Chapter 13
What once feltlike a forest of magic has now become a haunted graveyard. After Shaye’s tales, we walk in silence for most of the morning. Every forgotten house, left to ruin and rot, is now a tombstone in my eyes. Every tree is a marker of some fallen fae, butchered in their beds so that this Boltov family could rule unquestioned.
There’s a deep ache in me I can’t explain. Human. Fae. Suffering is universal. It’d be impossible to look on this barren landscape and not feel sorrow for the horrors that have been wrought.
Maybe it’s those stories and their uncomfortable truths that helps me at least compartmentalize what happened with the Butcher. It wasn’t as if I meant to kill him. The magic acted on its own. Moreover, if I didn’t take his life, he was certain to kill me. And…it doesn’t sound like he was someone innocent of atrocities, either. Maybe by ending his life, I saved another? That’s a dangerous logic. But I need to keep my sanity together somehow right now.
I don’t really have hours in the day to allocate to having an emotional breakdown. Too busy surviving.
As dawn breaks, the little motes of light rise from the moss and begin to dance among the trees once more. They illuminate the air, buzzing around me with a happiness that is now muted by the truth. I wonder if they are actually spirits of murdered fae. But that’s one curiosity I won’t indulge.
We move without incident throughout the day. Everyone remains on alert, scanning the horizon lines at all points. Giles and Shaye have taken wide sweeps of the woods around us, remaining within view, but far enough that they can see around distant trees and look across ridges that might be too high for the rest of us.
Hol, Oren, Davien, and I remain in a pack. Oren and Davien at the front, Hol and I behind. Though there isn’t much conversation happening.
Just like Davien promised, we hike all day through the woods. My stomach is practically roaring by nightfall and my feet are aching. It doesn’t matter how soft the moss is, the support of a pair of shoes would make all the difference for my throbbing feet.
“We should break for dinner,” Hol says, loud enough that it gets Davien and Oren’s attention.
“We need to keep moving.” In contrast to his words, Davien stops. “We can’t rest until we’re in Acolyte territory.”
“I’m not saying rest. I’m saying stop for food.” Hol glances back in my direction and then back to Davien with a pointed look. “Just a short break.”
Davien’s eyes settle on me. I purse my lips as I can feel him assessing me from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet. Shaye’s earlier words stick with me and I try to hold my head high, even though I know I currently possess all the dignity of a disheveled raccoon.
“Do you need to stop?” he asks me.
“I can keep going,” I force myself to say when all I want is to shout, Five minutes please! I’m not going to slow them down. And the faster I help him get this magic out of me, the faster I can go home and get out of this deadly situation that I was never meant to be in.
“Good, we carry on then.”
“Davien—”
“Your true king has spoken.” Davien cuts off Hol with a glare. “If we keep walking, we should cross the Crystal River by dawn.”
“Very well.” Hol folds his arms.
“Sire, true king, permission to speak freely?” Shaye has perched herself on the top of a rock we’re passing by. She’s been close enough to overhear the whole conversation.
“Granted,” he growls.
“You’re being an ass.” Shaye smirks. “That is all.”
Davien huffs and puts his back to us, storming off. I think I see Oren give the slightest bit of a chuckle. There was no smoke attached with Shaye’s comment…which means she was telling the truth about him being an ass—at least as far as she sees it. I bite back a snicker.
But a few hours later, I don’t even have the energy for playful amusements. Right foot. Left foot. That’s all I have the strength for.
Right foot, left foot, I echo in my mind as I move. I’m telling my legs to bend while begging my feet to hold me upright. I thought I knew the depths of strength I could draw from—what I was capable of accomplishing when forced to. But this is shattering every previous notion and putting more to the test.
All at once, the trees break and the sound of rushing water assaults my ears. I blink, standing at the edge of a riverbank unlike any I’ve ever seen. It’s lined not with sand, or rock, but crystal. Hundreds of thousands of shimmering shards reflect the moonlight like glass. Magic swirls underneath the water, split into a thousand fractals by the stones.
“This must be the Crystal River,” I murmur with relief.
“It is,” Shaye affirms.
Without warning, she scoops me up into her strong arms. I wrap my arms around her neck like I did with Davien. Even my arms feel tired. Though who knows how… I didn’t even use them at all today.
Shaye leaps into the sky, flapping her butterfly wings behind her. Hol is at our side, using a pair of white bat-like wings that he dismisses with a thought on the opposite bank. Shaye’s flight is stronger and more sure than Davien’s. She had mentioned something about Davien being weakened by being cut off from the magic of this world. Perhaps that’s why his wings have that perpetually tattered look to them.
