Page 58 of A Touch of Poison
“Bastian?”
I cleared my throat and shook off amorphous plans and foolish hopes. “That’s right. Both my fathers started on that side. The Horrors were the main reason they turned.”
The things they’d made us do. Civilians, children included.
A sea of faces stare back at me, wide-eyed and afraid. A little girl clutches her mother’s hand, and I hear her whisper, “Where are we going?”
The way the mother looks at me, hollow-eyed and rigid—she knows. But she pats her daughter’s head. “Just a walk, sweetling. Just a walk.”
Every hair on my body stood on end, bringing me back to myself.
I took a shaky breath. “The town is just inside Horror territory, but the markings…” I rubbed my head. “Sorry, yes, the markings, I was meant to be telling you about those, wasn’t I?”
A deep line was etched between Kat’s eyebrows as she watched me struggle to explain something that should’ve been so simple.
Just facts and ideas. That was all. I straightened in the saddle. “One theory is that they weren’t so much created asbrought throughfrom somewhere else. A sentient species, perhaps, or almost one, sent mad by the magic used to control them. The markings could be the remnants of some kind of language, but no one’s ever heard them speak or managed to communicate with them. Rumours say the ones who conjured them could control them… but if you saw them now, you’d see how ridiculous that idea is. They have no control.”
That was the worst thing about them. Mindless destruction incarnate.
I’d seen Horrors twice before—sent on patrol as part of my training. Twice was more than enough.
“Others think the marks are nothing more than shapes they’ve seen in the flow of magic but don’t actually understand.” I tried to give Kat a reassuring smile. “We’re still a couple of hours away. Keep your bow ready, but if we are spotted by one, our best bet is to run. I’ll use my other self as a decoy so we can escape.”
Nodding, she squeezed the weapon mounted on her saddle. “Will my arrows harm them as they’d harm fae?”
My hand went to my Shadowblade. I’d traded illegally to get my hands on an unseelie weapon. It had taken years to pay back some of the favours. It was worth it.
“Probably not, but if you hit a weak point, that should slow them down or at least deter them. Their bodies are covered in hard carapaces. The only gaps are the eyes and armpits. I wouldn’t bother to tell most people, but I think you could actually hit the mark.”
The flush of pleasure that darkened her cheeks warmed the worst of the chill that had lingered in my bones since seeing the name of our destination. She turned away, but I caught the edge of the smile she tried to hide.
We rode on, that warmth growing more and more distant as dread ate it up.
I couldn’t shake the feeling something awful was going to happen in that town. Despite eating lunch, my stomach remained a pit, threatening to swallow me up.
Not long before midday, the birdsong stopped. I kept my shadows bound close. There was little magic to draw upon here, and if I let them spread, the Horrors would scent them. A little while later, I pointed out the marking on a boulder a few feet back from the road.
Kat swallowed, gaze tracing over the long upright line criss-crossed with short diagonals, a circle, and a triangle. “Is there anything else I should know about them?”
“Horrors can smell magic—it’s what they feed on.” I could barely smell it here, only really noticing its constant presence now it had faded. Kat’s was fresh and vibrant, like the first flowers of the year. “Can you sense it around you?”
Frowning, she stroked her arm. “Normally I can. A slight buzz on my skin, but…” She cocked her head as though listening. “It’s so faint now.”
“They’ve been feeding. Together with their carapaces, that’s what makes them so hard to kill. You can’t use magic on them directly. If I tried to attack with my shadows, they’d consume them. Only powerfully enchanted weapons work—something the magic is fixed in. Even then, if they got hold of it for a period of time, they would suck it dry.”
She grimaced, squeezing her bow.
The scent of its magic, green growth and leaf mulch, strengthened in response.
I nodded towards it. “Your bow is powerful—itmightwork, but you’d need arrows with a more potent enchantment to be sure.”
Her eyes narrowed, and I could practically hear her making a mental note to get better arrows. My billing account winced in response.
Still, knowledge was also power, so I continued feeding it to her in the hopes she wouldn’t ever need to rely on it. “The fact there’s any magic left tells us they don’t come here frequently, but as we go further, you’ll feel it less and less. At the centre of their territory, there’s none.” I shifted in the saddle, the thought of it not just wrong, but terrifying.
Unlike most fae, I drew from the world around me—evidence along with my eyes that my unseelie blood wasn’t just a rumour.
In a true dead zone, I would be powerless.
