Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Briar
Despite my determination not to let Knox win this battle of wills, the shock of Gizzi’s words jerked my head toward him. He dashed out of the small hole I’d created and perched at the edge of it. His nose twitched as he held his paws before him and stared at the stone.
My attention shifted from him to the hole as I leaned forward to peer at what was down there. After years of neglect, the chiseled words on the small plaque were almost indecipherable. I strained to make out the dates, and my heart sank when I realized the voice was only eight when he died.
Tears pricked my eyes. With my free hand, I traced the faded letters as I tried to decipher what some of them were, but I couldn’t quite make them out.
“Just a child. I wonder what their name was?”
“Archibald Camden,” Knox said.
Forgetting my ire with him, I glanced over at where he knelt beside me, staring at the headstone. “You can make out those letters?”
“Yes.”
A shifter’s senses were far better than those of other eternals, but this still surprised me.
“Archibald,” I murmured.
The name didn’t go with the voice in my head. It was too mature, too stuffy for a boy so young.
“My mother and father called me Archie,” the voice whispered.
The cute nickname fit much better with the voice in my head.
“I wonder what happened,” I said.
“I don’t know, but he died shortly before the war with the demigods,” Knox said.
“A drayton killed me,” Archie said. “This was always my favorite place to play, and I came here every day. I never saw the monster coming until it was on top of me.”
I shuddered at the idea of that hideous beast descending on this innocent little boy. At eight feet tall, the drayton possessed two heads attached to a body more man than beast.
Each of those heads bobbed out of its shoulders, and while they almost looked like an eternal, they had hundreds of sharp teeth, claws at the tips of their fingers, and a tongue that could shoot out six feet.
At the tip of their tongue was a venomous barb that stunned their victims. And once those victims were down, the drayton peeled the flesh from its victim before devouring it. Once they finished with the flesh, they ate the bones.
Eternals had hunted them to the brink of extinction over the years, but rumors persisted that some remained.
“My father killed it before it could eat me, but it was already too late by then,” Archie continued.
The sad whisper of his voice caused tears to spill down my cheeks. Once injected with the drayton’s venom, only an antidote could save the victim; that antidote had to be on hand as the venom acted fast.
The drayton liked its victims to be alive when it started to devour, and it did so with a speed that ensured most of its prey were still alive while flayed. They often died before the vicious creatures started consuming their bones.
“How awful,” I murmured. “Why is he buried out here?”
Knox couldn’t answer my question, but Archie could and did. “My parents laid me to rest in my favorite place. They used to visit me every day; they’d bring flowers and talk to me, and I loved hearing their voices. I felt sorry for them; they were so sad and didn’t know I was listening.
“Sometimes, I’d wish they’d stop coming and move on with their lives. And then, one day, they never returned. That was when I started wishing they would come back. I’ve been so lonely.”
A hitching sob escaped as tears streamed down my face. My heart broke for this little boy who never got a chance to live and who’d been forgotten by those he loved… or maybe they’d died too. Many eternals died in the war with the demigods.
“Maybe we can move him somewhere else,” I said. “You must have a cemetery.”
Knox frowned at me. “You want to disturb the dead.”
“I want to move him to a place where he can be seen and remembered, not left out here and forgotten in the woods.”
“I’d like that,” Archie said. “This was always my favorite spot, but I’m tired of being here. And maybe there are others like me, and I’ll finally have company.”
“Who would visit a boy who’s been dead for thousands of years?” Knox asked.
“I would.” I ran my fingers over the faded lettering. “I’d visit him every day.”
Knox looked like he couldn’t decide if I’d lost my mind or was fucking with him. Even Gizzi’s expression said, What the hell?
Later, I’d tell him about my discovery. He couldn’t tell anyone else that I could apparently talk to the dead.
What is happening to me?
It was yet one more ability I’d never heard of a caster… or anyone else… possessing before. Before panic could swell and make me even more suspicious in Knox’s eyes, I focused on the grave and Archie.
“No one should be forgotten,” I whispered.
Knox stared at me, then the grave, before releasing my wrist and rising. “We’re not digging up the dead. Why did you stick your fingers in the ground here?”
I traced the headstone as I pondered how to answer his question. “I needed to connect with the earth, and there were no mushrooms here.”
Before he could reply, something screamed in the woods, drawing his attention to the trees. My hand stilled on the headstone as the hair on my nape rose. I didn’t know what had made that sound and didn’t want to.
Knox rested his hand on my shoulder. “Gather your basket; it’s time to go.”
I hated the idea of leaving Archie alone in this place, but I didn’t argue. I hated the idea of being some creature’s lunch more.
“Take me with you!” Archie cried as I rose.
Regret pounded through me as more tears spilled down my cheeks. Beneath Knox’s intense scrutiny, I wiped them hastily away.
“I’ll have to come back,” I said to Knox, but I was really speaking to Archie.
I’m talking to the dead.
It seemed so surreal. However, I couldn’t deny the grave or the voice that led me to it.
Casters don’t speak to the dead. It’s not one of our powers.
But it was one of mine.
“Please don’t leave me!” Archie cried.
Archie’s desperate plea pulled me from my thoughts. I rested my hand over my heart as I tried not to sob. I could tell Knox what was happening to me, maybe then he would be more understanding about moving Archie.
But can you trust him with that information?
I couldn’t trust him with anything, and as much as I wanted to help Archie, I couldn’t risk sacrificing myself to do so. He didn’t trust me, at times he barely tolerated me, and he hated my kind; I couldn’t expose my secrets when I had no idea what I was exposing.
“I need more mushrooms,” I persisted as Knox steered me through the trees.
“I’ll bring you back,” he stated.
“Soon.”
Doubt swirled through his eyes as they met mine, but when something released an awful, screeching noise far different than the earlier one, our pace picked up. Whatever was out there, it was better not to encounter it.
Gizzi climbed my leg, dashed up my back, and perched on my shoulder.