Chapter Seventeen
Erindor
The Hollow Watcher’s Glen was silent in the same way a grave was.
Trees rose like petrified bones, their bark blackened and flaking with age, and their limbs tangled in a canopy so thick the daylight barely touched the ground.
Fog moved across the soil in low sheets, curling around our boots like grasping hands.
Every sound, every breath, every creak of leather seemed muffled. Swallowed.
The air was cold; this chill lived deeper, in the marrow. It clung to us like a second skin, heavy and wet. The scent of rot lingered beneath the moss and soil, as if something had died an extraordinarily long time ago and still remembered how to fester.
Everything in this place felt old, but not in a way that earned admiration.
It was forgotten. Abandoned. Trees wept black resin like sap that had soured, and fungal growths bloomed pale and trembling along the trunks.
Stones, half-buried and slick with slime, jutted like teeth from the ground.
This was not a place where things lived.
This was a place where things were forgotten to die.
We were in the dead heart of Wildervale now, where even the gods no longer looked. The center of the forest. The cursed middle.
The river had narrowed into a sluggish vein of dark water beside us, barely making a sound. Even our footsteps were too loud. Each one echoed back from the trees like a warning.
Wyn’s steps faltered beside me. She whispered, “It feels like we’re being watched.”
I nodded. She wasn’t wrong.
I raised my hand to signal for silence. Alaric came up behind me, his jaw was a hard line. “This forest swallows patrols whole,” he muttered. Bran padded closer to his heels, growling low.
Gideon tried to lighten the mood. “Don’t worry, Princess. If we’re cursed, at least it’s scenic.”
Wyn didn’t smile. Her knuckles whitened around her satchel. Tyren hummed softly, a shaky tune to fill the oppressive quiet.
Then everything exploded.
Shadows moved like water as creatures poured from the underbrush, sleek and wrong, like the forest had birthed nightmares.
Vorrhounds.
They emerged from the fog like phantoms, their bodies shifting in and out of focus.
The edges were forever blurring, a ghost of form that writhed like mist but moved with the deliberate grace of something alive.
Taller than wolves, thinner than panthers, their limbs moved with a boneless, slithering grace.
Their hides were the color of coal, pulsing faintly with veins of red light like magma under cracked earth.
Their heads were narrow, eyeless, but glowing slits burned across their skulls like open wounds, and from the gaps in their ribcages, you could glimpse something writhing, like shadows alive inside them.
Worst of all were the sounds. They didn’t bark.
They whispered. A thousand voices rasped from their open jaws, some of them human, some of them not.
Fragments of sentences. Names. Begging. Laughter.
Screams from forgotten battles and lullabies sung in broken tones.
Each word was a needle. Each whispers a memory.
Vorrhounds weren’t beasts. But leftovers from something much older and crueler that had bled into Wildervale and never left.
The fog split, and one launched straight at Wyn.
I moved without thinking, throwing my body between her and the beast. My sword flashed in the dim light, meeting the Vorrhound mid-air with a jarring crash of bone and steel.
We both hit the ground hard, rolling in the mud and leaves.
Its claws raked across my shoulder, the heat sharp and hot.
I growled, planting my boot against its ribs and kicking it away.
My blade slashed across its throat, and black smoke hissed from the wound instead of blood.
Another howl tore through the mist. Tyren screamed and fought.
He raised his blade in time to parry the snap of one Vorrhound’s jaws, its teeth clamping down on steel.
He grunted, twisting and stabbing the creature through the side, smoke pouring from the wound.
Another Vorrhound tackled him from behind.
Tyren let out a roar, shoving the dying beast off and swinging again.
He struck a third time, cutting deep into a flank, but he was tiring.
A third beast came.
It slammed him against a tree, claws raking across his chest. He bellowed in pain and tried to swing again, but the Vorrhound lunged low, jaws locking around his thigh and dragging him down.
A strangled shriek ripped from his throat, a sound filled with the desperate terror of a creature cornered and in agony.
The other Vorrhound returned and sank its teeth into his shoulder. Flesh tore. Blood sprayed across the moss in thick ropes. Tyren stabbed wildly, blade glancing off bone, but there were too many. One clawed into his stomach and ripped. He choked, breath gurgling with blood.
His last sound wasn’t a scream; it was a gasp.
Then he went still.
“Form up!” Alaric roared. He and Bran surged forward. Bran tore into a Vorrhound’s back leg with a snarl, dragging it down as Alaric’s sword pierced straight into the hollow beneath its ribs. It howled, a burst of shrieking voices that sounded like a family screaming.
Jasira yanked Wyn behind a tree, hurling a dagger with fierce precision.
It struck a Vorrhound in the eye-slit. It shrieked and writhed, smoke pouring from its maw.
Another lunged at her. She rolled aside, her second blade sweeping low and biting into its hindquarters.
Gore and smoke sprayed across the roots.
Wyn turned, breath ragged, in time to see another Vorrhound stalking Jasira.
She leapt in front of her friend, dagger in hand, trembling.
The creature lunged. She screamed and stabbed, meeting its hide, sliding off, but cutting enough to halt its momentum.
Jasira rose and shoved the beast back with her shoulder.
The Vorrhound hissed, circling again.
Gideon roared as he charged, blood streaking down one arm, his blade raised. “Back off, you smoky bastard!” He slammed the blade into its spine. The Vorrhound convulsed, black limbs thrashing. “This is why I’m more of a cat person!”
Another Vorrhound broke from the trees and slammed into Alaric, who blocked the strike with his shield. Bran lunged up, tearing into its side, dragging the beast down. Alaric skewered it through its mouth, silencing its many voices at once.
I wheeled back into the fray, blade flashing.
One Vorrhound lunged, and my sword caught it mid-throat, splitting it open in a gout of smoke and heat.
Another lunged from behind. I pivoted, slashing deep through its shoulder and kicking it away.
A third beast dove low, trying to flank me.
I dodged, swept my blade across its belly, and watched it crumple.
I was breathing hard, blood coated my armor, but I didn’t stop. Not while they were near her. Not while Wynessa was still in danger.
Then, claws ripped across my back.
I staggered, my sword knocked free. I collapsed beneath the weight of another Vorrhound. Its breath reeked of rot and sulfur. It pinned me down, its maw opening wide over my face.
Wyn saw.
And something in her broke.
“NO!”
Her voice cracked like thunder.
Light surged from her chest; brilliant, wild, alive. Not just fire, but something more profound. Elemental truth wrapped in gold.
It exploded out of her in a wave. There was no flame, no heat, but the memory of both. It shimmered like sunlight on armor, like truth made visible.
Every Vorrhound froze. The whispers stopped.
Then the light struck them.
The closest Vorrhound howled as its shadow-flesh peeled back like smoke torn by wind.
Others burst apart mid-lunge, their ribcages splintering with the force of it.
One tried to flee, but it dissolved in an instant as the light touched it.
Wyn stood in the center, her eyes wide, her mouth parted in silent awe and terror.
Her cloak whipped around her like agitated wings.
Her frame trembled violently, the residual power of her summons rippling through her.
And then, as the danger had evaporated, the fire in her dimmed.
The light collapsed inward, returning to her chest with one final pulse—like a heartbeat.
She swayed, her eyes flickering, but I was already moving.
The moment her knees buckled, I was there, crossing the space between us in three fast strides, catching her before she hit the ground.
Her weight sagged into my arms, light and shaking. She was warm and still.
I cradled her gently, one hand behind her head, lowering her to the earth like she might shatter.
Her hands were ice, her face pale, but her eyes were wide.
She looked at me. “What…what did I just do?”
I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know.
So, I held her.
Alaric slowly approached, his expression guarded. “What the hell was that?”
“She saved us,” Jasira said hoarsely. “Gods above…she saved us.”
Gideon sat down hard on a log, rubbing his ribs. “If that’s what she does when she’s angry, I’ll never flirt with her again.”
I didn’t laugh. I couldn’t.
Because I was still staring at her. At the place where the light had come from.
The ground beneath seemed to tilt, a dizzying sensation of being out of control. What was she now capable of?
Alaric dropped beside Tyren’s body, silent.
Bran whined low beside him, pressing his muzzle to the torn leather of Tyren’s boot.
Wyn pressed her hand to her mouth, her eyes glassy.
Gideon swore under his breath, rubbing his eyes.
Jasira crouched nearby, tucking a torn bit of Tyren’s cloak over his face.
He wasn’t simply a guard. He’d been one of us.
“He used to sing when he stood watch,” Jasira murmured. “Badly. But it helped me sleep.”
“We should bury him,” Wyn whispered. “He deserves more than to be left in this place.”
Alaric stood, nodding grimly. “We’ll do it right.”
We dug as deep as we could into the damp earth. When we were done, Wyn placed a small bundle of herbs over the grave: sleepvine and bloodmoss. The same ones she used to help calm her dreams.
“We shouldn’t forget him,” she said. “Not here. Not like this.”
“He won’t be,” I promised.
We stood in silence for a while. No one rushed to get moving. The moment hung like thick, unmoving fog. Bran let out a low whimper and nudged the dirt with his nose before returning to Alaric’s side.
Wyn stood a little apart from the others, arms wrapped around herself, her breathing still unsteady. I moved toward her slowly. She didn’t look up when I approached.
“Wyn,” I said softly.
She turned to me, her eyes rimmed with unshed tears. Her face was pale, though a faint glow still lingered on her skin. Her hands were trembling.
“I didn’t mean to—” she began, her voice cracked.
“I know,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault. You saved us.”
She shook her head. “But it felt like I became something else. Like I wasn’t myself.”
I reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You were more yourself than I’ve ever seen.”
Her gaze, wide and startled, shot up to meet mine. The words, soft and trembling, were barely audible. “I’m scared,” she whimpered.
“I know.”
The silence between us pulsed with warmth, and was alive with something that neither of us could name. I could still feel the echo of the fire she’d unleashed deep inside myself as if part of her had reached into the hollow places inside me and lit a spark there.
“I’m here,” I said. “You’re not alone, Princess.”
Her eyes brimmed again, but she nodded. “Thank you.”
And for a moment, she leaned against me, the weight of her fear and fire settling into the space between our hearts.
It was a welcoming comfort.