Neither of those things seem to be attracting its attention or slowing it down.
At all.
It darts forward, swiping its claws at my face. I fall backward and jerk my head to the side. The nails rip across my cheek. I choke down a cry. The pain dazes me. I stagger backward. It swings again, but this time I manage to lift my sword and deflect its attack.
A third swing—and a second block.
Again and again it strikes, and I parry.
The sharp clang! of its claws hitting my sword repeatedly echoes around us, reverberating through my skull and making my vision shake.
But I’ve trained with similar-weighted swords a million times. Surrounded by the practice dummies my dad built in a clearing in the woods near our house, I would spend hours swinging and spinning until I no longer missed a single step or strike. So even through pain and blurred vision, I can still do this, because I don’t have to think about it—and I don’t have to be able to clearly see.
Its claws connect once more with my sword. I focus on the way it presses into my blade, and I can feel its weight shifting to the left. I counter with a step to the right, and I manage to get behind it. I sweep my sword sideways, and it slices into the creature’s mid-section with a satisfyingly smooth cut.
The monster drops to its knees and lets out a screech.
The other two answer it with bloodthirsty cries of their own.
I hear the familiar-by-now sound of claw striking metal, and—since my opponent is still on its knees— I chance a look over my shoulder, and I see Soren using his sword to just barely keep one of the creatures from crushing him into the ground. Its arms are braced against that sword, shoving Soren so far down that he’s nearly parallel with the dirt; I have no idea how he’s keeping his balance.
My breath catches, but in the next instant Soren somehow manages to move out from underneath the creature’s grasp. It nearly faceplants the ground, while he rolls sideways and fights his way to his feet. He pauses in a small patch of red-orange moonlight and straightens to his full height, sword lifting and chest heaving. The way that strangely-colored moonlight reflects off his intense eyes and the thin sheen of sweat on his forehead makes it all very dramatic-looking— and, knowing his fondness for creating dramatically beautiful illusions, the idiot probably planned it that way.
And I feel like most people would find this particular image striking.
But to be honest, as dangerously handsome as he looks, all I can think about is that that’s so not how you hold a sword.
Even in the middle of battle, he must feel me staring at him, and he still manages a smirk. “Eyes on the enemy, how about?”
“I’m looking at you because your form is terrible,” I call, rebalancing my own sword and bracing myself as the second remaining creature turns its red-eyed gaze my way.
My balance sways.
The poison is apparently still working, slowed but not stopped by my shifter healing abilities.
Talking helps me stay focused. “We’re going to have to work on that.”
“Shame we won’t have the chance,” Soren replies through teeth clenched with the effort of absorbing another blow, “since you’re going home after this.”
“You say that like you could actually force me into going home. Which you can’t, since clearly I’m the more skilled fighter between the two of us.”
His retort is lost under the clashing of sword and claws and the sound of grunts and hisses.
My own opponent is hissing in my face a second later.
I try to relax my mind and let my training take over again, but my body feels increasingly heavy and awkward. It’s getting harder to properly handle my sword, and soon fancy footwork is impossible; I’m doing good just to fall and clamber my way out of reach.
I consider shifting—thinking maybe being fully wolf could burn away the rest of that poison in my blood—but the thought alone is exhausting.
I don’t know if I could focus enough to safely transform.
So I grip my sword as tight as I can manage, and I keep evading.
I lose track of the trees first.
I can’t keep up with them, the way they’re spinning around me, and during an attempt to dodge I end up slamming into one of the trunks hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
As I’m gasping for air, I catch the blurry sight of my enemy narrowing its eyes on me.
It approaches slowly.
There’s a twist to its cracked and sunken lips that looks completely inhuman—and yet entirely too much like a victorious smirk. It stretches a hand toward my neck.
I expect claws to dig in, but instead it settles for choking me.
Its cold and clammy palm slams into my throat, and the fingers clench so tightly that soon I can’t even force out a cough.
Keep your eyes open, I command myself.
I cough and sputter as the creature laughs.
Eyes open, eyes open…
The last thing I see is Soren turning, his face bloody, his mouth open but no actual sound coming out.
The last thing I hear is the sound of my sword dropping, clattering over exposed roots.
And then everything goes silent and black.
Chapter Four
While I sleep, I dream that I’m shifting between a wolf and a human.
And all the while, I’m burning.
I’m sure of it—I’ll be nothing except ashes soon, despite a soft voice that is repeatedly assuring me that I’m still solid and not, in fact, surrounded by flames.
You can heal, the voice says over and over again. The words mix in and around my thoughts, circling so deeply into my mind that soon I can’t tell if I’m hearing my own thoughts or someone else’s.
But I cling to them either way—
You don’t end here.
Stay a wolf.
Wolves don’t burn.
I’m not a wolf when I finally open my eyes who knows how long later. I’m human—at least in appearance— and I’m lying beside another human-at-least-in-appearance. His eyes are closed, but when I start to push myself up onto my knees, Soren lifts his head and blinks several times.
“See?” he says, his voice slow and sleepy. “I told you you weren’t going to burn to death.”
I sit the rest of the way up.
His sweatshirt falls off of me, and he averts his eyes. I look down and realize that my own jacket and shirt are in tatters; the result of a sloppy, nearly-unconscious shifting attempt, I’m guessing. After a moment of hesitation, I pull his sweater over my head—a simple motion that still makes me feel a lot dizzier than it should.
Once I’m somewhat properly clothed, Soren mirrors me and sits up. He studies me for a moment, his body posed and ready as if he’s prepared for me to collapse again. When I don’t, his gaze leaves me and studies the space around us instead.
He exhales and the air around us seems to shudder along with his breath. A soft rush of air breezes over my face. It brings a sudden influx of sounds and smells with it—as if they’ve just been released at his command.
Unlike me, he apparently wasn’t sleeping before; he was meditating. Focusing on keeping up some mix of an illusion and a barrier around us. On keeping me—no, us— safe.
But the spell is gone now, and even with the borrowed clothing, I feel exposed and cold.
“If you can move, we should probably go someplace a little safer to regain our strength.” He gets shakily to his feet. His eyes jump right over the heap of bloody and strangely-contorted bodies of those monsters we fought.
I wish I could ignore them as thoroughly as he seems to be doing, because the sight and smell of them is making my weak stomach feel even more iffy.
“I would have carried you somewhere, but you shifted so you could heal—which was good, of course, but you just recently shifted back to human. And you were kind of enormous as a wolf. No offense.”
“None taken.”
After a bit of weary searching, we come upon a thic
ket with a narrow tunnel dug through the dense brush—by some sort of animal that smells vaguely like a bear. It also smells like it’s been awhile since it made use of this space, so we crawl into the crude cave and make ourselves at home.
I insist he crawl into the very back and actually sleep, and for once he doesn’t argue. Probably because he can’t muster the energy to.
While he sleeps, I position myself at the entrance with my new sword in my lap. I absently run my hand across my neck, feeling the raised flesh of new, not-completely healed scars. So apparently that creature didn’t stop at just choking me; it attempted to cut my throat into ribbons in the process.
My parents would freak out if they saw these marks; they’re covered in scars themselves, but they’ve spent a lot of energy over the past eighteen years on trying to keep me from gaining my own.
Guess I’ve sort of ended up a huge disappointment to them in that department.
But I know they would welcome me home with open arms all the same, and thinking about that makes me miss them so much that it makes it hard to breathe.
I give my head a little shake, and I distract myself by studying the landscape outside our haven—though not much about it has changed; it remains full of lots of dark trees, all basking in that red twilight that I’m beginning to think might be this world’s permanent glow.
At least an hour passes with me staring out into this world.
Almost nothing moves, and that glow never changes.
Talk about eerie.
I entertain myself next by studying that sword in my lap. And then by trying to come up with a name for it. Because all beautiful weapons need beautiful names, right?
But trying to think of one only makes my homesickness worse, because Liam and Carys were admittedly way better at coming up with weapon names than me. Liam could rattle off a dozen not-lame names without a moment’s thought, and Carys was full of obscure names and words she’d come across in her reading—names that held hidden significance, or some sort of smart, symbolic meaning behind them.
Meanwhile, I’m considering naming it… Starstabber. StabbyStar? StarsOfManyStabbings?
Yeah, okay, those are all terrible.
I continue to wrack my tired brain for a proper nickname, not taking my eyes off the sword even after I hear Soren stirring behind me.
“The way you’re staring at that thing makes me feel like I should leave the two of you alone for a moment,” he says with a yawn.
I feel my cheeks redden—more from the low, sleepy tone of his voice than his words.
“You’re still alive, huh?” I say, trying to sound unaffected by that tone and by his sudden closeness. Which becomes much more difficult a moment later, when his fingers are suddenly pressed lightly against my neck, feeling their way along those fresh scars.
“As are you, despite how gruesome your injuries looked for awhile there.”
“Aren’t you still tired?” I ask, shrugging him off before my skin can flush too hot underneath his touch. “You look like death.”
Or like a god of death, really. One who still manages to make the macabre look infuriatingly handsome.
I go back to staring at the sword in my hand.
“Dead or not, I have too many things to do besides sleep,” he says.
Like finding a way to boot me back to Earth?
Maybe he was right about that. Maybe I’m just in the way, and I should find a way back myself.
Because how much energy did it cost him, saving me from that creature, and then hiding both of us until I regained consciousness?
I rub the soft fabric of his sweatshirt between my fingers, lost in thought for a moment. “I thought you said you weren’t going to protect me if I stayed here?”
He looks just as startled by my sudden words as I am—almost like he was hoping I would have somehow overlooked his heroics.
“Well you jumped into a parallel universe for me,” he says, looking away. “And you helped me get across the bridge. So let’s just call it even now, how about? And since we’re now even, we can—”
“Go our separate ways?” I interrupt tonelessly.
“You’ve finally figured it out. Well done.”
“The eighty times you’ve said it kind of clued me in.”
“So you do listen to me when I speak.”
“I drift in and out of attention.”
He opens his mouth to reply, but he decides against it and instead focuses on standing, stooping a little to avoid scraping the low ceiling of twisted brambles.
I’m burning with annoyance suddenly, and I’m not sure if it’s because of my own weakness, or because he still seems so eager to get away from me. Mostly the latter, I think.
Because I spent eighteen years feeling like I was constantly in the way of my parents and the rest of my pack, thanks to that curse of mine—but that curse is lifted now. I’m not a burden anymore.
So why would I want to stay here with him, when he’s making me feel like I still am?
I fold my arms across my chest and nod toward our shelter’s exit. “Go on then,” I say. “Go take care of all those things you came to do. I can find my own way back.”
He looks hesitant, suddenly, which is even more annoying.
Make up your damn mind, how about?
“Elle—”
“Okay, then you stay and I’ll go.”
I snatch my sword and get to my feet.
He grabs my arm and holds me still, gripping tighter when I try to pull away.
A flicker of wolfish anger flares inside me, prepared, as always, to fight our way out if necessary.
Maybe he senses it and realizes that a cornered wolf is a dangerous wolf, because his hold abruptly weakens.
I pull out of his grasp. I still feel a little dizzy. I do my best not to show it. I’m not sure if I completely manage to hide that faintness, but he’s probably not watching me leave, anyway; I’m not looking back to check.
There’s a strange heaviness in my chest. A chill in the wind that I swear wasn’t there before.
Or maybe I’m just being dramatic.
Yeah. Probably.
I trudge my way along something that barely qualifies as a path, pushing low-hanging limbs and thorny vines aside and trying not to curse too loudly when one of those thorns lodges itself in my thumb. I bite my lip as I pull it out—I really don’t want to make anymore noise than I have to, because frankly I’m not in the mood to get attacked and sample some more of Canath’s apparently extensive supply of poisons.
But my own personal commitment to stealth is useless, because a minute later that idiot I left behind is crashing through the trees, his one-track mind seemingly intent on nothing except catching me.
And for some reason, I let him.
With a sigh, I turn around.
He isn’t looking at me. He’s staring at something past me—and then, without any warning or explanation, his arm is hooked around my waist, pulling me off the path and into a denser patch of bushes and thorns.
“Um, ow,” I hiss as several of those briars tangle in my hair and leave bloody scratches across my scalp.
“Do you not sense that?” he whispers.
I try to focus.
Between the pain from the briars and the way his body is pressed against mine, I don’t have much luck.
“Sense what? None of the smells and sounds in this place make much sense to me.”
“Weird, magical energy,” he replies. “I feel it. Lots of it.”
Is that what that strange heaviness in my chest was a minute ago?
Did it cause that awful, freezing cold wind as well?
We hold perfectly still, his hand still around my waist to help keep our balance on the uneven ground. After a moment I finally manage to relax into his touch, and then I feel it too—that tugging in my chest, like something taking hold of my heart and twisting it downward.
“Something’s coming?” I breathe.
He nods. “A lot of somethings.”<
br />
An entire parade of them, it turns out.
I sink deeper into the bushes, oblivious to the pain of the thorns now. I would bury myself in them if it meant getting away from the things approaching us.
They wear black armor as polished as the door that led into this world; it reflects the dark and wind-swayed trees and makes it difficult to count their individual bodies, but there have to be at least two dozen of them. Two dozen hulking figures with masks the same burnt red shade of the moon.
I know it has to be killing him to do it, but Soren has no choice but to shield us with yet another illusion; there’s no way we’d go unnoticed if he didn’t. His eyes close and his body goes limp against me—all except his hands, which are moving subtly, his fingers bending and circling in small, precise motions.
I do my best to hold him steady while he works. My eyes stay open, further studying the creatures marching past. Being on the inside of this latest spell Soren is working makes everything blurry—like I’m looking at it all through a fogged window— but I swear those creepy masks have no eyeholes. There are only narrow slits where a nose and a mouth might be.
Sightless or not, they’re moving quick. They walk in a disturbingly unified way, with their right hands clenched at their side and the left ones slightly lifted, palms facing forward—all except four of them in the center, who are carrying a large golden box supported by four long poles. There are two tiny windows along the top of this box; I think I catch a pair of eyes peering out of them.
And I’m pretty sure I hear soft crying coming from inside.
“I think we might be witnessing an abduction,” I whisper.
An abduction that shouldn’t really concern me—nothing about this world should, because I was just on my way out of it, wasn’t I?
Except I still can’t seem to stop staring at that box.
I rock my weight from one side to the other. Soren’s arm presses a little tighter against my side. His eyes blink open, and he follows my gaze to the prison-box first, and then they drift over those creatures he’s hiding us from.
Realization spreads slowly, painfully across his face.
His breath leaves him in a gasp.
The illusion around us flickers.
Silver and Shadow (The Canath Chronicles Book 2) Page 4
