9 LONNIE
THE WAYWOODS
I fainted.
Or, at the very least, I collapsed forward into the mud.
My consciousness swam, and I experienced the strange sensation of hearing my own scream, without feeling my mouth move—like my mind was picking out the most relevant moments and discarding the rest as my vision went white from agony. The arrow in my chest hit the ground first, and dug deeper into my flesh, propelled by the weight of my own limp body.
I lay on the cold, hard ground, my chest heaving with each gasping breath. My heart pounded in my ears and tears rolled down my face into the mud, where I could not bring myself to lift my head, even to watch for my attacker. I strained my ears to pick up any sound other than my own ragged breathing, but all I heard was the eerie stillness of the empty forest.
The silence pressed in on me, and I waited, growing more confused with each passing second. Where was the tattooed attacker? The footsteps that had been pursuing me seemed to have vanished into thin air. Had they given up? Lost track of me in the trees?
I blinked my eyes open with difficulty, glancing around from where I lay with my cheek in the mud. My heart skipped a beat. The trees were…different, less dense, and the dim sky peeked through the overhead canopy enough that I could see more than a few feet in front of me. In the distance, I could make out the outline of what looked to be a house.
I sucked in a startled breath—that house certainly had not been there before.
Apparently, I had shadow walked…and then fainted.
That was more than good enough for me.
Excitement rose in my chest for a moment, only to come crashing down at the realization that I had no idea where I was. Taking another look around at my surroundings, I saw little more than trees. I could have screamed with frustration as well as pain. I knew too well that losing one’s way in the Waywoods was almost as sure of a death sentence as the arrow piercing my chest. I might have gone one hundred yards, or twenty miles, there was no way to know. Traveling by magic would do me no good if I still died before Bael could find me again.
My thoughts raced like a madman, conjuring up endless scenarios of gruesome deaths - Blood loss. Delirium. Starvation. Infection. I needed to get off the ground, and get my wound out of the mud.
With a guttural cry of agony, I heaved my body up off the ground. My muscles strained and trembled under the weight as I stood, wincing with each movement.
I sucked in another rattling breath, and although it was painful, I was distantly grateful at the realization that my breathing was not overly labored. The bolt probably had not punctured a lung. Probably? Still, I couldn’t raise my right arm to feel the damage, but I could tell from how the jacket caught as it fell away that the arrow was indeed sticking out of my back. Thankfully, it seemed to have gone through at the point where my arm met my torso. If I’d been standing even a few inches in any direction, I would have died instantly. The shaft of the arrow had been embedded even deeper by me fainting, and I couldn’t remove it as it was the only thing currently preventing me from bleeding out. But nor could I leave it sticking out of my flesh, a foot in either direction—not if I wanted to search for Bael and the others.
Pondering this, I staggered a few steps toward the house in the distance, thinking vaguely that perhaps there was a village nearby, or at least someone who could tell me where I was. I made it only a few steps, before exhaustion winded me and I slumped back against the nearest tree, and closed my eyes.
It was a mistake.
The moment my eyes closed again, it was all I could do to keep from slipping away into oblivion.
“Can’t sleep. Can’t s-sleep,”
I chanted dully, as I forced my eyes to stay open.
To sleep while gravely injured was to never wake again, but my entire body ached, and my eyelids felt as if they were weighted down with lead and there was little to focus on.
Then, for the second time, I thought I heard a distinct caw of a raven in the distance. As I pried my eyes open, a colossal black bird swooped down and landed gracefully on a patch of moss-covered forest floor nearby. Despite its size, the bird made little noise as it touched the ground.
“Q-quill?”
my voice quivered.
The bird hopped forward, standing on the ground slightly to my left. He was so enormous, even for a raven, that I found myself staring into his too-large golden eyes as he cocked his head at me, as if to say: There you are.
In all the months I’d known Prince Scion, I had hardly seen him without his raven companion, except during our stay in Inbetwixt when he was trying to blend in and go unnoticed. Other than that, Quill was always by his side, yet I saw no prince. Was I seeing things? Had the blood-loss affected my mind to the point of hallucination? Furthermore, did I want to see Scion?
I’d asked him to come with us and he’d rejected me, making it perfectly clear that whatever I’d thought was between us was in my mind alone. In fact, for all I knew, he’d decided to go back to being my enemy, and Quill’s presence here was an omen rather than a sign of rescue.
If I’d had the energy I would have laughed as I put out a tentative hand. “What are you doing here?”
Quill replied with an agitated caw. Looking for you, fool.
“I doubt that. Your master abandoned us.”
I mumbled, struggling to keep the bird in sight. “You tell him that I said he can go fuck himself.”
My vision blurred and darkness crept in at the edges. Were those to be my last words then? A curse spoken to a bird.
I opened my mouth, thinking I should perhaps say something else. Something more meaningful, when I felt strong arms encircle me, drawing me in close, and a voice I recognized all too well whispered in my ear. “Fuck you too, Rebel.”