Page 38 of From Frost to Flame

His mind was jumbled between past and present. Tombstones sprouted between the thorny branches, and he wasn’t sure what was real.

“There!” a voice called from the distance.

The mob.They’re coming back. I’m not going back in the ground. I’m not.He ran into the prickly brambles and pressed onward. The thorns scratched at his hands and face as he forced himself through their branches. He almost crashed headfirst into a random harpy warrior statue posed in the middle of the brush, its body covered in tangled rose branches. No matter how far he ran, the voices kept following.

“I see his footprints.”

“This way.”

“Lex!”

He hoped the sound of his ragged breath and rosebushes scratching against his cloak weren’t leading his captors to him.

Finally, through the maze of rosebushes, Lex stumbled onto a magnolia tree. It stretched high over the brambles and its top branches kissed the black sky. Its bark and leaves were a shiny ebony as if covered by a thin layer of rain. Its white flowers were as big as Lex’s head.

Too exhausted to keep running and unsure from which direction the calls were coming, he sank down at the foot of the tree, nestling himself between two of its roots that curved high above his head. He covered his ears, squeezed his teary eyes shut, and hoped the mob wouldn’t notice him hidden in the tree’s shadow.

Just leave me alone. I won’t hurt anyone. I won’t.

A hand touched his leg.

In a white-hot panic, he lifted his hand and, with all the energy he had left in him, ignited the person touching him.

“Ahh!” a familiar voice screamed. “Fuck! Lex, it’s us!”

Lex stared at a soaking wet Julian who’d fallen backward and curled into himself, sobbing. Wind whipped around him, making a mini cyclone of dust as he screamed in pain.

Lex’s muscles throbbed, and the world blurred.

They can’t be here. Where am I?

“Julian!” Mora cried, running over to him. She got on her knees and pressed her damp cloak to his face. In frantic pats, she snuffed out the flames on his skin. “I’m here. Let me look at you. I know it hurts, but stay still.”

A man walked toward him with his hands up. “Lex, try to relax.”

“Go away!” Lex recoiled.Nothing makes sense.“Don’t touch me.”

“It’s Castor. Look at me.” The man stopped in place and pointed to himself. “You know me. We’re friends.”

In the pale light of the moon, he could vaguely make out Castor’s face, but he didn’t trust his mind, so he stayed on guard.

“Can you tell me where Silas is?” Castor pressed. “You have some blood on your clothes. Did my brother get hurt?”

Lex shook his head. He was back in his little village from his human life, but the vicious screams of a mob were intermingled with his family’s voices.

They can’t all be here. This doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.

“I don’t—um. I don’t.” He struggled to explain himself, but he couldn’t hear his thoughts over Julian’s crying and the mob getting closer.

“It’s okay, Little One. You’re safe.”

This voice made everything else in the world go quiet. The warmth of it covered him like a blanket. Lex looked over his shoulder. Coming through the foliage, slick with water and with his salt and pepper hair in tousled waves, was Silas.

“You look a little lost.” He sat in the dirt next to Lex among the knobby roots and held out his hand. “How about I help you? We can figure out where you are together.”

In the new quiet space Silas gifted him, Lex could breathe.

Silas is real. I know that. Even if nothing else makes sense, I know he’s safe.

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