Page 222 of Vasmora

Smiling again, I rolled my eyes. “I’ll see you at training.”

“Yes. And if you’re not there, I’m sending Branimir’s spiders to come fetch you from the hellscape of that Lexicon.”

“Sounds fair.”

As soon as she sauntered out of the library, I turned my attention back toward the puzzle book, sifting through the delicate pages. “I’m never going to solve this on my own,” I muttered.

A sketch caught my attention. In it, a beautiful woman, draped in green silks, held her rounded belly. Surrounding light and foliage gave her an ethereal appearance. Angelic. I flipped through to another sketch. In that one, an obscure figure, whose eyes glowed a bright orange and red that reminded me of Zevander’s, stood surrounded by black flames. Deimos, no doubt. I stared down at the script just below the image. Daęmok.

It must’ve been the Primyrian form of the word.

The gods.

I skimmed the pages to the next sketch, which showed a familiar creature that sent a chill across the back of my neck. A spidery figure with a skull-like face and long, segmented legs. Pestilios. The Primyrian term read as marâshj.

Flipping a few more pages brought me to another sketch. The figure was familiar, though she looked far more terrifying than whenever I’d seen her. Long, black hair and deep sunken eyes shadowed her ghostly white skin. A visage of death that seemed more fitting than the youthful face she’d worn any time she’d visited me in Caligorya. Morsana.

I trailed my finger down the page to a word just below her sketch.

Prâsj.

Using the book as a guide, I scrolled through each row of letters on the puzzle and as I clicked the last into place, the wooden page popped and bounced, the click of mechanisms breaking loose on the other side. I turned the page over for a painting of what I imagined to be the Grymswood tree, given the somber face carved into the bark. Below the face glowed a bright red light, the details of the painting so incredibly vivid and lifelike, I leaned closer for examination. Every grain of the tessellated bark seemed too realistic to have been captured by a paintbrush, and when I ran my finger over it, the rough texture scraping over my skin, I drew back with a gasp.

The red light seemed to pulse, and looking closer, through a dark opening in the trunk, a small object sat tucked inside. Beckoning me. I reached out my hand, hesitating a moment. Warmth met my fingertips as they palpated the opening and sank into the page.

Gasping, I recoiled, flexing my hand as a strange vibration tingled across my knuckles.

Did I imagine that?

I blinked and shook my head, attempting to banish the lingering ache of sleep from my eyes.

Again, I pressed my fingertip through the page into the opening, and a force from the other side drew me in, as if something were tugging my hand from beyond the page.

It swallowed my palm, my wrist, and when I drew back again, my hand wouldn’t emerge.

“Damn it!” I braced one palm against the table, my other nearly up to my elbow inside the book. “Let go!” I tugged, but the book refused to release me, drawing me in up to my shoulder, the vibration humming through my bones. “Help!”

I screamed as it tugged at my collarbone.

Flames streaked across my scalp as my hair got yanked toward the page, until my temple pressed against it. “Help me!”

My head slipped through, a loud humming buzzing in my ear as I followed after my outstretched arm into what felt like a tunnel too tight for my body. The narrow walls scraped over the dress I wore, tearing the lace at the sleeves.

Breaths panted in and out of me as panic settled into my chest that damn near collapsed with the tight squeeze. “Help me!”

I flailed my arm, hysterics wracking my nerves, and to my relief, my hand swung freely. The tight passage gave way to what must’ve been the other side of the tree, and I stared down at a five-meter drop to the ground below, though it was difficult to discern in the surrounding darkness. As if I’d passed right through the tree.

My upper half slid further, and I clutched rough bark that slid across my arms and chest as my hips passed through, followed by my legs, as the tree spit me out.

There was no escaping the fall.

My feet slipped out from the hole, and I plummeted. Air rushing past me muffled the scream that tore from my throat.

The ground slammed into my left flank, sharp pain spiraling up my arm into my shoulder, and I let out a painful moan, turning onto my other side, coughing as every breath arrived strangled.

An unsettling cold snaked through my blood as I peered down at the mossy carpet beneath me, the surface of which reminded me of gray, wrinkled skin, the way it contracted into tight ridges.

I craned my neck toward where I’d fallen, watching a diminishing black hole fade in the tree trunk.