Page 32 of The Shadowbound and the False God

“I heard him,” she said softly.

“Who, Kael?” Rodney looked down at her again, pulling his attention away from the roads.

“The Low One. He spoke to me during the vision, nightmare, whatever it was. I heard Him. He has Kael, I know He does.” That low, velveteen whisper haunted her thoughts, so loud in her mind it felt as though He was still in there, chanting the words over and over and over.

His basest desires. His creation. His basest desires.

“Back that way?” Rodney asked, peering over the top of Aisling’s head. He knew what she was thinking; she didn’t have to say it. She rarely did anymore—the two tended to land on the same page nine times out of ten, except when his plan was to leave her out of the plan entirely.

She nodded. Back that way—into the dark, into the depths of the forest. Closer to the malevolent entity whose whispers turned her stomach and sent ice through her veins.

Rodney stepped around her and began walking. When she didn’t follow, he paused and looked over his shoulder. “You coming?”

She had to. She had little choice.

Aisling jogged to catch up and stuck close to his side. The night was growing colder, the air still damp and humid from the rain that seemed to have fallen only in her wake. As they walked, she shed her wet sweater and the chainmail tunic and pulled on the dry spare she had rolled in her pack. Beside her, Rodney became more and more pensive as the silence stretched.

“I don’t know if I can do it, Ash,” he said, finally giving voice to the fear she knew he’d been wrestling with since they’d arrived. “The magic here, it’s…it’s a lot more than I know how to handle.”

“I feel it too.” It was in the air, in the trees and bracken and soil. She could feel it beneath her feet and pressing against her skin and filtering in and out of her lungs as she breathed. She thought if she concentrated hard enough, she might be able to reach out and seize a fistful of it to keep tucked in her pocket. The power of it was stifling and electrifying all at once.

He paused, then mumbled, “I don’t want to let you down.”

“We’ll figure something out. Let’s just cross that bridge when we get to it, okay?” It helped, comforting someone else. As terrified as Aisling was, taking a moment to reassure her friend lightened the heavy weight on her heart, if only slightly.

“I’m sorry about this, too.” Rodney gestured again to his appearance. “I know it’s not exactly what you were expecting.”

Aisling shrugged. “I like you as you,” she assured him, repeating the sentiment he’d once said to her. “Whichever form that happens to be.”

He nudged her with his elbow, looking down to hide his smile and the ruddy blush that spread across his cheeks.

Nudging him back a bit harder, she added, “And anyway, at least now you can grow that facial hair you’ve always wanted.”

Their walk was long, and winding, and although everything looked the same, Aisling could have sworn it had looked completely different when she’d passed through not long before. She couldn’t quite pinpoint the change, but she felt certain that the trail she’d walked down was now leading them someplace new entirely.

Both paused when they noticed a faint orb light perched on the trunk of a tree ahead. Cautiously, they approached. The light quivered, dimming and wavering as though the slightest breeze might snuff it out. Aisling climbed over a rotting log to reach it.

It was a Luna moth. Devoid of all color, it glowed an eidolic shade of pale white. Gently, so gently, she brushed a finger over one spectral wing. It was then that she sensed it: life. Life, where there should be none. And just as she’d recognized that first caress of shadow that bit into her neck and left a mark across her skin, she recognized this, too:Kael. She could feel him in the phantom moth, feel his heartbeat in its fragile body.

As if it could hear what was in her heart, too, it fluttered once.Kael.With a graceful sweep of its wings, the Luna moth took flight. It danced through the air in sweeping, looping patterns. Aisling stared at it as it moved, rapt. She was mesmerized by the way its glow seemed to linger in its path—the ghost of a ghost. Without thinking, she chased after it.

“Ash,” Rodney barked sharply as she left him, and the trail, behind.

“We have to follow it,” she urged. “It’s Kael, I know it is. He wants me to follow it.”

Rodney caught up to her in several long, frantic strides and seized her by the elbow. She let him stop her, but her eyes remained on the Luna moth as it dipped deeper into the forest. Tightening his grip, he demanded, “What if it’s not? What if the Low One sent it to lure you in?”

“It’s the same outcome either way, isn’t it? If I find one of them, I’ll find them both.”

“I don’t like it, Ash,” he warned, but she was already gone.

Cold, unrelenting dread pooled in Aisling’s gut. It spread, minute by minute, down her limbs as she walked. It froze her fingers and toes, made her muscles tense and twitch. Ice had long since solidified in her chest to encase her lungs, making each breath she sucked through chattering teeth an increasingly challenging endeavor. The Luna moth flitted on ahead, floating gracefully, carrying steadily on despite the way its glow occasionally dimmed.

If she could have kept her eyes solely on those pale wings and the iridescent light that trailed from their tips, she might have been able to ignore the ever-increasing trepidation that turned her thoughts grim and her mouth dry. As it was, she couldn’t help glancing around every few steps when the feeling of being watched became too great to ignore.

She wished she’d resisted.

Not ten paces away, a male stood Fae-still in the deepening shadows, both arms outstretched to either side. At the elbows, they transformed into spindly, too-long branches. His head waswrapped in pliant bark like a crude mask, bound roughly with twine to hold it in place. Though the mask obscured his lips, Aisling thought he’d speak to her if she lingered long enough nearby. More of them filtered into focus, camouflaged amongst the trees and brush. They’d been nearly invisible until she’d noticed the first. Now, they were everywhere, dozens of them, all frozen in the same position. All waiting to whisper to her, to plead with her to help them—or, maybe, to remain there as one of them.

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