Page 58 of Crown of Chaos

“Real estate here isn’t as easy to find as the house hunting you described. Beggars don’t get to be picky in choosing hideouts.” Soraya rolled her eyes and placed a blanket over the skeleton. “Not to mention, this place only needs a little love and a woman’s touch to be amazing.”

“I’m sure it would go over well if the children slept in here.” I groaned, turning to take in the dark, dank smelling room. “It reeks.” It smelled musty, and there was something pungent I couldn’t quite place. “I hope Siobhan’s source comes through sooner rather than later. This is getting ridiculous. If she doesn’t reach her soon, we’ll need to consider creating a place, and I don’t think using that amount of magic will go unnoticed. Let alone the fact that it would take a lot to keep a barrier around it that is strong enough to keep all our enemies out.”

Esme grunted before she grabbed the bedding from the mattress and gagged when the smell became even worse. “Someone pissed in this bed. I suggest we do not use this room.”

She used her arm to cover her nose and tossed the blankets aside, revealing the corpse on the mattress.

“Can we go now, or do we want to stand around sniffing piss a little while longer?” Soraya asked, her gaze sparkling with amusement when no one spoke quickly enough, as if we were considering it.

“Agreed. Let’s get out of this room.” There was no way I was letting any of the kids in here, anyway. “I just want to find somewhere they can feel safe. I hate that we’re dragging them behind us while we run from assholes. They’ve been through a lot already.”

House hunting, on the other hand, was turning into a shit show Nine Realms edition. The moment we sat to rest our weary bodies, something or someone tried to murder us. Ember had to ensure the babes, children, and women we’d gradually been gathering were safe on more than one occasion. My magic reserves were refilled, but I didn’t want to tap them out in case something especially deadly turned up.

Sleep had become a thing of the past. Food was getting scarce and going into a town or village to buy it wasn’t possible. We’d taken to hiding in the woods and hunting smaller prey to feed the group. It wasn’t easy, and Ember had been right. I was a sucky hunter.

“We all have, Aria. You basically got told you were supposed to be a good girl and fucking die. That leaves a mark no matter how much you try to pretend otherwise. I can’t believe you allowed her to live after what she said.” Esme didn’t have a filter, which was part of the reason I liked her so much. I threw her a tight smile, and she lifted and dropped her shoulders without a shred of regret.

I walked back out into the hallway and leaned over the railing so I could see the girls huddled in the main room below. Siobhan and Avyanna had taken to them with ease, offering them comfort and soothing their fears while we’d traipsed around the Nine Realms, inching our way closer to where the keeper of the wind was hidden.

I exhaled the ache that refused to leave my chest and headed into the next room. The moment I opened the door, I froze on the threshold.

Inside sat a heap of bodies in varying stages of decay. My attention slid over the one on top, noting the blood still dripping from her mouth. The hair on my nape rose with awareness, and I roamed my gaze over the others in the pile, finding some missing one half of their body.

Pulling the door closed, I spun and found everyone right behind me. They’d seen what I had, and I didn’t need to tell them we were leaving. No one uttered a word as we proceeded toward the witchlings at a hurried pace, not stopping until we were right in front of them.

“Everybody up,” I stated softly, clapping my hands. “We’re moving now.” The back of my neck felt like ice was sliding over the skin, and it had taken effort to keep the fear from reaching my tone.

“They’re exhausted,” Siobhan argued, pushing her slender fingers through a child’s hair. “We all are, Aria.”

“There’s a stack of corpses upstairs. One still has blood oozing from her lips. We’re not alone here, Siobhan. We’re leaving—” A scratching noise sounded behind us, and dread skated down my spine as I slowly turned. The ghastly form of the creature currently blocking the exit wasn’t right, and looked mangled and malformed.

The children’s cries of shock mixed with the sinister sounds the creature made. The entire room filled with the stench of death and rot as the creature guarded the door, barring our badly needed escape.

The thing was taller than anything I’d seen before. Gaunt features pulled tightly over its bones, making its flesh appear translucent. The thing wasn’t wearing clothing, so it was hard to miss that it didn’t have male or female parts. There was an icy chill that wrapped around the room as it assessed us as though picking its next victim.

“Wendigo,” Esme uttered so softly that it was barely a breath.

My exhale fogged, and it was enough to snap me out of my fear enough to realize how sharply the temperature had dropped. Huge antlers scraped against the hallway walls as the thing moved closer, and I could hear Siobhan gathering the children behind her and Esme. Long, skeletal fingers lifted toward us, curling it as if inviting us to come closer. Instead, the entire room stepped back. It made me wonder if that actually worked.

He took another step toward us, then another, and the closer the creature got, the more defined its features became, and I could make out the fur growing in random spots. He was also growing. I had to mentally shake myself out of whatever trance he was creating inside the room.

Turning toward the secondary exit, I gasped when I found more of the gnarly creatures blocking off all chances of escape. They were cornering us, trying to lull the group into a sense of easiness with their hypnotic movements. They were oozing fumes into the air, expelling them while keeping us trapped in the claustrophobic space they encircled.

Fear was paralyzing everyone with a sense of hopelessness. The entire group had turned an ashen color, and the soft cries seemed to feed the creature’s strength. I kicked Esme’s leg, watching her lips part to release a choked sound from her lungs. Blinking slowly, I rounded my attention back to the creatures.

“Oh fuck around and find out, assholes,” I snapped, shooting magic through the doorways. Screaming erupted behind me as the girls slowly returned to their senses. “I told you this place wasn’t sanitary!” I growled, forcing the largest of them to his knees. “It also has a pest problem!”

“How were we supposed to know it was really a house of horrors?” Esme asked loudly, rolling her eyes heavenward before stepping closer to me.

We created a wall between our charges and the creatures. The issue was, we were currently the wall, and we’d been running and fighting so much lately that the others were depleted. Fighting our way through them wasn’t an option. We had too many children, and some couldn’t walk, let alone run. I could already hear more scraping their bony claws and horns over the walls to help their cohorts subdue us.

I laughed, but it came out strangled and irritated. “I literally said it was a house of horrors a few minutes ago!” I pushed more magic against the creatures, forcing them back toward the open doorways behind them.

“Yeah, after we were already inside! They’re spirits. Stop fucking energizing them!” she snarled, grabbing my wrist to stop the spell from zapping the creature to hold them back. “The more you use, the stronger they get. You just made wilder beast freaking wendigoes! We need a way out of here now!”

“Open the portal to the library!” I demanded, grabbing Siobhan by the hand so she held the key to do so. I guess it was a sort of key, in a way. In order for them to open one to the library, I had to be physically touching them. If they weren’t touching me, it didn’t work for them at all.

One creature moved, and I slammed my hand toward it, sending it sailing back down the hallway. It wailed and hurtled back at us before I’d even lowered my hand to my side. I did it again and again until the girls were through the portal, and once I was sure they were safe, I turned and stepped toward my exit. Something slammed into me from behind, and I cried out as flew forward and I went down hard.

---