Page 32 of The Lustrous Dark
Shay could try to find her and ask her to explain it all, but Hind lies as easily as birds break into song. Here's what she knows: The direction opposite of where the hoofmarks are pointing will take her back to Ghita's condemnation and certain disgrace, while following them will lead her straight into her mother's web of lies and betrayal.
There may still be some way for Shay to salvage her apprenticeship. Failing that, Ghita at least deserves an explanation. After all she's invested in Shay.
But the midwife did suggest it's time for Shay to find her own solutions.
After waffling longer than she cares to admit, Shay makes the only choice she was ever going to.
Shay jumps at each shuffle in the brush, every distant wail. Crickets warble and insects trill, their pitch so high, her teeth lock. Having been unconscious for the journey, she has no idea how deeply into the forest she was carted, and the more she walks, the surer she becomes that Hind played her for a fool.
By the red glow of a not-right moon, she painstakingly follows the wheel tracks. The darkness is unhelpful enough without a trail that behaves wonkily to slow her down. It often disappears into the base of a large trunk or a tight stand of trees, only to mysteriously emerge on the other side.
She steps over a root poking up from the ground and avoids a sneaky pothole, but stumbles smack into a sticky web moments later. A spider the sizeof a dinner plate scuttles over her foot. Her nerves get so frazzled, she spends twenty beakers in one place, unable to determine whether it's a boulder up ahead or a hungry bear ready to pounce.
Shay knows waiting for sunrise would be wiser. The problem is, if she stops moving, she could fall asleep here. That isn't an option. Since she was young, Ghita and the other khalat have warned her and every other child in Mekchaouen about the dangers of the forest. Their young minds were filled with tales of children who played too close to the edge and disappeared, never to be seen again.
They say there's a tree that produces only rotten apples. That whoever eats one will see their own death. Spirits, appearing as dead loved ones, lure people into lakes to be drowned or onto rocky outcroppings from which they plunge to their demise. It's even possible the voices she heard, or thought she heard, belonged to such forest spirits—another reason not to attempt further contact.
Teetering on the edge of exhaustion, Shay stops to rest on a fallen log. That's when she first smells it.
A delicious sweetness infiltrates her senses. A scent so sugary and rich, so fruity and mouthwatering, she can't help but follow it to the edge of the forest. She's so enchanted as she stumbles through the clearing that the scene before her doesn't register right away. In fact, for the briefest moment, she imagines she took the other route after all and has arrived safely in Nezjar.
But no.No.
This is not her medina with its neat blue buildings and alleys awash with life.
This is someplace else entirely.
A place where abandoned-looking buildings crouch as though afraid, their crumbling facades caked with grime. Where thuja trees line the streets, bared of all but their prized wood. Their shorn branches rise like arms begging mercy from God, sharp-beaked vultures nesting in their crooks.
A sleek carriage coasts along a cracked red clay road, drawn by ghastly skeleton horses. Unlike the forest creatures, which seemed only half dead, these horses are entirely composed of gleaming, fleshless bone. Bright, floating orbs occupy the sockets where their eyes should rest.
Shay gasps, but the sound comes out more like a death wheeze.
She closes her eyes. Opens them. The vision before her remains unaltered.
This can only be Ard Al-Ghul, a place where the monsters are hungry and humans are the bill of fare. Whatever reason Hind has for coming here, Shay sees no sign of her now, and the trail she left behind goes no farther.
But thatsmellstill hangs in the air. Even stronger than before.
Glory to heaven, what isthat?
Shay knows better than to step one toe into Ard Al-Ghul. At least, her brain does. Her stomach, however, protests quite loudly. More of the syrupy scent carries to her on a breeze. She licks her lips, thinking it won't hurt just to see where it's coming from.
11
I know what I saw. It was a large wagon attached to a team of six horses, but they weren't normal horses. These were skeletons with glowing eyes. I'd have thought they were ghosts if I didn't hear them whinny and nicker with my own ears. It was like something out of Ard Al-Ghul, but sitting right there on the street behind the kasbah, near the back entrance where deliveries are made. And before you ask, no, I haven't touched a lick of pomroot ale in moons.
—overheard at the local bathhouse
Athick mist rolls and ebbs through the air, pulsing like a heart. Shay stands before the curves and spires of an iron gate, scrolled out like the prettiest of cages. Behind it hulks a building comprised of multiple towers with domes shaped like onions, the whole structure clad in dark wood shingles of mismatched size and formation. If a place can be said to stare, this one does so with a level of malice that makes her skin crawl, her skinswarm.
She kneads her arms, whispering a blessing of protection. Beyond the gate, the mist is dotted with bushes. Upon them dangle clusters of bright, round wanderberries, their red skin luminous in the rose-tinted moonlight. Were they any closer, she could reach between the iron slats and grab one. She'd rub it inside her wrist to double-check that they're really wanderberries and not the near look-alike but extremely poisonous widowberries.
Shay steps closer. The tip of her nose meets the smooth iron, her stomach panging with hunger. A shadow flutters through the shrubbery, feathers and leaves shivering in a dark green blur. When they still, Shay beholds the form of a beautiful bird.
Its feathers shine a deep, iridescent purple. Its eyes glint a dark jade green. The massive bird wastes no time perching on top of a bush with thin branches that should bow under its weight. It snatches berries in its beak and swallows them one after another.
An involuntary moan escapes Shay's lips.
