Shit!
I scramble to my feet, face hot as fire, and move locks of my hair away from my face.
He jumps to his feet, and a red rash stains his neck. He doesn’t look at me and presses a hand to the small of his back. I briefly wonder how hard he landed before shoving the thought away.
“You look more like your kind when you’re cleaned up. What the hell scared you this time, Kelban?” Axle asks. “‘Cause it sure as hell wasn’t me?” He glances at the wound on his side, compliments from my dagger, and I frown. My wounds have healed, but his remains?
“I heard things. Raspy voices. They . . .” I stop. Their shoulders have tensed up and their eyes scan the tree-line, alert and vicious. They know what it was. The animal glitter in the Wild boy’s eyes chills my blood.
“They what?” Axle whispers. That keen observance that he possesses is directed at me in full force.
I remember three years ago. I had told the Wild boy the shadows had spoken to me. The look in his face – the shock – had been undeniable. To admit that they had spoken again would reveal my identity. And if I reveal my identity I reveal that I’ve known all along who he is and that this place is not as it seems. He will have no reason to trust me for such deceit. And also, something else keeps my tongue at bay. I don’t know why, but I know in my bones I should not reveal I heard their words. For some reason, I feel it would be the death of me.
“I couldn’t see the thing. But everything was cold. It hissed like a snake.” Not lies. Only half-truths.
Axle frowns but says no more. He turns to the Wild boy. “Re gav ot mov.”
The Wild boy nods in agreement, but glances at the forest with a darkened longing. They shoulder their packs and weapons and step towards the water’s edge. They are up to their necks in a matter of moments. I watch while a niggling feeling of panic slithers in my gut. There has to be a bridge or a shallow crossing somewhere. But they start swimming, pumping water with their arms in powerful strokes.
Axle is the first to notice my hesitance and glance over his shoulder. “What’s the matter, Kelban? Too cold for your taste?”
I walk in up to my waist. My stomach lurches as I take one more step and the water teases my neck.
The Wild boy has reached the other side and stands soaking wet on the bank. He glares disapprovingly at me across the thirty feet distance. “If you don’t hurry up, Kelban,” he grumbles,” we’re going to leave you behind.”
Axle surges towards the bank. I watch the way he circles his arms above the water and the way it spreads apart for him.
It can’t be hard. I push my toes against the ground and extend my arms into the water. My throat tightens as my legs find nothing but the heavy weight of water around them. I struggle to remain above the surface and for a moment I hold the Wild boy’s gaze across the water. He snorts and turns away.
A wall of water slams me full in the side and darkness is all around me. I try to scream but water rushes into my mouth. My nose. My eyes. My lungs gasp for air. I beat at the water around me but nothing happens.
The darkness deepens and the pressure builds in my head. A spot of white light spins in the water before me. It moves towards me. I beat at the water again and rise. My head breaks the surface and a gargled whimper wets my lips.
“Shit!” a voice – Axle’s – cries. “Shade, she’s . . .”
I hear a splash.
The water takes me.
The white light hits me full in the face as soon as I’m submerged. Everything around me swirls and a blast of cold air smacks my forehead, forcing my eyes open.
I am in a forest of swirling green and brown. There is laughter nearby. Children’s laughter. I see a girl with hair black as midnight and eyes even darker running around the tree trunks. A boy with hair the color of ash and limbs as gangly as a young sapling runs after her. His polished boot snags a tree root. He falls to his knees. The girl stops and turns around. Her face pales and she hurries towards him.
“Your highness!” she gasps and falls down beside him, hands tugging at the collar of his burgundy tunic.
“Are you attempting to strangle Kelba’s heir?” he gasps and jerks free.
“My apologies, highness,” the girl says.
“I’ve told you time and again to call me ‘Aspen’,” he grumbles. “Will you disobey me again, Kyla?”
The girl – me – shakes her head. “No, your high . . . Aspen. I apologize for hurting you. You’ve torn your trousers.” My hand fingers the rip near the top of his boot.
Aspen’s face furrows up in boyish amusement. “Aye. You’ve accosted me greatly. How shall I punish you?” He closes the distance between our faces. Our noses touch. “Shall I . . . kiss you?”
I frown. “That would be very ungentlemanly of you.”
“Are you criticizing me? Many a girl would be happy to kiss me.” He smiles. “You might like it.”
I stand abruptly and glower down at him like a ruffled hen. “Shame on you,” I whisper, but my cheeks are blossoms of red.
He stands too and dusts off his legs. “I’m going to kiss you, Kyla Bone, and you’re going to like it.” He steps towards me.
I hike my skirts up around my knees and skip a few steps out of his reach. “You can’t kiss me if you can’t catch me!”
We run. I use the trees for cover but he hears the leaves that rustle beneath my feet and follows close behind. I crash through thick underbrush and smack a branch of yellow flowers out of my way. Sun-kissed petals rain down on me.
I reach the pond. The Celectate’s Wood was abundant in rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds for his enjoyment. Water lilies dotted the pond’s surface, so thick I believe I could walk on them. Aspen’s footsteps draw nearer.
“You can’t hide, Kyla!” he chuckles.
The hell I couldn’t.
I brace my fists and step onto the first water-lily. My foot doesn’t even sink into the water, and I stare in child-like wonder and take another step to be sure. Water doesn’t even lap at my shoe. Giggling I step onto the next water-lily. And the next. And the next. Until I’m in the middle of the pond. I focus on the sights. The smells. The sounds. A dragonfly buzzes near my ear and beneath me a bright orange fish stares up at me. The heady aroma of lilies and water and flower petals lulls a gentle peace in my soul. And then . . .
“Kyla!” His voice. So near. So loud. So startling.
I look up and all the sounds fade around me. I fall. I’m in the water. I’m choking on water. I’m surrounded by darkness. I’m dying. My skirts drag me under, imprisoning my legs.
“Kyla!” a muffled voice above my head screams.
A great blast of bubbles hits me full in the face and arms grip me firmly about the waist. I feel us ascend. Feel the air hit my cheeks. Aspen’s face blurs above me into darkness.
A white light cracks across my eyes and forces them open.
The Wild boy stares down at me, his hand on my neck. Air rushes down my throat and collides with a wall of water. My lungs constrict and then fluid fills my mouth. The Wild boy turns my head to the side and water pours from my lips. I choke and cough violently until my lungs are no longer heavy and roll to my side, hugging the ground beneath my fingers. It is warm and cold and hard.
The Wild boy – Shade, Axle had called him – leans back. He takes long, deep, controlled breaths.
Axle rubs a spot between my shoulder-blades and pain ignites along my spine. Immediately, he pulls back. His hand is wet with blood.
“You fool! You gods-cursed fool!” Shade swears. He leans forward and rolls me over. “Why didn’t you say you couldn’t swim? Why the hell didn’t you say something, you damned fool!”
Tears sting the back of my eyes. Rage burns my throat. I lift myself up on shaky elbows. “And why the hell should I have said something? Would you have given a piss if I’d told you, you hypocritical bastard?”
Shade blinks. “What did you just call me? What did you say?”
“Easy,” Axle whispers calmly,
but his voice is strained.
I rise into a sitting position and level an icy stare straight into those ringed eyes. “I’m a Kelban. A manipulative, cold-hearted, stubborn, malicious noble Kelban! You didn’t give a shit whether I crossed that bridge or not. Why would you give a shit if I didn’t know how to swim?”
Shade’s hand balls into a fist, but he makes no threatening move towards me. “You’d better consider yourself damned lucky, Kelban, that I’m too exhausted to slit your delicate throat.”
I see red. I’m on my feet and don’t know how. I stare down at Shade, fists balled, lip curling spastically. “If you call me that again I’ll cut your tongue out! My name is not ‘Kelban.’ It is Kyla! Kyla! Do you hear?”
He stands too and towers above me. But my rage is too strong to cave to fear.
“Shade . . .” Axle whispers from behind me. “Calm . . .”
“If you say one more word, little girl, you can continue on by yourself,” he hisses between clenched teeth.
I shove him hard in the shoulders, and he flinches at my touch. “I don’t give a shit anymore!” I brush past him.
They are strangely silent behind me.
“Oh, and Shade,” I say without turning around, “I’m not a ‘little girl.’” I hold up my arm for reference and reveal the scar swept across my right wrist. “I’m married, remember?”
I kick a rotting branch out of my way. Behind me, someone explodes in laughter. Axle. He says something in ancient Kelban, and his answer is a vicious snarl. I smile anyway as I inwardly translate Axle’s words.
“The beast just got his ass whipped by a little girl.”
They catch up with me an hour later and Axle vaguely suggests I’m heading the wrong way. Reluctantly, I retrace my steps and follow him once more. Shade lags behind, claiming guard duty, and stays just out of sight from me. I catch glimpses of his shoulder here and there through a tree or an occasional flash of his black vest but that is all.
Night falls faster than I bargained for and Axle finds a clearing, half the size of the previous one, and builds a fire. Shade does not make an immediate appearance, but I hear leaves rustling in the trees. Axle says he’s making sure the area’s secure. I have a feeling he’s sulking. I haven’t missed the twitching corners of Axle’s mouth. He’s trying so hard not to laugh.
“It’s the first time, you know, darling?” he says once the fire’s crackling.
“The first time he was wrong?” I ask.
“The first time someone’s dared to cuss him out like that.” He coughs theatrically. “Except for me, of course.”
Shade appears a couple hours later with a furry creature as long as my arm. He skins it quickly and cuts it into pieces. Axle spears each piece and hands me a sizable portion. I roast it over the fire until fat drips off in a heavy rain before eating it.
My back burns like fire again, and I struggle to maintain a nonchalant expression to no avail. I have suffered infected wounds before. They chill and warm and bite and burn like hell. This infection is no different. The swelling on my shoulder is puffy and itches terribly.
A shadow blocks the firelight, and I shift my gaze up two very long legs into the blurred face above me. It is Shade. He kneels down until we are eye-to-eye. “Turn around, Kel – girl.”
I’m in too much pain to call him out for not using my name. “Why?”
He pulls a packet from his boot – the healing ointment. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine with me.” He starts to stand, and I turn my back to him. The fabric tears easily in his hands as he opens a hole to get to my scars. The night air caresses my wounds. I hiss uncomfortably.
He swears.
“Bad?” I ask.
“What hell-born bastard did this savagery? You’re cut clean to the bone!”
“The devil,” I whisper.
The first brush of his fingers is poison. The second is death. The third is hell. Tears run down my face, but I don’t whimper. The ointment seeps into my wounds like a beast with claws and eats at my flesh. He does my shoulder next and the pain is at the point of unbearable.
“The infection will be gone by morning,” he says and strolls back to the fire.
Axle gazes at me across the fire. His lips are pressed tight together. He saw them too.
I curl into a ball and hide my face behind my knees. They’ve seen the wounds. The broken parts of me I don’t want to remember. I feel exposed and insulted and manipulated all over again. A raw nakedness that depletes my strength.
I have no trouble falling asleep.
I don’t know why I’ve woken up. It is still night. Beside the fire, Axle and Shade are stretched out in odd positions that would normally make me chuckle in amusement. But the tingle in the base of my spine is pressing. I search around the forest for the slightest hint of something wrong. All is silent.
But that’s what wrong. Forests are not silent – even at night. There should be crickets. Crunching leaves. Chipping squirrels. Hooting owls. But none of those things erupt from the silence.
I rise and slowly walk across the clearing. It only takes six strides before I’m in the trees. The darkness separates into colors of light, dark, and even darker gray as my vision adjusts for the difference in light. The wind has shifted and blows directly towards me. Leaves rustle above my head.
Up ahead, I hear a soft flapping similar to that of a fluttering cape. Another Wilds inhabitant? Perhaps a comrade of Axle and Shade’s?
I am silent as I meander through the trees and underbrush towards the noise, hand poised above the dagger’s hilt in case I’m wrong. Through the gray outline of the darkened forest a caped figure flutters across the floor, silent as silent gets. Something about it is unearthly. Inhuman. I can’t understand what it is but I know just the same. The caped figure is shrouded in black, ethereal mist that spreads tongues of swirling dark clouds in all directions.
The scars on my neck stiffen and spread claws through the veins in my neck, tightening my breaths. My spine tingles. Every nightmare, every vision, every horrible, terrifying memory of that night comes roaring back, and I know what the caped figure is. The caped figure is the mist. The fog.
A shadow.
The soft sound of pressure on the earth behind me has the dagger in my hands within moments. I am slammed softly against an aged, but wide, tree and pinned. I open my mouth to cry out for help and warm pressure covers my lips. I struggle.
Two eyes – dark and ringed – stare into mine. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Shade.
Axle crouches low to the ground beside us, blending into the dark texture of the forest floor. Only his blonde hair is out of place and he quickly rubs dirt into its light strands.
Neither of them have their swords.
I shift my head in silent promise not to make a sound, and Shade removes his hand. I crane my head over my shoulder.
The black fog is moving away and the caped figure’s back is to us. I watch the fingers of darkness at the corners of the fog move tree branches the size of a grown man aside. Leaves float away from the shadow’s presence.
My shoulder is pressed hard against Shade’s chest and the rhythmic beat of his heart pounds against my skin. It is very fast. His hand claws into the tree bark beside me like a beast, and a feral glitter stains his dark eyes. I shiver at the hidden meaning of that gaze. He had slaughtered the three shadows that attacked me in Kirath all those years ago. Such ferocity – such savagery – had a deeper, darker story behind it. No one hunted monsters without a reason.
The caped figure turns suddenly and through the black opening of its hood I see nothing but darkness. No face. No eyes. Just deep, empty black.
Shade presses against me hard, every muscle tensed, every movement guarded. I don’t dare breathe. He’s pressed so tightly against me I couldn’t if I tried. I feel the heat of his body on my face even though his vest is closed and the smell of smoke and trees is so strong I am dizzy with it. It is not the smoky smell of cigars that father bro
ught from Kelbain or the smell of the smoking branding iron. It is sweet and natural, like the dying embers of an evening fire in the chill of winter.
The shadow moves off through the woods, but it is a long time before Shade’s muscles relax, and I know it is gone.
Axle rises on all fours, scanning the trees, and gives the “all clear” in ancient Kelban to Shade. He nods in recognition, and I feign perplexity at their language.
“I’d think you’d have learned not to walk off in the dead of night alone,” Axle says in wonder.
I ignore him. “What was that?” I ask Shade.
He tenses against my body and blinks when he looks down and our noses brush. He shoves me away and it is Axle who stops me from losing my balance completely. He stomps towards camp without a word to either of us.
I look to Axle for an explanation.
He shrugs simply. “Ve si nar vey travanisas.”
I blink rapidly. “I beg your pardon?”
“Ve si nar vey travanisas,” he says, each syllable lingering on his tongue.
I huff irritably and turn my back on him. “Fine. Speak in riddles if you want.”
“You understood me, Kyla,” he says firmly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
When he returns to camp a few minutes after me, he casts a knowing glance in my direction. I pretend not to notice him and pull the blanket over my head. Inwardly, though, I agree with him.
Shade is not very talkative.
Shade leaves camp quietly when Axle falls asleep, but I am watching him through slitted eyes. His blanket remains on the ground and his knapsack beside it. He takes only his moon swords with him. I count the seconds, but he does not return. He has not gone to take a piss.
Somewhere between one thousand-two and one thousand-six I fall asleep.
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 20
