Page 73 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
My fingers trailed over the dark moss clinging to the tree trunks, finding old carvings into the wood. Familiar fey markers. Prayers to the ancestors to ward off evil.
This was the right place, but I felt no comfort in that.
A cracking of wood made me glance up. There, in the distance, was a pale figure partially obscured by the trees. Her hair was unbound and swept across her face, yet undisturbed by the wind - fear in her pale eyes. The translucent quality of her as if formed from moonlight.
A spirit.
There was a sharpness to her features, and a striking point to her ears. She was an aurrak. An ancient being, one of the many descended from Kysillians.
I rose slowly, trying to seem unthreatening, but she still ran. A flare of white in the night, like starlight streaking through the dark of the wood.
‘Wait !’ I called, hurrying after her, tripping on brambles and rotting wood as I charged headlong into the dark. I’d seen spirits before, but not like her. No so clear, or so distressed.
I ran until my lungs burned with the night air, lonely puffs of breath before me as I twisted around, only to find myself alone in the vastness of the wood.
She’d been going somewhere, and not back to the village. No. I was too deep in the wood. On the edge of a steep embankment of rocks and roots. The screeching cry of a nocturnal beast made my heart leap into my throat, panic settling in my gut. I didn’t know the way back.
The earthy scent of rotting wood weighted every breath.
The cracking of a twig spun me around, magic flaring into my palms with brutal heat as I turned, lavender flames illuminating the startled face of William, a lantern almost slipping from his hand where he stood in the overgrowth, breaths panted, and hair mused.
‘What are you doing? !’ I snapped, clenching my fists to extinguish my defensive spell. ‘I could have hurt you !’
‘Emrys said you’d been hurt,’ he protested, eyes wide with confusion. ‘He went half bloody mad ! Almost put a hole through the study wall !’
I frowned. ‘Really?’Kat, forgive me. The memory of his note flashed to the forefront of my mind before I shook it away. ‘You shouldn’t be out here, William.’
‘I’m so sorry about Montagor, Kat. I left the portal door unlocked after a delivery. Emrys said—’
I held up my hand, unable to bear any of it right now. ‘Please, William, it’s dangerous out here.’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ came the dry, annoyed tone of Alma, making us both jump.
We turned, finding her in a dark cloak, her hair tightly braided. I was even shocked to see she was wearing her sparring attire, arms folded tightly across her chest, cat-like eyes filled with disapproval.
‘What are you doing here?’ I threw my hands up in annoyance, not only at being caught by William, but Alma too. Both now also in the middle of my foolish mess.
‘You’re really not as light-footed as you think you are.’ She sighed, moving towards us soundlessly. ‘What did you do to the doorway?’
‘I gave it a new location.’ I sighed.
‘Can you do that?’ William frowned.
‘It appears so,’ I considered the thick, dark forest surrounding us. ‘How did you even find me?’
‘You mean the mad woman shouting and running through a wood in the middle of the night?’ Alma was still looking like she was about to batter me and was considering using William’s lantern to do it. ‘Besides, William isn’t exactlydiscreetabout sneaking off.’
‘The bloody house was working against me,’ he offered weakly in his defence, cheeks flushed as he turned back to me. ‘You’re looking into something, aren’t you?’
‘I saw something in the woods.’ I decided to leave it at that.
‘A spirit?’ Alma asked, her eyes suddenly mortal with concern.
‘She was different. She didn’t expect me to see her.’ Spirits also didn’t run.
‘Maybe she hasn’t accepted it yet,’ William reasoned. Only I couldn’t shake the feeling it was because her passing was recent.
‘If someone is out here, we should go back. Last I checked lords like to make examples of trespassers,’ Alma interrupted, stepping between us in warning.
