Page 46 of The Court the Fae Forgot
If it weren’tfor another fae, a fae with a clear head and a sword he’d already promised to me, I’d never have escaped the Wildness.
The Wildness was a cruel place on its own.
It drew me in with honey and wine, the promise of a dream I could share with my sister, one where I finally, actually saved her from the pain I hoped she’d never have to endure. Then, the moment it knew it had me, the moment I reached out my hand and was supposed to grasp hers—I felt nothing.
Nothing, because she wasn’t there.
But something else was.
“Aurra!”
Zev’s voice pierced through the delusion like a blade, shattering the image of my sister and with it, the bright, cool forest I’d thought I’d followed her into. All around me, the forest had grown so thick that even the harsh heat of summer couldn’t permeate it. The air was more than cool, it wascold,a heavy, wet draft carrying up from the bottom of a crevasse that cut through the earth just one step ahead of me.
The earth was damp and slippery, so soft that it had already begun to crumble beneath my feet. One wrong step, one more step toward my now long-gone sister, and I’d have lost my footing. I’d have tumbled forward into the deep, wet pit and surely never come out.
“Aurra, take a step back right now,” Zev said, his voice once more breaking through the last of the haze still clogging my mind. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of his hands on the hilt of his sword, his eyes scanning the empty forest as his other hand reached out to me, as if he expected something far more real than the phantom that had dragged me out here to appear.
He was right to be afraid. I had a feeling that if the Wildness couldn’t get us with its illusions, that was the very next step.
A great sigh escaped the crevasse in front of me as if it was alive. Warm, wet air hissed out of the opening, stinking of rot and death—of the corpses that had been lured into it before me. Whether it was more illusion or reality, for a moment, the crevasse widened slightly as if it was a mouth, allowing me to see into its belly.
I saw the bones, the bodies, the flesh and flies.
I saw how close I’d come to joining them.
That,thatwas what finally snapped me into action.
The ground beneath my feet shifted as the sighing earth returned to its place. My foot slipped. My arms wheeled overhead.
But before I could pitch forward to meet my fate between the thick, earthy maws of this stinking pit, Zev’s hand caught mine.
It was not enough.
Though Zev pulled me tight toward him, the earth beneath us started to heave harder. It rumbled and roiled as roots sprung from the earth, shooting toward us to wrap us in their grasp. I kicked and twisted with Zev, trying to keep them from grabbing hold of us, but eventually one wrapped around my ankle and pulled.
Hard.
It pulled hard enough to yank me from the fae’s grasp, his voice screaming out a terrified shout as I was pulled along the earth toward that rotting trench.
My hands scrabbled in the earth, reaching for roots and rocks and grass—anything to hold onto, anything to keep me from being pulled into that black abyss. But now the roots sprung away from me, writhing out of my grasp like snakes so there was nothing to grab.
This was it. The Wildness had me, and it was not giving me back.
But then I heard a sound, something like a great wind rushing through the trees so loud that it was deafening—but it was nothing compared to the sound of the roar that followed. In Zev’s place, where the fae had once stood, desperately battling to follow after me a moment before, was a bear so massive it defied logic.
And it was coming straight for me.
But it was too late. The Wildness had already gotten me. I was tipping over the edge, my fingers digging into black soil as they made one last desperate reach for something to hold onto, finding nothing more than earthworms and shifting leaves.
But the bear wasn’t afraid of the pit.
It roared once more and barreled over my head, its great body tumbling into the pit ahead of me. It landed without fear in the belly of this bloodless monster, sinking knee deep in the remains of those who’d not been so lucky before me. It bellowed once as I was pulled over the edge, but before I could join it, it leapt up and caught hold of the vine that had ensnared me—its wickedly sharp teeth snapping it in two.
I fell still, but instead of into the pit, I fell into the mound of already moving fur that was the bear.
At least there, I found something to cling to.
It was all I could do to hold onto Zev as he clawed his way back out of the pit so desperate to engulf us. We emerged from it with a final roar, but didn’t stop there. The bear barreled forward until the darkness began to recede, until the branches and roots that had moved of their own accord were barely a memory. We didn’t stop until the trees thinned and the sun shone and together we tumbled out of the forest into the heat of the clearing where our things remained, untouched, as if nothing at all had happened.
