Page 16 of The Lands Defying
Oh, mom.
We walk to the platform, standing at the edge as I steel myself. Blinking rapidly, I raise my gaze and see her.
She is what I would imagine I would look like when I’m older. Full of grace and grit. A fierce protector and a gentle caretaker.
A warrior.
“She looks just like you.” Darius says, his arms brushing mine as he stands next to me, his fingers tangling with my own. I nod. “I know where you get that wildness from.” There is admiration in his tone, and a warmth fills me.
“She was too good for the lands,” I choke out, watching as she fights, even knowing she will lose as she growls at Charles.
“It runs in the family.” I flick my eyes up to Darius briefly, squeezing his hand, knowing what’s coming next.
“Do not watch again, little wolf,” he commands gently. He brings a hand up to cover my eyes so I can’t see ahead or above. “You have enough nightmares, do not force yourself to have more.”
I let him shield me, like he said he would, and I try to drown out the sounds, the chanting, the choking, the dripping of blood onto the stone that seems heightened.
My mom tells Charles of the beasts that will roam the lands, and Darius suddenly freezes.
“What is it?” I lift my hand to move his away.
“Don’t,” he says, the demand thick. His arm wraps around my waist, bringing me closer. I pause, then drop my hand. I still watch though, through the gap Darius has left me to see below.
I watch as that blood fills the groove of the stone, watch them glow to what seems to be a pulse of its own.
And then it blinks out.
My brows furrow as it looks like it seepeddowninto the stone.
Charles laughs, talking to someone about how they will see if it works, but I’m too focused now on the dark patch that has appeared off to the side on the short grass. It looks like it bubbles almost from a high heat, and then the edges dance as if it’s a flame of darkness.
I take Darius’s hand away from my eyes and point to it.
“Have you seen that before?” I ask him.
“No,” he grunts, just as a shape starts to appear out of it. It seems almost like an apparition until it turns solid, and I swallow as two legs move forward on the grass.
Then I grip Darius’s hand tighter as its eyes look directly at us and it lets out a piercing howl.
Rogure.
I look at Charles and the other hooded figure, ignoring the limp body hanging in front of them. “They haven’t noticed,” I tell Darius.
“How is that possible?” he asks. “It’s right there.”
But no one seems to see it, yet it’s looking directly at us.
“This is just a memory, there is no way it can see us, so who is it looking at?”
Darius looks behind us and I do the same. “There is nothing but those that have stopped chanting, which I’m suspecting are the Highers’s witches.”
I turn back and startle as the rogure is now closer. “Darius…”
“What—” I push him to the side as the rogure lunges, its teeth bare and ready to tear.
I dive out of the way, shock rattling through me as the rogure spins to face me as it lands.
“Rhea!” Darius comes up behind the rogure, but it’s already lunging for me again.
