THE GHOUL
7
- ALANIS -
H annah and I don’t linger during dinner. I head towards Kailu, pausing as I wait for his conversation to finish. When his emerald eyes latch onto mine, nerves skitter up my spine. I fiddle with my fingers, my face feeling warm.
“I just wanted to say thank you…for not sending me back home.” I take a deep breath. “For letting me help find my brother.”
He stares at me, his face filled with a sense of utter shock. I don’t wait for a response; one isn’t really necessary. Hurrying to the tent squeezed between two others and only a handful of feet away from the campfire, I settle in next to Hannah. We are both exhausted and mentally drained. I lay on my back in my bedroll and close my eyes, listening to the hushed voices of the men outside our tent. Crickets chirp, embers crackle in the campfires, and the occasional howl rises in the distance. It should be calming, but there’s a part of me that can’t relax.
“Hannah?” I whisper her name in case she’s already asleep. All I get is a grunt in return to let me know she’s listening. “Do you think he’s still alive?”
I’ve done my best to avoid the negative thoughts, but without the scenery to distract—without Kailu’s looming presence to keep me preoccupied—they rush in. Hannah doesn’t answer right away. It’s silent so long that I wonder if she really did fall asleep, until I hear her let out a slow breath.
“I think he’s alive,” she says at last, though it comes out slow and quiet—as if she’s wary of daring the world to contradict her. “But if you want brutal honesty, I’m not sure what shape we’ll find him or any of the other soldiers in.”
I let out a shuddering breath. I want to be mad at her for voicing it, but it’s the same thought I’ve avoided all day. I turn over on my side and pray to the Gods to let sleep find me soon.
I run through the barren field. What used to be vibrant green and yellow stalks of corn now stand completely brown. Elion and I enter the forest right as the ground shakes in the distance. A black shadow slowly begins to fall across the land, as if chasing us. The ground shakes again, stronger this time, and the black keeps growing. We take off running back towards the field of our front yard. My eyes burn and water to the point my vision is blurry. Smoke plumes out of our house, the smell near-suffocating, making each breath burn down my throat. I pull my shirt up over my nose to offer some relief. The earth trembles beneath our feet again.
The silence is deafening. Not even the wind is blowing. It’s as if the world knows a disaster has happened. I’m not even sure what I’m looking at when Elion stops walking, his body frozen before me. The crunch of charred corn beneath my feet is the only sound as I stare at our once white farmhouse. Now engulfed in red and orange, flames spew out of the shattered windows. Elion stands before the front porch, turning to face me, his expression filled with horror as if stuck in a silent scream.
My lips part, but no air enters my lungs. Maybe the smoke is killing me.
Maybe I wouldn’t even mind.
I step towards him, the crunching sound beneath my feet growing louder as I close the distance between myself and Elion. I glance down, but it is no longer cornstalks. Bones litter the ground, and my brother backs away from me with that look of fear still etched across his face. I try to reach him, but no matter how fast I walk, I can’t catch up. The burning house fades away, and I trip and fall into the sea of bones. They threaten to swallow me, somehow deeper than I imagined. They slip beneath my hands like marbles as I struggle to my knees, opening my mouth to call for my brother.
But when I look up, he’s gone.
I jolt awake, sweat dripping down my forehead and back, though at least Hannah is still asleep. Nightmares plague me constantly, but this one was different. This one felt worse, because no matter how much I wish it weren’t true, Elion is gone.
The campground is quiet as I slip from the tent and take a breath of the crisp night air, lifting my hair off my neck to cool the sweat dampening my shirt. All is quiet, but I look for the two soldiers on watch. One stands at the entrance to the valley where we entered earlier. The other is supposed to be standing watch at the border of the forest that blankets these horrific mountains, but I can’t see him.
The longer I stare, the more it begins to feel like the darkness is staring back. Just as I’m about to return to my tent, movement catches my eye. The soldier comes through the brush of the forest, and I immediately exhale a sigh of relief.
The feeling only lasts for a second, for with him comes a gust of wind. Carried on it is a metallic, coppery smell.
Blood.
A dripping sound comes from somewhere close by.
A large oak tree to the right of where I stand draws my attention, and everything in me freezes. The pounding of my heart is the only thing I can hear as I find the body hung from a low-lying branch, the horrific sight only a handful of feet away from me.
The body is completely destroyed, ripped apart like a rabid animal fed until all that was left was skin and bone. Shreds of clothing hang from the corpse. My blood runs cold as bile burns my throat.
When someone stops beside me, I nearly scream in surprise only to realize it’s Kailu. After hours spent sharing a saddle, I’d recognize his woodsy pine smell anywhere.
Kailu says nothing as he studies the scene. “He’s wearing a uniform,” he says at last.
I peek around his shoulder to look at the body again, noticing he’s right. The soldier who stepped from the treeline slowly moves toward us, his eyes catching moonlight in a distinctly animalistic way—not unlike that of a cat. A shiver slips down my spine before Kailu whispers, so quietly I almost miss it, “Return to your tent.” In the same breath, he slowly unsheathes his sword.
“What is it?” I whisper, even as I take a step backward, happy to do as he commands.
“A ghoul,” he says.
With every step back that I take, the ghoul’s smile grows wider, its eyes never leaving me. The thing flicks its gaze to the soldiers, then back to me before it turns and races into the forest.
- KAILU -
Blood pounds through my veins. Sixteen soldiers were here tonight and not one heard anything while the ghoul attacked. The deafening silence is what woke me. The only sound was the hum of the wind. I had just begun gathering my weapons when I heard her leave the tent and take tentative footsteps past the sleeping soldiers. I knew the exact moment she realized something was amiss. She took a deep breath, but her erratic heartbeat was louder than any other sound.
The soldiers around me regroup, Siveral sending six after the ghoul. If we’re lucky, we might be able to catch the bastard.
“You all right, Kai?” says a voice right behind me.
I release a breath. “Yeah, all good,” I mutter and join Siveral at the table with four other soldiers leaning over a map. “How did no one hear him?”
“Gavin,” Siveral says, avoiding my eyes as he looks to his second-in-command, “please send word to Danil’s family of his death and have Burrows retrieve his body and get it back to the city.” Only then does he turn to me, and his exhale makes his shoulders sag. With the torches now lit once again, it’s easy to make out the tension in the lines of his face, the furrow of his brow.
I clasp him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry about your soldier.”
Siveral’s smile is thin and hardly lasts a moment before he turns back to the map, fists resting on the table. “I have no idea how these things are getting into our campsites without detection. It doesn’t make sense.”
Alanis appears next to Siveral to peer at the worn map on the table. “This map looks different from the one in the library.”
Siveral nods without looking up at her. “This one is more detailed. It shows everything from temples to shipping ports, population to climate.”
Alanis rounds the table to look at it from my angle, our arms brushing. It sparks a sharp tingle to thrum to life between us. She must not notice it, because her face doesn’t change.
“Right here,” she says, leaning forward to point to a spot a few miles north of where we currently are. It breaks the contact between us, a chill lingering in its absence. It’s only then I remember to breathe, which is as disconcerting as it is confusing. “This isn’t on the other map. Maryanna showed it to me while I was documenting her travels. It’s an old trail that shaves a day off the journey through the Sinwood Mountains. It’s flatter, with fewer loose rocks and rough terrain. They used it as trade route centuries ago, before the docks were built. It leads directly to the Celestial Caves.”
I stare at this tiny woman in wonder. I have lived here all my life and never knew that. By the looks of those around me, neither did they. Leave it to the eccentric Maryanna to know of hidden trails.
“Also,” Alanis continues in our silence, “I was thinking about how the ghouls keep disappearing without a trace. Is there a possibility that they somehow found a way to open a magical portal? I know it isn’t magic that is used often, but Maryanna mentioned she used one once after finding the directions in a book. The author wrote about how sacred locations hold magic directly from the Gods. With such powerful magic, they could open a portal to travel to and from somewhere almost entirely unseen.”
I glance at Siveral, who purses his lips as he considers the theory. He’s always been more interested in books and hypotheticals than me. I’m more a swing first, ask questions later type. “I suppose it is possible,” Siveral says. “Certain Fae have been blessed by the Gods with stronger powers than others, normally those at higher stations. That way, they use their powers for the good of the realm. Did this book mention how one opens a portal?”
Alanis grimaces. “Blood. The person who wishes to create a portal must offer a blood sacrifice of some sort. If you only wish to go shorter distances, it can be smaller, but longer distances require more.”
Siveral and I exchange a glance. “And you believe they are opening a portal in the Celestial Caves?” I ask.
She shrugs. “It’s just an idea. From what I know, the Caves are the closest location to this area that has enough magic to open a portal—not to mention the trail that can get them to and from this area easily.”
I nod, rocking back on my heels as I mull this over. “Another place could be the Hallowed Temple. Many people have gone there to pray to the Gods, only to be blessed with stronger magic after. Whatever magic resides in the earth seems to strengthen powers that one already has.”
“The Hallowed Temple isn’t the only sacred place in the realm.”
We all turn to look at Hendrix, who stands near the back of the group. “There is one other area in the Primal Realm. They say it’s the home to some of the darkest magic this realm has ever seen.”
“I only saw the one temple on the map,” Alanis says. “You’re saying there’s another location?”
Hendrix nods before moving through the group to point to the map. The minute his finger touches the Isle of Rimoldi, Siveral pales. My heart plummets.
“Going to that island is out of the question,” I say. “There’s a reason no one returns once they go there. If the Hallowed Temple was made by the Gods, that place was made by the creatures of Hell.”