Chapter 35
Echoes: The most terrifying of creatures. Origin unknown. Classification undetermined. Can take any form.
THE COMPENDIUM OF HORRORS
Bryce was feeding the echoes with his Thrope power, and five beasts were on our tail, including Bryce, who seemed to be under their control.
One echo, I could understand, but they’d sent four. It was overkill, considering our lack of training. Surely this wasn’t right. Maybe someone had made a mistake in releasing too many?
“Why is Bryce helping them?” Bella huffed. “They should be attacking him. Breaking his mind.”
Another piece that didn’t fit.
“I don’t know!” Poppy yelled back. “But I don’t think we can outrun them. We’ll have to fight.”
“How the hex do we kill one?” Bella said.
My mind flashed back to the night I’d been attacked by echoes. Sterling had saved me. “Chop off their heads. That’s what Sterling did when they attacked me.”
“Good to know,” Poppy said. “You keep going. Get to the forest.”
“I can’t fucking see the forest.”
“You will once we engage them. The mist moves with them. It’ll be a distraction.”
Bella and Poppy slowed, turning to face the threat, their blades glinting dully, then flaring bright as they channeled the Weave through the conduit stones in the hilts. I kept running, arms pumping, hoping to break cover.
Snarls and growls rose behind me, and then one of the girls screamed in agony.
Keep moving, Anamaya. You can’t help. You can’t channel.
Another scream followed, sharper and filled with desperation
Shit!
I skidded to a halt and turned back, running full force toward the sounds of battle.
“Move, Bella, move!” Poppy yelled.
Bella screamed again.
Shadows shifted and formed into Bryce’s beast form, surrounding the girls, eyes glowing yellow—all except one, whose eyes were red.
Bryce.
Even as I drew my sword, I knew it would be useless against the echoes…but maybe not against Bryce. He was the source of the Echoes' power right now, cutting him down was our best chance
A beast pounced on Poppy and knocked her onto her back, pinning her sword arm to the ground with a huge paw.
“NO!” Bella struggled to her feet, clutching her abdomen.
The scent of blood saturated the air.
I had to act now!
With a battle cry, I charged past the beast that held Poppy down and launched myself at Bryce.
His eyes flared bright as I leapt onto his back, gripped his bulk with my knees, and grabbed a fistful of fur to anchor myself.
He bucked and twisted, trying to throw me off, but I held fast, bringing the hilt of my sword down hard on his temple.
Once. Twice. A third time. He swayed, then toppled to the ground, trapping me partially beneath him.
Around us, the other beasts howled as their bodies morphed back to regular echoes.
Poppy, back on her feet, attacked. Taking one head then another. Bella managed to cut off a third. The fourth one ran at me. I wriggled and kicked, trying to break free of Bryce’s unconscious bulk.
The echo leapt into the air, sailing toward me, clawed hands aimed for my head. I screamed, hands flying up in a futile attempt to shield myself. The air crackled and the echo twisted away from me, repelled by an unseen force, which sent it flying toward Poppy.
It slammed into the ground, hard, and Poppy lopped off its head before it could get back up.
With a final shove, I managed to push Bryce off me and hurried to join the girls. “We need to bag a head. Take it back as—”
The echoes disintegrated, and the mist sank into the earth.
The ravens overhead cawed, and a moment later, Walter’s voice came through as they spoke in unison.
“There has been a slight technical problem. The echoes are not part of the test. Please disregard and proceed.”
“What?” Poppy yelled. “But we bested them. It should count!”
“There has been a slight technical problem,” the ravens repeated. “The echoes are not part of the test. Please disregard and proceed.”
“This is bullshit!” Bella kicked at the ground, then sucked in a sharp breath and clutched her side.
“Let me see,” Poppy said.
“It’s fine. I’ll dress it. It’ll heal.”
“What happened?” Bryce sat up, rubbing his head. He was back in human form and totally naked.
“Oh…” Bella pressed a hand to her mouth and quickly looked away.
His clothes were ruined. “You’ll have to stay in beast form unless you want to freeze.”
Without hesitation he shifted back to his Thrope form.
“Where’s your rift blade?” Bella asked Bryce.
“I don’t know. I… I must have dropped it.”
“Shit.” Poppy stood hand on hips, looking back the way we’d come.
“Should we go back and look for it?” Bella asked.
“No,” Bryce said. “I can fight in Thrope form. It’s what I’ll be doing on a real hunt anyway.”
It was true. Thropes didn’t always wield blades, they fought alongside the blade-wielding Hunters to incapacitate and maul a Horror while the Hunter finished it off.
“Let’s move,” Poppy ordered. Then to the crows, “Let’s hope you don’t call our next catch a glitch.”
In another time and place, Poppy and I could have been friends.
* * *
It was another half hour before we made it into the forest. It was dark beneath the thick canopy, but the nocturnal sounds of nature made it less ominous. We stuck to the trail that wove between the slender tree trunks, walking in pairs.
“We have three hours left till midnight,” Bella said, looking up from the timekeeper on her wrist.
“Then we’d better catch a Horror,” Poppy replied.
Timekeepers were expensive. Bella must come from money. Tyler Damascus probably had one too, which left me wondering how the heck the rest of us were meant to keep track of time.
My question was answered a moment later when Walter’s voice drifted through the canopy above.
“You have three hours and ten minutes remaining until the conclusion of your grading.”
We picked up the pace, and I took up the rear with Bryce. His large Thrope form emanated heat, which was the only thing keeping my circulation going. A soft haze surrounded Bella and Poppy, some kind of warming spell, no doubt.
“How did you do that, back there?” Poppy asked over her shoulder. “With the echo? How did you repel it? I thought you didn’t have Weave access.”
“I don’t. The Weave Watchers removed my mark. But that’s all they did. I think the Weave might be protecting me somehow.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?” Bella asked. “We’d have kept you with us.”
“It doesn’t always work.”
But I had been running through the occasions when it had worked, and I was starting to believe it only worked on Horrors and Echoes, and only when I was in dire peril. But I wasn’t sure yet.
“You did well, though,” Poppy said. “Smart, taking out Bryce like that.”
“My head still hurts,” Bryce said. “But yeah, good call.”
The trees thickened here, the trunks wider, the canopy denser, allowing only slivers of moonlight to make it through.
“Bella, can you light the way?” Poppy asked.
A small ball of light appeared a few feet ahead of us, hovering six feet above the ground, illuminating the path.
“Can you smell anything odd, Bryce?” Poppy asked him.
“Nothing but the forest,” he said. “And Bella’s blood.”
“Is it still bleeding?” Poppy asked, her tone sharpening.
“No. I’m fine,” Bella said.
Poppy and Bella were obviously close. I’d noticed them training together often, and the older girl was protective of the younger in a sisterly bond that was sweet.
“How long have you two been friends?”
Bella and Poppy exchanged glances before Poppy answered. “I was Bella’s nanny for several years—until her family…released me.”
My gaze bounced between them, coming to rest on Poppy. “Released you?”
“I was in servitude,” Poppy said. “Always was. Young kappa are often reared for servitude by the sith and then sold to other houses.”
“But she came here with me anyway,” Bella said. “When she found out they were sending me here, she came.” She put her arm around Poppy’s waist.
Poppy hugged her back. “Always, Bella. Always.”
My knowledge of kappa was vague. They were considered elemental beings with an affinity for water. But some were also blood drinkers.
“Do you think the flock can see us?” Bella asked, peering up. “It’s pretty dense up there.”
The beat of wings was still audible on and off. “They’re definitely tracking us from the canopy.”
We walked for another minute, and it was only when my nape tightened that the silence registered. Deeply unnatural and ominous.
“I smell something…odd,” Bryce said.
Bella’s light glowed brighter, rising to cast a larger circumference of illumination, and hovering in place as we stepped into the circle.
“There’s something out there,” Poppy said. “I can feel it.”
“Stay in the light,” Bella said. “Most Horrors don’t like bright light.”
An insidious rustling tracked our movement from both sides, and my stomach clenched and knotted.
It sounded like something was being dragged across the forest floor.
The tree trunks that had felt like a protective barrier before now felt like shadowy wooden bars, forming a cage that was keeping us trapped on the path.
“Wood weavers,” Poppy said. “It has to be.”
“But where?” Bella said. “They could be any one of these trees.”
“We need to drop the light,” Bryce said. “So our eyes can get used to the gloom.”
I didn’t like the idea, but he was right. In the light like this, we were blind to what lay beyond.
And there was another fact we needed to consider. “Wood weavers aren’t bothered by the light.”
“No, they’re not,” Poppy said. “Which means they’re playing with us.”
“Hush, what if they understand what we’re saying?” Bella’s voice trembled.
“There’s nothing in the lore that says they do,” Poppy said to reassure her.
“Nothing to say that they don’t either,” Bryce muttered.