Page 47 of Wilds of Wonder
I had a feeling if she wanted to attack me, she already would have.
“Fine,” I said and closed my hand into a fist, extinguishing the fire. “I couldn’t see very well and needed a light.”
And a weapon, but she didn’t need to know that part.
She circled me, her tail whipping behind her, then curling around my leg. “What’s a handsome man like you doing in my forest?”
“I’m looking for someone, actually. Maybe you’ve seen her?”
She tapped her chin with a long claw. “Maybe.”
This was already getting tiresome. I was used to challenges, but the stakes had never been so high. The stakes had never beenAnnalee’s life. “She’s got black hair, long, thin braids that hang down past her shoulders. I don’t know what she’s wearing, probably a dress?”
It had been that long since I’d seen her. I didn’t even know if she liked dresses anymore.
“She’s nineteen.” I lined my hand with my chest. “Comes up to here.”
Maybe. She might’ve grown. Bloody fire. I couldn’t even give a proper description of her.
The cat woman’s tail had wrapped tighter around my legs as she flashed a big smile that revealed all those shiny sharp teeth. “Come to think of it, that does sound familiar.”
I raised a brow.
“I believe she went . . . that way.”
She pointed east with her tail, west with one finger, and south with the other. Every direction except north, the way from which I had come. There was always a catch.
“You can’t even give me a clue?” I asked.
Her yellow eyes narrowed to slits. “A clue.” She pursed her lips, whiskers twitching. “Yes, a clue. What a fun idea.” She glanced at her hands and tail, still pointing in all different directions. “Two of these ways will lead to her. One will lead to your death.”
I flashed her a tight smile. “I’m not sure you know what the word ‘clue’ means.”
She hissed at me, and I held up my hands. Annalee had told me this cat-like woman could be temperamental.
Also not very helpful.
One way would lead to my death, but the other two ways would lead to Annalee. That’s what she’d said. That gave me a two-thirds chance of going the right way. In any other situation, I might have liked those odds. But not when my life—and Annalee’s—was at stake. I stared at the ground, at my black boots that blended in with the shimmery black forest floor.
I opened my mouth to ask the cat woman another question, but when I looked up, she had disappeared. Maybe this land was doing something to my mind, making me see things like Annalee had. My jawlocked. I’d gone down that path before. I hadn’t believed her. I’d failed her. I wouldn’t do so again.
I turned in a semi-circle, seeing through the black trees to a road that wound around what looked like ginormous plants with thick green stalks, each as tall as a tower. And at the top of the stalk were huge red heads, wide and flat, no eyes or ears, but they did have gaping mouths lined with thorny teeth. A skeletal bird flapped past them and they all dove their heads toward it, jaws hinging open, all of the plant heads fighting to get the creature. One of them stretched its neck high and chomped the bird from the air.
Not ideal. I peered to my left, where the forest thickened with bramble. Instead of trees, thorn-saddled bushes filled the area, a green substance spitting from their points. Splats of it landed on the ground, sizzling, the ground melting away, gaping holes forming. Also not ideal. When I turned the other way, the trees were bent, their branches reaching toward the ground with sharp, claw-like ends.
It looked like every damn way led to death—except the way I’d come. Maybe the cat woman was just toying with me, playing games. Maybe it didn’t matter which way I chose in the end. So I just needed to choose.
I stared ahead at the chomping plants, which had calmed down now that the skeletal bird was gone, their stalks slumped and relaxed, their giant plant mouths closed.
That way it was. One step closer to finding Annalee.
I steeled myself and walked toward the plants. A branch cracked underfoot. Their stalks straightened and their mouths began snapping at the air. I froze, waiting and watching as they slowly settled again, slumping down. So they reacted to noise. If I could be quiet, I could sneak past them. Feeling more confident in my plan, I inched forward, taking slow, measured steps.
I held my hands out to steady myself, working my way out of the forest and onto the black-dusted path that wound through these strange, strange plants. As with everything in this world, I’d never seen anything so wondrous and terrifying, and I had a burning desire to know what created all of this. Dark magic, maybe? I knew of the magical items that lay in the jungles of Sorrengard. The shadow court wasinfamous for them, objects created when a shadow elemental used their magic to rip someone’s shadow from their body. The objects ranged from mirrors that could answer any question to cups that were always lined with poison to necklaces that could make one invisible. Some brave souls ventured to the shadow court to steal those items. They held great power, but the magic always came at a cost. The price could be anything. Could it be something like this? Did someone use dark magic and the Deadlands paid the price, everything becoming deformed and twisted?
Another step.
I’d never heard of the dark magic wielding that much power. The cost was proportional to the magic used. If you used the dark magic to take a life, for example, the cost could be another life. If you used the dark magic to heal a small wound, the cost might be less—like losing your magic for a few months. But a cost that could turn an entire court into this? Something that could twist everything so it became distorted, monstrous? The dark magic used would have to be astronomical.
