Chapter 25 #2
But I deserve no such fate. My next step?
Find Eurus. If he returned to the cave and found it empty, would he have assumed the worst?
I should return, but I’m hopelessly lost, with neither weapon nor direction to guide me.
And what if the East Wind has succumbed to Gray Snare?
If he is unable to call for me, the odds of finding him are slim.
After backtracking toward the river, I follow its winding path, the swift, dark waters hurtling downstream. Always, I keep to the shadows, listening. At some point, the bell tolls again, and again. Two more competitors dead. Only three left alive.
As I creep alongside a fallen tree, a subtle crunch alerts me. I freeze. “Eurus?”
Footsteps to my right. Ducking behind a tree, I peer toward a clump of bushes, frowning. It sounds like a hound, nose to the earth, snuffling heavily. When the animal pushes into the open, I recoil in horror.
It is… I’m not sure what it is, exactly.
It is a bull, it is a man, it is all beast. Though distinctly human in shape, its long, hairy torso is bent forward, its hands—no, hooves—planted into the ground.
A pair of filthy trousers hangs from its narrow hips.
A whip thin tail lashes at its flank. And those eyes…
yellow, like tepid water choked with grime.
Mother, it is ugly. I’m not sure what shadow realm birthed this creature, but I can’t imagine it has ever experienced a warm welcome.
I hold myself still as it searches the area, at one point drawing near enough that I catch a whiff of its stench. I gag and switch to breathing through my mouth.
The beast vanishes, but does not go far. Every so often, I catch sight of its hunched spine through the wood. I’m not sure how long I wait for it to vanish before I decide to risk retreat. Every minute brings Eurus closer to collapse. I simply cannot delay.
But I underestimate the creature’s keen hearing. As the leaves stir around my ankles, its head snaps in my direction, snout lifted to scent the air. From its chest emerges a low growl of warning.
I run.
The only direction is this: away. I bolt right, plunging through the shadows, toward a denser area of the forest. With a burst of speed, I manage to pull ahead, but only briefly.
By the time I reach the bank, my thighs quiver weakly.
But I do not stop. I can’t. The predator in pursuit forces me through the river, which is so swollen it has nearly overflowed its banks.
Water drags at my calves, thighs, waist. It rises toward my breasts, its icy touch chilling me to the core.
The silty riverbed slinks over my toes as I edge toward the middle of the waterway, doing my best to block out the trilling of alarm bells somewhere in the back of my mind.
The current is far stronger than it appears.
It continually seeks to upset my balance.
The water has now reached my shoulders. My teeth are chattering, yet I am careful. Too careful, some would say. So I’m not sure how my feet slip from under me. I only know my balance is lost as I fall into the water and am swept downstream.
The rapids break over me. I gasp, spitting water, and go under, spinning forward and backward.
The river bends. I’m tossed around its curve.
Ahead, a toppled tree dams the water’s rush.
I kick hard, reaching, the tips of my fingers skimming one of the branches.
I manage to catch the bough, the sudden lurch wrenching my shoulder painfully.
The beast, too, has been swept along by the current. It hurtles straight for me.
I scramble up the trunk, managing to haul myself from the water. I have nearly reached the shore when the beast collides with the tree.
Wood crunches beneath me with a horrific splinter. I scream and toss myself forward, landing in a graceless heap half in, half out of the river. On hands and knees, I crawl. Up, up, up the sloped bank, before I bolt into the woods. “Eurus!” By the Mother, where is he?
The sound of hoofbeats signals the creature’s pursuit.
I dare not look behind me, lest I lose speed.
My throat has been scraped raw, each punctuating gasp a knife tip gouging flesh.
I haven’t the strength to outrun it. Haven’t the strength to climb a tree.
My legs wobble, and I grit my teeth, push and push and push.
Another bellow cracks the air. It is close.
As I leap over a large root, I catch a low-hanging branch, use my momentum to swing myself around the tree. The beast crashes into a bush, having not anticipated my change of direction.
“Bird!”
I glance up with a gasp. Eurus soars over me, one arm outstretched. The span of his wings fully blankets the earth below. Ahead, a fallen tree blocks my path.
“I’ll catch you,” he calls down.
My foot catches the trunk, and I shove upward with all my might, launching myself as high as I can go. The East Wind catches me midair around the waist, and we veer sharply to the right, whisked between two massive conifers.
Except the edge of his wing catches in one of the branches, and we’re jerked sideways. I shield my face from the piercing limbs. One stabs me in the neck, a shallow slice across my collarbone. Leaves scatter with a furious hiss of sound.
“Shit.” The East Wind thrashes to and fro, wings flapping in a desperate attempt to regain lost altitude, but then we are falling, down and down and down. My stomach drives into my throat. I clutch Eurus tightly, eyes squeezed shut.
We hit the ground.
The East Wind struggles to roll over. “Bird? Are you hurt?” He grasps my face, peering close. His skin is like ice, tinged blue around the mouth.
I shake my head, wincing as I push to my feet. “I’m all r—Behind you!”
He’s up, shoving me aside as the beast appears through the undergrowth. As soon as it sights Eurus, it goes still. Its sallow eyes boil with a wrath that goes beyond simple misunderstanding. It has been exiled, imprisoned, disgraced. A twig snaps beneath its heavy hoof.
Eurus sends a blast of air at the beast. The tendrils shift into thick bands of rope that wrap its bony legs and snout, but sweat pours down Eurus’ face from the effort. How long will his power last before it is depleted?
The East Wind is so focused on the bull he does not notice a slim, dark figure emerging from the thicket, staff raised.
“No!”
I ram Arin from behind. His weapon flies from his hand as we hit the ground.
I’m crawling toward it when Arin grabs my ankle, yanking me backward with a muffled curse. Before he’s able to grasp the staff, I throw myself onto his back, wrap my arms around his neck. His head snaps back. Agony explodes through my forehead, and I fall to the ground, half-blind with pain.
The East Wind emits an ear-shattering roar. There is a sickening thud somewhere to my right.
My eyes crack open. The world blurs, then settles into place. Arin is crumpled at the base of a tree. Meanwhile, the bull has been contained in a spiraling mass of winds.
Curling his hand around Arin’s throat, Eurus lifts the smaller immortal, slams him back into the trunk of the tree, his face so close their noses brush. Even weakened, the East Wind is no mere deity. He towers. He looms.
“You touch Min,” he snarls, “you die.” A wind-carved blade appears in hand and cuts toward Arin’s neck.
“Wait!”
The wind-sword halts a hair’s breadth from the smaller deity’s throat.
Eurus says, his expression whittled to the finest rage, “He tried to kill you, bird.”
My arms shake as I push myself upright. “I know,” I whisper. But when I arrived at the City of Gods, I had not one ally. I was a mortal, a stranger in this realm. And Arin… he was kind to me. It is something I have rarely experienced, that kindness.
“He will kill you if I let him go,” Eurus growls as Arin’s struggles lessen. “Do you want to live or die, bird? Choose.”
My teeth sink into the soft flesh of my cheek. I promised myself I would never treat others as Lady Clarisse treated me. It is not for me to decide that my life is better than, more deserving. But today’s decision impacts the morrow’s rise. Something folds in me. “I don’t want to die,” I whisper.
He strikes. By the time I process what has occurred, Arin lies dead, his throat cut.
Shock enfolds me, and I turn away. A scarlet pool slinks across the forest floor, outlining my bare feet in red. As if from a great distance, a low bell tolls.
In the end, only one can walk through the door of the final trial. And yet, I cannot help but mourn Arin.
An explosive howl disturbs the birds from their roosts. The beast, who has been thrashing against the East Wind’s bindings, pushes forcefully against the substance. With a last cry of rage, the creature tears through its bindings, charging straight toward the East Wind.
“Run, Min!”
Into the forest’s depth I plunge. Away, away, away. But—Eurus.
I lurch to a halt, peering through the shadows shivering between the clustered trees. As the East Wind hits the ground, the beast stabs downward with a splintered branch torn from a tree. Its points tear through the membrane of Eurus’ wings. He releases an agonized yelp.
“Eurus!” I begin fighting my way back through the bracken, thorns be damned.
Wrenching himself free, the East Wind blasts the beast into a tree with his waning power. Briefly, his eyes meet mine, and in their depths, I see every fragment of his past colliding, a tempestuous meeting of then and now. “Go! I’ll be right behind you.”
“But—”
“I promise. Now go.”
I do as the East Wind says. I go, and I do not stop until my legs threaten to buckle. As I weave through a great mound of roots, however, pain rips through my shoulder. I hit the ground with a shriek and spot a gash in my flesh where an arrow clipped me.
From the shadows, there emerges a blaze of reddish light. My lungs seize. Milk white skin and hair like flame, and a black whip, gleaming.