I lower my gaze. My head. My pride. “Y-yes, Your Excellence.”
He smiles.
I look down at my feet, past them, to the forest floor beneath me. I can see it clearly now, dangling vastly beneath me, and my stomach clenches. I recognize the weightless air around me, the gravity pushing me in the gut, the ache in my temple. I am up too high. If I fall I will die. If I fall I will die! Slowly the tree branches enclose around me, tangling with one another, imprisoning me. The wood beneath my feet begins to dissipate, leaving me open to the air – and the ground beneath.
I will die!
Grasping the nearest branch, I begin my descent.
No. Go back. Climb.
But when I look beneath me and see the thorns lengthening to spear me – imagining the pain lancing through me as they connect with my flesh – I cannot.
Go back. Climb.
I reach the forest floor and the trees spread out again, branches lifting out of my reach.
The pockets of vapor warm my face as I come to a steep drop-off and another dried river-bed. No bodies dot its landscape. No human bones.
No one has made it this far. The thought is not a comforting one.
Hunger pains roar within my abdomen, pulling flesh and bone in anger at their condition. I double over, clutching at the skin sunken against my bones. My teeth ache. My head spins. My lips crack. The wounds on my back, my shoulder, my feet burn with a heat bordering on boil. They are infected. They will weaken me.
I will die.
The darkness draws closer. Forms step out of its black folds. Gray. Desperate. Bony. The death-collectors from before. The largest draws close, nothing but bone and white shreds of stubborn flesh. It looks more like a tattered garment than skin. She holds out a wreathed arm, finger-joints clicking.
“Come, sweet one. You’ve fought long enough. You need to rest. Rest with us.”
“You frighten me,” I say, voice strained as I fight the pain in my gut.
“We frighten many. We give peace to all,” she says.
I close my eyes. Think of Landor. Of Mother. Of Father.
I see Master Ragar. Celectate Wood. Aspen. Aspen leading me into his room. A fire crackling. Aspen brushing the sleeve of my dress aside. The dress falling to the floor. Aspen’s lips . . .
My hand reaches for the bones.
Landor hugging me close. Landor giving me his dagger.
Mother’s voice, proud and lovely, “I want my daughter to be the finest, greatest, strongest, smartest girls.”
Father’s guilty sobs. “I turned my back on her . . . I left my own daughter.”
“Let them go,” the soothing tone skates over my skin, weighing the sweet memories down. “Give it up. Let yourself fall into this emptiness, dear one. Fall. Fall.”
“Do you know where you stand, Kyla Bone.”
“You are mine, sweet one.” A bone brushes my finger.
I’m back at the palace. I’m back in that dress. I’m back at that moment. I’m staring at Celectate Wood. Hearing his words. You are mine.
You are mine.
You are mine.
I open my eyes. The bony creature of darkness – of death – smiles, her jawbone waggling.
“You’re right. I do need to let it go. I need to let it all go.”
She nods. The other forms around her do the same. “Yes, sweet one. Yes.”
I straighten, shoulders arched painfully. I grit my teeth.
“Poor dear thing. Yes. Come to me. Yes. Just a little bit more.” Her hand – the bones – brush my shoulder in a cold caress.
“I have come very far,” I whisper languidly, eyes heavy with fatigue.
“Yes. You have. Very far, sweet one. You are at the end.” Her voice falters. “At the end of your pain,” she adds.
I step into her embrace. Let her arms fold me in a comforting hold that slowly pulls the air from my lungs. The skin on my body trembles as I return death’s hug. She croons softly.
I plunge the dagger’s blade into her back.
She screams. A scream not human. Not earthly.
For a moment, the darkness around me wavers. Sinks in on itself as death struggles with the pain. Over the bony shoulder, a wink of light – a tiny pocket of gleaming yellow – shines at me.
“You are at the end.”
I pull the dagger free and run. Run towards that gleaming pocket of light. Behind me, the screams turn feral. Beastly. Branches crack. Trees stir. Thorns and brambles stretch from the black depths.
Another pocket of light joins the first. Then another. Another.
I hear it. The cascading. The rushing. The roaring.
Water!
Gray forms swirl through the trees around me. To my right. My left. Above my head. They screech. They scream. They roar. My ears tingle.
Thorns grab at my legs. Brambles roll into my path. Tree branches sweep towards my head. My arms. My legs. I slash the dagger before my face and bark cracks. A root snags my ankle and my hip connects with the ground. Muscles repositioning, I sprint from my knees, catapulting onto my feet. I ignore the pain. The screams. The trees.
I focus on the light. An opening appears between the dark branches. Behind those jutting barriers, the rush of water rings in my ears.
The light blinds me as I close the distance and make one last jump to clear the blackened trees forever. They snag my tunic, my hair, my arms in a last, desperate effort to capture me. My dress rips. The branches snap.
I fall flat on my belly and the sun blinds me. My eyes sting at its brilliance. My skin trembles beneath the rays.
Dirt crumbles beneath my cheeks. I open my eyes and see the yellow ground. The dust circling up around the soft breeze. The ground is dry and desolate. Yellow from age. Black from poison in some places. But one flickering color of blue captures my attention.
A river. A river of cold, foaming, crystal water. Thirty feet wide and bursting with sustenance. A breeze blows the freshness straight into my face.
I crawl towards the edge. Towards the lip of water rippling inches from my hand. I reach out towards it, already feeling the cool liquid enclosing my hand, quenching my thirst, washing my body.
Another low breeze disturbs the dust beneath me and wisps of light brown flutter into the air in soft puffs. The dust swirls over the river. Hovers over the water. Settles against the smooth surface.
And turns a venomous black!
I pull back my hand. The water continues to flow. To bubble. To roar with life. But that dust . . . that water . . .
Poison.. Poison ate things. Poison tricked kings and fools and wildlife. Poison turned things black
My tongue swells – so close to water and unable to taste – to touch – it. Tremors shake my fingers. My body. My lungs. I’d drink my tears if I were able to produce them.
Behind me, a long, low wail raises the hairs along my spine. It’s a woman’s mournful tune. A deadly tune.
I toss a handful of dirt into the river, and watch it turn black as coal and sink into the water, leaving no sign of its true origins.
The wail sounds again: longer, harsher, deadlier.
My legs tremble when I stand, muscles exhausted. They want to remain. To sit. To rest. But if I stay I’ll fail. My body will betray me. My mind will trick me. I will fall prey to the poison – the beautiful, blue, tempting poison.
Across the river, a luscious, deep green forest rests, its branches darting into the sky with royal pride. In that forest is life. I can see it. Smell it. Sense it. If I can find a way across the river – I’ll live. I know it.
The dust gathers beneath my feet and dries the skin into painful, hard lines. I trip on the deep cracks left in the ground by long-ago decimation. The yellow grass that manages to grow is sharp and leaves shallow slices along my calves.
Against the backdrop of the river, something dark and familiar stands out against the lurid surface. Squinting against the sharp rays of the sun, I peer closer. Step cautiously along the ground, expecting it to open up
and swallow me.
It’s a bridge!
I wait for it to disappear. Wait for the trick to subside. For the hunger pains in my stomach to reveal their deceit. But it doesn’t disappear.
It’s real!
I never knew I could run under such duress, but even my burning muscles and swollen feet can’t slow me down. The bridge is rickety – a flimsy contraption made of young tree limbs and bark. It could collapse beneath the slightest change in weight.
But I’ve lost enough to calculate the difference.
I step towards the first rung, feet testing the wood. It bends and creaks beneath my skin. The entire bridge sways. I lurch back.
Behind me, the low wail changes to a delighted hiss.
My ire sparks. I will do this. I will enter that green forest.
I will live!
I step onto the rung again.
“On the wrong side of the Wall, aren’t you, Kelban?”
The voice – so close, so harsh, so distinctly human – sends my heart into my throat. I stumble back. Away from the bridge. Away from the river. Away from the large form that rises up from the ledge concealed beneath the questionable way to freedom.
“I asked you a question, outsider!” he says in a tone bordering on violent.
His very presence sends warning messages to my hands, and I long to rest a hand on my dagger. To draw it for certainty. Protection. But I decide against it.
He already has a knife and is cleaning it in slow, casual strokes. But the tick in his jaw, the slight tremor of a muscle in his arm, betrays him.
“N-no. I’m on the right side.”
He looks up.
I stiffen when our eyes meet.
I lurch into the past. The three year-old memory burns vividly in my mind. The moonlight, bright, piercing, and deathly. The eyes, dark and ringed and different. The body, agile, adept, and focused.
The Wild boy.
Chapter XII
I had thought about this moment for years. About what I’d say. What I’d do. How I’d do it. But now, staring at those eyes – eyes dark and dangerous and violent – I can’t.
“You’re a long way from home, Kelban,” he says.
“I won’t argue that,” I retort. My voice sounds foreign: dry, stunned, and edgy. I wish I could recover the bite Landor praised. The sting that put people in their place.
He frowns, and the knife straightens in his hands. “This bridge is forbidden to your kind – as is the forest beyond.”
Your kind? The words sting, but the meaning doesn’t escape me.
“You will have to swim,” he mutters and steps aside, blocking the bridge’s opening. He sheathes the knife at his side, but the look he casts in my direction assures me he can easily retrieve it.
I shake my head, and he cocks his to the side. The trait is so unnatural – such an incredible familiar animal trait – I almost go for my dagger again!
“What’s the matter, Kelban? Is such a feat beneath you? Should I personally escort you?” Warning bells sound in my head at his mockery.
“I’m certain you – nor I – favor that manner of passage,” I tell him.
The corners of his mouth wrinkle. “And why’s that?” he asks sharply, arms still crossed, eyes still dark. However, his posture has stiffened.
“I’m fairly certain you know exactly why,” I counter, lifting a brow.
His lips curl into a sneer. “Very good, Kelban. You don’t have shit for brains at least.”
I bite back a retort – one that would surely have me flying headfirst into the foaming river. “Let me cross,” I say instead.
“I can’t do that,” he says, stepping in my way. He blocks the sun’s rays and for the first time I see the hardened muscle of his torso and the sword hilts located at each shoulder. I recognize the intricate designs on the hilt – ivy and ancient symbols. I’d seen one years ago, glowing with dull white vibrancy, its deadliness hidden beneath deceptive beauty. The moon sword.
He has two now.
He notices my gaze and sneers again, brow knitted together in effortless disgust. “I cannot let a Kelban across this river without a reason.”
“Life and human nature aren’t good enough reasons?”
“You’d be surprised how deadly human nature is, Kelban. But I shouldn’t have to teach you that. Your kind offers sufficient lessons on the matter.” He reaches out and jerks the strap of my tunic off my shoulder, revealing the ugly black symbol beneath. “Don’t you think?”
I shift his hand aside and cover the mark with my palm. It burns raw beneath the heat of my hand, and I bite my lip to hide the contortion of pain on my features. I don’t think it works.
“What were you ostracized for, Kelban?”
Defiance. Truth. Heroism.
“It’s complicated,” I whisper, not daring to look up. The turmoil in my eyes would surely give away far too much of myself than I’d like. There are parts of me strangers have no right to see or know.
“I’ve got time,” he says and leans back against a rail of the bridge. It creaks beneath the weight but doesn’t break.
“A difference of opinions.” I look up, masking the truth behind years of practice.
He narrows his eyes and scans me from head, to foot, to head again. I try not to flinch beneath that feral gaze, but my palms and brow grow damp with sweat. He chuckles, and it’s filled with disgust.
“You’re a noble,” he grunts, every bit of loathing crammed into that one word.
I nod. To deny would be foolish. Every single trait about me speaks “noble.” The way I hold myself. The way I speak. Even the way I answer his questions.
“You must also know the tales.” He steps towards me.
I resist the urge to retreat.
He stops mere inches from my torso. In noble society such a distance is inappropriate, and borders on scandalous. Any decent girl should put the offender in his place. A good tongue-lashing usually worked. A sound slap was the extremist measure. But I don’t feel such measures apply to moments like these.
He smells strongly of smoke and forest – and blood.
I want to pull my dagger. My gut insists such an action would be my end.
Instead, I tilt my chin upwards. Past the muscles peeking between the opening of his dark vest. Past the bulging vein in his neck. Past the ever-present smirk on his lips.
I meet his gaze. Stare at the dark rings around his pupils. At the dark gray color of his eyes. At the lack of emotion betrayed through those eyes. There is no anger. No hunger for my blood or my flesh. No recognition of who I am or how I know him or if he knows I know him. Just emptiness and – a wall behind them. I’ve seen those eyes hundreds upon hundreds of times in the faces of nobility.
I am not the only one using a mask.
He breaks the connection first and stares past my shoulder. At the Burnt Forest.
The long, low wail sends ice up my spine. It’s still there. Still waiting and mourning and haunting.
“Siratha,” he mutters with disgust.
Siratha? I had heard tales of such monsters who lurked in the darkness. They discovered your deepest fears and forced them upon you. They played with your mind and your soul until you gave up. Then they seduced you – tricked you – into accepting death and sucked the life from you. They were not one being. Every time they took a life, that life became part of them – another shadow to their endless form. The siratha in the forest had to be very powerful to acquire so many gray shadows around her. Or just cunning.
The idea of that monster following me through the forest – watching me sleep, watching me climb for freedom – turns my stomach.
The Wild boy turns away from me and ducks beneath the bridge. I hear him rummaging against the stones and dirt of the river-bank. He emerges a moment later, a sack slung across his shoulder and a familiar bag in his other hand.
A water-skin!
“Here!” He tosses it in my direction and it nearly sends me backwards when it lands in my arms.
It lurches uneasily in my hands.
I twist the cap from the skin and cautiously sniff the opening.
“I would like to drink too, Kelban, without your nasal particles in mouth.”
There’s a strange smell from within – something sweet, yet savory and strong.
“If you think you can make it eight miles before nightfall without sustenance, then by all means, go ahead, Kelban. I will warn you that I’m not going to stop because you feel the sudden urge to rest or faint like your kind are partial to doing.”
He waits for me to drink, but I let that strange smell linger on my senses. I cannot recognize it. All the ancient tales whisper their knowledge in my ears. Cannibalism. Torture. Living death.
Do not allow fear to cloud your judgment. Do not allow fear to make your choices.
I raise the opening to my lips and pour a stream of the liquid into my mouth. It slides easily down my throat and tastes like wine and tea and water all in one. My tongue sizzles, and I gag reflexively, waiting for my mouth to start foaming and my body to shut down. But it doesn’t. Instead, my muscles relax. I drink until the boy grunts and snatches the skin from my hands.
“That’s enough!” he snaps.
“What is that?” I ask, ignoring his shocked gaze as he stares at the half-empty skin.
“Hunter’s brew,” he mutters and closes the cap tightly. “Ten times stronger than water and created with the intention to restore energy to you with one mouthful.”
My body throbs with renewed strength.
“How long were you in that forest?” he asks. His eyes scan my body, singling out every bruise, cut, or scar.
I mentally count off the hours I remember and shake my head. “I don’t know. But it was long enough.”
He shifts the skin to his free shoulder. “Follow me.”
I stiffen, those warning bells sounding in my head once again.
He looks over his shoulder and frowns. “Are you deaf, Kelban?”
I pull the dagger free, the ache in my side tightening. I’ve seen his skills before. The uncommon dexterity he possesses. The ability to fight darkness itself. I can’t beat him, but I have to make sure he’s not making a fool of me.
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 16
