Chapter 11 #2
I didn’t answer. I’d told them, and they didn’t need to be told again. Nothing I said right now would make them feel better.
Captain Marson stepped closer to me. “Amarya.”
I dragged my gaze from the door and looked at him. “It’s not just one,” I said, drawing all their attention and wishing I hadn’t. “There’s more.”
I turned to face them all, but I felt their focus on me sharpen as I went to speak.
“You don’t know that.” Sergeant Gralen frowned as he spoke over what I was going to say next.
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t need to.” I pointed down the street. “Look around.”
They followed my gesture. At first, they saw nothing until they realized what they were looking at.
A doorway farther down. Half open and inside, only darkness. Too dark, even for this light. And the snow just beyond it was smooth.
No tracks in and no tracks out. A ripple under the snow.
“Another one?” someone whispered.
“Or the same one,” Baxley said quietly, appearing at the edge of the group. “Doesn’t matter if it’s one or two, or twenty. This place is nothing but death.”
Larana stepped out behind him, her blade already drawn.
“I checked three buildings,” she said, her attention on Nicco. “All the same.”
I struggled to swallow past my dry throat. Relieved to see they were okay, not at ease with what they said.
“How many people live here?” Nicco asked me.
“Too many,” I answered without hesitation. My words carried the weight of truth.
Another sound echoed through the town, not from behind us, but from deeper within the streets. A sound like before, a soft creak, the feeling that something shifted. Then everything went still again.
“They’re not hunting us,” I said slowly with realization. I wanted nothing more than to send my magic out, to test my belief that what I said was true, but in the middle of this group, I couldn’t risk it.
The captain’s jaw clenched. “What do you mean?”
I glanced around at the empty street, at the closed doors, at the places where life had simply... stopped.
“There’s still enough to feed on.” The truth was as horrifying as it was sobering.
Nicco exhaled softly beside me. “Then we don’t linger,” he said. “We find what we need and get out.”
I turned to him, accusation and doubt in my voice. “You think this is just something to pass through?”
His gaze met mine, steady, unreadable. “I think,” he said, “standing still in a place like this is how we end up like the man inside that house.”
It was fair. Unsettling, but true. And also wrong, so very wrong.
“We can’t leave them here,” I whispered, my brow tightening as I thought about it. “They don’t know how to fight it.”
Baxley stepped closer. “We don’t know how to fight it either, Amarya. We didn’t even scratch it.”
Shit. Not good. Not good at all.
Captain Marson heard him and looked between us, then he gave a single, decisive nod. “We take what we came for, and then we move on,” he said. “Tight formation. No one breaks off.”
Because if anyone did, I didn’t think we’d hear them go.
“And the injured?” Nicco’s gaze didn’t waver as he held the captain’s stare.
“We protect our own.”
Nicco held his stare a moment longer. Then his attention flicked to his companions, and whatever he saw there made his jaw tighten further.
“Right, let’s see how long that lasts,” he grumbled as he moved forward. “Trailfinder,” he added without looking back, “you stick by me.”
It wasn’t a request, and I didn’t argue.
“The rest of you” —his gaze flicked over the soldiers, cool and assessing, — “try not to die before we’re done here.”
“We’re King’s Guard,” someone muttered.
Nicco spat to the side as he walked, and I never heard another sound as we walked closer to the town’s center.
We moved forward at a steady pace. The kind of pace that said we knew we were being watched, even if we couldn’t prove it.
Nicco was at my side, the soldiers tightening into formation behind us. Baxley and Larana drifted at the edges, not guarding, not flanking… just… aware. Looking in every direction at once.
“Where?” Nicco asked me quietly.
“Supply stores,” I told him. “North side. Caravans and merchants. They stock up before they head out.”
“Lead the way.”
I moved ahead, and he pulled me back by my cloak. “Stay beside me, bunny.”
“You said lead,” I hissed at him.
“Use your words, not your feet.” He smirked when I glared at him. “You’ll need your feet soon enough, Trailfinder.”
Right. He was expecting us to have to run from the town. I didn’t look at him. I just walked, quietly directing him as our companions watched the shadows around us.
The deeper we moved into Skallfen, the worse it became. It wasn’t just the silence. It was how complete it felt.
There wasn’t even any wind. No creak of wood, no distant voices. Even our footsteps felt... swallowed, as if the town no longer carried sound.
A line of stalls appeared to our left.
Canvas still stretched over them, stiff with frost. Goods left out in neat rows, tools, rope, dried food. All untouched.
“Why hasn’t anything been taken?” one of the soldiers murmured.
No one answered because we all knew. There was no one left to take it.
I slowed down, and this time, it was my turn to pull Nicco’s arm, pulling him back. “Careful.”
Nicco didn’t ask why. He just adjusted his stride with mine. The snow ahead dipped slightly, not enough to notice unless you were looking for it.
I crouched, brushing my glove just above the surface. The same ripple. That wrong, melted-then-frozen feel.
“Don’t step there,” I ordered.
A soldier behind me shifted instinctively, too close, and his boot brushed the edge of it.
Everything stopped. Not just us, but it felt like the world itself. The air tightened sharply, the way it did when you sucked in a huge breath.
The soldier froze. “Did I—” he whispered.
“Don’t move,” I whispered.
Too late. The snow beneath his boot… sank. It didn’t collapse or break. It just gave way, almost as if it had never been solid at all.
He yanked his foot back.
And the ripple spread. Slowly and deliberately, it expanded outward in a thin, glassy sheen across the snow.
I stood. “Move now.”
No one hesitated. We shifted away as one, pulling back from the disturbance. And the ripple stopped just as suddenly as it had begun.
Silence returned quickly, thick, heavy, watchful. “What the fuck was that?” Captain Marson asked.
I didn’t answer because it was obvious what it was, and I was starting to understand just enough about the kind of creature it was.
“It doesn’t need to see us,” I said softly.
Nicco’s head tilted slightly as he turned to look at me. “Why do you say that?”
I shook my head. “I think it can feel us.”
I could sense their eyes on my back — interest, disbelief — none of it mattered. As long as they were listening, it didn’t matter if they believed me.
We moved faster after that. We weren’t running, but we were quicker. Nicco and I checked the snow ahead, following the trail to make sure there were no more ripples in the snow.
A building loomed ahead, larger than the others, stone, reinforced with double iron-bound doors.
“Storehouse,” I said. “This is where we want to be.”
“If it’s not already empty,” Baxley muttered.
“Everything here is empty,” Larana replied flatly.
That reminder wasn’t comforting.
Nicco stepped ahead of me this time, testing the door with the edge of his blade. It didn’t move. Locked. Because why wouldn’t it be?
“Stand back,” he told me.
I didn’t argue; I did as told. He stepped in, shoulder hitting the wood once, twice, and then the lock gave with a sharp crack. I held my breath as I scanned the area behind us, worried he’d alerted anyone left in this town to our location.
The door creaked inward. Darkness lingered within. Cold. Still. Unsettling. No one rushed in. Not even him. We all hesitated on the threshold.
“Quick,” the captain said to his men, breaking the uneasy silence. “In and out.”
I let them pass me, and when I stepped inside, that same hollow pull tightened in my chest again.
Stronger this time and closer.
And for the first time since we entered the town, I was certain. We weren’t just moving through Skallfen undetected.
Something in it… was moving with us.