When a heart gives up, that is when one surely fails. If I believe there is a way, I will keep fighting until my last breath. It doesn’t mean assured victory, because the world doesn’t work that way, but it does increase my odds.
Fight, even when it feels like one no longer can.
So, I ignore the creatures calling my name. Even as they shift lower and smoother. The blue leaves rustle as I step into the shadows they cast, as if invisible forms waft through them, watching me.
The black lines etched into the trees look more and more like terror-stricken faces as I walk through the forest.
Run, they call to me. Go home, Reveln.
I swallow. The voices shift, the words, and cadence changing.
“There you are, little brother,” a deep voice calls casually from inside the tree line, where the cover is thick and shadows shift.
My breath catches, but I pick up my speed and keep walking. This wouldn’t be the first time I’d been tricked into thinking my dead brother was talking to me. So, I won’t fall for it.
Silhouettes appear in between the trees.
Then, I hear her voice. Soft and lovely. Her golden eyes glow as she looks straight at me. “Rev,” she says. “Rev, I need you.”
I stop breathing entirely as my mind spins. “Caelynn?”
Caelynn
I slog my way back to the bank of the exceptionally smelly Bog of Bones, as the wraith called it. The mud slushes and crunches beneath me. Ew, I can’t imagine walking a mile in this shit. Maybe literally.
“Where is he headed,” I ask the wraith, half expecting him not to answer. He’s obviously not on my side, not entirely. He wants me living, but I’ve been around plenty long enough to know that doesn’t mean much.
The Night Bringer wanted me living. So he could torture me into doing his will. He’d have called himself an ally too. I can give you all the things you desire.
All you have to do is help me destroy the world and your heart along with it. No biggie.
Maybe this wraith is working for the Night Bringer.
“He’ll be entering the Forest of Desires.”
“That sounds better than a death bog.” I roll my eyes.
“It isn’t,” he assures me. “The Schorchedlands are much like your trials. Each step a new challenge. Each area of the land holds a new obstacle. Only, in this game, you have no rest, no time to refuel your magic or heal your wounds. No emotional support from loved ones. This place surrounds you and quietly attacks always, even as you sleep. It will become you if you aren’t careful.”
I take his warnings to heart, but my mind is ready to move on. “How do I get there without passing through your death bog?”
“It isn’t my anything,” he scoffs. “I have been trying to pass on from this place for hundreds of years to no avail.”
I heave in a breath. “How do I get there?” I shout. I am so not in the mood to deal with his bull shit. “Or should I go back to the damn bog and take my chances? Rev made it. I suppose I could too.”
“Children,” he mutters.
“I am not a child.”
“Your thirty years are a fraction of my existence.”
I groan. Why do I keep feeding into his foolishness? “I’m leaving,” I tell him, and climb back into the muck without so much as a pause.
“Follow the edge of the bog where the stones are scattered,” he finally says.
Thank you! Was that so hard?
“The distance is twice as long, but it will be a faster journey without...”
“Without waist-deep sludge and skeletons to fight off, yeah, I get it.”
I don’t wait to find out if there is more to his monologue. I find the stones and hope over them, sprinting when possible. The stones vary between dark charcoal and light grey, but they are easy enough to spot. I leap directly onto as many as possible but don’t mind sloshing into the muck of the bog when it’s an easier path. I simply don’t stay long.
My feet are already caked with mud and those skeletons aren’t nearby—yet.
He’s right; this path is much easier. I may not have noticed the stones marking the edge of the bog without his instructions. They travel out and around in an oval, nearly doubling the distance, but my feet are free to travel at a quick speed, and I use that to my advantage. These two miles take several minutes before I find the bank slope still clearly marked with Rev’s and the skeleton’s claw marks.
I purse my lips and take a good long look around.
“Do you still require my help to find your prince charming, my lady?”
I roll my eyes because there is a very clear and obvious path of mud dripping from the bank of the bog into the trees.
“Don’t call him that. And don’t call me a lady,” I say, beginning my trek onto the pathway.
“Ahh, yes, I recall your disgust with your title. Why is that, do you suppose?”
“I am not a countess any more. I was stripped of my title many years ago.”
“And you still blame yourself for your crime.”
“I am not sorry for killing Reahgan. But it was murder nonetheless, and I deserve the punishment.”
“Was it truly murder?” the wraith says in a sing-song voice. His smoke dissolves and drifts right over me. I shiver but continue my march, eyes examining the trees as we walk.
He forms in front of me, but I do not falter and walk right through him again. Leave it to me to get the most annoying tagalong ever. Who even gains a damn side-kick inside hell?
“Because I heard you were simply defending yourself.” He sounds so damned pleased with himself.
“Do you not talk about things you do not know,” I spit, repeating his own words. Yes, Reahgan was an ass. Yes, he was the kind of fae to enjoy hurting someone else. Yes, he would have hurt me if I hadn’t fought back. But one doesn’t feel the kind of pleasure I got the moment Reahgan’s life left him unless they’re bad to the very core.
“I know quite a bit more than you think, my dear.”
“What is your intention, wraith?” I stop hands on my hips. “In helping me.”
“What’s in it for me, you mean?”
“I don’t much care what a wraith wants. No. Whose will are you completing? Who do you work for?”
His smoky lips curl into a grin. “I am working directly for the Shadow Court Queen.”
I narrow my eyes but continue walking down the dirt path through the forest. “What does she intend to achieve by helping me?” There is an obvious answer, but I still question it.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he slurs his words. “She wants you to be her successor. You, my dear, are the strongest shadow fae in centuries. With you, our court has a chance at reestablishing our lost heritage. With you, we can rebuild.”
“We,” I repeat.
“I was once a Shadow Court king, did you not know that?”
My eyebrows pull down. He’d claimed the Shadow Court as his own before, but king?
Don’t let him distract you, I remind myself. His story, his history, is of no consequence. He may not even be telling the truth. Do not trust a wraith.
“Right.”
“She did not want to stick her hand too deeply into the trials for fear of disqualifying you. But she’s been hoping you’d come to see her in the Shadow Court. She’s been waiting for you.”
My heart aches. I don’t trust the wraith, but I do love my court. And I had wished to visit. I’d wanted to give them a boost of my power. What little I could give for the temporary time I’d been allowed to stay. But I never made it.
“I planned to do just that. It just... didn’t happen.”
“Your mate lured you into his clutches. I know. It’s happened many times to many promising young ladies. It’s how they continued to weaken us, you know? My own child was forced into marriage in the Flicker Court.”
My eyebrows rise at his confession.
It’s well known that shadow fae have been forced to join other courts. Sometimes male, but often it
’s the strongest females of the Shadow Court that are targeted. My own parents discussed the possibility of sending me away as an adolescent.
After generations, it left us with only weak pairings and, therefore, weaker children. Our magic slowly siphoned out of our lands.
“I didn’t fall into his clutches. There’s no hope for Rev and me,” I say, my voice hollow. “But he needed my help. And I couldn’t abandon him.”
“In the same way, you couldn’t leave him to his own devices on his own quest? You sacrificed yourself—again. Was that always your plan?”
“No,” I whisper. Shadows shift past the trees as we pass them. I narrow my eyes. “What was that?”
“Nothing of consequence,” the wraith says, drifting around me. “Why did you come here then, child? Was your life so terrible you decided to end it early? You obviously have no sense of value for your own life.”
“No,” I say again. I blink and turn to watch my boots stomping on the uneven path. We are moving rather slowly. “Once I learned the Night Bringer was setting a trap for Rev...”
The wraith cackle laughs. “That’s what you heard? From what source?”
I purse my lips. Again, another shift in the forest outside the pathway.
“He’s been setting a trap for you.”
I stop and cross my arms. “I realize he also wants me here. I don’t know why, nor do I care.”
“Oh my.” His voice is quiet, less amused than his words would imply. “I expected more from the child who outwitted the Night Bringer.”
I stop and roll my eyes, the wraith once again blocking my path.
“Your Night Bringer cannot even enter these lands without becoming trapped. He is not here.”
I narrow my eyes. How had I not considered that? His shifts oddly, waving his hands as if trying to keep my attention.
“Don’t worry, your conclusions are not far off. It’s simply the dismissal of your own life that is wrong. For the Night Bringer is not the only ancient being you should fear, Caelynn of the Shadow Court.”
My eyes flick beyond the wraith to someone standing in the path before us. The wraith’s smoke body shifts to block the view. “There is someone inside these walls just as evil as the monster that haunts your dreams.”
“You’re distracting me,” I say.
His nose wrinkles.
I sidestep him to see a lovely black haired fae with a crown of swirling black magic on her head. My eyebrows pull down. The queen of the Whisperwood is here?
The wraith leaps back in front of me. “All for your own good, child.”
“What is this place?” I ask finally. We’ve walked half a mile without me noticing much of anything. Now that I’ve stopped to pay attention, the leaves above rustle with movement. They shift and pull, crunching beneath the feet of creatures unseen.
My breath comes quicker.
“The forest of desires,” he says, and I do recall him using that name once already. “Distraction is the best form of defense against this place.”
“It shows you the things you desire?” I ask, eyes casting around me.
“It deceives you. The creatures create illusions of your deepest desires to lure you in. Creatures who will devour you, body, and soul. They’ll hypnotize you into believing them.”
“And if you give in,” I start, and the queen in the trees just off the path takes off her crown and holds it out to me. That wouldn’t be such a bad way to die, would it? “If you get too close...”
“They will eat you alive. And you’ll thank them for it.”
I blink, remembering something important. “Where’s Rev?”
“Why should I know? Oh! Better question—why should I care?”
I groan and turn back.
“Rev!” I call. I sprint down the path of this simple forest of white trees, scanning the shadows for any sign of Rev. I stop when I see a couple dancing. She wears a masquerade mask and a black dress adorned with glistening crystals. He wears a clean black suit with a white tie and smile that makes my heart melt.
That was the day I met Rev.
That was the day I was ordered to kill him.
I step closer to the spinning couple, eyes pinned to them. The girl disappears and the boy—Rev of ten years ago, Rev whose brother is still alive, Rev who doesn’t know who I am, what I am—turns to me. His eyes are bright silver, innocent, happy. He holds his hand out to me.
Me. Real me.
Rev wants me.
I blink, heart aching.
“Caelynn!” the wraith calls to me. “It isn’t real.”
“I know,” I whisper, blinking again. “I was just thinking... Perhaps when this is all over and I’ve ensured Rev is safe and out of this place, his quest fulfilled, that I’d come back here. And I’d dance with him one more time, before—”
“NO!” the wraith growls, grabbing my arms. His grip cannot hold me, the smoke dissolves over me, but his magic sears shooting pain through my whole body. A wraith can’t physically move a living being, but it can certainly hurt one. It can easily kill me if it desires.
“Ow!” I yell, pulling away from him and rubbing the red patches of skin where he touched me. “That burned.”
“Look,” he tells me, pointing toward a tree trunk carved into the shape of arms reaching out. No, not carved. It is a person. His eyes are hollow, lifeless, his mouth open in a silent scream, begging. His fingers are curled, eager to grasp me.
“You turn in to that if you succumb to those desires.”
I swallow.
“This is where most soul’s journey ends. Stuck here where their desires are at their fingertips but never within reach.”
“Sounds like my life.”
“These creatures feed off your desperate desires, not your happiness. You’ll live a half-life. Stuck here with your own pain relived over and over again.”
I swallow. Okay, less pleasant than I’d imagined.
“There is no escape for these souls. No hope of passing on.”
I take in a long breath. “Where is Rev?” I ask again. “The real one.”
The wraith nods behind me to a form standing in the middle of the path. His mud-covered clothes are ripped and bloodied. What happened to him?
Next to him stands a blond female—me.
Rev
Caelynn stands before me, her eyes are so soft and gentle. She licks her lips and looks down at mine.
Not real, I tell myself. Not real.
I was warned about this forest; although, I hadn’t realized what I was walking into until the mirages started happening. My brother and I playing tag in the iridescent forest. The High Queen offering me her crown. My father kneeling before me.
And Caelynn. First, she sat laughing and talking with Reahgan as friends. An accepted part of my family.
That wasn’t something I’d ever even bothered to picture, but damn if it wasn’t the most beautiful sight. And therefore, the most painful.
This place is a slide show of all the things I’ll never have.
Then, Caelynn stepped toward me, slowly, deliberately. Lovely, young, unscarred, in a smooth white silk dress, beckoning to me. Her eyes are bright gold, and she runs her tongue over her plump bottom lip. I swallow.
Not real. Not real.
I can’t help but feel desire deep in my gut. The strap of her silky dress slips down her shoulder, and my mouth goes dry.
I take one small step toward her, my toe just hanging off the edge of the path. That’s when the trees reach for me. Their claws sharp as iron, slice into my arm before I pull away. Caelynn begins begging for my help, swallowed up in the vicious limbs.
My iron blade is out in an instant, and I desperately slash at the branches, trying to hook me like a damn fish. I cut through the branches surrounding me, trip back onto the dirt path, and scramble backward too far. My hand drops onto the grass—off the pathway.
An arm clasps me from behind, soft at first. She whispers in my ear, “I want you, Rev.”
&n
bsp; Then, her fingers dig into my chest, breaking the skin and dragging me back into the forest.
Suddenly, someone grabs my shoulder and throws me back into the dirt, the only safe place from the clawing trees and evil spirits, apparently.
The silky-dressed Caelynn stands right at the edge of the forest, her eyes just as soft and full of desire as before. I turn away from that Caelynn and toward—another one.
What the hell?
“It’s not real, Rev!” she shouts at me.
“You think I don’t know that?”
The silk-dressed Caelynn hisses at the other. I slice my iron blade through her chest and she shrivels away into dust.
The other Caelynn on the open pathway, where the trees cannot reach, is disheveled, her hair pinned awkwardly almost like it had been for the Queen’s gala except half fallen out. She wears new clothes—a leather ensemble I’ve never seen. Her boots are caked with mud. And a wraith stands behind her.
She steps back, her eyes dark and full of fear. This doesn’t seem like a mirage of desire. This feels... real.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My iron blade shakes in my hand.
Caelynn holds up her hands. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m real.”
“No,” I whisper. “No, you can’t be real. You have to be... something. Some kind of trick.” But something deep in my gut tells me not to hurt this Caelynn. My breathing comes faster, racing as if to keep up with my galloping heart. “You wouldn’t be here. Couldn’t,” I ramble on.
She reaches for me, and I stumble away, refusing to face—whatever this is. I have to get away from her. From the truth. Because if Caelynn is here... it means something is very wrong. It means everything is wrong.
I stumble and step off the path and into the awaiting claws.
Caelynn
“No! Rev!” I call after him, and he stumbles into the tree cover. They pull him in, swallowing him whole. “NO!”
“Don’t you dare— “my babysitter wraith cries just as I flee into the forest after him. The trees reach for me, white, mummy-like appendages with talon-like fingers.
Curse of Thorns (Wicked Fae Book 2) Page 14
