you disappeared.”
Her pace faltered, just for a second.
“I thought maybe it was the wine,” he said, and his smile was softer now, charming in a dangerous way. “But I’ve had time to think.”
Was he seriously doing this now?
Cassara forced a scoff. “You should be careful, Julian, that sort of thing gets you into trouble.”
He hummed, not buying it for a second. “Me? Trouble seems to be your specialty these days.”
Her stomach turned. There was a quiet fury beneath his words, sharp and cold. The kind of anger that didn’t shout, it smiled.
“I don’t know what story you’ve written in your head, Julian,” she said. “But I don’t have time for it.”
He stopped walking. She didn’t, not at first, but his next words made her freeze.
“I know you’re hiding something, or perhaps someone.”
She spun to face him, startled by how close he stood. “This isn’t the time or place—”
He took a step closer, casually moving into her space and once again she found herself fighting the urge to step back. As much as he repulsed her, she refused to give him the satisfaction.
“Tell me no one else touched you that night." His hand moved toward her face but stopped short of touching. The impulse to knock it aside was immediate, but she held still.
For the first time in her life, she was afraid of Julian Tremaine and the terrifying, gnawing possibility that he might guess who.
Her thoughts whirled even as she struggled to maintain her composure. She shifted her tone, let her posture soften. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He scoffed and shook his head. “Don’t you?”
“Julian—”
“I’m not stupid,” he continued. “You think I haven’t noticed that something’s changed?”
“I told you I don’t have time for this,” she said, her patience finally reaching its limit. Before she could make her retreat, his hand shot out and curled around the back of her neck, restraining her.
“You can lie if you want,” he said, voice low, his thumb stroking the curve of her throat like a lover’s touch. “But don’t forget, I know you. I know what your body says even when your mouth is too proud to speak.”
His fingers slid down her arm, slow and deliberate. Cassara stiffened, but didn’t move.
“I know what makes you shiver,” he murmured, leaning in, breath grazing the curve of her jaw. “What makes you gasp.”
His lips brushed just below her ear and she swallowed hard to keep from screaming. “You’ve been mine for years, Cass. Whether you want to admit it or not.”
His fingers tightened and he pulled her closer. “When I find out who it is,” he whispered. “I’ll make him regret the day he thought he could take what belongs to me.”
Finally his hand dropped away and he stepped back, all smiles again, like he hadn’t just threatened her.
“See you at pick up,” he said quietly, his voice carrying just enough edge to make it sound like a warning. “Good luck, Cassara.”
He disappeared into the trees without another word, as silent as he’d arrived.