by B. T. Narro
“No, sire. She’s one of us.”
“Thank you, Kataleya,” Hadley said.
I noticed Aliana staring off in the direction Gourfist had gone.
“Can you sense anything?” I asked.
“How did you know?” she said.
“Just a feeling. What is it?”
“I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s like I can feel his anger, even now that he’s many miles away. But he’s also so very tired.”
Hadley asked, “You can feel that from others?”
“No, only from him. I don’t know why it is.”
“His mana must be that powerful,” Charlie suggested. “I’m not sure he can even be killed. Jon, what happened to the spear you drove into his head?”
“It still in there as far as I know.”
A guard ran back into the courtyard and gave the king a hand signal that it was safe for him to come. The king took a moment, however, to address us.
“I’m going to see what I can do about those who lost their lives, homes, and shops. I still expect all of you to ride to Koluk as soon as you’re ready to leave. Aliana, you’ll see to it?”
“Yes, sire,” she said.
The king met his lone guard in the courtyard and hurried out of the castle.
“We should be leaving,” Aliana said. “But I understand if some of us need extra time after what just happened.” Her gaze roamed down my torso with lifted eyebrows.
I noticed that everyone was looking at me, most of their gazes traveling down my bare chest. Even Reuben and Charlie seemed fixated on my appearance. Normally, I’d find it a little uncomfortable, but my heart was still racing as if this fight wasn’t over.
“We’re sure he’s not coming back?” I had to ask.
“He must be going back to sleep soon,” Aliana said. “I could feel how tired he was becoming while fighting you.”
Nobody made any movement. I figured they were still as stunned as I was. I felt my pants loose around my waist. I looked down and saw that my belt had been burned past the point of holding my pants up, and my pants were singed around the waist with one large hole near my hip, my underwear showing. This was probably part of the reason everyone had been staring at me.
I gave a sigh. “I keep losing clothing,” I told the group. “I just need a moment.” I made my way toward the apartments, feeling the force of their gazes on my back.
I didn’t really care. It was Gourfist that worried me. I expected the king would get to the bottom of why the beast had come here.
Whatever the reason, it didn’t seem to bode well for us.
“Jon,” Hadley called as she rushed after me. “Can I go with you so I can collect some of Gourfist’s blood from your pants? If so, we better hurry before it dries more.”
“What can you do with it?” I asked.
“I have no idea yet, but I’d like to find out. Can we?” She gestured at the apartments. “My empty vials are in my room.”
I nodded.
“Be quick about it,” Aliana called after us.
“Charlie,” Hadley said. “Can you collect anything outside the castle that might have Gourfist’s blood on it—Jon’s spears, maybe broken pieces of wood, or a feather I missed? In fact, grab any feather you see no matter if it has blood on it or not.”
“I will.” Charlie hurried toward the open portcullis as Hadley and I went the other way.
“We might as well help,” Aliana told Reuben.
He let out his breath then started after Charlie with Aliana.
I was ahead of Hadley as we made it up the stairs of the apartments. I was rushing down the hall with her behind me, but she stopped suddenly outside Eden’s room.
“I’m staying in here.”
“Why?” I asked as I turned and went back to her.
“She left a lot of ingredients here,” Hadley explained as she entered. “I figured I would take it rather than the empty one at the end.”
She collected an empty vial from one of the shelves and crouched in front of me. There was one large stain of blood on my right thigh. I took hold and was about to wring it out but stopped.
“You’re sure this is Gourfist’s blood and not mine?”
“I can tell that it is.”
I wondered how, but she was already holding the vial up against my leg. I squeezed and twisted. Two red drops ran down my pant leg and then slid down her vial. I twisted harder, but nothing else came out.
“I think that’s it,” I said.
“It should be enough for one curse.” She stood and gaped at it.
I watched as she put the vial up to her face and closed her eyes. At first I thought she was sniffing it, but I didn’t hear the sound of air moving in through her nose.
She opened her eyes. “I already have some ideas of what it might do.”
“Just from that?” I asked.
She nodded.
I was impressed. “You really do have a gift.”
She grinned up at me. “I better meet the others in the courtyard to see if I can gather more.” She gave a gentle touch to my arm.
“Right.”
I hurried off to my room to change.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Eden found herself on the ground. Had she passed out? She couldn’t remember much of what happened. Suddenly remembering Gourfist, she tried to get herself up, but she was too dizzy and fell back down.
The recent events slowly returned to her memory. She had fled into the portal to Fyrren. It was her only way of escaping Gourfist. She had awoken him by following Valinox’s command. Did Valinox know this would happen? Did he want it to happen? Why, though? It didn’t seem likely.
What was Gourfist doing now? Could he be off flattening cities just because of Eden?
No, whatever happened next was Valinox’s fault.
When the world stopped spinning around her, she lifted her head and looked around with blurred vision. She was clearly in a forest, but all the colors seemed unnatural. The trees were green, but of a bright shade she’d never witnessed on the bark of any tree. All had colorful leaves of blue, white, and red. The dirt of the ground was not dark but of a golden hue. Bushes and other shrubbery were blue in color, with an assortment of pink, red, and white flowers. There was so much color everywhere, she felt like she was in a dream.
She found the portal behind her. She could see the dark forest she had come from in the middle of it, a white glow around the edges. Eden didn’t feel that she could close the portal if she wanted to. She didn’t have the power.
She still had Valinox’s Induct stone in hand. It had done nothing to stave off Gourfist’s aggression. She put it in her pocket, keeping the smaller Induct stone she had made in her sock. It had moved around during her tumble through the portal, so she rearranged it so the smooth side was against her skin again. It would still be uncomfortable, but she had a feeling it would prove useful.
There didn’t seem to be any Induct stones around the rift in Fyrren as there were in Dorrinthal. She still felt that she was in danger here, but not from Gourfist. She didn’t know why he couldn’t get through the portal—perhaps he was just too big—but legends said Valinox had tried to get to Fyrren to escape Gourfist. After everything else had been proven true, that certainly was as well.
Eden made a sweep around the portal. She couldn’t find Gourfist no matter which angle she used to look back into Dorrinthal. He was too big to miss, even in the dark and misty forest. He had surely left from his sleeping spot. She imagined the screams of people as he descended on towns, or he might already be on his way back to the portal.
Eden didn’t want to keep deflecting blame to Valinox. Was she really to blame for any destruction he caused? She had to start taking responsibility. The choices she made mattered to more than just herself. Why had it been so hard for her to accept this until now?
I thought that I couldn’t ever make a difference in the fate of the kingdoms. I thought it was up to those who had power, the narcissistic n
obles, and intractable kings of old who shaped the world.
Eden had wanted to disrupt this paradigm of power, however she could. She had figured sorcerers of dteria couldn’t be any worse than the rich. Not even Valinox could care about the people less than the nobles did.
It was time to admit that she had been wrong.
She dusted off the sticky golden dirt from her gray tunic. Then she used her fingers to brush it out of her black hair as best she could.
Now what? she asked herself. What am I supposed to do now?
There was a sound of something large moving across the forest. She darted behind the nearest tree and poked her head out for a look. It was a lumbering beast on four legs, fur the color of wildfire. She hurried back behind the tree after just a glance, not wanting it to see her. She felt vibrations through her body as the giant thing moved away.
She didn’t want to stay here next to the portal, but she felt even worse about walking away from it. What if she got lost? Valinox had said he would come back for her, but would he know to look for her here in Fyrren?
She had to admit to herself that he might never help her again, even if he did come to Fyrren. So she wasn’t going to stand around here waiting for him.
She decided to walk in the opposite direction from the large beast. There seemed to be a clearing a ways ahead, perhaps an end to the forest, or it might just be a river.
The dirt felt light, more like sand than the dense dirt of Curdith Forest. It seemed to settle more like sand as well, animal tracks showing up much more clearly. She realized this only later when she saw long squiggly lines as if snakes had come through here.
It wasn’t a moment later that she thought she heard something moving on the ground behind her. She turned around as a golden snake, the same color as the dirt, jumped at her face.
“Ah!”
Eden jumped back as she made a square of dteria in front of her head. The snake’s bite was blocked, giving her an up close view of its fangs stuck in her clear energy before it fell back to the ground. It jumped at her again as soon as it landed, but she was more ready this time. She hit it with a blast of dteria, sending it soaring away.
She ran the opposite way, again toward what looked to be an end to the trees, but it was a long way. She eventually came to a stop, turned around, and waited. She didn’t hear or sense anything. There was just the sound of her loud breathing.
She reminded herself of the direction of the portal, then continued toward the clearing. After just a short time, however, she seemed to sense something to her side.
All she saw was a strange-looking bush shaped like a mattress. It didn’t seem to be made of leaves but some other material, dense and appearing strong enough to support her if she was to lie on it. It looked soft as well, comfortable. She thought about taking a moment to rest on it, but she didn’t trust this forest. Something could sneak up on her.
Suddenly, the mattress of leaves morphed into a many-legged animal that darted toward her. It resembled a spider but with a square body. Eden shrieked as she ran away.
The creature was much slower than her, bumbling about and eventually falling over itself. It seemed to give up after that, walking back the way it had come.
She stopped there to catch her breath. Soon, she heard something, like wind but softer and more localized. She turned toward the sound, in the direction she had blasted away the snake. It looked as if the golden forest floor was undulating.
She cursed as she realized what it was. A river of snakes was headed straight for her.
Eden ran her fastest toward the clearing. She wasn’t going to stop this time until she made it there. It was a long run, forcing her to slow halfway there. She was struggling for breath by the time she made it.
The trees did come to an end, but all there was before her now was ocean and sky. She checked over her shoulder. Not finding anything coming for her, she took another moment to look out across the ocean far below.
It was vast. She couldn’t find a speck of land anywhere in sight. Something resembling an eel, but so much bigger, jutted out of the water. It made half loops with its body emerging from the sea. She couldn’t see its face, and she didn’t want to. It seemed to be longer than any boat she had ever seen.
Eden backed away from the edge. She felt a prickle down her back as she sensed movement again. Scanning the ground, she found a rock just smaller than her hand and picked it up.
The sound of a few snakes spread around her.
“Come out you bastards!”
But then she saw just how many there were.
“Ah! Help!” she screamed.
With the long drop into the sea behind her, every other route was blocked by dozens of snakes. She scanned the forest but saw no other life.
She looked over her shoulder once again. She nearly jumped, but she stopped herself as she remembered the enormous eel she had seen. Even if she survived the fall into the water without breaking anything, she didn’t know what lurked below.
Her survival instincts kicked in as she blasted a swarm of snakes to her left, knocking a few of them straight off the cliff. One snake jumped at her, but she managed to get the rock up in front of her face and felt the thud from the other side.
Two more dove at her head. She ducked and didn’t have to worry about them anymore as they fell off the cliff.
The rest were nearly at her ankles, but the snakes all seemed to be hesitating now. It was as if all of them were waiting for another snake to make the first move now that so many had fallen.
No, she was wrong, she realized, as she saw a huge snake slithering through the mix as the rest parted to make way.
It was nearly as thick as a tree trunk. The enormous serpent seemed unafraid of Eden as it slowly slithered toward her. She blasted it with dteria, throwing back the cluster of snakes around their queen. But the queen only coiled up from the force of the spell, and Eden saw just how big she really was.
Now taller than Eden, and with much of her still on the ground, the queen snapped at Eden. She was slower than the other snakes, making it easier for Eden to duck under the attack. But unlike the other snakes, the queen did not fall off the cliff. She coiled back and snapped at Eden again.
Eden had to dive to the side to avoid being bitten by the queen’s massive fangs, but a whole mess of snakes were waiting right there. She made a wall of dteria, the poison of their fangs wetting the clear energy as they tried to bite her face.
She swept the energy at them like a large broom, brushing them all away from her and sending many more off the cliff. She had just enough time to look back and put up her boot, blocking the queen’s mouth just barely, for the span of it was about as big as Eden’s foot.
She made a claw, squeezing dteria in the air. She surprised herself by actually grabbing the queen by her neck. Eden pulled with all her strength, dragging the queen off the cliff by her head.
But the queen was so damn long, and the massive snake wrapped the end of her tail around a tree trunk as the rest of her body swung out from the edge of the forest. Eden made a run for that tree in hopes of bashing the snake’s tail with her rock, but she screamed and fell flat to the ground as the queen’s swinging face came around and nearly bit her ear off.
Eating pushed herself up, blasted back the approaching snakes with dteria, and slammed her rock into the wrapped tail of the queen. The massive snake came loose and fell toward the sea with a loud hiss.
About half of the snakes jumped off the cliff after her. The other half lost their hesitation as they darted at Eden with pure aggression. There were too many for her to deal with. She hoisted herself up with dteria, something she wasn’t very good at. Accuracy was her strong suit, not power. She was slow to rise, but she made it just high enough for all of their strikes to miss her feet.
And then her head struck something hard.
She fell, dazed, realizing only too late that she must’ve hit a tree branch. She thrashed and blasted dteria in every direction she could
, but she was bitten a few times before she could get back to her feet.
Panting, she was still ready to fight, but all the snakes were now backing away. They hid behind trees, poking their little heads out, their forked tongues dancing as if they were taunting her.
She looked down at bloody wounds on both her arms, then at a couple holes in the lower half of her pants. Her whole body felt hot as if a fever was coming on.
Her muscles started to give out. She fell to a knee, then toppled over to the ground. She wanted to scream for help again, but the whole world was going dark.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Eden tried to fight the snakes as she came in and out of her slumber, but she lacked the strength to move. Time passed in jolts, moments of consciousness almost springing her awake, but something kept blocking her. The poison.
Suddenly she sat up with a gasp. She wasn’t where she’d been before but in some sort of small structure. There was a terrible taste in her mouth. She slightly remembered drinking something, and maybe hearing a male voice?
She seemed to be sitting on a soft mattress. Fearful it was the spider-like creature trying to entrap her, she jumped off and rolled across the wooden floor, her muscles weak.
It turned out she really was inside a walled and roofed structure, as she had first thought. There were no creatures here, but there was a strange-looking man poking his head around the doorway from outside.
He drew his knife as he stepped toward Eden. He looked human, but something was off about him. She couldn’t quite figure out what it was. It wasn’t that his tanned skin was strange, nor his light blue eyes or the shape of his head and his muscular body. It was his hair, she realized. There was a golden hue to his blond locks.
“Are you wishing to run?” he asked. It wasn’t so much that he had an accent, but he did speak the words differently than she was used to hearing. There was less of a pause between them and more of a mash of syllables, like he had a constant hum droning behind the words.
“No, I’m fine here,” Eden said politely.
