My patience cracks and I slap his chest. “That I would have to make this choice—between confessing my secret and death by a shape-shifting creature!”
“Are you unwilling to confess your secret,” Silver asks, his voice low as he takes a menacing step closer to me, “or unwilling to admit it to yourself?”
I slam my hands against his chest, hard. But Silver doesn’t budge an inch. It’s like shoving a marble pillar.
He moves in closer to me until his mouth grazes over mine and I’m forced to stumble back from him. “Say it,” he hisses. “Confess what you cling onto so tightly, Kee. Deny what you have fooled yourself into thinking you want—” He slices his gaze to the ordinary stranger before he turns his molten eyes back on me. “—and tell me what really lies in that slow-beating heart of yours.”
I shake my head. “I can’t—I can’t.”
Silver brushes his mouth against mine, and I feel his lips twist into a cruel smile. “Then die here,” he whispers before he draws away from me.
My heart stops and ice spears through me.
Silver turns his back on me and starts down the path, back the way we came. I throw a panicked look at the stranger—and he is moving for me, his head bowed low, dark eyes gleaming up at me, and a vicious grin mutilating his face.
“Silver, wait!” I cry out and run after him. “Wait, don’t leave me here!”
He keeps his brisk strides. “You are doing this to yourself,” he says without looking back at me.
I glance back at the man. He’s advancing on me, his pace quickening, and a scream catches in my throat. I shout, “I like you!”
My shrill voice echoes through the trees. They rustle, and I swear their whispers mutter ‘I like you’, ‘She likes him’, ‘He will never like her’, over and over.
Silver stops on the path. His back faces me as I stumble to catch up with him. Panic climbs up my chest, seizing my rapidly beating heart, and as I loosen a shivering breath, I look over my shoulder at the man. He stands still on the path, his face twisted with anger and disgust, and his deadly eyes bore into me.
My slight confession is enough to stop the stranger from attacking me and stop Silver from leaving me, but I know it’s not enough to pass the test, because the man still stands on the path.
“I like you,” I parrot and turn back to Silver. The words birth an agonising ache in my chest. “I know I shouldn’t, so I focus on my mistrust of you and the wretchedness of what you are.” My voice softens with a sigh and I look down at the trail beneath my boots. “The truth is, when you kiss me, I feel alive for a moment. And ...” Flames ignite on my hot cheeks. “When I saw your naked body, I felt ... lust for the first time in my life. It ... It scares me that, the longer I spend with you in here, the more I might come to feel for you.”
Silver slowly turns around to face me. The mask he wears is as unreadable as the ink on his body. His jaw is clenched tight, and the hooded gaze he runs me over with is as detached as I would expect from an aniel.
This is why they are so dangerous.
“I don’t love you,” I tell him. “But I’m scared that you have the power to make me feel that one day, because what I feel for you now is stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before. You’re everything I never wanted—yet, I want you more than anyone. And I hate you for that.”
Silver’s eyes cut to the spot just above my shoulder and, quickly, he slings the straps from his chest. The bags land on the trail a moment before Silver storms towards me.
“Get out of the way, Kee,” he growls, not looking at me.
I look back at the stranger—
And his shape explodes into a thousand pieces before it reforms and I’m staring up the path at a monstrous beast.
8.
In that frozen moment—between when Silver storms up the trail and the beast charges at us—I’m stuck to the spot. My wild gaze is glued to the ferocious beast that the stranger has become.
Never before have I seen anything quite like it.
The beast’s ashen hairless skin is pulled tight over bulging muscles; hind legs rear it up tall, and it stands as high as the lowest branches on the willow trees. Muscular arms stretch all the way down to the path, where talons the size of my forearms graze the packed dirt. And the creature’s face—once so haunting in its beauty—now protrudes in two parts; one large fanged-jaw opening to a smaller jaw that’s packed tight with bundles of needle-like teeth.
The frozen moment shatters with a burst of chaos.
The beast charges down the path at us, using its enormous arms to propel it forward. A scream strangles me as I scurry backwards, and slam right into Silver’s solid body. Silver’s hands shoot up and he grips my shoulders for a choked heartbeat before he flings me out the way.
I land, hard, on the stardust grass. The blades of grass crunch beneath me as I push myself up and watch, wild-eyed, as the aniel and beast clash on the trail.
My heart leaps up into my throat and sticks there, choking me.
Silver ducks to skid underneath the monster a split second before it swipes out with its dangerous claws and strikes through thin air.
Behind the beast, there’s a wink of steel, like Silver’s eyes. Then I spot the dagger in Silver’s pale hand. He jumps up onto the back of the beast and brings the dagger down. The blade sinks into its soft flesh, that spot between where the skull begins and the neck stops.
The creature howls in agony, a sound that shudders the whole wood.
I recoil against the grass, my face twisted with horror.
Silver throws himself off the creature’s back. As he lands with a crouch behind the beast, he drags the dagger down with him. He cuts a gaping gash down its back, and black tar-like blood spills out from the open wound.
The beast flails its arm uselessly, its smaller jaw twisted with an eternal howl. It flings its arm back and spins around, the meat of its arm catching Silver on the side.
A cry catches in my throat as Silver is thrown off the trail from the impact. He collides with a tree trunk so hard that I feel the ground shiver beneath me.
The dagger falls to the path.
The creature steps over it, its body twitching from the pain of the wound, and it rounds on Silver. But the aniel is dazed on the wood floor; he pushes himself up with shaking arms, his head hanging low, and I spot the gleam of blood that stains his temple.
I scramble for the dagger. My boots trip over the hem of my dress and I spill over the path. I snatch up the dagger and, as the beast starts to turn on me, a pulse of power throbs against my hand. I look at the dagger, at the glowing blade and the bone-white hilt that’s embedded with gleaming gems, and I realise that this is no ordinary dagger.
The beast takes a shuddering step closer to me.
I bring my wide gaze up to its twisted face. Black eyes hook onto me, and I’m reminded of Koal before his face mangled and he tore into my flesh with his teeth.
I throw the dagger at Silver as he gets to his feet.
He catches it with a suddenly-alert swipe.
“Move!” Silver’s voice booms through the wood.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I roll out of the way and—a blink later, the beast’s claws plunge into the path where I was just sprawled.
I look up and see Silver running at the beast’s back. The creature spins around, its massive arm whirring with it, and it swipes out at Silver. But Silver is faster. He ducks the attack, then twists around to its back.
I watch in horror as Silver shoves his hand into the gash on the creature’s back. The beast freezes in an agonising moment that rises a scream through it. Its ugly face twists as the howling sound trembles the trees.
Silver yanks out a black-bloody heart from its back.
Between two heartbeats, the creature is frozen. It starts to melt. Skin oozes off its face, black blood rains down its dissolving body, then it falls in a pool of tar that splatters up from the path.
I scramble back from the spatter. Still, spots of
it stain the skirt of my dress, where muddy stains and small tears wreck the fabric.
Silver doesn’t spare the heart in his hand a second look before he tosses it off the trail. It rolls to the roots of a bloated willow tree.
The ground rustles where it lands. The roots snare up around the heart, then drag it down into the earth.
I watch, stuck to the trail and my face slack with shock, as Silver strides over to the drape of a willow tree. He uses the leaves to wipe clean the blood from his hands.
I loosen a shuddering breath. Then a shrill sound that happens to be my voice strangles me; “What in the Underworld was that?”
Silver scrapes his black-stained nails over the soft willow leaves. “It is not enough to pass the test,” he says, sounding bored, not as though he just fought and killed a maniacal beast. “You must defeat it too.”
“It could have killed you,” I breathe, my fingers sinking into the soft soil of the path. Did he just risk his life to save me from the Wild Woods’ monster?
Silver wipes the dagger on the willow leaves. “Not entirely. Wounded me, yes. But that creature did not have the power to kill me.”
A breath pushes out from me, and I can’t tell if it is one of relief of disappointment.
I bow my head for a moment before I push up from the soft soil. As I swat at lumps of dirt on the skirt of my dress, I mutter, “I see why vilas don’t survive here.”
Silver tucks the dagger into the back of his breeches, then folds his shirt over it to hide it from sight. “Mortals don’t belong here. The soil knows it, the trees know it, and the winds know it. It will not stop testing you.”
“Trying to kill me, you mean,” I snark at him.
He throws a small, haunted smile my way. “That, too.”
I lean my head back and place my dirt-stained hand over my chest. Against my palm, my heart beats hard yet slow, as though it fights to keep me alive.
I let out a sigh. “Whatever magick you plan on doing to me, do it now. I need my remedy.”
“A little excitement does much harm to you,” he notes derisively.
I watch him closely.
He advances on me at too-lazy a pace and rolls back his shirt sleeve. Then he brings the heel of his palm to his mouth. Stormy grey eyes on me, his lips twist into a wicked smile as he sinks his teeth into the meat of his hand. Ruby beads of blood roll down his marble-white skin. A drop falls and hits the path between us, and I hear a faint sizzle.
Silver offers his wounded hand to me.
I eye the beads of blood for a moment before I frown at him. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Drink it,” he says, taking a step closer to me. Another drop falls. Another sizzle is faint in the air. “It is what you remedy is made from.”
I blink at him. “My—my remedy is aniel blood?”
He lifts a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Among other things.”
Gingerly, I take his hand in mine and turn it so that the bite wound angles toward my face. The frown still wrinkles my face as I study the blood. It looks ordinary, if a little darker than vilas blood, and the coppery smell posses a faint hint of bitterness that reminds me too well of the aftertaste my remedy gives me.
I almost reject his offer of blood. My hands twitch with the urge to push him away from me, but then my heart stops for just a moment too long in my chest and a dizziness washes over me. I’m in no position to deny something that will keep me alive while I’m trapped in this deadly place.
I inch my mouth closer to his hand. But a breath away from the wound, I pause and look up from my lashes at him. “Can’t you put it in a phial or something?”
His lashes lower. He looks just about done with me. “Drink.”
“Fine,” I mutter, then bring my gaze down to the wound.
Already, the blood flow has stilled, and I see the little teeth-wounds starting to knit together. I part my mouth wide enough to reach the width of the wound, then sink my teeth into the bite marks.
Fresh blood spills out of his hand and onto my tongue.
A forceful retch pushes through me.
I clench my eyes shut and imagine a small dark-blue phial in my hands and, as I press the rim to my mouth and tip, I swallow back a gulp of his blood. A shudder runs through me. Tastes like someone rammed a fistful of bronze coins into my mouth, and they all melted to slide down my throat.
Another gulp, and it is too much. My face twists as though I’ve just sucked fresh juices from a lemon, and I push his hand away from me. I shake my head, though I force down the last drops of blood in my mouth. The sting of bile creeps up my throat. It takes a long, frozen moment for the sickly sensations to stop rolling over me.
As I pry my eyes open, I notice Silver has walked away from me. I watch him down the trail as he hoists the bag straps over his head to fall over his chest, then strides back up to me.
His ashen eyes have hardened to flint. No hints of the horrid confession I was forced to speak to him soften his face as he considers me.
“The test is over,” he says. “If we move now, we might find the Never-ending Path before you need to stop for a rest.”
He doesn't hang around for my answer. He strides up the trail. In seconds he disappears through the thick stardust-blue of the willow trees.
I rush to catch up with him.
9.
The flask bounces against my hip as I race through the thicket of the trees. I flail my arms around to push drapes of leaves out of my way, sticking close to Silver’s heels.
He doesn’t break stride. Not for a long while.
Eventually, the narrow trail leads us out of the thicket and into a gathering of black bushes with white flowers dotted along them.
As sure as the wet in the Rain Season, I see it far up on the right; a crimson stone path that looks to be drenched in fresh blood. It winds through the trees beyond the spinney.
Silver keeps walking ahead. He hasn’t noticed the crimson stone path.
I grab a fistful of his shirt. He pauses and looks back at me.
“Over there,” I say and point my finger—made strong and steady by the purity of his blood—at the uphill slope where the path coils. “Can you see it?”
Silver traces my gaze.
His shoulders relax and, fleetingly, he cuts a glance back at me. “That’s it,” he says, then adjusts the straps slung over his chest. “Come on,” he adds and starts through the thick bushes that swallow us up to our knees. “We should get on the path before it moves.”
I stumble to keep up with him. “It will move?”
The thorny bushes attack the skirt of my dress. Small nicks and tears ruin the once-dreamy material, and dark-brown streaks mar the sky-blue hue.
“Well it won’t wait for us,” he says and steps over a particularly barbed-looking black bush. He reaches back for me and helps me over the bush. “Once we are on it, we stay on it.” He levels his gaze with mine. “Do not step off the path, not even for one moment. Is that clear?”
In answer, I nod, and Silver sweeps back up the spinney. I dodge and jump and skip by the bushes that crave to wreck the last ruins of my dress. It’s a long, tedious walk to the Never-ending Path. But the moment our boots are flat on the crimson stones, a ribbon of relief uncoils through me as Silver unhooks the straps from his chest and lets the bags fall to the ground.
“We will make camp here,” he tells me.
I loosen a sigh and my shoulders slump. This long, hard day (or eternal twilight) has made an impression on my body. My spine aches to lie down, my legs wobble and strain under my weight, and my head yearns to rest on a soft pillow and let sleep take me away.
I drop to the hard stone and let my back lie flat over it.
Above me, the thicket of the willow trees is gone. All I see is the clear twilight sky. No clouds in sight, only the clusters of stars to illuminate the midnight-blue sky as clearly as I can see my nose on my face when I cross my eyes.
Silver ruins my need for absolute sereni
ty. I hear the thud and rustle of bags, the metal whack of buckles undone, and the scuff of his boots against the stone floor.
My eyes narrow and I look down my body at him. “Can’t we just enjoy a moment’s peace?” I ask as he rummages through our bags.
Silver pauses and turns his deadly stare on me. His hands are buried deep in his satchel. “Do you want a comfortable rest or not? I, for one, don’t fancy sleeping rough on the path.”
He digs back into the bags.
I push myself up onto my elbows and watch as he pulls out some sort of folded black material that looks much too big to have fit into his satchel. He drops it onto the path, then rummages around for another moment before—my stomach flips—he removes another parchment-wrapped square that looks exactly the same as the sandwich he gave me back on the shore.
I sit up straight and reach out my hands expectantly. It’s only now that I see that parchment-wrapped parcel in his hand that I am suddenly aware of the ache deep in my stomach. I’m starving.
He doesn't look at me as he hands me the parcel.
As Silver goes back to raiding the bags, I tear apart the parchment from the sandwich. This one, I learn, has a smoked ham and soft white cheese filling. And when I tear a chunk off the corner, flavour explodes in my mouth, and I stifle a moan.
Tucking into my sandwich, I watch Silver work in silence. The black material, I soon learn, is a tent. Before now, I have never actually seen a tent, but I do know what it is. Two extendable poles prop it up in the centre, and the black fabric swans down to the little stones Silver uses to keep it in place against the breeze. At the sight of it, my cheeks flush hot. It was not made for two people, that much I can tell. It’s so narrow that to fit us both inside, we would have to be moulded together in a tight cuddle.
Silver forgets the tent, and crouches close to the edge of the path. Without stepping off the stones, he reaches onto the dirt on the other side and drags clumps of bushes and dried-out wood onto the path.
By the time I’m finished with the sandwich and licking crumbs off my hands, Silver has a nice fire going. Healthy, considering it’s largely built from kindle and few thin logs.
Among Monsters Page 7
