Page 41 of Daughter of the Darkened City

The path wound around, the wind rustling through the trees. No chill from the day before remained. Instead, an oppressive heat seeped in. Kaemon walked ahead of them, his head shifting from side to side, looking for any signs of the rest of their group.

“Stop fighting it,” a dark, grumbling voice said a little way away.

Avenay would bet money that the voice was Dryston’s.

“I’m going to slice your throat and watch you bleed out like a pig,” a female voice growled in response.

Onora. That was for sure, Onora.

They came around the bend, and Avenay raised her brows at the sight. Onora’s hands were bound behind her back, with Dryston holding the ropes to direct her. The look on Onora’s face showed she was ready to make good on her threat to Dryston.

Dryston gestured angrily in their direction. “As you can see, they aren’t dead. I didn’t kill them.”

The anger slipped away from Onora’s face as her gaze darted from one person to the next. The same haunted expression that the others had after their hallucinations showed on her face.

“Is this another illusion?” she asked.

“It’s not,” Vasu said, stepping forward. “We’ve dispelled the one you were seeing.”

Dryston took out a dagger and cut the restraints off. She jumped away from him, rubbing her wrists and shooting him a glare.

Vasu walked up to her, took her hands and muttered a spell. Onora closed her eyes, sucking in a ragged breath.

“What was that?” Avenay asked when they’d finished.

“A grounding spell. Onora is struggling to tell reality from illusion. The grounding spell helps clarify her brain by connecting her to the truth of earth elements,” Vasu replied.

Onora opened her eyes, and while she still had her usual harsh expression, the murderous rage had left. Crossing his arms, anger still flashed in Dryston’s eyes. What had happened between them? Onora’s gaze flicked to him for a moment before she rolled her eyes and turned back to Vasu.

“We’re off track. We need to continue towards the river which should be west. This path is further east than we were yesterday.”

“It looks the same as the path,” Dryston said.

Onora pointed to a variegated blue vine. “Those a Holis Anderas. It stops growing at a certain elevation. We hadn’t seen it for miles yesterday.”

Dryston pursed his lips, only giving a curt nod of his head.

“This way,” Onora said, cutting through the grass and heading through the thick of the forest.

They’d hiked for hours with no sign of the old path. Onora was at the front, aggressively hacking away at the brush, never tiring, even as the rest of the group’s energy flagged.

“What happened between you two?” Enid whispered to Dryston from the back of the line.

Avenay was in the middle, as always, and she stretched her hearing to pick up what they said. Maybe she shouldn’t, but… what had happened?

“She attacked me,” Dryston said.

“What did you do?” Enid asked, and Avenay bit her lip to stifle a laugh.

“Nothing,” Dryston growled.

“She just attacked you out of nowhere?”

“She was crying out, and I came across her. I took her by the shoulders to try to get her out of the illusion, and she started slashing at me, saying I’d killed Vasu and Avenay.”

“That must have been her illusion. She was in mine.”

That was interesting.

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