Chapter 3 #2
The forest grows darker, the trees older, their branches weaving together overhead. Strange sounds echo in the distance—animal calls that don't sound quite right. Howls and cries, growls and snarls.
This is the deep forest. Where feral things hunt.
I've been here before during my heats. Killed things here. Survived things that would have torn other people apart.
But I've never been here while conscious and in control.
The wrongness of this place presses against my skin like a weight.
"Kess," Yaern says quietly. "Do you feel that?"
I do.
A pull. Low in my belly, tugging me forward.
The sacred altar calling.
"Yeah," I breathe. "We're close."
The path winds between trees grown in unnatural shapes, bending and twisting around us, their branches thick and heavy.
Then the forest opens up.
The valley is smaller than I imagined for a place where a peace treaty that ended a bloody war was signed.
This was where dragon shifters and humans agreed that the battles and skirmishes would end in exchange for omega sacrifices, and it should be monumental for a place that has cost of forty-seven lives.
But it's only maybe fifty feet across, the ground flat and the sky open, ringed by trees that look just like every other tree in the Black Forest. The ground is covered in thick, lush green moss, soft where my bare feet skim in.
And in the center of it all: the altar.
It's nothing but a dark gray stone slab worn smooth by centuries, tilted at an angle for a body in repose. Iron rings are bolted at its four points, two for wrists and two for ankles.
This is where forty-seven omegas died.
This is where I'll die too.
I just have to make sure I kill him first. Or on my way out. Hopefully before I take my last breath.
Elder Torim gestures toward the altar. "It is time."
I walk forward. The moss gives under my bare feet, dipping where my heels sink in, strangely gentle and loving for a place that has seen so much death. The altar radiates heat—old magic, old death, old blood soaked into stone.
I place my hand on its surface and startle for a second, then put my fingers down more firmly. It's warm, disturbingly soon, and fluttering slightly, almost as if there's a heartbeat. Like something lives beneath its skin.
"Remove the ceremonial chains," Torim instructs.
An elder unlocks the thin silver manacles, letting the silver chains fall, and for a moment I'm free.
Then Torim produces the real chains from beneath his robes.
These are different. Heavier, thicker, made of iron inscribed with symbols. They're rusted in places—no, I realize, bloodstained. My stomach turns at the sight of them.
"Lie down."
Yaern looks at me, but I can't meet her eyes, because if I do I won't be able to go through with it.
I climb onto the warm stone and lie back against it, shuddering slightly. The heat seeps through the thin dress immediately, pressing against my spine.
Above me, the branches of the tree canopy sway. Through the gaps I can see the sky turning orange as the sunset approaches.
Torim threads the chains through the altar's rings and locks the manacles around my wrists. Click. Click.
Then my ankles. Click. Click.
I test them, heart in my throat. There's a bit of movement—not much, but enough to reach my hair and grab the knife, when the moment is right.
If I'm fast enough.
"The ritual must be completed," Torim says, producing oil.
He anoints the chains, speaking words in old dragon tongue. The other elders join in, their voices rising in eerie harmony.
The chanting builds, then stops abruptly.
Silence.
Torim looks down at me. For the first time since I've known him, he looks almost sad.
"May you find peace, Kess of Thornhaven."
"May the Beast King choke on my blood," I reply.
He flinches. Then turns to the other elders. "Time to go, before he arrives."
They start filing out.
"Wait," Yaern says. She's been standing at the clearing's edge, watching with wide eyes, frozen. "Give me a moment."
Torim hesitates for a moment, then, seeming to find no reason to object, nods. "Only for a moment, enough to say goodbye. The grove is not safe after dark."
That's an understatement. But the elders file out just enough to give us the semblance of privacy.
Yaern approaches the altar slowly, her face pale as she looks at me.
I try to give her a smile, put on a brave face, but we both know better than to pretend like everything is okay.
When she reaches me, she grabs my chained hands, her hands cold and her fingers trembling just slightly—until I squeeze them, and she stills.
"You have the knife," she says. Not a question.
"Yes."
"Good." Her eyes are fierce now, and though unshed tears shine in them, she doesn't cry. We already said goodbye—this is different. "Then make it count. Don't hesitate. Don't think. Just strike."
"I will."
"I know." She squeezes my hands. "I'll be waiting for you when you come back."
When. Not if.
She believes what she's saying, somehow, like the religious do about the gods. Against all logic, all evidence, all history—she believes that I'll survive this. There's nothing like a best friend to make a girl feel invincible.
I wish I could believe it too.
She leans down and kisses my forehead with soft, warm lips. I hold onto the sensation, memorize the smell of her hair, the sound of her breathing, the warmth of her hands in mine. Then she's gone, slipping away and disappearing into the forest with the elders.
I'm alone.
-
The forest holds its breath, waiting. It knows what happens here. Has seen many predators kill their prey and is no doubt unfazed by yet another hunt underway.
I look down at myself—white dress torn and stained, iron chains locked around my wrists and ankles, my bare feet damp from the moss, my hair loose and wild around me. My aunt's ring on my finger. Yaern's red string bracelet on my wrist.
And hidden in my hair, where my hands can just barely reach: Yaern's knife. Her brother's knife. The blade meant for the killing stroke.
I practice the motion: reach up slowly, fingers parting thick dark strands, until I find the wood of the knife's the handle.
Yes. I can grab it. Can pull it free.
The only question is if I'll have the time to strike once he gets close enough.
The sun is sinking lower every second, painting the sky in deeper and more vibrant shades of orange and red and purple.
Not long now.
My skin is starting to warm up. But it's not the stone beneath me—this time, the warmth is coming from inside my body. The fever is building, and just like clockwork, my heat is starting.
Right on schedule, like my body knows what's coming. Like it's been waiting for this moment.
Normally I try to suppress the feral part of me, but this time, I close my eyes and feed the rage. I recall every slight I've experienced, every fear, every time the village looked at me like I was something dangerous that needed to be contained.
My aunt's blood-soaked dress, her death when she was eighteen, even younger than me. Phern's terrified face and a future that would've been taken from her. The forty-seven others who no one wants to remember.
All of it.
All of them. Every omega who the world decided didn't matter when the treaty with the Beast King was signed. Every girl, and they were girls, not women, who was sent to slaughter like a sacrificial goat.
I'll carry their ghosts with me into this claiming and let their unfair deaths fuel my strike.
The heat builds. My vision sharpens in the center and blackens at the edges. Rage rises inside me like a tide.
Good.
I'm ready.